Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cords

fat round things in cords?

karl88 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:22:56 -0800

what are the fat round things sometimes found inline on various types of electronic cords? some USB chords have them, printer cords, power supply cords, many don't. what do they do? what if your replacement power supply doesn't have one? (try googling this question- you get nowhere)

Help an editor get organized with plugs and accessories

captainscared — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:43:27 -0800

I am a Final Cut editor working on a first-class Mac Pro. But since I work at a shop with three other editors, I always seem to be hunting for various cords and cables (headphone splitters, rca to quarter-inch connectors, DV deck firewire cables, etc). I'd like to create something like a first-aid bag for myself, complete with all the accessories I seem to lose time searching for - like a CF card reader. My question is what would you put in the bag and what kind of small, manageable bag would you use. Links welcomed. Thanks.

Nomadic computer components must be civilized

saysthis — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:32:22 -0800

I'm looking for inspiration on how to reduce computer clutter. I run a lot of machines and make them do a lot of cool things, but in a 92sqm apartment where we're also trying to manage massive DVD, magazine, and book libraries, and where my previous work station (which was never all that orderly) has been conquered by my girlfriend's rampaging makeup and sewing stuff, it ain't easy. I want to compartmentalize, organize, and speed up the process of accessing my stuff. Ideas? The crux of the problem is that I have a LOT of "computer stuff", and that the network of stuff which we currently have is about to be scaled up, bigtime, due to an impending move to a bigger house. I'll want to include scalability and a solid phalanx of l33t gadgets in the future.

I've just been booted by my fashion designing wife off the corner of the room I used to use for more of her albums of pictures exactoed from fashion magazines. And, in the past year and a half, I've gone from 1 buggy laptop and a big USB hard drive to a substantial accumulation of knowledge and stuff, as I've begun exploring exactly what open source software can really do. I've been suitably impressed made much progress with it, paring down our AV setups from crappy independent DVD players, cords, and all kinds of discs to an interconnected system all controlled from my laptop. Up to now, I've kept the extra stuff in...well, piles. But the recent chaos of her expanding business, my expanding capabilities with hardware, and our impending move is a chance to get this beast under control before it becomes a cancer that conquers all of our available desktop space.

My inviolable principles include:
a) that one of my hobbies is fixing up junk and giving it away. It's an interesting means to get to know people, expand your network, and learn and practice computer skills. Gift economy 4 lyfe.
b) I'm a strong believer in ghettotech, and almost everything I own on the list was inherited. I've spent maybe $500 on computer stuff since 2006. Triple-R 4 lyfe.
c) I take an "appliance" approach to computers - the "all-under-one-box" approach has never worked for me, as something's always gone wrong or I've filled up the hard drive or busted the software and had to reinstall, and I've wasted much too much of my life on downtime and much too much of my money on new machines that proceed to break and not do what it says on the box. Modular single-purpose units 4 lyfe.

We have:
3 desktops
- a sweet media/gaming FrankenPC that gets hooked up to the living room projector
- a gutted box that serves as an uberNAS, with 6 IDE slots, 2 SATA plugs, and 12 USB ports (you bet your ass my data is redundant)
- a clumpy old workstation for volunteers in my organization who can't travel to our main office or the other side of the city; my house is the only locale we have on the east side of the city, and in Beijing, where a lot of the students we rely on to do our volunteer work sometimes don't have computers, or need to work or train with me in person

2 laptops
- my trusty daily driver, from whence I also manage this stuff, a 2005 ultraportable
- my lady's beater, an early 2004 Dell Inspiron, which is likely about to bite the bullet, and will need replacing soon

Peripherals
- bluetooth mouse & keyboard x2, for when I, and the woman don't feel like hunching over my/her laptop
- USB mice and keyboards for the desktops (or laptops if we want to)
- USB bluetooth adapters when necessary, I think we're at 4 now
- an optical drive in an external case - it keeps me from having to buy separate ones for each unit, and we rarely use it, but sometimes I do need to burn things (I work in post-production, clients occasionally just want a multiplexed DVD) or get at something on a disc (rip, mount to virtual drive)
- a grip of thumb drives that I use for data transport, disk images, booting, what have you, all neatly labeled
- a VOIP handset
- CORDS!!! yards and yards of wire in every shape and size, 'cause, y'know, things gotta get linked to things
- a totally sick wireless router
- hard drive USB cases, leftover from the days when I didn't have an uberNAS, and waiting for more hard drives to be connected to the uberNAS
- much of this all needs its own power cord, and I have them in abundance
- the odd RAM & PC card, motherboard, and whatnot waiting for a home in the computers I take home and patch up for friends and family
- various backup hardware in case something important goes kaput
- a couple WIFI cards for laptops, mostly for guests, but the woman's laptop currently needs one to get online.
- 2 monitors for the workstation, gaming machine, and occasional maintenance.

