I have been there twice: In October 2008 and December 2008. But this time I go longer than ever: Exactly 4 weeks: From August 4th to September 1st.

The last times I have been mainly in Monterrey and Coatzacoalcos, but this time I plan to travel multiple cities. I am not sure which ones though. Maybe Guadalajara, Cancún or Holbox, Acapulco, etc… But what I know for sure is, that I am going to Tamiagua for a wedding of two of my girlfriend’s friends. I have never ever been to a wedding, not even a European one. So I am pretty looking forward to it!

My flight schedule

August 4th

Luxembourg to Paris: 10:55am CET – 11:55am CET
Paris to Mexico City: 1:30pm CET – 6:00pm CDT
Mexico City – Veracruz:  9:40pm CDT – 10:35pm CDT

CET = Central European Time
CDT = Central Daylight Time
CDT = CET – 7 hours

I will come back September 2nd @ 7:10pm CET (starting in September 1st @ 4:40pm CDT)

It have been a while since I wrote a blog post last time, but -tadaaa- here I am again!

I just wanted to inform, that I subscribed to a new service called “FormSpring“. Everybody can ask me questions and I am going to respond to it. (Make sure first, your question is not stupid).

If you have any question to me, visit http://tux.ly/ask and ask me a question  (The link is also on my homepage tux.ly). You can do that anonymously, or by signing into the service and ask with your logged-in account.

So, have fun asking and eventually, your question is going to get picked and answered

I bought a whole starter package with everything I need. It is a cheap one, but good enough to try a little. Beginning of this week, I got my guitar and I must say that I am impressed. I did not expect that amount of quality for such a low price. Playing e-guitar is really fun… I just need to keep it down because of my neighbors. The amplifier is only a 10W one, but it is enough to blow up my tiny room What I bought is called “Rocktile Banger’s Pack E-Gitarren Set, 7-teilig Sunburst“.

Here a picture of my with my brand new guitar:

BUT… YouTube does just the opposite… They offer during the FIFA worldcup a functionality to put extra Vuvuzlea sound to the videos… I don’t know what I should think about that, but I find it definitely a funny move from YouTube

Even though you probably hate the Vuvuzelas, here is a little video “The Fellowship of the Vuvuzela” which makes you lough:http://www.break.com/index/fellowship-of-the-vuvuzela.html

They have an excellent service! Remember when I told you, that they were going to pick it up? Well, they didn’t pick it up… they fixed it HERE and NOW. I now have a brand new notebook screen! It even smells like new. Geez, how much I love the smell of new notebooks!

I am so happy that they fixed this so promptly. I wasn’t even here when they came. The receptionist gave them my notebook and they replaced the screen without any complications or big formalities.

Seriously… DELL has a very good on-place service. So always extend your DELL guarantee, because it’s really worth it!

DELL++;

Over and out… with my new, shiny screen!

Today I was heading to McDonalds with a friend (who I believe want to stay anonymous) when suddenly I thought “Mmhhh… the car is going a little bit too much to the left, without steering that way.” But I thought the screen is crooked. Then, a weird noise sounded from outside the car and I was really wondering what it was.

When suddenly the “tire light” in my car switched on, it came to me: I HAVE A FLAT TIRE! The left, front tire to be precise…

Thank god I wasn’t far from a parking lot, where I was able to replace the tire (which by the way was SMOKING!) with the spare tire. I needed to put 4,2 bar pressure in it, which I find quite a lot, but yeah it says on the tire, so…
Thanks to my dad, I am very experienced in changing tires. That helped not getting out of calmness

Driving like that is really really creepy! I swear! And I have to get a new pair of front tires for my car. But thank god, that didn’t happen on the highway. Because then it could have ended very differently…

What a week… I hope yours have been better than mine

And as I need my notebook again, I am again confronted with the problem. This time I wanted to do something against it… And after some measurements I found out that the source of failure is the power supply itself. It gave out very variable voltages. I suppose, there are some melted capacitors inside

 Anyway, the plan was to open the cable and connect it to a voltage generator (see picture on the left). I was assuming, that inside the cable were two separated ones, which would allow me to connect it without any problems. But as I operated on it, I found out that IT WASN’T that way. This is the deal: Under the plastic cover, there is a plaited plus-connection, then another isolator and then the minus-connection (see picture on the right).

After putting it on power and measuring the output… (OF COURSE IT WORKED!!!), I tried it by connecting it on the notebook and OF COURSE HERE IT ALSO WORKED!!!

This is the darkest electronic hack I have ever made, and PLEASE children: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!!!!

I hope this will last until my notebook is back from repair. But I am pretty confident, because the constructions looks pretty stable!

Note: This is a shortened version of how and what exactly happened. The first prototype, I made it with normal tape.

[Show as slideshow]

But yesterday, it didn’t work anymore at all. I decided calling the Dell service hotline. After a short diagnostic, they also finally realized that it must be a hardware defect. But that they pick up my notebook, I need the Dell guarantee. So I first needed to extend mine… I extended it for 2 years, which costs me quite a bunch

Well, anyway, they were supposed to call me today in the morning to pick up my notebook. But nobody called. After calling there twice, they called me back and told me that they could not reach me in the morning. They didn’t have my new phone number. Which is partly my fault, because I didn’t notify them about that before. But when I called yesterday, they asked me where they could reach me. So I don’t know what exactly happened there.

So, they are going to pick up my notebook on Monday… which -to be honest- too late. It’s not like we are in the sprinting phase of our semester project… (yeah… it’s like that!).

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