Cool Country Consulting Blog

In this edition:

Good News Week 2
The mobile plan to end all mobile plans? $1 a month, 10c/min...

Assorted News:
More Exetel Strangeness. (Ups some rates, kills PAYG on ADSL.)
Busy again...

General Ramblings:
Three people drop their landlines for Wireless VoIP...
Internet TV in the future?
Your New TV is a computer screen too :)

Entertainment:
The Varnishing Act.
The Kingswood Lives...
Amusing Exam Cheating Stories
Gruesome Shark Game.

The Mobile Plan to end all mobile plans?

A company called TPG has released a new mobile plan. It is just $1 per month and 10 cents per minute to landlines and mobiles, with a 10 cent flagfall. No contract. No caps.

They use the Optus towers, so of course this may be an issue for some of you. I do have outdoor aerials that will fix this for some handsets and locations.

This is enough to make you wonder why you still have a landline. You'd have to spend at least four hours on the mobile phone a month before you'd even reach what you're paying just for basic line rental to Telstra.

Oh, and as I've said before - if you need Telstra's superior mobile coverage, why not have a Telstra mobile on a $15 or $20 a month plan, use them for incoming calls, and carry a second mobile for making calls on. The savings would surely be worth the extra hassle of carrying two phones :)

I am too small to be an agent for TPG unfortunately, so if you need help with signing up or setting up your phone, this would be at standard consulting rates.

More details are at http://tpg.com.au/mobile/plans.html - scroll down to find the $1 plan.

Busy again...

Work is back to being pretty busy. This has meant some delays in getting back to some people. My apologies for those affected.

More Exetel Strangeness...

As most of you know, I'm an agent for Exetel. This is because they're normally the best value ISP.

Unfortunately this appears to be changing a little...

They put a number of people's plans up by $5 a month this week, explaining that this was necessary because on average, people are downloading more now than they were a few years ago. This mainly affected long-time customers on older plans, and this was probably a legitimate need.

They also went and changed their plan offerings two days after this announcement, along with introducing a $10 plan change fee - without warning.

Charging $10 to change a plan is a simple money grab. Exetel brags about having an automated system so changing a plan should have no cost to them if it doesn't involve changing line speeds, etc. They don't see it this way. They did a similar thing a couple of years ago when they introduced an 'administrative fee' of $3 so they seem to be starting to want to make money just because they can rather than by providing a service to match that expense.

The plans they have introduced are aimed at moderate to heavy downloaders; so the 'pay for what you use' type plans are now history. This is a shame because it wipes out the most popular plan I was selling, making the nearest equivalent $10 a month higher, making them equivalent to pretty much every other reasonably-priced reasonably-reliable ISP out there for light to moderate users.

Fortunately, Wireless Broadband plans remain unchanged and are still good value within their own limits of usage.

Since most plans these days have no contract requirement, the good news is that if something really unexpected and catastrophic happened at Exetel, the time to recover would be quite short :) I am confused by what's going on there at the moment. I think it's related to growing pains as they have grown bigger than they had planned to in a relatively short time; but there's a sort of schizophrenic feel to it all.

Three customers ditch their landlines...

I have three customers in Guyra who have ditched their landlines since moving to an Exetel wireless broadband with VoIP setup, saving themselves about $40 to $60 a month plus an estimated $50 in calls per month in the process. (You could do similar without using Exetel.)

This isn't for everyone, but it works well for some.

The good bits:
- no landline rental any more - bye bye Telstra
- still use a standard landline phone
- call costs 10c untimed to landlines, 15c/min to mobiles
- still have a landline number of sorts*
- Internet costs between $20 and $37.50 per month roughly.

The bad bits
- requires strong coverage.
- requires $175 router plus $90 modem
- might require outdoor antenna $45 to $250
- will cost about $75 to have installed - quoted first.
- not guaranteed to always work
- *the landline number is not a Guyra / Armidale number,
- calling 000 won't tell them where you are, so not great for emergencies.
- doesn't work without power unless you hook it to a car battery or UPS :)
- fax machines don't particularly like it, but will usually work.
- sometimes has echoes when calling mobiles, partially fixable.
- Limited to 5GB per month.

The single biggest problem with doing this is that the wireless broadband system is not designed to do phone calls over the Internet. It will work, mostly, but if the tower is busy or the reception wavers, it will give you some rather weird results. However, if you're saving $60 or more a month then maybe you wouldn't care about the occasional problem.

Of course, combine it with the $1 per month TPG mobile and it hardly matters anyway since the mobile phone calls always have priority over internet users, and it's even cheaper than VoIP for calling other mobiles.

I can't really recommend it for Armidale as the Armidale towers are overloaded. Generally speaking, if Skype works well on your connection, then VoIP will probably work too.

Internet TV in the future?

Despite being way behind the US in what we have in the way of Internet TV services; I have a suspicion that they will become somewhat more important to people over time. For example, if there's "nothing on" on TV, it's quite convenient to go to http://abc.net.au/iview/ and watch something. All the shows are categorised so documentary-fans for example can find something to watch quickly.

Why am I bringing this up again? Well, because it's the one thing that makes me feel a little uncertain about recommending wireless broadband to people. Each show is about 250 megabytes on average, so they can chew through even the biggest 5000MB plan appreciably over a month. (Of course, many people don't want to do this, ..yet...)

This means it's largely out of reach of people who can only get Satellite. It's doable on wireless but risky if you don't know your limits; and it's of no consequence at all to people who can get ADSL. It should soon get to the point where it is better to spend your money on a decent Internet connection rather than paying for Austar, etc.

In the US, it is apparently becoming common for people to not even have a TV, as they watch http://www.hulu.com/ instead. To watch Hulu in Australia requires some creative cheating that I have not yet felt the need to work out - there are other ways to get what you want :)

Your New TV is a Computer Screen Too :)

Many people still don't know this.

Pretty much all flat screen TVs these days have one or two different connectors on the back that let you use them as a huge computer screen.

Just yesterday I helped a customer to hook her laptop to her TV after she had been decidedly hard on her laptop by dropping it, breaking off a corner, smashing the screen by mistake and melting some of the keys somehow. (Fortunately the TV has not yet been melted, smashed, or dropped, but I fear for the remote!)

If your computer and TV both have a socket labeled HDMI, then all you need is one cable to connect the two.

