What will I need?

Soldering Iron with a fine tip

About a foot of thin solder

An old USB mouse you no longer need

A momentary switch (This switch engages while depressed.)

About 6-12 inches of 12 gauge electrical wire

An Electronic Cigarette Atomizer

Some electrical tape

Instructions:

Cut the USB cable of the mouse, very close to the mouse itself.

Strip the outer plastic coating off of the USB cable, about 4 inches will do.

Inside you will find several wires, cut all the wires except the red and black wires. When you are done, only the red and black wires will be showing.

Strip about ¼ inch off of the red wire and about ½ inch off of the black wire.

Solder the red wire from the USB cable to the inner connection on the Atomizer. The red highlighted area in Figure 2. Be sure not to cover the center hole of the Atomizer, if you do it will not work. This is where a fine soldering tip will come in handy. If you only use a small bit of solder, you should be ok.

Solder the black wire from the USB cable to one side of your momentary switch.

Solder a new wire from the momentary switch to the threading of the Atomizer, the green area in Figure 2.

Then tape it all up with electrical tape so none of the wires touch and so it provides support for the switch.

DIY Final Product

Fig 1 Atomizer

Fig 2 Atomizer Connections

Fig 3 Schematic

Disclaimer: It is possible you could damage your atomizer or the device supplying the USB power when building or using this device. I do not in any way endorse Electronic Cigarettes and at this time I do not know of any FDA approved Electronic Cigarettes. Also note, I have only tested this one the M401 Electronic Cigarette Atomizer, however, I think it will work with just about any Atomizer.

Tips:

When removing the filter, there isn’t a whole of material to grab onto. Your best bet is a twist and pull. If you’re only dripping, you can always attach the filter loosely.

Pressing the button a second before dragging on the filter will give you a more powerful hit. I find this device to give me a stronger hit to begin with, when compared to battery style.

There is no automatic shut off like the battery style, so be careful when taking a drag.

I’ve recently had problems trying to setup dual boot with Windows XP and Vista, so I’ll share my experience in getting this to work. This post will explain how to install Vista with XP already installed. I have tried to install XP with Vista already installed several times and followed different tutorials I found, each time with problems.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you have two separate partitions, one for each installation. Vista will only install on a NTFS partition and I believe you will need both partitions to be NTFS, but I could be wrong, I would recommend both partitions be NTFS at any rate.

If you currently have Vista installed and don’t mind reinstalling at a later point… Vista has great drive management utility to adjust your partitions.

If you don’t already have two partitions, right click on Computer from the Start menu and click Manage.

Right Click Computer and Click Manage

Click on Disk Management

Click Disk Management

Right Click your C: Drive and Click Shrink Volume.

Right Click C Drive and Click Shrink Volume

Right Click your C: Drive and Click Shrink Volume.

Right Click C Drive and Click Shrink Volume

Select the new size, I would recommend at least 20 gigs minimum.

Select Partition Size

Right Click the new unallocated space and Click New Simple Volume.

Right Click Unallocated Space

Follow the wizard prompts and make sure the File System is NTFS. You should have a new partition after completing the wizard.

If you don’t have Vista installed, I would recommend using a tool such as Partition Magic to make sure you have two NTFS partitions.

If you’re currently running XP, simply install Vista on the new partition.

If you’re currently running Vista, you will need to format your partition that Vista is installed on. Install XP on the partition Vista is currently installed on, and chose the format option when prompted. Once XP is installed, install Vista on the partition XP is NOT currently installed on.

Prefix your email by stating what type of email it is and/or what action is needed by the reader, where applicable. Then place a very short description of what the email is regarding. Be sure to keep it as short as possible and packed with detail. Usually if a date is important I like to put that at the end of the subject line.

List of common prefixes:

• ACTION REQUIRED:
• RESPONSE REQUESTED:
• IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
• URGENT INFORMATION:
• INFORMATION:

And of course you can make up your own as long as they make sense.

Examples:

• RESPONSE REQUIRED: Need shift coverage 12/25/08.
• URGENT INFORMATION: Inspection 1/15/09.
• INFORMATION: Directions to team outing.
• STATUS UPDATE: System Outage Resolved.

Things to remember:
-Be clear on what the email is concerning.
-Be clear on what the user needs to do with the email, whether they need to perform an action, reply, or no action is required.

Writing the body of the email.

Addressing the recipient:

I like to use a simple, “Joe,” or “All,”. If you want to be a little less formal you can use, “Hello Joe,” or, “Hi Joe,”. You don’t want to be too formal as if you were writing a letter.

Steps to writing the body:

• Write freely.

You want to write freely and go back and edit the email later. Don’t worry about punctuation and spelling. This is the creative part of the writing, if try and edit while writing you may lose track of why you’re sending the email.

• Proofread and edit.

This is where you correct any spelling and punctuation in your email.

• Verify the point.

This is where you ensure the point of the email comes across clearly and to the point. Put yourself in the shoes of the reader. If you need additional details, place them in a separate section close to the bottom of the email. Be sure the main point of the email is in the first sentence or two. Make sure there is only one objective per email. If there are multiple responses needed or points, then put them in a separate email.

• Anticipate Q&A.

When you put yourself in the shoes of your recipient, think about any questions they may ask and put a section in your email to cover these questions in your additional details.

• Wrapping up.

I like to wrap up with a simple thank you, my name, title, and contact information.

• Wait a few minutes before sending.

Sometimes we get involved in the email, when you go back and read it; it may not completely make sense. Sometimes you’ve added emotion to the email and some may find it offensive. After you’ve cleared the thought track from your head you will be able to recognize these things.