Right. Well, we're moving from a 92sqm apartment to a much much larger one in the coming months (as soon as the decorators are finished!), and we'll be expanding from our current setup of:
- 2 TV's controlled by the media machine
- uberNAS in a corner behind the couch
- laptops on the coffee table
- workstation on a teensy desk in the bedroom
- one phone hookup

to a two-floor apartment with:

- 4+ TV's & audio setups on two floors that all want access to the uberNAS
- a dedicated office for the woman's girlygirl stuff (er, actually, her job) and my own office/den/schmoke lounge for manlyman things
- wherever the uberNAS goes, probably my office
- an upstairs living room with
- the gaming box
- a PS3 (!!!)
- and a downstairs all-purpose studio that wants access to same (this room is a party area, yoga/dance studio, movie screening room, all kinds of fun stuff, but it all calls for proper geekery, and will likely want powered USB gadgets)
- a gajillion phone jacks and in-wall wiring for just about everything but VGA and HDMI
- probably more area and rebar than one wireless router can handle

The wife's hobbies call for lots of shelving and workspace, while mine only calls for a philips screwdriver, voltometer, and lots of teensy compartments. All this stuff, other than the stuff that's actually out and in use, calls for, at most, a dresser-drawer-sized space, but it requires a lot of compartmentalization and protection from dust and spills. I'm looking for inspired solutions on how to minimize and properly store the cords, components, peripherals, and other buildup that goes along with a hobby like this.

The best ideas I've had are toolboxes or tackleboxes for the loose stuff, twist-ties for the cords, a moratorium on any new desktops in the system (any new TV/media hookups are going to be disposable 2ndhand laptops w/ S-video outs and wireless), and a desk area that can be cleared for maintenance if need be. And that might be good enough, but I bet I could improve on it.

I'd love to hear creative, inspired storage solutions if you got 'em!

What's wrong with my throat?

alligatorman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:03:15 -0800

Something funky is going on in my throat area. What could it be, and is it something I should be worried about? Every once in a while, maybe once a month, I feel like something in my throat is getting misaligned with some other thing. I have to turn my head to "realign" it, and if that doesn't work, I push an area in my throat to move it off of whatever it's on.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but that's because I have no idea what's in my throat or what could be going on.

Imagine two not-yet-disconnected Twizzlers, and then disconnect them slightly so that part of one remains on top of part of the other. That's what my throat feels like. I feel like there are two cords in my throat that are supposed to be connected, but one is now loose and goes out of place if my neck does something funny.

When this happens, it's impossible for me to gulp without feeling extreme discomfort.

I have no idea what it could be, so I don't even know what I'd tell a doctor if it was indeed a big deal.

Does anyone have any idea of what it could be?

Thanks

Where in Japan (or online) can I get this Japanese cable for my MacBook power adapter?

teem — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:02:14 -0800

I want to buy a 2-pronged figure-8 cable (IEC 320 type c7) with a Japanese plug to work in Japan with my MacBook power adapter. Where should I look for this in Japan, or even better is there somewhere online where I can buy it and have it shipped to Japan? Just to be as clear as possible, I want to buy a version of this cable, with the same IEC 320 c7 plug shown on the left (this end goes into my MacBook's power adapter) but with a Japanese plug on the the other end instead of the North American plug pictured. This product from the Japanese Apple store is almost exactly what I need, except that I want a long cord rather than just a little plug, and I don't care if it fits stylishly flush with my Apple adapter.

Can this type of cord be found in Japan? If so, where should I start looking (I'm in Namie, Fukushima prefecture)?

Even better, is there somewhere online that I can buy this cord and have it shipped to Japan?

As a side question, if I find and use this cord will it blow up my computer? I don't think it will, as the MacBook power adapter says "100-240V" on it, and even has a little Icon with "Apple Japan" written on it (despite buying it in Australia), but it's worth asking.

where to find this 40 year old power cord?

ethel — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:31:12 -0800

Where can I find this 40-some-year-old power cord? I bought a Super 8mm projector (Bolex Paillard 18-5L) on Ebay sans power cord, thinking it would be a snap to find. However, looking at the power cords for sale with the same voltage/wattage/whatever-it-is, they never seem to look like they'll fit my projector. A Bolex collector site indicates that these projectors were made in the years 1965 and 1967.

Here is a photo near where the power cord plugs in, and where it actually plugs in (there is for some reason, both "in" and "out" connecters). If anyone has any leads, specific terms to look for on ebay, online retailers specializing in this stuff, links, etc, I would be very grateful!

How do I tame the tangle o cords at my desk?

Koffeeman — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:07:42 -0800

LifeHack: Does anyone have a clever way to hide multiple cords at an exposed desk before I trip on them? I have a refinished 1920s secretary's desk with kneehole for my home office. Given the number of tech toys I have, there is a plethora of cords hanging off the desk. The desk has a shelving unit next to it to hold the CPU so the cables droop behind the desk then up to the CPU. All told there are about 6-10 power, speaker, mouse, keyboard, and USB cords running from various locations on the desk. I need some ideas to hide the appearance of the cords and possibly contain them. I would prefer to DIY instead of buying a solution. Any ideas?

Cable, Wires and Cords, Oh My!

dgeiser13 — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:41:54 -0800

What do you do with the assortment of cabling and other electronic doodaddery (especially that not currently being used and not wanting to throw away!) that one tends to accumulate in the course of lifetime when you have a love of almost all things electronic? My wife and I just moved from an apartment to our first house (yay us!) and the move confirmed my nagging suspicion that over the last 20 years of apartment living and roommate having I've collected a whole lot of cables, wires and cords (boo me!). I don't mind so much the ones that I regularly or continously use for my TV, DVR, Videogames, Stereo, Computer, Digital Camera, etc. but rather the ones that are NOT needed for anything at this particular moment but that I might need somewhere down the line be it next week, next month or next year.

I've got speaker wire, power cords, power supplies, coaxial cable, av cable, usb cable, cat5, power strips, phone cords, phone adapters, adapters for european quipment (both power and av), sets of computer speakers, dsl adapters and on and on. It seems like those all have a great similarity and could be stored in a somewhat organized fashion but I always end up getting annoyed, loosely sorting them, throwing them in some unwieldy cardboard boxes and hiding them away somewhere...until I need something akin the next time and either haul them out or just buy new.

I don't really want to throw them away as it seems like a waste.

I'm looking for an elegant solution be it something I may buy in a store or online or perhaps build or even a mindset or way of looking at and dealing with these necessary evils. My ultimate solution would allow me to easily access the cabling, identify what I have (so I don't keep buying more of something I don't need), note the length of each piece, and would allow me to store or organize it compactly so I can fit more than just 3 coils of co-ax in a box that could hold 10 times more in volume.

Whatever the method I'm sure a non-ugly solution would also win me points with my wife as well.

Silly ten foot headphone cords!

synecdoche — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:02:41 -0800

I have a pair of headphones that I like, but the cord on them is ten feet long. As it is I have to wrap them up with an elastic band. Is there a way to cut the cord, remove a bit of the wire, and put it back together? Basically, I want the cord to be quite a bit shorter so it comfortably goes from my iPod in my pants pocket up to my ears without me having to mess about with wrapping the wire. I'd prefer not to buy new headphones, but if it matters, the ones I have are the Sony MDVR300.

Storing Controllers

the biscuit man — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 04:59:53 -0800

Any suggestions on storing game controllers for quick use and preventing their cords from getting tangled or permanently coiled? (outside of purchasing wireless controllers)

How can I plug lots of blocky power cords into fewer surge protectors?

boaz — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:14:19 -0800

Looking for very short extension cords. [mi] Almost everywhere I go (like, for example, behind my own desk :) ), people have multiple chained surge protectors just because the bricks from their printer & scanner & router & DSL modem & etc. take up so much room on them. I remember reading about short (4-6 inch) extension cords designed specifically to keep power bricks from taking up multiple slots on a surge protector while not adding feet of useless cord. Unfortunately, I can't find them anywhere, and I've long forgotten the original source. Bonus points for bulk suppliers or short dual-brick cords.