If instead your TV has something labeled VGA or D-SUB, then you'll need two cables if you want both picture and sound.

Someone has written a more comprehensive guide at http://www.reevoo.com/decidewhattobuy/2009/08/how-to-connect-a-computer-to-a-tv/

For both options, I usually have the required cables.

This will of course let you watch anything from the Internet or on a hard drive on your TV set. That's things like iView, YouTube, etc; and those hard drives full of movies that kids have these days - much to the chagrin of traditional media companies! Oh, and of course if you have Skype and a webcam, you can have a live wall into someone elses house! (With a decent broadband connection, you could actually do this 24/7 so you'd never be separated from your loved ones - SciFi becoming reality...)

The Varnishing Act.

OK, you all know I'm a bit mad. This won't help you with that assessment!

The '86 Bluebird had developed a problem. It was starting to go grey - like an old man's beard. Worse, the paint on the bonnet was turning white and spotty, and has been disappearing little by little, tiny flake by tiny flake. No amount of waxing would satiate its thirst.

An '86 Bluebird is not a particularly valuable car; so paying $2,000 or so to respray it would be hard to justify.

.. I bet you can see where this is going can't you ;-)

Some years ago I stumbled on a can of Marine Varnish hiding in the laundry. A year ago a small amount of this went on the roof to fix a small spot of clearcoat cancer. Now, a good deal more of it covers the entire bonnet and one of the mirrors too.

It will be interesting to see how this product ages. Certainly the bit that's been on the roof for a year hasn't deteriorated at all... It was particularly surprising how it turned the whitish plastic mirrors back to black.

Pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CCCMikey/VarnishingTheNissan#

One customer said I should have seen an Armidale business who can match colours etc, and sells a clearcoat product. Perhaps later I will. For now, at least the deterioration has been halted.

The Kingswood Lives...

It's back from its brake, engine mount and gearbox seal repair. So far I am sticking with the Nissan because of the cheaper running costs, steering that doesn't wander around with tiny camber changes, likely increased safety and the ability to speed through a roundabout if something doesn't go to plan. (Not that it's perfect - it has its own cold weather quirks.) The Kingswood is now 39 years old, so perhaps it's time to give it lighter duties, and hope its value appreciates. (No I won't be varnishing it ;-) )

Amusing Exam Cheating Stories...

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/b7a5u/whats_the_most_clever_way_youve_ever_heard_of/

Another page that will take a few hours of life :) Find out all the ingenious ways people cheated in exams. A couple of favourites...

It is funny that this should come up, only last week, on the radio, a guy was on saying how when he was at college doing a marine engineering course (or something in that field) part of the course was Morse Code.

When they had external examiners in for exams on non morse parts of the course, he and his class mates would of course tap out not just the answers but have whole conversations.

A few times the whole exam room would erupt in laughter and leave the examiner clueless.

---

I went to a Catholic high school, and one of the nuns that taught there was pretty far toward senility. She'd always walk up and down the aisles during tests to make sure people weren't cheating, so a couple of kids started putting post-it notes on her as she walked by. Kid in the front corner would ask "What did you get for number 7?" Kid in the back corner would snag the note, write an answer, and put it back when she came by next. It went on like that all semester.

Gruesome but Simple Shark Game.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/513760

A ridiculous game that you play in your browser. (Nothing to install.)

---

Well that's it for another newsletter. I guess I better get back to work! I have some more time consuming projects on the boil, which explains why the December and January invoices were only sent last week!

Cheers, Mike

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net

I have had two of these over-sized laptops develop what looks like a screen inverter fault. What happens is that as you increase the brightness setting, once you get past half way it gets darker instead of lighter, and may even shut off completely.

I thought it was a hardware problem, but a BIOS update from the Toshiba website seems to have fixed the problem. A Windows 7 update might have caused the problem. The affected machine was a pspg8a

In this edition:

Good News Week
Surprise wireless internet price reductions at Telstra.
Nokia gives many people free phone GPS maps

Assorted News:
ExeSMS broken - how to fix.
Back on deck: Most happy, some not.
Pricing Revisited.
IE (Internet Explorer) in the news...

General Ramblings:
Affectionately Mauled
Embroidery - a new skill for CCC?
Portable Landline & cheap diversions.
Turning Right.

Entertainment:
FMyLife and Uh Oh moments.

Surprise Wireless Price Drops at Telstra / BigPond:

As many of you know, I sell wireless broadband with Exetel; and where there's good coverage it's a well priced product. However, there are several cases where Telstra has a good signal and Optus (which Exetel uses) does not; meaning I have not been able to help those people get better-priced Internet Access.

Telstra / BigPond is often an option in these places due to their superior coverage; but up until now the prices have been so ridiculously high that they were simply not competitive. In addition, their horrendous excess usage charges could scare even the most savvy user. (One last week got a bill for over $2,000; but was subsequently able to get it reduced significantly.)

Last week, Telstra announced the complete removal of excess usage fees on their wireless broadband for home users, and some significant reductions in mobile internet usage costs for business users.

Of course, like any telephony and internet product these days you have to read the fine print; but as an example of what you could do if you're out in the sticks with a mobile that gets at least one bar of coverage in the window and have an ABN:
You could get 1GB of Internet for $19 a month using your mobile as the modem.
You could get 3GB of Internet for $29 a month using your mobile as the modem.

Similar pricing is available for residential users as well, with the advantage of no excess usage fees but the possible need to buy a modem.

That's cheaper and usually faster than satellite. For those of you with suitable NextG phones, you can sit the phone in the window (if necessary for coverage) and your computer will talk wirelessly via bluetooth to it to get you online. Alternatively, for those of you with 'country phones' you have the advantage that while connected to your computer, the phone also recharges, but last I looked they won't do internet via Bluetooth.

So there you go. It's nice to see that for home users, Telstra has dropped the unconscionable excess usage fees; and for business users it's great to see some realistic pricing; albeit tied to contracts.

For BigPond Residential's pricing: http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/media/wireless-broadband-plans.cfm

For NextG Business pricing: http://www.telstrabusiness.com/business/portal/online/site/productsservices/internetonyourmobile.10917

Note: I'm not affiliated with Telstra or BigPond in any way, so while I can help you get these services up and running; it will be at the normal consulting rate :) (I can't be a rep for them as they require exclusivity.)

Unfortunately all my efforts to get Exetel to offer alternatives to their admittedly small excess usage fees on their wireless broadband product have so far failed - apparently on technical grounds, but at least they're still cheaper and have no contract: See http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-hspa-pricing.php - use code N040 if you want me as your agent for support / installation.

Nokia gives many people Free GPS!

Now here was a pleasant surprise that came in yesterday... Nokia offering free Maps for most of their current and recent phones - even going back as far as the old Nokia E51 that many of you still have. For more information go to http://maps.nokia.com/explore-services/ovi-maps

If you don't see your phone listed, click here - http://europe.nokia.com/support/product-support/maps-support/compatibility-and-download#/default/ - for the full list.

This will allow you to do one or two things. Firstly, it means you have a relatively up to date street directory always in your phone. (And not just for Australia either... although you might need a new larger memory card if you want to store the US maps!) Secondly, it means that you can use your phone as a GPS provided it has a GPS receiver built in. For phones that don't, you can buy a bluetooth GPS receiver that will work with your phone, such as http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4895&keywords=bluetooth&form=KEYWORD - which is available from AMAC Digital Products in Armidale.

Note that I believe, by law, if you're going to use this in your car you need to have a means of securing your phone to the dashboard / windscreen.

Why is Nokia doing this? Probably to compete with Google after they announced the same thing for their latest phones recently. No more buying those ridiculously expensive map upgrades for your Garmin / NavMan / TomTom. (Side note - I used to recommend TomTom for cheap updates, but that has since passed.)

ExeSMS Broken: How to fix.

If you use the PC based SMS program "ExeSMS" with Exetel, you might have found in the last couple of days that it stopped working. The problem is that whoever wrote the program has disappeared - or at least part of his website has - and the update checker crashes the program. If you want it to work again straight away, try the steps at http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=303&t=34981#p266737

Back on Deck :)

Well there have been winners and losers this last two weeks since I returned to work. Due to the higher than normal number of calls, I've had to prioritise who gets attended to based on the type of problems they were experiencing, and location. The order of priority has been:

No Internet / Phones --> Business computers down --> No Phones --> Virus --> Storm Damage --> New Internet Connections --> New Computer setups --> TV Tuning / Set Top Box tuning --> Websites --> Dialup Internet support --> Fax Machines --> Problem Customers.

This unfortunately has meant that people in the last five categories have sometimes gone with unanswered calls as there hasn't been enough hours in the day to cover them all. The sheer number of calls has also meant that a few accidentally fell through the cracks - typically where two people had the same type of problem and I lost track of them while on the road; or simply because I've stuffed up while shuffling calendar events in Outlook / Symbian. I think I caught up with most of those on Friday :)

Calls come in via email, the landline, the mobile and SMS so co-ordinating them all can be tricky as I'm yet to find a way to unify them. This past week I've been trialling spending an hour each morning working out what needed doing that day and the next, and answering email queries; so most callouts have been from 11am onwards, with the latest one being 8:45pm last week. (A TV tuning job that had been waiting a few days.) I can see why some people have secretaries, but it'd be hard to do that in my case since only I can really guess how long each job's going to take.

Pricing Revisited

Well it happened again. One customer this week was adamant that I don't charge enough, and then a couple of days later another cringed at the already slightly discounted $90 bill for a new laptop setup. Admittedly one customer lives in a house in town, while the other had a rambling farming property :)

I am toying with the idea of redesigning my invoices to have five totals ranging from $45 per hour (my low income / not for profit rate) up to $85 (which is what some Tamworth IT consultant quoted me) and giving the payee the choice to pick what they felt comfortable with. Not sure how that would go really... Interested in your thoughts on that one...

I guess it's the fun of being in a relatively small town - I have developed the skills of a system engineer / programmer and yet I still look after those who have simple needs too as we're all human :) .. and I like the variety!

IE (Internet Explorer) in the news...

I've converted most of you over to using Firefox since it's faster and safer than Internet Explorer; and can be set to block all ads as well as display your Internet Usage meter. (A handy side effect of this is that it tends to block fake ads that trick people in to thinking they have a virus and need to buy whatever fake cleaning program they're selling.)

However, many people still prefer Internet Explorer out of habit or for other reasons I haven't quite worked out. I guess that's good for me in a way as it keeps me employed killing bugs, but it's not good for your online banking, etc. The most recent case in the news was http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8460819.stm where the holes in Internet Explorer were used to attack Google. A side effect of all this was that Google is considering shutting down operations in China; and also the German government recommend people stop using it... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1244138/Internet-Explorer-Germany-warns-using-IE-Microsoft-admits-browser-weak-link-China-Google-hacks.html - although now that Microsoft has fixed the problem that may no longer apply.

Google's Chrome and Safari are other alternative web browsers you can try as well, if for some reason you don't like Firefox :)

Affectionately Mauled.

Here's an amusing tail, err tale, for you. One of my customers has a number of animals on their property; and a number of computers too. One of their animals is a very tall dog - a bit like the one pictured at http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GQ6M9d5gRHw/Shq4Qdl3O4I/AAAAAAAABRI/8pENk1ifcgo/s320/big-dog-small-dog.jpg but with a lighter coloured face

While I was sitting down working on their computers, it decided to come and have a chat, meaning I was now head-hight with it. I knew it was a friendly dog because whenever I visit it always bounces around excitedly - and slightly alarmingly as it just wants to play, but it's a bit like a short-necked giraffe bouncing around the yard with long straight but slightly splayed legs.

Anyway, it turned out that it's favourite position was to sit there with gently holding the side of my chin in the side of it's mouth while I worked away transferring files between computers - a relatively surreal experience! Eventually the owners realised it was inside and sent it back out again, leaving two of their tiny dogs to run around and occasionally jump on me instead. I get on well with most animals, so it doesn't worry me; provided they stay off the keyboard. (I did leave the customer to clear off the 1cm wide ball of slobber the big dog flicked onto their monitor however!)

Embroidery - a new skill for CCC?

When my other half asked for car seat covers with frogs on for Christmas, I thought it was going to be easy enough - just go to SuperCheap Auto and buy a set. Problem is, no one makes them in Australia. There are now websites selling them. Nothing on eBay. So I asked the various Armidale embroidery companies if they could put one on for me, and the answer was a unanimous no from all of them - too hard; our machines can't use the material because it's too thick, etc.

