Spiders love POE security cameras more than I do. I think the infrared lights attract insects, which makes the spiders want to build their webs in front of the camera lens. This isn’t a problem during the day time, but it ruins the image at night because the spider webs reflect the infrared illuminator light. The spider webs also move around in the wind and trigger false positive motion alerts.

The solution is simple – turn off the camera’s onboard infrared (IR) LED lights, and add an external IR light. If you are using power over ethernet (POE) cameras (I’m using Reolink POE cameras) you don’t have to run any additional wires. All you need is:

• A Gigabit PoE Splitter
• A 1 to 2 Way DC Power Splitter Cable Barrel Plug 5.5mm x 2.1mm

The POE splitter pulls power off of the ethernet cable, and the splitter runs power back to the camera and to the new IR illuminator. In the camera settings, turn off the infrared illuminator light on the camera, and mount the external IR illuminator nearby.

I recently upgraded from a second to a third generation Prius. As soon as I shifted into reverse I heard the annoying “Beep beep beep.” I was able to disable this useless and annoying function on my second generation Prius by pressing various buttons in a specific sequence. Unfortunately Toyota removed this feature for the third generation Prius. Most websites tell you to take your Prius to the dealership because a special tool is required. My local dealership quoted me $50 for the job, so I figured I could get myself a special tool for cheaper and do it myself.

• $11.61 for a Wifi ELM327 OBD2/OBDII interface tool compatible with iPhone/iOS
• $10 for 1 week of the Carista app (unfortunately they no longer offer $20 for unlimited use; it’s either $10/week or $40/year – ouch!)
• About 10 minutes

As you can see it was far cheaper and faster than the $50 the dealer quoted me. I found instructions to do it for even cheaper with the $6 Engine Link app, but the Carista app worked just fine with my wifi ELM327 reader and didn’t require downloading a file off the internet and loading it onto my iPhone. Carista has instructions on their website, and initially I was unsure if they would work via wifi because they only say that they work with a bluetooth ELM327. But my wifi ELM327 worked just fine (bluetooth code readers are typically not compatible with iPhones, hence the wifi one). Now when I shift into reverse, it beeps just once and is silent. Ahhhhh, much better.

There are lots of other settings you can change on your Prius while you are at it. The “Customize” option on the Carista app leads to three categories with the following choices (I’m posting them here so you can see all the other cool things you can do with the app before you decide to buy it):

1) Doors / Windows / Remote

• Blink turn signals when locking/unlocking with remote
• Beep when locking/unlocking with remote
• Volume of beep when locking/unlocking with remote
• Warn (beep)  when door can’t be locked because it’s still open
• Panic function on remote
• Re-lock doors automatically if you unlock, but don’t open a door
• Re-lock doors automatically if you unlock, but don’t open a door within… (you can choose between several time intervals)
• Unlock doors via remote – Driver’s door on 1st press, all on 2nd…
• Unlock doors via physical key – Driver’s door on 1st press, all on 2nd…
• Unlock doors via smart key (door handle button) – I changed this one to “All doors on 1st press”
• Auto-lock doors when moving
• Lock doors when shifting into gear
• Unlock doors when shifting into park (P)
• Unlock all doors when driver’s door is opened
• After locking with smart key, don’t allow re-opening within… (you can choose between intervals of around 1 second +/-)
• Smart key location in the car – front seats or anywhere in car
• Open trunk via smart access button

2) Instruments / Display / Dings

• Reverse-gear beep
• Key-in-ignition ding sound
• Seat belt warning ding (driver)
• Seat belt warning ding (front passenger)
• Remote low battery warning

3) Lights

• Daytime running lights
• Coming-home lights duration
• Dim interior lights after… (time intervals)
• Turn on interior lights when you shut off engine
• Turn on interior lights when you unlock doors
• Turn on interior lights when smart key in range
• Interior footlight (bright when doors open, dim when driving)
• Turn on interior door-handle & center console lights dimly (flood lights) when ignition is on and shifter is in park (P)
• Interior light control

Heater & A/C

• Temperature dial calibration
• Ambient temperature calibration
• A/C ECO mode
• Auto-increase blower speed when front defroster is on
• Auto-turn on A/C when AUTO button pressed (if needed)
• Deactivate front defroster when AUTO button pressed

Antenna Modification
The antenna that comes with the transmitter is not the correct wavelength. I used a soldering iron to remove the stock antenna and replace it with a 12.5cm wire (a full wave length at 2.4 ghz). I tested the antenna both before and afterward by having someone hold the quadcopter while I walked away from it. The antenna mod easily doubled the range.

The Syma X5C-1 stock transmitter antenna is less than a quarter wave

My new antenna is 12.5cm, a full 2.4 ghz wavelength

I tucked the new antenna up into the handle of the transmitter

Flotation Modification
I saw a sad YouTube video of someone’s new Syma X5C-1 quadcopter sinking into a body of water. I took my quadcopter apart and installed 6 styrofoam packing peanuts. I haven’t crashed into the water to try it out (I hope I never do), but this is cheap/easy insurance that will helpfully keep my investment afloat.

Adding styrofoam packing peanuts to help the Syma X5C-1 quadcopter float

The following is based entirely on personal experiences

What to do after your house is broken into

• If your house has been broken into, call the police immediately and don’t touch anything. Doorknobs were the first thing I grabbed, and you don’t want to erase any useful fingerprints, blood drops, or other useful evidence. If a burglar breaks a window to get in, they might cut themselves and leave blood.
• Burglars are not always masked men that come in the night that are afraid of your dogs – sometimes burglars can be nicely dressed women that come during the day and make friends with your dog.
• Small safes are not safe because they can be easily carried off. A safe tells a burglar, “Everything you want is right here. I even put it in a box for you.”
• When the police officer asks you the value of what was stolen, guess high. The higher the value of what was stolen, the higher the priority for the police. In addition, the burglar will be charged with a more serious crime.
• Do your own detective work. The detective assigned to your case has many cases to work on, and many of them are more important than yours. In contrast, you have only one case, and it is your highest priority.
• The fingerprint dust the crime investigator uses goes everywhere. Household cleaner and paper towels work OK to clean it up. The washing machine got most but not all of it out of fabric.
• Look around for nearby houses and buildings with surveillance cameras that might have seen the burglar coming and going. Tell the owner about your burglary and ask to see their footage. Chances are they were robbed, possibly by the same burglar. That’s why they have a camera system now.
• Carry a USB thumb drive so you can save a copy of the security camera footage.
• Review the footage on your computer immediately to see if it plays properly (we had problems with saving footage from several security camera systems).
• Check the current time stamp on the camera system against the current time on your cell phone. People almost never change the time on their camera system for daylight saving time. One camera system I got evidence from was an hour and four minutes off. In addition, if you know the real time then you can correlate between different camera systems and build an accurate time line.

What to do for next time you are burglarized
(hopefully there won’t be a next time, but it pays to be prepared)

• Take pictures of everything valuable and record serial numbers and keep them online (like Google Docs). I have had stolen goods returned to me by the police because I had given them serial numbers.
• Make sure your computer requires a password when it is turned on or after the screen saver comes on. That way burglars won’t have access to your personal information.
• Your underwear drawer is not a safe place to hide valuables. Neither is your closet. Our burglar carefully searched all drawers and closets.
• Install a camera system on your house. If any cameras are looking into your neighbors’ backyards or windows, get their permission first. In addition to having cameras pointed at your house, make sure the cameras can see any alleys or streets that burglars might use for coming and going. You need to be able to see when it happened, who did it, and which way they went. 
• The higher the resolution of your camera system, the better. A poor quality camera will only show you when your house was broken into. A high quality camera will show you who did it and what they stole. I looked at footage from at least five different camera systems and I would recommend a minimum of 720p resolution.
• While fake cameras might deter crime, real cameras solve crime.
• Show any pictures or footage of the burglar to your neighbors. Several of my neighbors recognized the burglars who broke into our house, and said it looked like the burglar who had previously broken into their house (based on their camera footage).
• Put all evidence onto a CD, DVD, or USB drive to give to the police. Write your case number on the files.
• Be persistent. Solving crimes and getting criminals to face justice takes time, persistence, and gentle pressure on the detectives and court system.

Newly remodeled house, new-looking dishwasher: Brown spots on our dishes

We moved into a newly remodeled house with a new-looking dishwasher two years ago. We noticed that the dishwasher didn’t quite get our dishes clean; it left some brown spots and residue on our dishes, most noticeably on our white Corelle Ware plates and bowls. We thought it was just a cheap dishwasher.

Dishwasher could put brown spots on clean dishes!

To figure out what was going on, I tried washing a load of dishes that we had thoroughly rinsed so there was no food residue left. Somehow the dishwasher managed to put the brownish spots on the dishes even though there was no dirt on them to begin with. That should have been my clue.

Replaced dishwasher AND installed an under sink water filter: Brown spots continue

We replaced the dishwasher anyway with a nice mid-grade stainless steel Maytag dishwasher. The brown spots on our plates and bowls continued. Internet searches suggested that the spots were rust, dirt, or some sort of sediment from incoming our water line. So I installed a $40 Whirlpool under sink water filter. The brown spots continued to appear.

At this point I had eliminated both the dishwasher itself and the incoming water as the problem. By process of elimination that left the drain as the culprit. My dishwasher drains into the garbage disposal. Could dirt be migrating from my garbage disposal into my dishwasher?

We paid close attention after that, and it seemed like the more we used our garbage disposal, the more brown spots the dishwasher put on our dishes when we ran our dishwasher.

The fix: Looping the dishwasher drain hose up high

After some more searching revealed that other people had cleaner dishes after replacing their garbage disposals, I ran across some advice to loop the dishwasher drain hose up high under the sink before connecting it to the garbage disposal.

I disconnected the drain hose and looped it up over the water pipes for the faucet in order to hold it in place before reconnecting the dishwasher drain hose to the garbage disposal. Previously the drain hose had just come up directly to the garbage disposal, so any junk from the garbage disposal could flow down into the dishwasher.

Over the next several months, the brown spots on our dishes gradually decreased. I think it took repeated cycles of the dishwasher to clean out the junk from the garbage disposal that had accumulated in the dishwasher drain hose. If you are having a similar problem, you could try replacing the drain hose and hopefully that would fix the problem immediately.

Have you had a similar problem? What did you do to fix it?

Materials

• Two 12-foot pieces of 1-inch tubular webbing, tied in two loops (a double overhand works well).
• One 50-foot piece of 1-inch tubular webbing.
• Three oval carabiners. Other carabiners also work, but the knots are easier to get off of oval biners.
• Two trees 20-30 feet apart.

Methods

First off, you’ll need to know how to tie a clove hitch knot.

How to tie a clove hitch: (1) Make a loop. (2) Make another loop. (3) Put the second loop behind the first loop. (4) Pull ‘er tight around that there hitchin’ post (carabiner).

Now put it all together as shown in the following diagram and pictures. The tightening mechanism (shown in the box) works off of the block-and-tackle principle. Use two carabiners as pulleys and clip the main line through them in concentrically smaller loops. Try to make it look nice – it works better.

To tighten, simply pull the loose end in-line with the slack line. To undo the slack line, pull the loose end perpendicular to the slack line. It should pop free.

Results

For the last two years since we moved into our house in Salt Lake City, we have gotten swarms of small winged ants on the south side of our house for the week around Memorial Day in late May. Our next door neighbor said she gets ants swarming as well.

The winged ants in my front window

We mostly get the ants with wings coming in around the front door and under our baseboards in the morning. They climb up to the windows, buzz around and die, leaving their corpses strewn about the floor beneath the windows. After a few days their non-winged colony-mates begin to come in as well. In total the swarming lasts for about a week to 10 days.

Round 1: A mess

The first year we bought goopy spray which killed many of the ants, but it didn’t prevent more ants from coming from where ever the colony was. We also tried spreading cinnamon and baking soda, which had a mild deterrent effect and made more of a mess. We kept the vacuum out so we could vacuum up each day’s crop of ants.

Round 2: Less ants, less mess

In the spring of our second year I noticed an ant colony in our front flower bed, so I put out some ant bait traps. The Terro Liquid Ant Baits and the Spectracide Ant Shield Ant Bait ones seemed to work the best. The ants take the poison back to their colony and kill the whole colony. We still got ants coming in, but it seemed like less than the year before, so I must have killed only one out of several colonies.

Round 3: To be determined

Next year I will liberally spread these ant traps along the front of the house in spring to see if I can prevent it from happening again.

What’s going on?

For the weeks before and after, we noticed swarms of the same ants on sidewalks. Here’s a video of a swarm on our front sidewalk:

The ants must swarm each spring during their mating season. I took samples of the ants to my local extension office, and they identified them as ants, not termites, and that they are definitely not carpenter ants. That’s a relief to know that they aren’t chewing my house to bits. The extension office identified the ants as probably “little black ants.”

The non-winged ants on my doorpost

Have you had a similar ant invasion? What did you do to treat and prevent it?