Friendly service I had at local bike shop. Amazing.

I have been to Fremont Schwinn Cyclery to buy my first Schwinn Hybrid bike 4 years ago back in 2010 for $400. I ride only on weekends and have 2000 miles on it. I had excellent service from James and his dad I would like to respectfully refer to as  Mr. Ha. Often, the comment is no charge. I probably spent $100 over the last 4 years to maintain this bike and that includes rear view mirrors I added.

A biking partner of mine had a carbon fiber Canondale bike. He wanted better gear ratio to climb steepr roads. For less than $100 his bike can climb. No kidding!

I wanted to go up a little faster on the same slopes to keep up with my partners. James suggested smaller tires and isntalled them for about $50. Nice improvement. In fact, I got smaller tires put on my son's $200 Walmart bike and he is very happy with that bike.

I bought a Fuji Newest 4.0 2012 road bike used for $250 ($550 new) and took it and asked James to tell me what it needs. He took 10 minutes to test and said it is good to go as is. I asked him to install trip meter and kickstand. 45minutes and $55 later, I rode the bike.

They are so refreshingly low tech (no email, web page, smart phones) but very high in service...

Welcome to small town America where people trust people and do the right thing!

Update 9/28:

After my first ride up a slope, I needed more climbing gear. Went back to the bike shop. James took 15 min and $40 including parts to replace the rear cassette to increase teeth for 25 to 32. I am a happy climber!

Nice! Google Voice again working on obi devices. Switched back from Phonepower. Free to call US unlimited.

Folks, as always the only thing guaranteed in tech is change! Those who can adapt, can come out ahead.

In May when Googlevoice stopped working on Obi and all such devices, I took the 1 year promotion at Phonepower for $60 offered to Obi customers. My average calls to India were 350min a month. Googlevoice was charging 2cents a minute and Phonepower was charging about the same 1.9cents. Now Googlevoice dropped the price to 1cent per minute. So, I logged on to obi account accepted the software update on obi, deleted SP1 Phonepower, added service provider, selected Google voice, couple of check boxes and accept buttons and calls are going through fine. Phonepower was acceptable but I felt Googlevoice sounded somewhat better.

So, until something else changes, this is what I will have.

Summary: If you have Vonage, check your calling pattern. You are probably paying about $32 a month after the initial promo. Unless you call India more than 3000 minutes a month, you come out ahead with Googlevoice. See my post on how to port your number to Googlevoice.

All you need is an obi adapter for $60.

Only one thing to note. You can pick up Googlevoice voice mail from Panasonic cordless handset by entering your google voice phone number as the VM access number. Only thing is the missed call shows up and not voicemail amber LED.

5 yrs ago when someone asked me about car, I created a spreadsheet to evaluate.

Yesterday some one else asked me about a particular car.

Car is a very personal thing. What ever works for you that you can afford is the best for you. It may be a Toyota Corolla, a Tesla, a Roll Royce, a Porsche....

I came across many people buy a car because of fuel economy. Example Prius.
Sure MPG is great if you are looking in that price range. However, if you are replacing a Toyota Corolla with a Prius for better MPG, consider the difference in price over lifetime with your expected use.

I also wrote a blog on Nissan Leaf Vs Nissan Versa as an example.
http://hari-google-blog.blogspot.com/2014/07/nissan-leaf-vs-nissan-versa.html

See the link to spreadsheet as a tool. Comments are welcome to improve the spreadsheet.

Installed Samsung Smartcam HD video Surveillance cameras.

I bought 2 of these Samsung SmartCam HD Pro 1080p Full-HD Wi-Fi Camera

Step 1.

Connected camera to power near my wifi router just be sure to connect. Installed Smartcam Android App on my phone.

Step 2.

Pushed the wifi direct button on the back of the camera and followed instructions on the Android App to find the camera to connect to. Connected the phone to the camera. It then asked me to chose the wifi network to connect to and asked for the password. It connected and I could see the camera.