One agreed to putting a pattern onto some material for me to sew on later, but the quote for that came back at - if I read it right - $170 to convert my drawing to a mostly two colour computerised pattern, and $75 each copy.

I decided to ask around locally as I have two customers I know of with domestic-grade computerised embroiding sewing machines as I've repaired and installed the software for them before now. One thought she could do it, but didn't know how to get the drawing into the machine. So, for a couple of days there you might have seen me parked in the Bluebird under a tree in Guyra while I taught myself how to 'digitise' images.

Final product in hand on a quaint floppy disk - as these sewing machines are now getting on a bit! - and 12,000 stitches / 45 minutes later each, the car seat covers were done :) They weren't perfect, possibly due to an error on my part in telling the software how to handle stitches leading to different image segments; and probably due to the 'stretchy' nature of the material; but they were sure good enough; and a damn site cheaper than what the others wanted to charge. They also had to be slightly smaller than planned since the material was not flat - these were pre-made covers. You can see the images here:

Original image: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NLoFolZ2mFo/SzdYDY1CtrI/AAAAAAAADrY/6aZpi_ybzos/s144/Frog.jpg
Final product: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NLoFolZ2mFo/SzdYHvdNWmI/AAAAAAAADrk/aS-fyiYfJ2Q/s800/MVC-126F.JPG

(The flash made the reflective purple look white.)

Portable Landline / Cheap Diversions.

The Billion 7404VGPX is an expensive little bugger at $175, but combined with a wireless broadband service with strong coverage, it affords a portable VoIP landline. I'm still testing it with some customers to see if it's reliable enough to be considered a landline replacement service, with reasonable results so far. Unfortunately local Guyra / Armidale numbers are not available for use with this device as a phone number for people to call you on, but the 10 cent per call untimed rates make up for that a bit. (The phone numbers are all Sydney / Canberra / Adelaide numbers.) Optus has a similar product but charges traditional line rental and call rates.

Another box I am experimenting with - the $80 Cormain GW211 - allows you to connect it to your existing (Telstra) landline, and forward your calls via VoIP to any other number you choose. For example, if you have a mobile phone for your business; when you divert calls from your landline to it with Telstra you pay hefty call costs. With this unit, the diverted call costs whatever a VoIP call to that destination would be - so typically 15 cents a minute for mobiles or 10 cents untimed for landlines.

You could use this:
- to transfer business / home calls to your mobile cheaply
- to transfer your business / home line to another phone line cheaply (like when on holiday, etc.)
- to transfer your phone calls overseas for 3c a minute depending on destination.

The three downsides:
- there is an added delay of about .1 to .2 seconds.
- Incoming CallerID is not passed to the phone.
- There might be an issue with volume being a bit quiet.

I might trial this some more - the loss of CallerID is a slight problem for me.

Turning Right.

Some of you have spotted the ghost of the Kingswood doing the rounds in Guyra. Most of the problems are fixed, but the mechanics are struggling with its tendency to turn right when you put the brakes on. It's often done this when first taken out in the morning, but gets over it by the time it gets to the railway line. Perhaps it's some latent damage from when it had no membrane on the master cylinder reservoir 15 years ago and was thus sucking dust into the fluid, making it muddy orange instead of green. I fixed that long ago. The Nissan is going well, with it's only party trick at the moment being occasional idling at a very low 500rpm and the odd stall at the lights, etc. I really need to get the dash apart one day and resolder all those bad connections so the rev computer behaves :)

Entertaining Sites

Think your life's bad? You could try http://www.fmylife.com/

It's a listing of things that have gone wrong for people - so if you get depressed easily it might not suit you; but if you find the perverse comedy in the situations instead you might enjoy it. Some of them might be a bit rude / off-colour. For example:

"Today, I texted my college boyfriend to tell him how terrible I felt about cheating. He replied saying he was so relieved because he had been cheating on me with a girl in his dorm. I was talking about my math exam. FML"

Uh Oh Moments

A great post on Whirlpool about all the things that people have done wrong at work. This could keep you reading for hours...

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1269886

Some are a bit techy, but others - such as setting KFC cookers on fire, plugging in the wrong cable, crashing forklifts, cutting open softdrink cases by mistake, changing in an elevator, spilling hundreds of litres of ice cream, etc we can all understand :)

Well, that's it for another Newsletter! I better get back to work now. I hope 2010's going well for you all. So far, so good :)

As a PS, the electric bike is still going well, no breakdowns at all yet and still getting over 17km to a charge on the Black Mountain roads. The electric mower likewise is still doing a great job. A customer gave me an old FlyMo they didn't want - and it lasted 5 minutes before it ceased to work. They are worlds apart in performance.

Cheers, Mike

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net

Just a quick note that SongBird does not support the E51 very well via Bluetooth - it opts to fill the phone memory rather than filling the add-on card.

Also Gator ABT-300 review, Gator Bluetooth FM adapter review. (Manual lists product as a BS300B or BS300A)

The ABT300 is a small box that receives bluetooth audio, transmits FM audio in stereo, has a hands free microphone built in, along with line output and line inputs. A great little gadget; but it has two serious flaws if you want to use it a lot...

I bought one of these for my other half for Christmas from WES Components. It is a mostly good design but has two serious design flaws that may make it unsuitable for it's intended purpose.

1 - You cannot use the FM transmitter while it's connected to a charger. (It does still function as a bluetooth hands free but only to a wired output.)

2 - The charging socket and external line input share the same socket. Thus you can't charge the device and use it as a transmitter for a non-bluetooth audio source at the same time.

This basically renders the device an annoying addition because to use it fully you'll have to remember to recharge it at least once a week, and you can't use it for the two hours that it's recharging.

You can partly work around it's limitations by connecting it to an always on 12V source and hard wiring its output to your audio system; but what a disappointment to have such a nifty device rendered with such a flaw :(

Cheers, Mike.

Edit: Here's another problem.

Walk away from your car for a little while, the bastard turns itself off. You have to hold the power button for 3+ seconds to turn it back on. Three seconds is a long time if you're going to be doing it every time you get in the car. Sometimes the power button gets stuck down too. Hold it a little too long and you're in pairing mode.

FM Output is really weak - if you place it in the middle of your dashboard, you'll get audible FM Hiss if your antenna is an above-the-drivers-door type.

