Munbyn RW401AP AirPrint Thermal Label Printer Review

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MUNBYN RealWriter 401 AirPrint Voice Controlled Thermal Label Printer

Munbyn RW401AP Label Printer

Munbyn RW401AP AirPrint Thermal Label Printer

I was recently provided a Munbyn RW401AP  ($299 retail) Thermal label printer to review.   There was zero pressure applied by the nice folks at Munbyn for a positive review.  What you will read here is what I think.

People occasionally send me things to review and it speaks volumes about a product when a manufacturer provides one with no strings attached.  That means they trust their product.

I have owned lots of label printers and primarily use them to print shipping labels.  There are a lot of thermal printers out there that can perform that mission.  So, in this day and age you have to stand out from the pack, with new and cool features.

I believe Munbyn has done just that.

Before I get into this I’d be remiss in not pointing out a couple of connection issues I ran into.   These may or may not impact you as I run a pretty unusual network stack in my home.  In fact they probably won’t impact you.

Let me provide a few details.
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TGIF Network On WPSD Digital Mobile Radio Software

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TGIF Network On WPSD Digital Mobile Radio (DMR)

I’ve been using Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) for a few years now.  Essentially, DMR uses the backbone of the internet to communicate.   You can enter that network by using a radio to local DMR repeater connection.  Additionally, most people enter the DMR network by a Hotspot device connected to their own WiFi or Ethernet home network.   The most popular DMR service is the BrandMeister Network, but over time a couple other networks have sprung up.   Today I’ll be discussing how to connect to the TGIF Network.  While TGIF has been around a bit, yours truly just discovered it.  Connecting to it wasn’t as easy as I anticipated so I thought I’d write a few pointers in this blog to hopefully help others.
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Quansheng UV-K6 Radio Review

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Quansheng UV-K6 Radio Review

Quansheng UV-K6

Quansheng UV-K6

I own several handheld VHF/UHF radios. Some are for Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) but all do analog or simplex frequencies.  I think just about all of us cut our teeth on the Baofeng UV-5R.  I’m no exception.  I think I have 2 or 3 around the house here somewhere.  On a whim I decided to buy a Quansheng UV-K6 radio which also is designated as UV-K5(8).  FCC ID information can be found here.

I recently purchased a Wouxun KG-Q10H which I really feel is the best handheld I’ve owned so far.

The only reason I picked up this Quansheng UV-K6 was for its ability to flash open source firmware onto it.  Additionally, the radio can be unlocked to transmit on a whole slew of bands.

The bad news here is that of course is against FCC Regulations.  Secondly, because the radio is a VHF/UHF radio, transmitting on any band other than those will be done in milliwatts.  So not only are you breaking the FCC rules, you aren’t really doing anything but spraying out weak transmissions with tons of 2nd and 3rd order harmonics.  In fact I’d recommend NOT unlocking the all the frequencies.  There is a difference between unlocking the radio and unlocking all frequencies.  Those are two separate actions or steps.  Don’t unlock the transmit frequencies so you don’t accidentally do anything illegal. 

Despite all this the radio is SOOOOOO hackable as to be almost irresistible to a guy like me.
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Wouxun KG-Q10H Review

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Wouxun KG-Q10H Review

On February 22nd a massive cell phone outage was realized by AT&T and others.  Yesterday on Super Tuesday there was a large scale cyber attack most prominently targeting Facebook and Instagram.  If you dig a bit deeper the attack hit a lot of other prominent sites as well.  Also, a couple of months ago I woke up in the middle of the night and there was no Verizon cellular service and I had no internet with Spectrum.   Clearly it is time to bust out the Amateur Radio Equipment and even to add a new radio to the stable.  Today I’ll be reviewing the Wouxun KG-Q10H Quad Band Radio ($219).

Wouxun KG-Q10H

Wouxun KG-Q10H

Wouxun (pronounced OCEAN) is a Chinese Radio brand sold by “Buy Two Way Radios“.  While most of us amateur radio operators tend to think of Chinese hand held radios as junk, the reality is that the Wouxun KG-Q10H has been tested to death on-line and the results are pretty favorable.

