Car Hack For Cell Phone Calls

September 19, 2017August 12, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / 1 Comment

09.19.2017

0600

Materials:

Cotton Rope

Tools:

Know your knots
Scissors

This is a very simple hack and I use it when I put my phone calls on speaker mode. I simply tied two ropes around my car visor where it was tight enough to carry the weight of my cell phone. The ropes still don’t interfere with my visor mirror use as well.

The rope loop on the left side of my visor was tied as it was placed on my visor, then tied off. The rope loop on the right side was actually measured by gauging how much rope I needed to wrap around the visor and then I tied a knot to close off that piece. I slid it over the visor and because it was a tight squeeze, I knew the knot would naturally tighten more as I was trying to stretch the rope accordingly. I wanted this lop to be tight because it would carry more weight compared to the other one.

The right rope loops is tight enough to hold my cell phone in place in a vertical position. Sometimes I’ll write down my directions if I know I’m going somewhere, where I know I won’t get good reception and place the paper behind the left rope loop. These are good for lists too (ie. grocery lists, errand stop offs, to-do lists, etc).

If I’m driving long distances and I need to swing my visor out to block out the sun from the driver’s side window, I’ll usually slide the phone in on the other side of the visor. It will still hold it in place and technically, the microphone will be even closer to hear and speak into. If you do use this method, just remember to not swing the visor too aggressively. If you do need to use your visor for a short time, keep in mind which side of the visor your phone is on.

So there you have it, my very simple car hack for cell phone speaker mode.

Please don’t text while driving.

Backpack Hacks

August 15, 2017April 26, 2020 / Yen-Van Tran / 4 Comments

08.15.2017

0600

With all of my backpacks that I have ever owned, I hack them the exact same way as I always have. Going back as far as middle school, I always had to hack my backpacks. It was my way of customizing my carrier to my exact needs and over time I would edit it as my needs changed. Within each compartment I always created some type of hanging or attachment mechanism to hang my water bottles, extra bags within the compartments or hang something I needed access to immediately. most of the time I hung items that I needed access to so that those items weren’t at the bottom of my bag, where I had to go digging around to look for them.

Front of the backpack

I always attach extra reflectors so that in low light, vehicles or any type of light can bounce off of my backpack and I can be visible. These reflecting straps are for bikers, but I took two of the straps and weaved them through my exisitng strap set up.

For all of my zippers that open to significant compartments, I always sew a section of the zipper, so it limits the access to that compartment to only one direction of movement for the zipper. I prefer to only have access in one direction for the zipper movement so it’s easier to watch over and maintain. I also attach metal rings right below the point of the sewing block (through the exposed zipper tape) so that I can use this ring to lock my carabiners from the outside but to also hang items on the inside of the bag.

On the inside, I hook extra interior metal rings with carabiners to the exterior rings that are popping through the tape so I can hang items on the inside. I’ll hang my water bottle from these interior rings (when my external water bottle pocket has my coffee tumbler in it) or small bags so I can keep items separated in the same compartment. These interior rings are there for anything that needs to be hanged or utilized.

Sides of the backpack

I also sew blocking for my smaller compartments and create a locking system for these pockets as well. For the smaller pockets, it really just depends how and where you want to secure the pocket. I chose to insert an extra ring so that I could attach an extra carabiner to it and lock the zipper with it.

For my external water bottle pocket, I usually take one of the extra backpack straps (that I trimmed off) to create a safety strap for the external water bottle pocket so that it can hold taller water bottles more securely. There have been a few incidents where my external water bottle pocket wasn’t deep enough and due to the fact that I had so much stuff in my backpack, my water bottle managed to get squeezed out of the pocket.

Back of the backpack

I usually trim the extra strap slack that comes with the backpack straps. I don’t like any loose hanging straps so I will measure how high I want to carry my backpack and trip, then hem the straps accordingly.
For my backpack straps, I like to keep my smaller items very close to me. So I will attach some type of pocket (large enough to fit my “wallet” items and my cell phone) to the front. This backpack didn’t come with a pocket for those types of intimate items.

I also ALWAYS, ALWAYS attach an extra carabiner to the other strap, so I can hook my keys onto my strap quickly.

So there you have it, those are the hacks I made for this backpack. This is my day to day back pack, so I’ll run to the store or go hiking with it. I do have another hiking backpack that’s a 65 gallon capacity for traveling and I’ve hacked that accordingly as well. Hopefully you may see a hack i described here that you would like to use on your own backpacks or carrying bags that you may want to use.