In this edition:

Holiday Special

Podcasts for your Travels.
Websites for a laugh.
Smoker? No warranty for you.
Lick It!
Statement Fun.
Google Desktop
TL;DR
Watching TV Online
Gmail Saves The Day
Inkjet becomes one pin dot matrix
Vitamin D
Rant on Greed V2
Any web designers out there?
Computer Table wants a home...
E-Bike review.
A week off...

Podcasts for your Travels

Chances are some of you will be embarking on some long trips this holiday season. Taking some podcasts with you will help make the journey more enjoyable.

Podcasts are basically radio shows that you can download and listen to; with the exception that you can tell your computer to get them automatically if you have iTunes or other podcasting software.

Here's a few of my faves:

CarTalk.

Two funny American guys who spend at least half of the show laughing constantly. Whether or not you're mechanically inclined; you'll probably enjoy this weekly one hour show . They'll try all sorts of tricks to get you out of trouble with your car, or to pass the blame onto someone else; or simply tell you that your car is going to blow up any minute...

http://www.cartalk.com/

AnswerMeThis.

Warning: Not entirely safe for kids - uses bad language now and then.

Three crazy British people (two guys one gal) answer some of the craziest questions that people submit to them online and by phone. http://answermethispodcast.com/

The Moth.

Warning: May use bad language or discuss themes that may offend.

OK so that's a weird name for a podcast. It is "Real Life Stories told Live, Without Notes, in under 20 mins." There is an amazing variety of stories here, from accountants, to strippers, to prisoners with dying rellies on the other side; and more. Some excellent listening here. Experience the full variety of people that exist on this earth.

http://www.themoth.org/podcast

TED Talks.

No, it's not "Big Ted" from Sesame Street :) TED Talks are described as "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." Most of them are pretty good; although since they cover a huge spectrum of ideas, some are bound to be of more interest to you than others.

http://www.ted.com/

Note: Most podcasts tend to be between 20 and 50MB to download, so for those of you on limited download plans; you might need to keep an eye on your usage while downloading these gems.

Websites for a laugh.

Here's a couple of gems I've run across in the last month that you might enjoy:

"What's the Funniest thing you've done / seen someone do in a classroom?"
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9x4op/whats_the_funniest_thing_youve_done_seen_someone/
Warning: Some of these posts are likely to offend. (Bad language, politically incorrect.)
Another Warning: You might get nothing done for 5 hours reading all these!

Find out about the Cow Button, the 8.5 by 11 foot sheet of notes, the fake suicide out the window - with the chair, the "Thank you for last night" comment, Spontaneous Spiderman, the teacher with the Bull Whip, DENdoodahBAHdoo and more :)

"What is Love"

This chicken thinks he knows :) http://vimeo.com/8121722

"One Man Band"

Well, if your low on income, and have musical skill, you could copy this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fuv3QOeDDI

Hmm - I'm sure there are more, but I'm short of time. The phone keeps ringing. And I want to get this out by 1:45pm.

Smoker? No warranty for you...

.. or your Apple computer.

First, let me congratulate those few of you who actually did quit smoking this year. I'm proud of you! (It also makes working with you more of a pleasure, as second hand smoke is one thing that I'm not fond of.)

Anyway, earlier this year Apple made the decision that it would not do warranty repairs on laptops belonging to smokers. This was because they were classed as hazardous materials; and also because the residue gums up the cooling systems. It's actually been quite a while since I've repaired a heavy smoker's computer - the worst I remember was a Gateway 2000 machine that was yellow inside from the front-mounted fan dragging the smoke into the computer's innards.

Lick It!

OK a slightly less hygienic computer tip for you. Many computers now have finger print readers. For most people these work OK but sometimes you may find it just refuses to acknowledge you giving it the finger. If this happens to you, try this simple step. 1 - lick your finger. 2 - wipe your finger on a nearby fabric. 3 - swipe your finger on the reader.

If your skin is dry, it makes it harder for the computer to see it.

Statement Fun.

You know the old saying about the plumber's house having leaking taps. Well, my accounting is a bit like that sometimes. I'm pretty good at entering the information in as it comes in, but chasing up old accounts is not something I give much priority to. I knew for the last few months that something was up with my system not sending accounts under certain circumstances; and it turned out that through a logic error I introduced to it, anyone who had an unpaid account less than one month old would never get a statement.

As a result, a few got away from me. The worst ones being an ex Internet customer who racked up $700 before shooting through, and another guy who has $600 worth of wireless internet gear. (Another guy appears to have stolen a $145 modem from me too.) Fortunately such occurrences are quite rare as most people are pretty good about keeping up to date with things. The challenging counter to this is that each 6 months I receive about $1,000 in electronic payments to my bank account that have no payee reference - so I have no idea where that money came from or who it's for. Since quite often people pay multiple invoices in one transaction, it's very difficult to reconcile those amounts to a customer.

Google Desktop.

I think I've covered Google Desktop before. It allows you to search all your files for key words in a matter of seconds. This can be quite handy when trying to find information in documents that you no longer remember the name or location of; or emails.

One other useful feature is the ability to view your 'timeline' which will show you all the things you did on your computer on any given day. This has proven to be quite useful recently where a customer had many different web pages on the boil, but wanted to bill each to a separate entity and I had not recorded accurately which web site was worked on when. (Accounts are entered into a calendar daily, but transcribed into the accounting system monthly.) The history button gives me a minute by minute rundown of what page was worked on when :)

Google Desktop is not for everybody as it can slow down the computer a bit with it's constant indexing; but for some of you in office environments it might be quite handy. (Microsoft has similar features built in which I've not fully tested as they do not work with my email program, Thunderbird.)

TL;DR.

You might see this written - typically at the end of a long article. It stands for "Too Long; Didn't Read" and is usually followed by a one or two sentence summary of the article it accompanies.

Watching TV Onlne

Some of the TV channels are starting to get with the times and allow you to watch shows you've missed via the Internet. ABC is probably the most well known of these with their iView service. http://abc.net.au/iview

Channel 10 has a similar feature at http://ten.com.au/

NBN does not have it on their main site, but you might be lucky with some of the individual show websites.

Prime doesn't seem to have it at all yet.

SBS has done a good job with theirs at http://www.sbs.com.au/television

With all of these sites, they use quite a lot of downloads - around 400MB an hour as an estimate - so be careful if you're on an expensive low usage plan. (If you're on slow ADSL, you might not be able to see them in real time - you can always call me for a better deal ;-) )

Of course, for the 'naughty' ones among you there's always channel BT. Oh, and YouTube is legal and handy too once you work out how playlists work.

Gmail Saves The Day.

A few days ago, a customer called because some of his email had disappeared. A number of possibly zero day viruses had conspired to somehow nuke the outlook data file and it wasn't readily retrievable. (A rare occurrence, possible question as to whether Avast contributed to it.) Fortunately some time earlier I had set up gmail to poll his address and capture a copy of his email to their server; so a copy of all received email was still there available to be re-downloaded.

So, if your email is important to you and you want a free backup - register an address at http://gmail.com and then under Settings, click Accounts and Import and give it the details for your current email address. (If you don't know your password, I have a program that can usually retrieve them.) You may need to set your PC to leave a copy on the server for one day too.

Inkjet becomes one pin Dot Matrix?

A customer called last week with a problem. A single drawing pin had fallen into their fancy Canon printer / copier unit and was not retrievable since it had been swallowed along with some paper.

Usually retrieving foreign objects from a printer is relatively simple - with other recent occurrences being a crayon in a laser printer, and dried flowers in an inkjet. However, this one was quite a challenge, taking over an hour to get out. The pin was slightly wider than the gap it had fallen into so it wasn't as simple as 'turn over and shake'. It had also cleverly wedged itself near the flap that is used to determine whether the paper comes from the upper tray or below; and also serves as a duplexing chute.

In the end, we got it back together, and then it refused to print saying error 5010. Turned out that the scanner ribbon was the wrong way around. (It came out of it's socket before I had a chance to see its orientation.) Customer was happy.

Vitamin D?

This item missed last newsletter. The host of one of my regular podcasts - Security Now! - decided that he was so convinced of the benefits of Vitamin D after doing some research that he devoted an entire show to it. (This was out of character since all previous 203 shows were about computers.) It seemed to have some reasonable evidence behind it so I've listed it here. (Mainly as an anti-cancer product.) Listen or read at http://www.grc.com/health/Vitamin-D.htm

Rant on Greed V2

Another item that missed the last newsletter.

One of our two cats disappeared for a few days and came home covered in fleas. This of course meant it was time to buy more Frontline. However, while Frontline is quite effective it's also hideously expensive; so I did a little research to find out if there were any ways around it.

The primary discovery was that the formula for dogs and cats are pretty close matches. (a 25% difference in one of the active ingredients.) Thus with some careful mathematics it was apparent that you'd get almost as good a result by using 0.5ml of Frontline Plus for extra large dog to treat a cat - meaning roughly 24 doses for the price of three. So, one in the eye for Merial then; trying to charge almost the same for a tiny packet as for a large one.

Any web designers out there?

My web design skills are fair, but not excellent. In particular I'm a little lacking in graphic design aesthetics. So, if any of you are into web design work and are looking for work; let me know. You'd need to be familiar with Joomla, Drupal, CSS and HTML.

Computer Table Wants a Home.

A new Guyra resident has found she has one too many computer desks. If you're after one, let me know and I'll put you in touch. Pretty sure it's going cheap. http://lh3.ggpht.com/_NLoFolZ2mFo/SyrhCvd6_rI/AAAAAAAADog/LqbBXWpsfLs/s800/P12-17-09_18.00.jpg

E-Bike Review.

Just a quick note that the bike will get me from home to the roadhouse and back without going flat. If I get it to do most of the work, it takes 17 minutes to get there, covering 8.5km at average 25kph and peak 50kph down the hills. I'm quite happy with it :) I haven't tried a return trip to Guyra yet.

$429 reasonably well spent; although of course it would be more useful if I lived in town. If I worked at the tomato farm for example it'd be a huge saving compared to buying a car and paying rego.

By the way the Kingswood's still in at the doctor's. It's leaking oil out of the shifters for the gearbox, etc; and turns right when you put on the brakes. And speaking of rego, I don't think we'll see people adopting electric cars in Australia until they change rego laws. Why should I pay full price to rego two cars when I can only physically drive one at a time. (Most electric vehicles don't have enough range for holiday commutes, etc.)

A Week Off.

I'm having a week off from on-the-road repairs in the first week of 2010. This will give me some time to fix some issues around the house and car, such as fixing the gauges on the car, upgrading the service desk computers, etc. I'll still be available for remote assistance calls during this time :)

Have a great Christmas / Holiday season all :)

Cheers, Mike

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

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OK every now and then I have this problem where after a reboot the CD drive letter changes back to E: thereby thwarting TrueCrypt from mounting it's faves in that place.

While not technically a solution, I have solved this problem in my case by using the command %windir%\system32\devcon.exe disable IDE\CDROMTSSTCORP_CD* at boot, then of course re-enabling it on a timer after TrueCrypt has done it's job.

For many years I used a program called Big Brother to monitor the history of connections for a number of host computers. However it was only compatible with Windows 98; so to keep using it I had to run it in a virtual machine.

Well the good news is that it's been upgraded to be compatible with XP and possibly higher.

It's different to things like Ping Plotter in that it basically just shows you the history for the last x minutes or hours for a your specified servers.

You can see here for example that many of my hosts are offline and have been for the last four hors, and a couple are having a tough time with wireless broadband connections that aren't working well.

It's still free, and it's from http://kin.klever.net/bigbrother/

Their webmaster appears to have an amusing sense of humour :)

In this edition:

Quick Update

See the E-Bike Tuesday night.
Update on Microsoft's Free Antivirus
Short Rant on Greed.
DIE-alup.
Windows 7 is out :)
In the Holiday Mood - KeyBored.

See the E-Bike Tuesday.

A couple of newsletters ago I hinted that I was installing an electric bike kit that weekend. A surprising number of my customers are alternative energy / green types, and others are prolific bike riders, so I have chatted with a few people about it. One of them has invited me to show it at some "open forum" thing in Armidale on Tuesday night, where there will be a display of electric cars and bikes. ( More info on this event is at http://transitiontowns.org/ArmidaleNSW/ArmidaleNSW )

So, if you'd like to see what $429 buys you in the electric bike conversion kit department, or to check out what people with more money than me have been up to with their electric cars, drop in to the Kent House carpark at 6:30 Tuesday night.

It will probably be on the back of the Bluebird all Tuesday so you might also see it in the main street of Guyra.

My review of the kit itself is at http://auzzie.net/files/ebike-info.pdf

Oh, and if you'd like to see a 9kg easyish to carry bike in a bag that costs $3,500 and is illegal in Australia due to our slightly backward laws on these things, check out http://www.yikebike.com/site/home

I was considering selling the bike kit as a retailer, but have decided against it due to possible legal liability if someone installs it poorly then blames me! However, it's an opportunity if anyone is interested in it :) The nearest rivals in Armidale are double the cost.

Update on Microsoft's free Anti Virus.

I see AVG's up to their usual tricks, trying to force users into yet another new version of their now rather slow program. So a reminder that there is a free one from Microsoft, and a free one from Avast. Last newsletter I praised the Microsoft one for being a good product. It is :) But the one downside with it that has come to light is the size of some of its update files. They can be in excess 30MB every few weeks; so if you're on a really slow connection this could be an issue. Avast updates are much smaller but of course they require the 12 monthly free registration.

Microsoft Security Essentials is at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
Avast is at http://www.avast.com/

Short Rant on Greed.

Last week, a customer was caught in a booby trap that was set by Microsoft back in the year 2000. (Subsequently removed in 2003) This trap is that if you store more than 2GB of email in Outlook 2000, it will crash; taking your mail with it. (In this case, about 17,000 emails.)

I've heard of this glitch in the past, but most people have upgraded to newer versions of office since then; so I'd never actually enountered it first hand until this day.

Microsoft fortunately had a solution that was supposed to work, but was a bit hit and miss and quite time consuming to run. There were many other companies peddling solutions to this problem as well; and for some reason they were almost all identically priced at $49.99 US, with a couple up as high as $250+

It annoys me somewhat when people do this. My opinion is: If you consider how vast the world is; if you create some simple tool that can do the job, sell it for a small amount and you'll make it back on volume, and for the greater good of humanity. If instead you stick a high to ridiculous price on your software, people will just go straight to mininova.org or thepiratebay.org and solve their needs that way.

This practice has at last caught up with the likes of NavMan and Garmin, with Google now announcing that their newest mobiles will include fully functioning turn-by-turn navigation GPS built in for free. NavMan in particular I'm glad to see now suffering as their update price of $160 for new maps can not be thought of as anything other than a rort.

Windows 7 is out :)

For those of you who have been holding off buying a new computer because you couldn't stand Vista, the good news is that Windows 7 is out. It uses about half the memory of Vista, and is not really all that much different to XP. The main difference is that the task bar now has buttons instead of long tags. I have it on my laptop so if you'd like a preview, flag me down :) As per the 'greed' article above, however, it's a bit overpriced to upgrade from XP and Vista.

DIE-al up.

I received a notice last week from M2 Wholesale that advises that I am no longer commercially viable for them and that I have 90 days left before our contract terminates.

What this means is that I will soon cease offering dialup internet services under my own brand. Instead, I will be migrating the service and customer balances over to another company, Beagle Internet. They have some of the best rates going for dialup, are active and well respected in the whirlpool.net.au community, and because they are also an M2 Wholesale customer they can take over the operation seamlessly. They have offered to maintain the same accounting methods as Auzzie Internet for the migrating customers - accepting cheque payments and not expiring credit.

Auzzie Internet started as a dialup business in November 1997 charging $2 per hour for Internet service in Bourke, NSW. At its peak it had 24 lines. (22 at 33.6k and 2 at 2.4k for prolific chatters) The dialup service was outsourced to KBS Internet around 2002 when wide area numbers were introduced. KBS was taken over by WCG (Wholesale Communications Group) who in turn was taken over by M2 Wholesale. At this point we're now down to just 6 lines.

Please note that this only affects dialup customers. Wireless Internet, ADSL and Web Hosting is not affected :)

KeyBored

Christmas and the holidays are coming soon. The next newsletter will contain a collection of things to keep you amused!

To get started, here's two "Piano" programs. The first, C-Magic's Virtual Piano requires no downloads to play. Just go to http://www.cmagics.com/beta/piano/

Now, if you want to play the competition, you'll need to download "KeyBored" instead. (Although it might drive you mad heheheh.)

Free from http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?y1zwtzzwhyk (You will need to unzip it and run keybored.exe) Only tested on XP. Then, open Notepad or Word or a blank email and type away :)

Once you have KeyBored running, you can then learn to play the songs at http://keybored.wikidot.com/system:keybored-songs by typing the letters.

The First person to reply to this email with the correct name of the following song (which is not in that list) wins $20 and their name in the next newsletter :)

hhhgfhh z
hhhhhghj z
jjjhgjj z
jjjjkjh v
hhhgfhh v
hhhjkj m
lklkj kjkjh gggjhgf

Cheers, Mike.

Old Editions
You can find old editions of this newsletter on the CCC Blog. http://auzzie.net/cccblog/

You can also subscribe or unsubscribe at http://auzzie.net/mailman/listinfo/ccc-news_auzzie.net

(Also known as "how to fix your southern cross windmill" or how to fix a southern cross wind mill or "how a southern cross windmill works".)

My Windmill broke after many years of good service; and lacking the tools and knowledge to fix it myself (nothing easy to find on Google prior to this post) I procured a pair of professional windmill repairers to do it, asked them some questions and observed the process. So, here's some second-hand tips on how to fix your own Southern Cross Windmill.

(work in progress October 2009 - pictures coming soon)

Before we start:

Wind mills can be a bit dangerous and fiddly. They're often damn tall, and may have 30 metres of (heavy) metal pipe hidden from view under the ground; so you'll need to be careful working on one. If you're not confident with heights, heavy tools, etc then this probably isn't the job for you - proceed at your own risk! Things that could go wrong include:

- getting half way up the windmill ladder and suddenly discovering you don't go well with heights. (Take your phone with you just in case.)
- getting all the way up, then getting knocked off by a suddenly spinning windmill.
- Undoing something at the wrong time and losing bits for ever down the hole.
- Grabbing at something that is rapidly falling into a hole, taking part of you with it!
- Winching up a pipe, hitting the top of the windmill by mistake and breaking something. (Hopefully not winching your ute up the windmill!)

How they normally work.

Well the top bit is kind of obvious. The fan-shaped bit spins around, and some metal rod moves up and down with it. (If these two things don't happen together you might have a gearbox problem. I didn't so unfortunately I can't give you any tips here. There is oil in it 'tho so it could be worth checking if you're up there.)

A metal rod then travels down the centre of the pipe that you can see, all the way to the bottom where it joins into the 'pump'.

The pump is actually quite simple. It's just a 2 foot long hollow metal cylinder with a plunger in the middle - a bit like you'd find if you took apart an old bike pump. And, just like how cars have cylinders and rings; this plunger-thing has a couple of rings made of either Neoprene or Leather to form a seal. (Those in the know seem to refer to these as 'buckets'.)

Of course, this design would not quite work without some sort of valve - because you want to lift water 'up' the pump but not push it back out again on the down stroke. There are two parts that work together to solve this problem.

At the end of the pump is a non-return valve. It lets water into the pump from the bottom, but (ideally) not back out. So, this means on the upstroke the plunger bit can suck up some more water.

Now, on the downstroke the water can't get out, so in the centre of the plunger there's another valve that lets water flow past it on the downward stroke, ready for the next big suck & lift.

In some cases, they may have added a second non return valve to a section of pipe below the pump - presumably as an insurance against one getting stuck open with a bit of grit, and / or to allow any crud sucked up on the up-stroke to have a chance to settle back to the valve and out at a later stage.

So basically you have a reverse bicycle pump, lifting water out rather than pushing air in. The column of water is eventually ejected from the pipe - usually via a T piece, and drained into a tank.

What can go wrong

A few common things that go wrong:

1 - Rust in the pipe causing a leak underground.

Assuming your pipe is metal, it is possible that over time the pipe might rust. If the pipe rusts, then it may develop a leak. You'll probably hear this as the sound of water being pumped and then immediately drained back down the hole. This would lead to a reduced output, with you only getting water on particularly windy days; if at all.

The rust point is generally near the depth of the water line, and may also be encouraged if the bore casing is metal as well due to electrolysis. (You can now get Poly pipes instead to reduce this risk.)

2 - Buggered Buckets?

Like the piston rings in your car, if the buckets are no longer snug, they'll have a reduced lifting ability.

3 - Non-return valve stuck.

If your non return valve (or foot valve?) has become stuck open it will let the water back out. I guess you'd have to be unlucky but it can happen.

4 - Siezed pump

If the bore runs dry, it's possible that the buckets will get hot and sieze. (Apparently more common with neoprene ones.) This then puts significant force on the central rod which might bend it to buggery.

5 - Others.

Other possibilities could include the rod joins rubbing a hole in the pipe, gearbox breakdown, pipe getting a swing up underground, etc.

How to take one apart?

You're gonna need some fairly heavy duty stuff for this job. Since I'm an IT guy I don't know all the jargon. You'll need at least
- a winch or (block and tackle)
- possibly some sort of pulley if you're winching from ground level.
- a stilson, looks like a wrench, might actually be a wrench
- a pipe grabbing thing. (looks like a motorbike chain on a stick) (Maybe a second stilson / wrench would do - you want to grab two bits of pipe and twist y'see.)
- Some sort of grabby thing so you can attach your winch / lifting thing to your pipe. (They had some special tool for this.) [edit: Advised this might be called a pipe clevis or pipe dog - I can't find an exact match on the 'net but you might get some ideas from http://www.deanbennett.com/pipe-tools.htm ]
- A second grabby thing that can hold the weight of the remaining pipe while you unscrew the section above it.
- One or two vice grips. (Google 'em.)
- Other stuff.

The most important thing here is to have some way to lift the rather heavy pipe out of the ground. You might use a winch and a pulley for this purpose.

You'll also probably need to remove one or two of the side supports so you can get enough room to get the bits of pipe out and have easy access to the bore area.

1 - Secure the fan so it can't spin. (I guess a rope will do.)
2 - Unbolt the gearbox from the rod.

3 - Unscrew the T-Piece going to your tank. (It's probably just resting in the tank's opening so there's nothing to stop you just unscrewing it and pushing it away.
4 - Unscrew the top section of pipe from the bottom section of pipe. Lift this a couple of feet and you should find the first join on the inner rod. This also unscrews. You do not need to worry about the inner rod falling into the hole unless there's a major problem down below already (such as a pipe having completely rusted through.)

5 - Unscrew this inner rod using two pipe grabby tools and then remove the upper portion from inside the now suspended bit of pipe.

6 - Now, lower and remove the bit of pipe.
7 - Devise a way to lift the remaining length of pipe.

In my case, they positioned a pulley at the top of the windmill which they threaded a winch through, with a grabby thing on the end.

My suggestion would be to try to have some sort of backup grabby thing down below too just in case the one up top let go.

Proceed to lift the pipe until you get to the next join. Note that the length of pipe might be taller than your windmill, which is a pain as it will mean you'll need to clamp the pipe and lower your grabby thing. You'll also need to be careful that the top of the pipe doesn't hit the top of the windmill; and that if your grabby thing has a remote release rope you'll want to make sure it doesn't get caught on something and release when you really don't want it to.

When you finally get to the next join, you repeat the process by somehow twisting the two pipe segments apart. You might have to do a bit of swearing at them. Applying heat might help them loosen, or just allow you to burn yourself.

Once they are separate, lift the top section a little further so you can now hopefully see the next inner rod join. Unscrew this and like before, remove the rod from the bottom of the suspended pipe. (This might be fiddly so you might need to lift the suspended pipe fairly high to get enough room.

Repeat the process until you finally get to the pump.

You can disassemble the pump by unscrewing the bottom end and then pushing the rod out of it.

If you elect to hone the pump (that is to resurface it) you may need to use new leather buckets as these will expand to fit the new surface. Neoprene ones may not.

Putting it back together?

Umm, I didn't take it apart. You did ;-)

I'll cover that later. Suffice to say you might need some of that magic plumbers tape that they put on thread. (Probably known as thread tape?) You'll also need all your fancy lifting gear but in reverse this time. Actually you might be able to cheat with some ropes and a horse knot, but not sure. (A horse knot is where you just wrap a rope around something three times and friction takes care of the rest!)

A possibly useful and interesting site is at http://www.windmill-parts.com/index.html