Good power, good audio, and the radio passes all the FCC tests regarding spurious emissions.  Think 2nd and 3rd harmonics.   Conversely, it doesn’t spew RF all over the place like a lot of cheap radios do.
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Taking Better Pictures Cheaply With Canon G7

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Taking Better Pictures Cheaply With Canon G7

If you are like me you frequently scour eBay and Facebook Marketplace for great deals.  Or to pick up collectibles or hobby items.  You know as well as I do that there are ads out there with HORRIBLE pictures in them.   Maybe you are guilty of this as well.   I know I have put up some for sale ads before with substandard photos.   This blog may seemingly take a backwards approach to solve the problem.  Most of us think that we need new and better equipment to improve our photos.  That simply isn’t the case.   We can vastly improve our images with a camera that is nearly 20 years old.  I’m going to use the venerable Canon G7.

Canon G7

Canon G7

The G7 was released in late 2006 and unless I miss my guess it was released first in Japan.  I was living in Japan at that time and I was positively giddy at getting my hands on one.

The G7 was a gem however, I had a bad case of upgrade-itis and sold mine and got a G9.  My first thoughts were that I should have never gotten rid of the G7.

And then one day I stumbled across one at a super great price that was in pristine condition and I decided to see if the magic was still there.

The principle allure of using this old camera is that it can be tethered to a computer which is a feature that you just won’t find in non-DSLR cameras these days.  There are a couple of caveats though.
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Tethered Photography

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Tethered Photography

Tethered Photography

Tethered Photography

Sometime roughly around the early 2000’s camera makers offered the feature of tethered photography to some of their lower end cameras.   Tethering a camera to a computer allows for stable, hands free shooting.  It also allows the photographer instant feedback on a large computer monitor.   Camera settings can be changed quickly on the computer until the desired results were reached.  This was especially useful in food photography, or in sales and marketing of products.  Hobbyists like me used it for photographing items for sale and for photographing things like coin collections, and even portraits.  As you can see in the pic, you don’t need a fancy studio to get a good shot.

In a nutshell, tethered photography is a PRO FEATURE.  Canon, Nikon, FujiFilm, and Sony had tethered options but Canon mostly led the pack.   With the release of the Canon Powershot G11 in 2009, Canon removed this feature.   I guess they figured out that people wouldn’t purchase high end cameras if they could achieve professional results with less expensive, point and click cameras.

Tethered Photography

Canon A640

Even to this day cameras from this era that are able to be tethered fetch a premium price on the secondary market.  If you don’t believe me, go to eBay and look for a Canon G9 or G10.

Even a 20 year old Canon A640 goes for over $100 still.   It should be noted that I took this photo with a Nikon D7000 It was tethered to an $80 Evolve III Maestro laptop using Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 software.
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Dyson V10 Trigger Replacement

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Dyson V10 Trigger Replacement

Dyson V10 Trigger Replacement

Dyson V10 Trigger Replacement

This blog is going to be a little less on the technical side and a little more on the “Right To Repair” side.  I can’t find a receipt for when I bought this Dyson V10 vacuum.  But I did find an email stating my warranty was expiring in May 2023.  I bought it refurbished and I think I paid about $350 for it.  So my best guess is I got it in May or November of 2022.  Let’s call it just over 2 years old.

A couple of weeks ago my wife brought me the vacuum and told me it was broken.   A cursory inspection let me know right away that the trigger was not rebounding. Additionally, it remained in the fully depressed position.

As soon as I went to Google I learned a few things:

 

  1. The trigger on the Dyson V10, V11 and other models is a HIGH FAILURE RATE ITEM.
  2. Dyson won’t sell you a trigger.
  3. 3rd party vendors sell REINFORCED triggers.
  4. Replacing the trigger requires COMPLETELY disassembling the Dyson vacuum.
  5. A Torx #8 screwdriver is required for assembly / disassembly.

