Sony cameras - dusts leak to sensor

Dusts can creep into the E-mount interface and they are then be sucked to the sensor:

And these dusts are micro, cannot be blown off with a blower. You must use alcohol to clean them up.

I found this O ring from a local hardware store for about $1:

It is about 45mm x 2mm, perfect to seal the E-mount slot:

Works for a6000, a5100, a5000 and all E-mount cameras including A7 series. No problem for lens swap. May keep water out too, to some extent.

If you cannot find such an O ring, you may use a proper rub band, but might not be so friendly to lens swapping:

Don't fix it if it is not broken

As a tweaker (other than a trouble maker), I know that rule, very well; so I never update any software. Somehow I installed a new version of the TouchMousePointer on my Miix, thought I had a copy of the old version to go back. Well, as always, the new version is erratic and double-tap no longer work (unless I do it extremely quickly). To make it a though tragedy, I can no longer find the old copy in my storage!

After lots of searching, the oldest version I could find is 1.0.9.1 and, fortunately, it works fine on my Miix. To save your trouble finding it, here I uploaded it to my server:

http://www.kots.us/data/uploads/touchmousepointer1091.zip

There are even older versions around, 1.0.32 and 1.0.33. They work more solid than the 1.0.9.1, but they lack of an essential feature: click through the touchpad. For example, if there is an image file underneath the translucent mouse pad, you can still double tap on the mousepad to open it, as showing below. With this fantastic feature, the mousepad takes virtually no space/room on your touchscreen, as you can still see and access whatever underneath, and you can move the mousepad to anywhere you like without blocking anything on your screen.

What all touchscreen computers have done wrong

A tablet is heavy so the relatively lighter keyboard cannot hold it. There are two stupid workarounds so far: 1) MS Surface's kick stand; 2) ASUS T100's iron in the keyboard.

I have a very simple simple solution here: move Surface's kick stand to the bottom of the keyboard, similar to what I did with my Miix 2 8:

Cheap battery used in newer Insignia HD radio

The NS-HD01A is the last Insignia HD radio I bought and it is the first that can no longer hold a charge. I opened the case, this is what I see compared to HD01 (left):

As you can see, the new battery (blue) has less capacity, 750mAh vs. 840mAh, and it is made in China instead of Korea. No wonder, this battery died so quickly after only a year while my older HD01 is still working fine. The dead battery is blown, like many such China made ones I've seen:

As you know, I have two early models of HD01 that crash too often to be usable, so I moved one battery from them into this new HD01A and now it is working fine.

What a crappy company Insignia is!

Jackie Chan's reading glasses

I was reading some news and noticed one common thing among Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh and Madonna: they wear large glasses. Based on their age (61, 53 and 56) and the large size of the glasses, these must be reading glasses and must be progressive (these super stars won't wear bifocal to show their age).

So, where they got these glasses? If you've read my this article, you know nowhere to buy progressive reading glasses and even bifocal ones are difficult to find in stores.

If you, or your parents, are such old, you should get these glasses - very convenient and comfortable. There is no reason to wear ordinary reading glasses. See my this article for more details.


Abstract in Chinese

你们有没有注意到成龙戴的大眼镜？才注意到杨紫琼和麦当娜也都是戴的这样的眼镜。他们都是到了戴老花镜的年纪了（好快呀！）。这些眼镜为什么都那么大个？肯定是逐渐过度的平镜（上面部分）加老花（下面部分），等于是两幅眼睛做在了一起，所以很大。

这种眼睛的英文名是progressive reading glasses。好处是：

• 别人不知道你戴的是老花镜，能隐瞒你的年纪。
• 不需要老是摘下来，一直戴着就是了 - 看人用上面的平镜，看手机用下面的老花镜。
• 看人和远处不需要把头低下来然后从边框的上面去看。

可惜这种progressive眼睛买不到，比较容易买到的是叫做bifocal的，下面的老花部分是能看出来的，不是渐渐过度到平镜的。跟progressive相比，bifocal的缺点是显而易见的： 不利于掩盖佩戴者的年纪、跳跃式的从老花到平镜的转换让人不一定能适应。不过还是比普通的老花镜好多了。我个人现在用的一幅是很浅的茶色的bifoccal，还兼做太阳镜了，一镜走天下！

更多的详情可查阅我的另一篇博文。

Make a hot shoe cover for a6000

Sony is really cheap to not include a $1 hot shoe cover for a $800 camera. Well, I'm even cheaper and won't buy one. I bought a pancake turner from Dollar Tree and cut a cover from it.

So many reading glasses but all garbage

I've been looking for a pair of reading glasses that is easy to carry with and convenient to use when needed. Believe it or not, such a thing is extremely difficult to find.

Finally the ThinOptics caught my eyes in a RadioShack. I bought one and tried, but sadly too easy to fall off to be practical.

Eventually, I found this Bifocal rimless on ebay for only $7.99 shipped from California and so far solved my problem. I simply put them on whenever I go out.

It is quite thin and light, and frame-less:

The lower portion is for reading and the upper portion (quite large - good) is for pure pass-through:

Very comfortable and convenient, no longer look at people like this:

Progressive could be even better, but no such a thing yet! There are 3-focal ones, say, +1.5/+1.25/+0.75, but nothing like +1.5/+1.25/0, or +1.5/0. Why?

[update] Saw this in a local store for less than $15. It is sunglasses with a shallow tint, perfect for all seasons, indoor and out.

Found more bifocal sunglasses in Rite Aid, they are too dark though, the above SIGHT is more versatile.

This is by far the only pair of bifocal found in local stores, that is not sunglasses: