How to upgrade your Apple In-Ear headphones

The project:
This is probably one of the easiest and cheapest mods I’ve ever done. The idea is from Kristian Engelbrecht - a Chaosprojects.com member - who passed it on to me. When he told me about it, I knew right away I had to do it and pass it on.

Oh god oh god oh why:
I believe that if you can upgrade an everyday item for only a few bucks and a few minutes, you owe it to yourself to jump at it.
This one truly fits that description. It will make your Apple In-Ear headphones fit much better in your ears, exclude the surrounding noise way more, and you probably won’t ever experience the headphones falling out of your ears even when doing sports…

Conceiving the project:

This is how you do it: First of all, you’ll need three things: Your Apple In-Ear Headphones, those foam ear plugs they hand out at concerts, and a Leather Punch (see image above)

Part one:

Remove the rubber cups from the headphones.
Grab one of the foam ear-plugs and pinch it flat as shown below…

Take the leather punch, set it to make a 4mm hole in the center of the foam ear-plug, as below

Part two:

Take the foam ear-plug, still pinched together, and push the Apple In-Ear Headphone through the hole in the foam ear-plug… as shown below

That’s it. Give the foam 5min to reach its original form and they are ready to use… Mold the foam to go in your ears and enjoy.

Materials/Price tag:
Well… this is probably the shortest ‘material list’ I ever put on this website with only the foam ear-plugs at about 2.5$ for a six pack - aprox. 80 cents a pair.

I hope you’ll enjoy your improved headphones and send Kristian a kind thought for sharing this idea. Should you have a good idea for a project you would like to see on this site, you can let me know here .

40 Secrets About Me

 

This list was originally a MySpace bulletin; expanded into a Blog Post by my buddy, Stoic Sideman. Considering the fact I avoid MySpace like the plague, I opted to shamelessly copy the list, adapt it with my own information, and post it here instead. You may do the same provided you add your own unique introduction similar to this first paragraph. So let's get on with the list, shall we?

[One] Have you ever been asked out?

Certainly. Numerous times . . .

[Two] Where was your default picture taken?

In my office and in front of a green screen in order to create the "floating head" effect.

[Three] What is your last name?

The same as my Father, and his Father, and his Father's Father, and so on . . .

[Four] Your current relationship status?

Married with Children.

[Five] Does your crush like you back?

Crush? Wow, it's been a long time since I thought in those terms. My crush liked me back, so much, that she said "Yes!" when I asked her to marry me!

[Six] What is your current mood?

Annoyed by this insomnia.

[Seven] what color underwear are you wearing?

Who said I was wearing underwear?

[Eight] wat color is ur shirt?

Usage of net lingo ina ful txt sys lyk this S idiotic. n 4 yr info, my shirt isa 1/2 mast!

[Ten] If you could go back in time and change something, would you?

But of course. Far too many to mention, in fact!

[Eleven] If you must be an animal for one day, what would you be?

I would be an eagle. To soar above the earth riding the thermals for hours would be fantastic.

[Twelve] Ever had a near death experience?

You betcha. It is something I'll never forget. It's true ~ your entire life really does flash before your eyes.

[Thirteen] Whats something you do everyday?

Head to the coffee pot in search of wakefulness - its the first thing I do every single solitary morning.

[Fifteen] Who did you copy and paste this from?

John

[Sixteen] Name someone with the same birthday as you?

Jim Davis, Bill Bradley, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rudy Vall?e

[Seventeen] When was the last time you cried?

At the conclusion of the movie "Evening," alone in the dark and while out of town on business.

[Nineteen] If you could have one super power what would it be?

That's an easy one . . . Invisibility.

[Twenty] What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?

That depends entirely on the angle of incidence.

[Twenty-one] What do you usually order from starbucks?

Venti Nonfat Mocha No-whip!

[Twenty-two] What's your biggest secret?

Such a thing will always remain a mystery, perhaps for all time!