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Evolve III Maestro Laptop Review

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Evolve III Maestro Laptop Review

I was scrolling around some tech sites and saw some discussion on an $80 laptop.  The device in question was an Evolve III Maestro 11.6″ laptop at Micro Center. Sadly, that price is for in store only and there isn’t a Micro Center anywhere near me.  Other outlets sell these, but the going rate seems to be $130 to $140.  While this laptop is appealing at $80 it really isn’t really very enticing at any higher of a price tag than that.

I managed to find one on eBay for about $65 and while it claimed to be used, it was for all intensive purposes a brand new laptop.  It still had the plastic screen protector on it.

Evolve III Maestro

Evolve III Maestro

Booted it up and it had a clean, uninstalled copy of Windows 10 on it.   But that’s not what I wanted it for.

I bought this to play around with old OS’s, primarily Haiku.  I’ve been going through a nostalgia phase and a “what might have been” phase.  OS/2 Warp, BeOS, etc. both of which were superior operating systems to Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

I found a cool installation video for Haiku on this laptop by YouTuber Action Retro.

So I set about to install Haiku on here and lo and behold……..I succeeded.

Evolve III Maestro

Haiku on Evolve III

It worked, but with a few caveats.  I must have the version 1 of this laptop as I had audio straight out of the installation.  I’ve heard that later versions of the laptop have no sound driver for Haiku.

The trackpad didn’t work and neither did the onboard WiFi.  Both were resolved by adding USB dongles for a mouse and WiFi.

Sadly that ties up both USB ports on the laptop.
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GMKtec NucBox G3 Review

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 GMKtec NucBox G3 Review

I caught a great deal on Amazon for the Intel N100 based GMKtec NucBox G3.  The barebones kit is probably the best way to go at $119.  Guys like me always have sticks of RAM laying around and even NVME SSD’s.

GMKtec NucBox G3 Intel N100

GMKtec NucBox G3 Intel N100

The Intel N100 is a 4 core processor with a Turbo Boost up to 3.40 GHz.  This little box rocks.

The Intel N100 is a low wattage draw  (6 watts) chipset that tops most Celeron and Atom chips at a modest cost.  It is roughly comparable to an Intel N95 chipset.

With the NucBox G3 there are a ton of connectivity options as well.  Best of all is a 2.5 GHz Ethernet Connector.  Toss in some USB connectors and a couple of 4K, 60 Hz HDMI connectors and a 3.5mm microphone / speaker jack and you have a winner.

This is a perfect desktop machine for the kids or for the guest room.  It would be right at home in the camper as well.   It also is an economical platform for supporting that one piece of hardware that is far away from the wired network such as a CNC machine.

I slapped mine in the guest room and am in the process of bookmarking streaming services such as Sling, Netflix, Hulu, and my Plex Media Server.  That essentially is the extent of how we use a Firestick or Roku.  I can’t count the number of times that the Sling app has been non-responsive on Roku, FireTV, and LGTV.  Web steaming always seems to work.  This may be the answer.
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Casio F-91W Sensor Watch

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Casio F-91W Sensor Watch

Casio F-91W Sensor Watch

Casino F-91W Sensor Watch Project

I’m not trying to be too fancy.  But I fancy myself a horologist.

horologist

noun

ho·​rol·​o·​gist hə-ˈrä-lə-jist 
1
: a person skilled in the practice or theory of horology
2
: a maker of clocks or watches

 

Translation:  I like watches!  And I enjoy the study of time.  Atomic clocks, GPS pulses per second (PPS), Biblical time, etc.  The history of time keeping is fascinating as is the history of the wrist watch.  Did you know that men kept pocket watches and when the wrist watch was invented it was pretty much shunned as being not very manly?

That is until people started getting shot at in wars.  It became much more practical to have both hands free and knowing what time it was at a glance.

So a fancy horologist such as myself probably likes very expensive and complicated watches, you’d think.  Not so fast.   This blog is about a $20 wrist watch which has been in production since 1989.  The Casio F-91W.
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