Noel's Lab

Infrared Remote Solutions, Inc. has a cool little relay board the makes it easy to add remote control to just about anything that uses switches. It runs on 12VDC so it can be run from a wall wart or from a car's or RV's power. I'm having a great time with mine. You can get yours here: 4-Relay.

-- Noel

Troubleshooting is a rare, innate ability that cannot be taught nor learned. Right? Wrong!!! Here is an excellent page on a real, teachable and learnable, troubleshooting method that really works. I have used these and similar techniques for decades.

If you are a technician, engineer or regularly deal with system failures, you should definitely check this out.

The Universal Troubleshooting Process

-- Noel

Yes, I know I work on the Vim Outliner project, but that doesn't take away from VO's usefulness. As a matter of fact, this entire web site was created with Vim Outliner. This web site is a single text outline file that is converted into a multi-page web site with some simple-to-use tools.

Yes I also know I created these simple-to-use tools, but that doesn't mean they're not cool. One tool, otl2html, converts an outline into an html page. It supports headings, text, preformatted text, tables with headings and some simple beautification. You can get this tool from the VO web site: www.vimoutliner.org.

The other tool, which is not yet available to the public, is otlsplit. It splits a large outline into several smaller outlines. I use this tool to split my large website.otl file into several otl files that will, in turn, be converted to web pages. Look for this utility to appear soon on the VO website. Or if you can't wait, you can ask for a copy in the VO mailing list. You can join the list from the 'Participating' link on the VO web site.

-- Noel