[Twenty-three] Favorite color?

Just slightly to the right of center (of the spectrum) . . . Blue.

[Twenty-five] Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?

Every single solitary day ~ such is a requirement of a parent with young children.

[Twenty-six] What are you eating or drinking at the moment?

Simply water. I'm fasting over night in preparation of my annual physical tomorrow. No wait, it's today. And in just a few hours too! Perhaps that's why I can't sleep?

[Twenty-eight] What's your favorite smell?

Freshly Baked Bread

[Twenty-nine] Describe your life in one word what would it be?

No single word could ever effectively describe my life. If such a word did exist it would be the average length of an epic poem.

[Thirty-one] Have you ever kissed in the rain?

Oh Yeah . . . and it was a good one too!

[Thirty-three] What should you be doing right now?

I should be sleeping. I've been awake since 3:30 a.m. and my daily alarm goes off in 15 minutes.

[Thirty-four] Who was the last person that made you upset/angry?

Myself ~ sometimes I really am my own worse enemy.

[Thirty-five] Why are you doing this?

I'm doing this because it seemed like a good idea at the time, insomnia, et. al. And although I've completed dozens of these inane lists over the years, once I get beyond the half-way point I simply must complete the dang thing.

[Thirty-six] Do you like working in the yard?

Yes, but only during cooler autumn lawn mowing experiences. I gives me time I wouldn't normally take to catch-up on some of my podcasts in the quiet comfort of my noise-canceling headphones.

[Thirty-seven] If you could have any last name in the world, what would it be?

Buffet, Branson, Gates, Getty . . . you see the progression, eh?

[Thirty-eight] Do you act differently around the person you like?

I'd like to think I act like myself around most everyone. But it's true, we all tailor our behavior according to the crowd or the individual.

[Thirty-nine] What is your natural hair color?

A sandy brown (is that a color?) but these days its more gray than any other color.

[Forty] What are you doing tomorrow?

Reporting for an annual physical, attempting to deliver some projects that are due, assisting with a cub scouts meeting while we visit a local television station. We're going to get to watch the 5:00 newscast!

After reading this fill it in and post it with the subject: 40 Secrets About Me.

Pass it on . . .

~SP

The Other Half

"How the Other Half Lives" is a multi-faceted phrase. It appears in several song lyrics (the titles escape me), is a legendary work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, and also an idiom used to describe the experiences of affluent or other such privileged individuals. It was a combination of both the first and last items that rolled around inside my head as I was showering this morning.

The morning cleansing ritual is my bridge between sleepy time and a better awareness. A time when the fog (in my head) begins to clear and I start putting the plan together for my day. During this short period of time, mental free association rules and I can easily be teleported from thoughts of hunting big cats to climbing mountains in Kathmandu. But this morning's experience was a bit more tangible. I realized how much different today's shower environment is to the one I experienced this week in Park City, Utah.

The home of the 2002 Winter Olympics was our destination this week for a mid-year business event gathering all field-based and internal employees of my organization.



At the phenomenal resort property (Hotel Park City) I certainly experienced how the other half lives! Every where I went, hotel staff was there to open my door, help with luggage, ready, willing, and able?to assist with directions or special luxurious treatment. I'd come back to my room in the evening to find slippers, a rope, and chocolates right next to my turned-down bed. I hardly knew how to act.

And even though I could easily get used to the large rough-hewn tile shower enclosure with three fancy shower heads, it was nice to be in my own shower this morning. I definitely prefer?the way?I live to "How the Other Half Lives." To get an idea of woodsy luxury available at this property, follow this link to my photographs!

~SP

The SpyPhone - and remote recording

The project:
How to record a meeting in such a way that even a strip search wouldn’t blow the agents’ cover and also store the recorded intel in such a way that should the agent be compromised, the intel would be safe.

Oh god oh god oh why:
The list of movies in which an agent has his cover blown after the counterpart rips his shirt open to find his body-worn microphone taped to the chest and a tape recorder in his pocket is endless. Afterwards the agent is “disposed of” and the recorded intelligence is lost since the counterpart has obtained the recorder.

And finally I’d like to give a “heads up” to those who fear for industrial espionage or otherwise like to keep somethings secret. Cellphones is probably one of the easiest tools to use for gathering intel either as a dictaphone or a bug as you can read in this article.

Conceiving the project:
The solution to this problem came to me inspired by a newspaper article I saw a while back ago… “Police security was compromised during an arrest, where the police confiscated a cellphone from the perps, and forgot to turn it off. Later, the the perps called the phone which was set to both be silent, but also automatically take the call. Since the phone was stored in the same room where the police spoke of sensitive matters, the perps learned vital and secret information from the police”
Not that I in any way sympathize with the perps, but I must admit it was a rather clever way to place a bug amongst their adversaries.
You can read the article here in Danish “Here”

It occurred to me that the best way to hide the gear was to hide it in plain sight - preferably by using ordinary consumer products to make the illusion more believable. Everyday gadgets that wouldn’t raise suspicion.
Secondly, keep the recorded intel of the agent in case the worst should happen.
This means a transmitter/reciever solution - preferably encrypted. I wanted it to be one-man operated and easy to set up.
To me, the obvious gadgets to use are cellphones as they are easy to come by, they are well encrypted, these days people would take notice if you didn’t carry one and finally cellphones are optimized to the spoken word for clear conversation.

The Transmitter:

Actually there isn’t much to this. The phone the agent is carrying should just be a standard cellphone, although preferably anonymous or boring rather than the newest and shiniest model.

The next thing to give some thought is the position of the microphone.
To get the best recordings one should keep the microphone as close as possible to the source of recording
but without raising suspicion to what you’re doing. In most case scenarios, simply holding the phone casually or otherwise placing it in a good strategically place would be sufficient. However, in some cases it could prove beneficial to connect an external microphone to the phone. This of course is simply done by using a decent “handsfree set” giving the agent the opportunity of hiding the phone in a pocket and the microphone can be placed on the chest as normally done with a covert microphone. One thing I’d recommend is to disable the handsfree set so that any possible noise from from the speaker won’t give away that the phone is “on”.
To do so use a small screwdriver to pry open the little case as shown below.

When this is done use a wirecutter to disable the speaker…cut the two cables within the orange frame.

Put it all back together so it looks like it hasn’t been tempered with

The Receiver:
This is where the real fun begins… If our imaginary agency hasn’t got the manpower to have a tactical team sitting in a van outside the building (labeled Otto’s gardener service) with another cellphone and a recording device pressing “record” when receiving an incoming call, then we should automate this task a bit by using the automated answer function imbedded in the phone.
(A little detail you might want to take notice of, is that not all phones have this function)
I used an old SonyEricsson K750 phone kept in my “old gadgets soon to be obsolete” drawer, which has this very function.
Of all the phones I’ve come about with the “automated answer” function, every one of them needs to have a handsfree set connected before this function can be enabled, but since we need a handsfree set to connect the phone to a recorder, this poses no problem.
How to activate the automated answer function is shown below… (It’s actually much the same setup on most phones)

…and connect the cables to the recorder…

The recorder:
Instead of a finger pressing “record” and “Stop” we’d use the VOX technology (Voice activated recorder) to do just that.
There are various dictaphones and the likes that has this technology build in.
However I’d much prefer to use my Mac for this task. Eventually I’ll be uploading it to the computer anyway for storing or editing.
Setting up the Mac I just needed some software to make it a VOX recorder and fell in love with “AudioCorder” for OSX. (There is an abundance of VOX software on the internet for all OS systems, both for free and demo)
To set up the AudioCorder software do the following:

Set the “Start Trigger Length” to 0.0 Seconds:
(This determines when the recorder should start reacting to incoming sound.)

Select “Buildt-in Input/Line In”:
(Be sure to select the right input.)

Enable VOX:

Trigger Volume Start/Stop:
(Determines what level of volume the recorder should react on to start/stop recording.)

That’s it. You’re all set to play undercover agent.

Materials & Price tag:

Extra cellphone: 100$
Handsfree sets: 40$
Cables & plugs: 5$
Software: Free or Demo

Putting it to real use:
Let’s Imagine we are going to use our new contraption…
The agent turns on his receiver phone, Mac and the Audiocorder software before leaving his safe place.
He catches the first commercial flight across the atlantic and meets up with the target and after a routine security check for suspicious items the meeting begins, the agent calls his receiver phone and the computer starts to record…
… after a while the agent determines that he got the intelligence needed, he ends the call and deletes the outgoing call list in case security should find an interest in his phone.
He leaves… job’s done.

URL versus URI

Most folks who explore the World Wide Web with a browser application like Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox are familiar with the URL acronym. URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locator" according to the World Wide Web (W3) consortium. Pronunciation of URL should always be with each letter emphasized (y?-?r-el) instead the fairly common alternative, "earl." A URL identifies an internet resource and provides the means to locate that resource.

This is all well and good but I keep seeing references to URI in various technical documents and almost exclusively in the documentation of my blogging software, Wordpress. Investigation into this acronym started at Wikipedia because it's so much easier to digest search results in comparison to the rather cryptic W3 site. The information at Wikipedia helped me to better understand how these acronyms relate to each other. URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. And although commonly used synonymously with URL, it is actually a different animal.

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), is a compact string of characters used to identify or name a resource. The main purpose of this identification is to enable interaction with representations of the resource over a network, typically the World Wide Web, using specific protocols. URIs are defined in schemes defining a specific syntax and associated protocols.

A URI is like the parent of children named URL and URN. Their relationships are best illustrated with this image.

So a URI uses a scheme like "HTTP", "FTP", "mailto", "urn", "tel", "rtsp", to identify a resource. A URL provides the specific location of the resource (like a street address). And a URN defines the identity of a resource (what versus where).

~SP

Pro A/V Industry Consolidations

I never thought I would see headlines like this. But I'm glad these events came to pass. In fact, I think the consolidation makes perfect sense, perfect business sense, that is.

If cooperation between the two primary organizations in my field of work/study didn't occur, then one of them was going to experience diminishing returns until it was phased out of existence. The alternative was for the NSCA Expo to morph into a different trade experience completely. Here is the title paragraph from the press release:

NSCA and InfoComm to Consolidate Trade Shows

FAIRFAX, Va. -- InfoComm International, the worldwide leader in professional AV exhibitions and NSCA, the leading trade association for the electronics systems contracting industry, have announced a cooperative effort to consolidate the leading industry events for both the professional AV and electronics systems industry. As part of this consolidation, the 2008 NSCA Systems Integration Expo?will now become part of InfoComm?s annual tradeshow in Las Vegas on June 18-20, 2008. NSCA will also transfer its ownership interest in Integrated Systems Europe to the remaining partners, as per a separate operating agreement.

In the past several NSCA Expos that I attended, a common topic in conversation was, "Seems like fewer people are here this year. What do you think?" or "Show seems a little dead this year, do you agree?"

Since I'm a "supporting" manufacturer's representative, I felt conflicted indicating that I could also see the writing on the wall. The NSCA Expo was in trouble. The majority of folks with whom I discussed this concept were in alignment with this. InfoComm is the way to go. Not one single person (of dozens I spoke to) indicated they were NOT going to InfoComm. Most said such things without ever appearing at the NSCA shows. So I had business associates planning to attend InfoComm Expo without bothering to also come to NSCA.

My primary interest going forward is to watch development of the education and certification programs from both the NSCA University and the InfoComm Academy. In the same sense that dueling expos had the tendency to cause fatigue in the industry (one too many shows to attend) I suspect dueling certification platforms will be the next level of consolidation (one too many certifications to support).

I'm not interested in taking two tests to certify that I know what I'm talking about!!! If you don't think I know such things, put my advice to the test in the real world. That's where it really counts, eh?

~SP

Sniping the security

The project:
How to remotely disable security cameras nondestructively from quite a distance…

Oh God oh God oh why:
It’s no secret. A lot of my inspiration comes from movies and for quite some time I have become more and more annoyed by Hollywoods sometimes rather silly solutions for an agent to shut down security cameras in order to remain undetected: E.g. blowing up the nearby power-plant or rigging up gadgets in sewers, where they can be detected by renovation workers and the sorts. If you blow something up or otherwise break it, your counterpart will immediately know it is sabotage and rule out a simple technical malfunction.
Another thing that got me to write this article is the abundant usage of surveillance cameras everywhere which makes me want to burst the bubble about security of surveillance cameras by exposing their weakness. Switching point of view will also often lead to improvement…

The basics:
The laser sniper project can basically be split in to three minor projects: The laser and scope with mount, The remote and The switch

Part one: The laser and scope with mount

For the actual disabling of the camera, I decided to use a standard laser for simply blinding the camera. The simplicity of this construction makes me wanna weep (I think I read somewhere that the best spy gadgets are the simplest). In theory I’ll shoot it through a window using a suction camera mount as base, which also makes my contraption quite small and easy to put up almost everywhere.
Mount an ordinary sports rifle scope with the laser mounted directly on the scope and then calibrate the two so that the laser dot hits the center of the crosshair.

Part two: The remote

In the search for a transmitter/receiver solution that had both range and some sort of signal encoding (so others wouldn’t accidently trigger my laser) it hit me: cellphones… they both have potential worldwide coverage, are hardcore encrypted and since they are sold by the billions, they are quite affordable - especially second hand cellphones. So I dug out my Nokia 6280 from my “Cellphone with SLR-lens” project.
I cracked it open once again…

Flipped the top over, removed a warranty sticker and opened up, removed the built-in speaker and solded a sound output cable to speaker connectors.

The next step is done so that the relay on the switch doesn’t sound like Fred Astaire on speed when the phone receives an SMS…
Set up the phone to play a sound only once when receiving an SMS

I found a single click sound off the internet, uploaded it to the phone and set the phone to use it when receiving an SMS…

Part three: The switch

What I then needed was a way for the cellphone to communicate with the laser. Since I’m no wizz at making circuits from scratch, I started scavenging the internet for a building kit that would do the job for me and found a Sound switch from Smartkit. This little gizmo reacts to sounds like claps and flips a switch
I found a small acryllic case and built in the electronics, added a grafite core to filter out electrical noise and two resistors (together 125KO) to weaken the signal a bit. Finally, I gave it an on/off switch.

Putting the pieces together:

Finally we just need to set up the laser on target, plug it into the switch, plug in the cellphone and you’re all set.

Materials and price tag::

Hunting scope - 25$
BB gun Laser - 20$
Mountings - 15$


Cellphone - Anywhere form 50$ and up depending on the model and age




Switch circuit - 25$
Box - 3$
Wires, plugs, grafitecore, resistors and other - 15$

Putting it to real use:
Let’s just pretend for a moment that we were actually going to use this setup to enter a building without being seen…
Usually the guys that put up the cameras are clever enough to not just put one camera up to guard an entrance. But they put up several for two reasons; Mainly to get more than one angle on the perps trying to get in, and to make the cameras cover each other so the perps can’t just yank out the power-plug on the cameras…
To get in we’ll need a laser for every camera… (se the drawings below) and a cable-splitter for multiple lasers connected to one switch and cellphone.

And if we’re going to be smart about this… which I’d like to think… then maybe we should take out all the cameras covering the perimeter of the building to make it look like a system failure rather than us trying to get in unseen… just a thought.

