Not nearly as easy as it looks on YouTube

Like many others, I don’t like the earbuds that came with my iPhone. It’s easy enough to find an adapter to plug in any headphones for listening, but that doesn’t help when I want to use the phone. So I was delighted to find the DIY Earbud Replacement instructions and video from Engadget. I even thought about doing it myself, but since I knew I was going to be visiting my brother-in-law, an electrical engineer, I decided to wait and enlist his help.

Good decision. It turns out that the video doesn’t actually show the process of opening the earbuds (either the Apple or the JVC) — for the Apple earbuds, the careful application of a pair of visegrips was required to break the seal. The JVCs were harder — they took visegrips and tweezers and some muttering.

After getting the earbuds open, the rest of the process was straightforward — I watched Pete unsolder the existing connections; I undid the knots on the Apple buds and he cut off the (glued) ones on the JVCs; he soldered everything back together and hotglued the JVC bud covers back on. And presto! I have much better earbuds, complete with mic and switch, just like on the video.

Of course, the new earbuds don’t fit the shallow holes in the case I bought for the phone, so I’m going to have to do something about that — and I know it’s not enlarging those holes, because there’s no room available. It’s always something…..

Thanks, Pete!

Department of Hmmm….

I’m flying Frontier Airlines today from San Jose. Their flight status page claims I leave from gate C12. San Jose Airport’s website claims there is no gate C12. Hmmm….

Warwalking in my neighborhood

Most evenings, Diane and I take a walk through the neighborhood, but she couldn’t go tonight, so I went out on my own. I got bored pretty quickly and took out my iPhone, and just for curiosity, put it on the page where it’s looking for WiFi networks.

There were, as you might expect, dozens; I was pleased to find that most weren’t wide open, and only a few were named “linksys”. But there were other amusing SSIDs to be found: “StayOffMyNet” (locked), and “god” (wide-open), to name but two.

As I said, I got bored pretty easily….