Understanding Recycling Electronics

October 11, 2016August 12, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / Leave a comment

10.11.2016

0800

Electronic Waste Link

The electronics recycling process has always left me wondering if all of our electronics gets recycled properly. There are so many bits and parts to electronics, it’s hard to believe that there would be no trash leftover to end up in the landfill. In recent years, with documentaries revealing where our old electronic end up, it’s a bit discouraging for me to invest in any new electronics. Although it’s an uncomfortable reality, I prefer to be informed more than leave my understanding in the hands of the media or brush it off. I like to find out truths no matter how painful it can be. This knowledge also helps me shape the decisions in my life so that I can make more informed decisions for my home and family in the future. I thought I would post some information and facts about electronic waste for anyone who might want to know the ugly truth.

Electronics are Difficult To Recycle
1. Recycling electronics isn’t like recycling cardboard. These products are not easy to recycle. Proper and safe recycling often costs more money than the materials are worth. Why?
Electronics are not designed for recycling
1. Materials used and physical designs make recycling challenging. While companies claim to offer “green electronics,” we are a far way from truly green products.
2. Many electronic products are designed for the dump. They have short-life spans, or become obsolete quickly. They are often expensive to repair, and sometimes it’s difficult to find parts. Many consumer-grade electronics products are cheaper to replace than to fix even if you can find someone to fix it. Because they are designed using many hazardous compounds, recycling these products involves processing toxic material streams, which is never 100% safe.
3. Some of the problematic toxic materials that must be removed before recycling are lead in cathode ray tube (CRT) TV monitors and mercury lamps in LCD screens, as well as PVC, flame retardants, and other toxic additives in plastic components..
4. Before electronics companies can make the claim that they are green and sustainable, they must shift away from producing “disposable” products designed with a limited lifespan (planned obsolescence) and towards products that are designed to last. Instead of purchasing products with high failure rates and the need for frequent replacement, we should be able to choose long-living, upgradeable goods that have long warranties and can be efficiently repaired and recycled
Electronics contain many toxic materials
1. Monitors and televisions made with tubes (not flat panels) have between 4 and 8 pounds of lead in them. Most of the flat panel monitors and TV’s being recycled now contain less lead, but more mercury, from their mercury lamps. About 40% of the heavy metals, including lead, mercury and cadmium, in landfills come from electronic equipment discards.
Discarded Electronics Are Managed Badly = Most e-waste still goes in the landfill
1. The EPA estimates that in 2011, the US generated nearly 3.4 million TONS of e-waste. But only about 25% of that was collected for recycling. The other 75% went to landfills and incinerators, despite the fact that hazardous chemicals in them can leach out of landfills into groundwater and streams, or that burning the plastics in electronics can emit dioxin.
Most Recyclers Don’t Recycle, They Export
1. And what about the 25% that is supposedly recycled? Most recycling firms take the low road, exporting instead of recycling. A large amount of e-waste that is collected for recycling is shipped overseas for dismantling under horrific conditions, poisoning the people, land, air, and water in China, other Asian nations and to Ghana and Nigeria in western Africa.
2. When we drop off our old computers at an e-waste collection event, or have a recycler come and get them from our offices, we want to believe that the recycler is going to do the right thing: to reuse them if possible, and handle them in ways that are safe for workers and the environment. Electronics contain many toxic chemicals, and so a responsible recycler is one that is making sure that he – and the other vendors he may sell parts or materials to – is managing all aspects of the business as safely as possible..
Global e-Waste Dumping
1. The problem is that many electronics recyclers don’t actually recycle the electronics they collect from us. They can make more money by selling old electronic products to exporting waste traders than by processing it here in the U.S. Traders send it to developing countries where workers earn extremely low wages (often a few dollars per day) and where health and safety and environmental laws, enforcement, infrastructure and citizens’ rights are very weak.
2. Simply stated, we are solving our e-waste problem by exporting it to poor countries around the globe.

Primitive Processing Contaminates Workers, Residents

In these countries, the e-waste ends up in backyard recycling operations, often literally behind peoples’ homes. One example is Guiyu, China, an area where a lot of our e-waste goes. They use crude and unsafe methods of taking apart our old computers and TVs to get to and remove the metals, which they can sell, causing great harm in the process. These dangerous practices include:

Bashing open cathode ray tubes with hammers, exposing the toxic phosphor dust inside.
Cooking circuit boards in woks over open fires to melt the lead solder, breathing in toxic lead fumes.
Burning wires in open piles to melt away the plastics (to get at the copper inside).
Burning the plastic casings, creating dioxins and furans – some of the most poisonous fumes you can breathe.
Throwing the unwanted (but very hazardous) leaded glass into former irrigation ditches
Dumping pure acids and dissolved heavy metals directly into their rivers.
These horrific working conditions plus weak labor standards in China and many of the other developing countries where e-waste is sent, mean that women and children are often directly exposed to lead and other hazardous materials.