Things to remember:

-Different people require a different level of detail about a subject. It’s a simple concept; your manager doesn’t usually want to know the gritty details, and your technicians probably want every detail under the sun. I’ve formulated this way of sending an email cover most types of people.
-If you have a list, use bullets, this will save a lot of space and make it easier to read.
-Think about who you’re sending the email too and put yourself in their shoes when reading the email.
-Keep the email short and to the point.
-Remove emotion from the email.
-Try to reduce any sense of blame by removing prepositions (I, me, you, we, your and so on).

First and foremost, is this something that can wait until you have more time to think it over?

If the answer is yes…

I would strongly suggest waiting.

I would weigh the possible outcomes.

What are the odds of negative impact?

What’s the worst case scenario?

What would happen if you didn’t do or say anything?

Is there anyway to minimize any negative impact?

If the answer is no…

Can you subtly lead others in your direction?

If it’s a problem you would like to identify, ask questions that will lead others to the same problem. If it’s a solution, ask others about the problem and possibly hint at your solution.

In the end, I usually chose to take action and speak up, usually for moral reasons. However, I like to think people respect and stand behind someone for standing up for what they believe in.

I’d love to hear your experiences on this subject. Please feel free to pose a comment.

Have you ever been around someone in a really negative mood and feel stressed or feed off of their negativity? Or vice versa, and been around really happy people and get into a better mood? Maybe you noticed you’ve influenced people by your attitude?

If you’ve experienced this, you can see how easy it is to influence your environment. Expand upon this concept and take a look at your life, how much power and control do you have over your own life?

Let’s look at a simple and easy application of using this concept in your life to influence people. The scenario is you are talking to your boss and want to take a day off of work, try to get them in a better mood and try to get them to say to something. You can ask them about something that your sure would make them happy, like how was your weekend, then ask them if their looking forward to this weekend. Most likely their weekend would have been a positive one and they will be looking forward to next weekend. Then you can work in your question for a day off.

In another scenario, you might wait until you’ve completed a task that would make them happy. Bring up the task you’ve accomplished and work your way to asking your question.

Sometimes you can simply give them a sincere smile, state it’s a great day, and ask them if their doing well before asking your question.

These simple techniques can dramatically improve your odds of getting a positive answer. Keep in mind, everyone is different, and these techniques won’t always work.

Basic Human Needs - I searched the internet looking for something that could help me explain some basic human needs and ran across Maslow’s pyramid. It is a pretty accurate diagram of basic human needs.

Maslow's Pyramid

The bottom of the pyramid is the most important, leading upward to the least important. One thing I would change a bit is moving love and esteem around a little, where importance and acceptance is higher than love. However, that is my personal experience.

I’m going to highlight a few that I see as important. I will be making a bigger point in this blog that will tie into this concept.

Physical needs - People have physical needs such as Food, Water, and Sleep.

Safety and Security - People have the need for safety and feeling safe. Shelter; Health; Family;

Acceptance - People have a need to feel accepted by people.

Importance - People have a need to feel important.

Self Worth - People have the need to feel valuable, which also ties into importance

Respect - People have the need to feel respected.

Love - The need to love and be loved.

What I’m really trying to point out here is these are basic human needs. People need to feel important and accepted almost as much as they need to have food and shelter. Understanding this concept is part of the key to interpersonal relationships.

Look at it this way… If you get into a car accident and it’s not clear who’s at fault. The person that you were in a car accident with comes over screaming and swearing at you. Would you expect your reaction to be belligerent and stubborn? If he said it was your fault, would you immediately become defensive and say it wasn’t? Even if his explanation of why your at fault made sense? Unless you’re a very patient and calm person, chances are you would become belligerent and not admit any fault.

Given the same scenario, the person comes over and genuinely asks if you’re ok and ensures you not to worry, everything will be ok. Would you likely respond belligerently? Chances are it would be easy for you to say you wouldn’t respond belligerently.

DLL Files are similar to EXE files. They hold a portion of programming code that can be swapped in an out of memory.

The programming code within a DLL file could be written into the EXE file. The problem is if the programming code is written into the EXE, it will have to be held in memory the entire time the application is running, taking up unnecessary resources.

The executable file that runs the DLL file must know where the DLL is. There are a couple of places the executable will look for the DLL file.

• The folder that the executable resides.
  • This is simply the path to the executable file.
• Sometimes the path of the DLL will be hard coded in the executable.
  • In this scenario, the DLL file would usually be in a sub directory of the application and the DLL file would have to be there in order for the application to run properly.
• The windows registry
  • The windows registry will store information on the system DLL’s. The reason for this is because a lot of DLL files will be shared between applications. There is a windows application names Regsrv.exe or Regsrv32.exe, typically resides in the C:\Windows\System32\ directory, which will add this entry into the registry for the DLL file. The command to register a DLL would typically be “Regsrv32 C:\PathToDllFile\DllFileName.dll”

Common causes of DLL file errors:

• Missing DLL file
• DLL file is not registered
• DLL file is not in the path it was registered to
• The DLL file is not the correct version for the application that is trying to use it
• The DLL file is corrupted
• There were programming errors in the DLL file or programming errors in the executable that was calling the DLL file  

Examples:

Access violation at address ???????? in module DllFileName.dll

This application has failed to start because DllFileName.dll was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

DllFileName.dll missing or corrupt: Please re-install a copy of the above file.

ExecutableFileName.exe caused an invalid page fault in module DllFileName.dll.

Illegal Exception ModuleName in module DllFileName.dll at ????????. Floating Point Division By Zero.

Integer Divide by Zero in module DllFileName.dll at ????????.

Possible Solutions:

• You can start with a reboot; this will refresh the registry and ensure none of the applications have the wrong path stored in memory.
• Ensure the DLL file is in the proper location.
• Register the DLL.
• Reinstall the application utilizing the DLL.
• Replace the DLL file with a known good one.
• Copy the DLL file into the same location as the executable.