ipod touch white screen of death

I've always been a PC girl, but my kid needs the newest tech.

So a week+ ago she (with her own money) bought an Ipod touch. All very good until tonight when we got the white screen of death and she (after too much candy/too little sleep) had a complete meltdown and I left to fix things.

Googled it of course. First option holding down two separate buttons til apple logo came up, but that didn't help. Next option doing that with ipod connected to computer and itunes. Did that, went through the whole restore thing on itunes, no luck.

Then had an "ahah" and disconnected the ipod from the computer (after the restore) and did the hold down two separate buttons (home and off/on) for a while AGAIN and lo and behold I got the apple screen and then her home whatever, the ipod lives again.

So try this if nothing else works. And laugh at the Apple commercials that make fun of poor PC guy, they all suck and we learn how to live with them...

Really old dead cash register

The register (ancient Casio) at the store tried to die last week, first on Monday, when I left briefly and returned to register not working, line up of customers, awesome staff person making do as best she could.

For some odd reason, removing the ink roller for the register tape made things work, eventually I put in a new roller and all was good for 24 hours when it died again. This time more seriously.

So we started taking it apart. A retired neighbour (engineer, unable to not help fix-it type) wandered in shortly after we started and was soon behind the counter with his fingers in things. We took the whole machine apart, lots of dirt (dead paper scraps etc.) in there, but everything we tried led nowhere.

Started putting it all back together again and I sure it was time for a new machine. But at the ultimate moment of despair (I on the other side of the counter) saw a red light (some sort of sensor) showing clearly that power was getting to the main works of the machine, AND there was a bit of dirt over top of it. Reached in with straw/brush/whatever and cleared that out and OMG the machine lived again. Helpful neighbour figured this light read something on some cam that turned to tell it how many times it had turned around.

We didn't care, just glad it lived for another day BUT researching a new cash register high on my list.

Anyway, if you have a dead cash register that dates back to the 20th century sometime, consider cleaning it and it could live again...

More about Vinegar

I wonder sometimes who will find this blog helpful, as it's really aimed at folks out of the mainstream, in rural areas far from helpful (expensive) professionals, and/or perhaps single moms without a man around to do the dirty work (all of the above apply to me).

But, if even one person finds an answer here, I'll be happy.

I also need to give credit to all the unknown places I found some of these tips, tricks, and fixes over time. If I know where I found something, I'll link to it, but in the absence of new major issues lately, thought I'd revisit some old ones.

Like vinegar. I recently wrote about using it to kill fruit flies. But it's also good for a couple of other household issues that I use it for regularly.

The first is hard water. I have that, in spades. And I'm not going to try to figure out how to put in a water softener system in my house, nor would I even if I could, because what exactly are you putting in the water to "soften" it? I drink that water, so don't really want to add anything extra to it.

So I have an ongoing issue with faucets, showerheads, the electric kettle, the canner, etc. getting this buildup of minerals over time. That buildup clogs the faucets and showerheads, coats the elements of the teakettle, etc. etc.

I could go out and buy CLR ($$ for nasty chemical stuff), but instead I use vinegar (I like pickling vinegar as it's a bit higher acidity, but regular old white vinegar is fine, the cheapest you can find, as you're not eating it).

For faucet aerators, shower heads, etc. - first take them off of their various faucet spouts or what have you (faucet aerators should be easy to remove with just fingers, but for the shower head you may need a pipe wrench, a worthwhile investment only if you have other pipes to wrench, if not, vise grips are a good second choice). If you can separate faucet aerators into component parts (screens, washers, etc.) do that, but try to remember what order they go back together in (good luck with that). Heat the vinegar to the boiling point, remove from the heat, and drop in all the bits. Watch them foam as the vinegar eats away the mineral buildup. For really badly caked things you may want to do this twice. Rinse thoroughly, put back together again, and replace them.

For things like electric kettles, just fill them with vinegar (or a mix of vinegar and water), bring to a boil, maybe boil for a couple of minutes (for as long as you can stand the stench of boiling vinegar), then rinse a lot to get the vinegar taste out and all the bits of yechh that come off the element. You can apparently do this with coffee makers also (I don't use one, so can't swear to it), just pour the vinegar in and run it through a regular coffee cycle, then rinse repeatedly.

I get mineral buildup even in my toilet bowl, and for this I heat a LOT of vinegar, not quite to boiling, plunge as much water out of the toilet as possible, then very carefully pour the hot vinegar in to the bowl to let it work at the buildup. I leave a little water for dilution and also cooling, as I am secretly afraid I might crack the bowl if I pour too much too hot vinegar in too quickly. So this tip is totally at your own risk. Once I've let it work a while I get in there and scrub a bit just to loosen up bits that might not let go otherwise.

And one final tip - which might lead to another post - stinky and/or slow-draining sink. First thing I do is dump a bunch of baking soda into the drain (maybe a half-cup or so -- I buy it in bulk, forget those tiny Arm and Hammer boxes). Then I pour in some vinegar (don't need to heat it for this), and you get the same volcanic reaction you do at a science fair (so if your sink is really shallow, reduce the baking soda amount). I put in enough vinegar to dissolve all the baking soda, then follow it with lots of hot water. This will usually clear minor stinks and slow moving issues, but for major issues you may have to take things apart -- more on that, and other great uses for baking soda -- later.

Yahoo Messenger, Webcams, and kids

The inspiration for this blog was the successful resolution of a problem with getting my kid's Webcam working with Yahoo Messenger.


Of course, even though we've had the camera (not really a webcam, but supposed to work as one) since Christmas, she never cared until last night when I was madly finishing a document I was editing and needed to send off that night. Suddenly she needed it hooked up and working in 45 minutes so she could video chat with her BFF in California. Good luck with that - but I did try.


First I had to install the drivers for the camera - a Mustek DV316L that is about the most inexpensive digital video camera out there. Drivers installed ok although the instructions were dicey at best. But clicking "My Webcam" in Yahoo messenger only brought up an error message window in Internet Explorer.


First I worried that the camera was just too cheap and wouldn't work as promised. Of course, there's nothing useful about this particular camera on the web, so I turned to Yahoo help which wasn't much better. But, following the instructions in this link allowed me to determine that the camera SHOULD be compatible with Messenger. Then I tried this test and found something interesting, it wasn't automatically finding the camera, and the camera wasn't listed.


So I rebooted just for good measure. Tried the test again, set the camera source to the right camera, and I got video. So I went into Messenger and set the camera source to the correct camera (it's in Preferences or something like that), and tried "My Webcams" again. This time I got the error message that the application failed because it couldn't find kdu_V32R.dll. Which, oddly enough when I searched for it, was in the Program Files/Yahoo Messenger directory where theoretically it is supposed to be.


Searched a little more online and found all sorts of suggestions (seems this is a common problem) - from reinstalling Messenger to reinstalling camera drivers - neither of which sounded appealing at the moment. But one suggestion was just to copy kdu_V32R.dll into my /Windows/system directory, which I did (actually into the /system32 directory).


Tried "My Webcams" again and I was back to the small IE window with the error message. GRRR.


BUT, in my trolling of Yahoo's help files during all of this, I'd noticed this page, which says that if you are under age 13 (according to the birthday on file with Yahoo) you can't use the service. Period. So, wondering if this might be the problem, I logged into Messenger with my own Yahoo ID (I'm seriously older than 13), clicked on My Webcam, and lo and behold, there was my ugly face staring out at the world! Turned that off FAST, but problem solved.


What pisses me off about this whole process is that all Yahoo had to do was give us a specific error message when we tried to use the Webcam that my kid was too young according to their records. But NO, I had to jump through a dozen hoops to finally figure it out (and maybe there were some fixes along the way that helped the camera work with Messenger). And if she wants to set up a new Yahoo ID with a fake birthday so she can video chat with her few friends that have the same capability (all of whom I know), that's fine with me, at least for now.


Anyway, if you're having similar troubles, look in the unlikeliest places and try anything...

Fruit Fly Infestations

I wanted this first solution to be the one about Yahoo Messenger and getting a Webcam working with it (which I managed to do tonight), but when I started writing it up realized OK, this one was complicated and after setting up this blog and etc., and wanting to give credit to sites that helped, it has to wait until tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's a simple solution if you have a fruit fly infestation (which I seem to have again, and so does a neighbour). I can't remember where I found this as it was a year or more ago, but THANK YOU to whoever posted it. It has worked for me more than once AND for the neighbour I recently relayed it to.

Find some glass jars with straight sides (I use canning jelly jars), or anything really that will hold liquid (but I haven't tested that). Put 1/4 cup or so of apple cider vinegar in them, and add ONE drop of dishwashing liquid. Other vinegars might work but they seem to like apple cider.

The vinegar attracts them and the dish soap cuts the surface tension of the vinegar so they actually drown if they fall in/investigate.

Place a few of these jars around where the infestation is worst - I find that a clear glass jar over a white surface (like my kitchen stove) seems to be most effective. They will crawl in and drown by the tens/hundreds/whatever.

If your infestation is severe you should change the jars/vinegar mixture every couple of days, as something seems to make the mixture less effective after a day or two.

Also look to see what may be causing the outbreak - compost buckets, worm bins, bananas, and other food sources are key culprits. The best remedy for any of these is cold (below freezing if possible) but worm bins won't manage that so stop feeding them bananas and hope for the best.

Fly strips (fly paper, whatever you call it) will also catch them if you have a really bad infestation, but ultimately you need to find the food that is causing the problem and get rid of it. Once you do that, and kill the survivors with the cider vinegar and/or fly strips, you should be fruit fly free!

What I'm doing here

I've been thinking about this for a while now, but today's incident (coupled with a conveniently enabled blogger account from other recent activity) convinced me it was worth doing.

I'm a single mom, pushing 50, living in a VERY rural area. I've always been a "hands-on" person, so I try hard to fix things that go wrong (from computers to appliances to whatever) before calling in "the guys" or tech support or whatever the next option happens to be.

In the past few years the Internet has become a great source for solutions, or at least hints at them. But often they are incomplete, require registering or logging in to some site or another, or never say whether the suggested solution fixed the problem or not. Sometimes you have to put several ideas together to get the "ahah!" that makes it all work.

So here I am just going to post problems I have had (with as many specifics as possible and links to sites that helped), and what worked to solve them. They will be as random as the problems I am having at the moment (or that someone else I know had and I was able to fix), which means they won't be neatly categorized into computer, appliance, insect, etc. problems. Hopefully all those great search engines out there will bring you to the right place in your time of need.

If they work for you, great, if they don't, keep looking. You can ask questions but I'm unlikely to have additional answers.

But if a solution here DOES work for you, I'd love to hear about it.

Here's hoping this is a worthwhile endeavour...

dunstergirl