So that's what it is for!

Ever since my old rotary phone was replaced by a swanky-looking push button one, I always wondered what that little piece of plastic in the cradle was. It was removable and if one turns it over, like in this photograph, it sticks out in a rather odd manner. It took me years to figure this one out. And I never bothered asking anybody. Didn't consider it a biggie.

But when I bought a new phone, the plastic piece was round and had a slot to allow for it to be twisted around. On it were these words that finally lit the room above my shoulders — "desk" and...wait for it..."wall". That's when it struck me. The ear piece has a little notch where the extended plastic tip goes into. It prevents the handset from slipping off the cradle when the telephone is hung up against the wall. Oh the joy of finally knowing what this bloody is piece is for.

I ran to the ol' Beetel phone, turned the plastic piece over, hung up the phone on a nail near my PC and voila! If not richer, I shall at least die a wiser man. Hah!

The Beetel: Sigma Basic — from the Inside

Many of the keys on the Beetel Sigma Basic keypad had stopped working. I had some free time and I figured I might as well open it up, give it a clean up job and see if that makes any difference. I found loads of dust on the membrane below the keys and it was a bloody pain putting all them back into the slots. The circuit behind the membrane was glued to the red 'in-use' LED. When everything was put back the way it used to be I was pleasantly surprised to find the 'supposedly dead' keys working again!

This is One Boring Job

All he has to do is sit around all day and watch the construction workers do their job. Luckily for him there is a public toilet nearby and he has these trees for shade. But with nothing to do, by mid-afternoon, adenosine begins to kick in...

My 3.5-inch Hard Drive turned out to be a Misfit

Imagine that. I can understand that a 13 year old hard drive (2.1 GB) does not fit into a Zebronics external 3.5-inch hard drive case. But when a 3-year old SATA hard drive cannot fit into it just because of the stiff cables (IDE, SATA and two molex connectors) on the circuit board -- it can be very infuriating. I had to pop off the front panel so that the HDD could slide out a little further to make space.

To top it off, I recently found out the power adapter doesn't seem to have any earthing. The 3-pin power cable from the outlet to the adapter tested alright but from the adapter onwards there is a leak current. Next time I go out to buy something like this, I will take my hard drive along -- along with my trusty tester. (I've also got the photograph upside down...bah!)