For security reasons, I will stop here. Post a question if you know me and I will tell you more. You can read the info on Amazon website. I can say that I can easily know when motion was detected and actually go and check the video before and after the motion. Photos are preserved online in case someone tampers with the camera which is inside my house but monitors all access. I like this better than Dropcam (I did not try) because it has pretty much the same features plus the ability to use optional SD card to record a local copy and no monthly fee. FYI, 5GHz has very limited range. There is also wired network option which I may use if I need to. Not hard to bring a wire near the camera.

One limitation I did not like. Online video is 720p as seen on Android. Using a PC or Mac or VLC media player on any platform, 1080p video live can be seen. Recorded video is 720p which is not bad. Enough to identify faces and license plates.

Did you wake up in the morning and found garage door open?

I went to the garage to get food for our 3yr old princess German Shepherd Ziva and garage was much cooler than usual. Of course the door was open for a while.

I asked my wife and assured me that when she came home before midnight, she pushed the button to close the door. My in laws were home and my wife her mom. He mom said, " I saw  a blinking red light near TV". My wife asserted that something strange happened and the door opened. Now that is scary, right?

So, I start investigating. Blinking red is my gadget which got a signal from a garage door sensor that garage door is open. Then, I open an App on my phone and find out that the garage door was opened just before mid night and closed when I closed it in the morning. I open another app which showed a photo of my wife's van entering the driveway before midnight. Then I open a video captured by the same camera showing her van enter the garage and later at night 3 cars drove to the end of the street only to make a u turn and the morning newspaper delivery person.

Mystery solved. Call it humor with technology.

This morning my mother in law heard Ziva bark furiously near the front door. She came running to see the Amazon delivery guy dropped a package and knocked on the door. My mother in law was suitably impressed and felt safe. Since we did not open the door, decided that the guy who knocked was a bad character. Now that is a great non-tech alarm. All that is required is lot of pampering, feeding and of course taking her out to walk...

A pleasant experience at a neighborhood ACE hardware store and a local handyman.

For a change this a totally non-tech blog.

When our younger son moved to an apartment with a friend, he emptied his room. At least that is what I can expect him to do. Last Sunday, I completed clearing the floor of all debris (You don't want to know). The I decided we want to paint. I walked over to my stash of left over paint in the tool shed. I thought we have enough to finish the job. We decided we want a neutral light gray color for the wall.

On Monday, I called a local handyman Al Rivera, big young man from Hawaii. He came immediately and asked for $200 for the job. So, we settled on Wed as the day for painting. He asked me if I have the paint. I showed him and he nodded in agreement.

On Wed at 7:30am I called Aaron Auer at McKivor's Hardware in Fremont and asked him if he can do me a favor and add tint to my left over 2.5 gallons of whitish paint and shake up some left over 1 gallon containers of paint for the ceiling to mix. He said, "Sure. Come over". We (me and our 3+ female German Shepherd always ready to tag along) went right away. In 30 min, Aaron helped us load the paint all ready including 2 new empty 1 gallon cans for the old paint he stirred in his machine. Of course, I always pick up stuff. This time I picked up a mallet to close the paint tin and for any other use, a handy tool to pry open the paint can and a magnifying glass. My wife cannot have enough of them and I too am warming up to it. The fine print seems to shrink!

Al Rivera showed up with his assistant also Al. I asked Al to replace a shit off valve I bought for my guest toilet and see if I replaced the flush handle and the flap properly. By 5pm, it was all done. Since they did more work than I asked, Al asked for $240. I wrote a check for $240 and added $20 extra. Off they went beaming!

I am glad I live in a city big enough to buy anything from food to a Tesla electric car by driving 5miles even in rush hour and yet have the small town friendly service with a smile. Did I say that Ziva loves the attention on our outings?

Now the commercial...

If you live in Fremont, CA feel free to follow the links and get yourself some good old small town service...

Remember the days when Toyota Camry 1984 imitated Audi 4000? Now there is a huge surprise.

In fact I am talking about Hyundai!

I am not talking about who they copied but who has copied them. Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Audi...

What Hyundai needs to do is not lie about MPG. Just be honest. Great improvement over time. No need to be dishonest.

Take a look at 2011 Hyundai Sonata below:

2015 Mercedes C Class:

2015 BMW 3:

2015 Honda Accord:

2015 Audi A4: