Add AUX to your CD/Radio etc

To wire in an AUX to your audio equipment:

The design of some electric equipment is highly modular and straight forward to add an aux input by decoupling the the CD/Radio etc stage from the volume control/Amplifier stage and inject your AUX signal there.

Service manuals can possibly be found and downloaded for some equipment, if you find it there may be a schematic and to help you.

Always remove the power supply from its source! now take the thing apart, find an appropriate place to an AUX connection to the case, soldering wires to it, track down the audio line and at the best place desolder/disconnect it.

So how do you select between Cd/Radio source and Aux input? We'll take the brute force approach and wire in miniature Double Pole, Double Throw (DPDT) Switch. One position joins the CD/Radio etc stage to the amplifier board (like the jumpers previously did) and the other position connects the Aux input to the amplifier board.

Another way to do it is to use a 3.5mm input jack that has normally closed connections which open when the plug is inserted the Aux. (this saves a second hole in the dash and a switch that you have to flip).

With it all connected, you just run the equipment in the cd/radio etc mode, plug in an input to AUX switch the DPDT switch and ignore the display.

Notes on Input volume level setting and input impedance: you will probably notice you need to adjust the volume level on the external audio device in order to match the volume level fed from the internal line to avoid a sudden change in volume level when switching between sources. If you don't want something plugging in at max volume and making you have to turn the devices volume down, you should put an attenuator circuit in line with the Aux input. The attenuator circuit can be a simple (dual for Left/Right) resistor divider network. The same resistor values that the engineers used in the device coming out of the Cd/Radio stage (ie 2.7K Ohm for the series elements, 1.6K Ohm for the shunt elements) 1/4 W, 2% metal film resistors. This will provide approx. 4.3dB of attenuation, what resistor you use depends on the external device volume level you expect to match the CD/Radio volume level stage, thus allowing smoother volume transition when you plug the external device in.

The resistors also provide some isolation/matching between the (relatively) low impedance of your external device output and the internal amplifier stage. (The attenuator is really optional).

permently disable autorun.inf

add this registry key, just pop it in a .reg file and run or manually use regedit.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"

visual studio 2005 Rock scroll

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IntroducingRockScroll.aspx

nifty addon, very useful.

Visual Studio 2005 MultiCore compiling

Projects Properties->Configuration Properties->C-C++->Command Line

add "/MP" to Additional options box

Visual Studio compiles c++ files in multi core

VS block selection

hold down ATL key while selecting a block of code

User Account Control Vista

To disable/enable: control panel->user accounts->Turn user account controlon/off, check box, ok

Visual Studio Tab and Space Indicators

ctrl+R+W to turn on and off

windows high contrast

left shift + left alt + print screen

click yes, (same again to undo)

CD/DVD/USB disk autorun

some malware infects removable devices and network shares using a special autorun.inf file, ie CD DVD USB, disabling Autorun will stop this.

hold down shift whilst the dvd is being read for the first time after you place it in the drive. This will stop it auto-running. useful if you are trying to rip audio files off a protected dvd/cd, or suspicous of a usbdrive or media you think has malware on. always be careful if you find media lying around/lost property.

paintshoppro - save as last format used

Check: File->Preferences->General Program Preferences->Display and
Caching->"Re-use last type in file save-as dialog"

outlook - corrupt .ost file and scan

if the scan tool doesn't fix your problem delete your offline outlook file and a new one is automatically created downloading your emails.

outlook open pst "access denied"

run Outlook 2007 as administrator (rigth click on the outlook program icon -> run as
administrator ) and reopen pst.

Fix Office 2007 ost file

run C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\scanpst.exe
select the ost file (path displayed in msgbox on opening outlook)

Find if Vista is 32bit or 64bit

Method 1: Start, type system in Start Search, click system in the Programs list.
The operating system appears as follows:
64-bit Operating System appears or 32-bit Operating System appears

Method 2: Start, type system in Start Search, click System Information, select System Summary, see system type: x64 for 64bit, x86 for 32bit.