Troubled thoughts during the projeckt:
I had some serious thoughts about how to trigger the laser on and off. First, I thought I’d use an old wrist watch as a timer, but ended up discarding that idea… It just didn’t feel right and if the “agent” had to shut down several security cameras, he would not only have to synchronize all the watches and set them up to turn the lasers on at the exact right time at once, but also turn them off after the job. My second idea was to remotely trigger the laser by radio or walkie-talkie. This would give the “agent” the possibility of e.g. pressing the call button on the walkie which would send out a beep to activate the lasers needed.
The problem with this solution is that by using a standard walkie, everybody else could activate the lasers accidently if they where using the same channel (keep in mind that almost all baby-alarms use the standard walkie-talkie frequency). So unless I were to use pro walkie with encryption, I’d have to modify my plans a bit.
In the search for a transmitter/receiver solution that both had range and some sort of signal coding, it hit me: cellphones. But how well will this actually work? Well, after I build this, I had to try it out on an old security camera… Then I had some friends sending it a test-SMS and finally I had someone I knew across the Atlantic do it as well… No problem there, either. It worked like a charm.

The fine print at the bottom…
In case you’ve missed the huge warning sign I’ve put up or choose to disregard it and are thinking about using the knowledge you’ve just gained to be messing with something you shouldn’t… Think about this: Maybe I left some minor, but crucial details out so assholes won’t be messing with something they shouldn’t be messing with… without getting their asses busted

So don’t !!!

Shutting down OSX with a sound

For some unknown reason I got into my head that it would be really cool if my Macbook Pro would say something when shutting down.
This is how I went about it…

OSX doesn’t natively support configuring a shutdown sound so the first thing I needed to do was finding a plug-in that would bring me the magic.
This is taken care of by SystemSound plug-in (click to download) from Kiwi Fruitware

And setting it up is as easy as scratching your… … well you get the picture!

When download is completed locate the “SystemSound.prefPane” file with in the “SystemSound Extension” folder.

Double click the “SystemSound.prefPane” file to install the plug-in and choose if the plug-in should have an effect on your account only or all users…

Make sure to mark the “Use shutdown sound”

Unless you already have a sound suitable for this little tweak (remember the sound file needs to be in the .aiff format) this is what we need to find now…
My love fell on a soundfile suitably called
“Shutdown” (hold down [Alt] and click here to download)

In order to use our newly obtained and totally cool sound we need to convert it from a “.wav” file to a “.aiff file” . This is best done by using iTunes. In order to convert our sound-file to the right format we need to configure iTunes…
(If you are an experienced Mac user you might wanna skip the iTunes part)

Open iTunes and choose “iTunes Preferences”

Choose the “Import” button and select “Import Using: AIFF Encoder“ leave settings on “Automatic”

Now we are ready fore the actual conversion and to do so first drag the “shutdown.aif” file from the desktop in to iTunes…

…then (right-click on mouse) or (hold down [ctrl] and click) on the selected tune and choose “Convert Selection to AIFF”

Drag the newly converted .aiff file back to the desktop ready for use.

In order to make this work all fine and dandy you should go to your “Music ” folder on your hard-drive and make and create a new folder called “system fx” or what ever makes you happy and so you doesn’t accidently erase it under influence or something, leaving you very annoyed so you call me in the middle of the night screaming why the f..?#?&! is my Mac not saying goodnight to me as usual… phew… don’t wanna go there!

Finally we just need learn the plug-in and the sound-file to be buddies…

Go to the little blue apple in the upper left corner and choose “System Preferences”

In the bottom of the system preferences menu you’ll find the installed plug-in “SystemSound”

When opened choose the button“Shutdown Sound”

Go to the bottom and choose the “Add Sound” button and give the path Music>System FX>shutdown.aif

Done… Try to restart.
I hope you will have fun.