Grados SR-80 DIY Repair

The left channel to my SR-80 started going bad a few months back, but I was able to jiggle the connection to make it work. I knew I probably shouldn't do that and should either send it in for repairs by Grados or do it myself since it seems like something trivial.

Well the left channel completely died about 2 months back, but I have been forgetful and lazy to fix it. I couldn't stand not using my pair of headphones to listen to music, so I tried to find a way to repair it. Read some threads from www.head-fi.org for tips about how to go about this. It didn't seem too bad.

I was able to clearly see where the connection went bad in the wiring on the left channel close to where the left earphone was. So to begin, I took off the left earphone ear pad. Then I took isolated the earphone by getting it off the clamp that holds it. I then used a hair dryer to heat around the casing of the earphone and made sure not to aim the hair dryer directly at the front or back of it. After a minute or so, the casing got hot enough and you could feel that the glue has been soften because you can easily twist and pull it apart. I used an ohmmeter to check the connection. The blue wiring didn't give any reading, the red did. Confirmed wiring problem.

Now to perform some operation on it. Stripped apart the rubber casing that holds the red and blue wires and removed the stopper. Cut some heat shrink and replaced it. I also stripped part of the lower part of the rubber casing to get some room to work with. Clipped the wires at the point where the connection seemed to be broken because of the 90 degrees bend. Stripped the wires to expose the copper. Used this little thing I'm not sure what to call it, but my dad suggested to use it. Stuck the wires of one end through the cylinder opening of one end, and the other wires through the other end and clamped together. Soldered the ends. Repeated for the other color wires. After the soldering, I used the ohmmeter to test the connection again and it gave readings. Perfect. I then plugged it into my laptop to give it a test driver and it worked. Beautiful :]

Now I just used a lighter to heat the heat shrink and then I put it all back together the way I took it apart and that was it.

Now back to music :]

FTPS

Setup FileZilla Server version 0.9.39 as my FTP server on Windows Server 2003 and configured it for FTPS using Explicit SSL/TLS. Proceeded to write some batch scripts to automate my FTP process. It worked fine when I was transferring small files that required less than 10 minutes, but I would receive a "Winsock send command fail" error in the command prompt exactly at 10 minutes if the transfer time took more than 10 minutes.

Oh man. That error stumped for a bit. I tried resetting winsock by using the command "netsh winsock reset" in the command prompt, but to no avail. I was pretty sure I configured everything correctly for the routers and firewalls, but went through and checked everything several more times to be sure. I tried to do some research on winsock to see what could be the problem, but was not finding out much. I even thought it could of been an ISP problem but there didn't seem to be anything wrong except for performance spikes during my FTP session. Great. I just wanted some way to keep the control connection from idling either by extending the idle timeout of TCP/IP or sending input to keep the control connection thinking it isn't idle.

The solution: hash

Thank goodness my good friend Chik, Network Guru, found this link:

http://kb.iu.edu/data/aasc.html

Using hash sends # as control input until the file transfer is complete.

Ahhhh.. Everything works and all is well again.

HTC Glacier / T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Gingerbread Update

It seems today marks the beginning of T-Mobile's Android Gingerbread update rollout for the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G. Apparently I'm the first few who got the update as T-Mobile works to push the update to everybody by the end of this year.

I got my Gingerbread OTA notification to update around 3:00AM PST today. It's about time for an update and I'm glad that I'm part of the first few. I haven't really gotten a chance to play with it, but here are some of the things I've noticed so far:

"Screen locked" screen is different now and feels easier to unlock.

Check marks are now red.

Calculator is slightly different.

The data connectivity status now displays nothing, G, 2G, 3G, or 4G depending on your connection.

Keyboard layout is slightly different now.

Swype functionality improvement is noticeable. Accuracy seems to be better when swyping. There's no longer a pop up box to select the word you intended to swype. Instead, there's real time intelligence as you type or swype and you can select possible choice words that appear in between the bottom of the text message box and the top of the keyboard.

The Notification screen now has "Notifications" and "Quick Settings" tabs at the bottom. The "Notifications" tab displays the usual notifications and "Quick Settings" allows you to quickly turn on and off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Hotspot, GPS, Mobile Network, and access "All Settings"

Stock icons are sleeker. Internet now looks like it has blue yarn wrapping around the globe. The Power Control Widget are the same except the icons look softer and smoother.

The Calendar widget seems to actually display the agenda I have for the current date now and not show me the next day's agenda instead.

In the Desk Clock, the Night Mode dims the current Desk Clock screen and removes the tabs at the bottom instead of just turning into a dimmer version of the Desk Mode next to it.

That's about all for now. I hope there's an official log of changes released. Otherwise I'd have to play with the phone a bit more and see what other users have to say. So generic..."Various software and stability improvements". Anyhow, have fun and go explore those updates described below.

• New features:
  • 2010 Exchange compatibility
  • New version of Swype
  • Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS
• Improved issues:
• Bluetooth® audio works better when answering a call from phone and Bluetooth is paired
• Display is more stable and responsive during boot up or use
• Domestic roaming data connection is more stable
• Message inbox saves
• Various software and stability improvements

EDIT: Lame. There doesn't appear to be Gtalk with voice and video chat pushed through this firmware update. I thought Android 2.3.4 was expected to have this. No love.