How much e-waste do we export each year?

There have been no rigorous studies of exactly how much e-waste we export to developing nations. Industry experts estimate that of the e-waste that recyclers collect, roughly 50-80 % of that ends up getting exported to developing nations. That would mean that we export enough e-waste each year to fill 5126 shipping containers (40 ft x 8.5 ft). If you stacked them up, they’d reach 8 miles high – higher than Mt Everest, or commercial flights.

Charging Stations

June 15, 2016August 12, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / Leave a comment

06.15.2016

0800

I love making my life convenient. “Convenient” can be defined by individuals in different ways and it really comes down to how much energy are you willing to put forth in any task. I like the convenience of pushing a button and the task I desire has started and is running on it’s own.

One of the conveniences I’ve created in my life are my power strip locations. I really dislike plugging in a charger into a wall. Perhaps it’s the height of the outlet or the fact that I have to shove the prongs into the outlet in order for it to take, but either way- I’ve never been a fan. I also don’t like to leave my items plugged in all day, so a power strip makes sense for me.

The act of pushing one button to run my life is a dream come true for me, the less work it takes to run my life- the better. Also, the convenience of having a few power strip locations helps me divide the items I charge up during different tasks. And it’s convenient for my friends and family when they come over and need to charge their phones or laptops.

I charge my phone next to a shelf, which is near my bed. I don’t like to place items on surfaces in my home because the surfaces tend to gather dust quickly. But due to the location of the closest available outlet, I was forced to lay my phone on the floor, which is something I prefer not to do. One reason for that is that I like to keep my floor clear and free of any clutter and I don’t like to reach all the way to my floor in the early morning to turn off my alarm (I’d probably be searching for it for a good 10 minutes).

This brought me to my solution of hanging a power strip underneath the shelf and a small bag to hold my cell phone while it’s plugged in. I also thread the power cord through the handle that makes up the hanging bag so that the cord will stay in place. I made the bag from an old pair of denim jeans and shoelace. I simply plug in my phone and push a button to activate the power strip. In the morning, I just turn off the power strip. Essentially this is an elaborate extension cord, but there’s no struggle with pulling my charger out of the outlet or otherwise. I simple push a button now.

I know this hack has been advertised before, but I also attach a power strip to my bookshelf. I actually attach this power strip to the back of one of my shelves. I’ve seen power strips attached to the outside of bookshelfs, but I try to limit the amount of items poking out of the sides of bookshelves due to the fact that bookshelves are great space savers if you can place it up against a flat surface. If I had the choice and was trying to place a vertical power strip, I’d try to move it to the interior of the shelf structure. This book shelf power strip is usually used for my camera gear, laptop and other various electronics.

Needed A Phone Holder For The Car

February 15, 2016August 12, 2018 / Yen-Van Tran / 2 Comments

02.15.2016

0800

Materials:

Shoelace
Carabiner
Metal rings
Box that would fit my cell phone
Electrical tape (try to match the same color as the new cell phone holder)

So I made this phone holder in 2011, it was right around the time when the statistic of distracted driving started becoming an issue. Quite frankly, I don’t text and drive, I enjoy driving when I’m driving. The idea of getting pulled over for a ticket is also not one of my goals. However, I still used my GPS map when I drove to new locations. I did research different types of phone holders for cars and I wasn’t happy with any of the designs.

I like to keep surfaces clean, mostly because I hate to move things when I wipe down a surface, and then move them back. The mounting units that came with the phone holders would either have a set holder that would attach to surfaces or they were movable. There was the option of using the devices that had a suction cup to stay attached to my windshield, but if my windshield temperature got too cold, it would slowly release the suction and the entire device would fall down.

I love the Law of Gravity. I really do. I utilize it in almost everything I design or make. This was my solution to my problem.

I used the black case that my 1 TB external hard drive, and used rings to hang the case from my vent system in my car. I cut a rectangular hole on the bottom so that I could attach the charging cord. I cut out a rectangular hole so that I could see the screen when I drove and I used electrical tape to clean the edges. (I use electrical tape when the environment calls for some sort of heat fluctuation.) The holder is slightly bigger than the phone, but I figured, iPhones are getting larger with each generation so why not.

I have an old car but I still love looking at this contraption. It’s just amusing to see my solutions. It’s not the prettiest iPhone holder, nor do I think it would sell, but I didn’t go out any buy anything and it still works to this day.