A Change Of Headphones

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Anyone who knows me will find the idea of me not wearing headphones at all times a strange one. For the last 6+ years, I’ve been a faithful purchaser of the Sennheiser PXC series, gently working my way through the range from the 360 to the 550. However, when it came time to buy a spare battery (after repeatedly losing the devils), I discovered that the familiar style I’d grown accustomed to had changed.
This wasn’t initially a problem, designs evolve, after all, so I thought I’d simply buy the new version. But I quickly realized the updated design featured angled ear cups, and that’s a deal-breaker for me. Angled cups mean I can’t wear them the wrong way around, which I prefer when positioning the cable or buttons on a certain side or addressing Bluetooth signal issues caused by my head. Moreover, angled cups prevent me from comfortably tucking one cup behind my ear, a necessity when I’m onsite with a client. Nothing leads to a headphone ban quicker than managers being unable to call you whenever they want.

Requirements:

  • Over-ear design.
  • Bluetooth and wired connectivity.
  • Standard ports: I absolutely despise proprietary ports designed to squeeze more money from me for replacement accessories.
  • Vertical alignment: Headphones must be vertically aligned, not tilted.
  • No noise limiters: I’m not a child, and I prefer my music loud.

The Choice:

I initially considered the new Sennheiser PXC, but they failed due to the aforementioned tilt issue. Sennheiser’s other suitable models tipped too far into hipster territory for my taste. Bose headphones were too expensive and didn’t feel sturdy enough to withstand my lifestyle. Plantronics models were simply too large and tended to fall off my head. Enter an unexpected outsider in headphones but a venerable name in music: Marshall and their Monitor Bluetooth headphones.




The Good:

  • Strong Bluetooth: The Bluetooth connection is significantly stronger than Sennheiser’s. I can leave my phone on my desk and comfortably move around my flat without any signal issues—a massive improvement.
  • Snug fit: These headphones fit tightly and snugly, which may be too tight for some (like my wife), but it’s a definite plus for me.
  • Sound Quality: The audio is richer, fuller, and significantly louder than the Sennheisers, a major upgrade.
  • Dual Input: While working, I often use the Pomodoro timer from my phone via Bluetooth but remain wired in for calls and other audio needs simultaneously. The Marshall headphones handle both connections effortlessly, a pleasant surprise.

The Bad:

  • No lateral movement: Given their classic design, I didn’t expect lateral movement, and the lack of additional joints certainly enhances structural integrity. However, without lateral flexibility, I feel extra pressure when tucking one ear cup behind my ear.
  • Control knob: This is an annoying gimmick—it’s actually a mini joystick rather than a knob, making it fiddly and unintuitive. Changing volume should involve turning a knob, not nudging a joystick.

The Unexpected:

  • Replaceable headphone pads: My beard and stubble tend to shred headphone pads, leading to frequent replacements. The Sennheiser pads were always a pain to change, whereas Marshall’s magnetic pads are refreshingly easy to swap out.
  • Retro feel: These headphones gave me a nostalgic flashback to my dad’s old Pioneer SE-205 headphones, a set I adored years ago, a delightful retro touch.

The Conclusion:

It’s still early days, and the Marshall headphones aren’t quite as gentle on my ears as the Sennheisers. However, the substantial upgrades in nearly every other aspect make them a clear winner. Recommended.

Salesforce and Third Party Calls

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

This is just a post to help other Salesforce devs who have to face the same repeat question time and time again and the same disbelief in the answer, So they can prove to the client that they are telling the truth.

Dear Sir/Madam
If you are reading this then someone has sent you to this post because you have asked about linking to a third parties data “on the fly” or “in Real time” or “before it opens” on Salesforce and wanting for such data to arrive before showing the page to your users…

the simple answer is this

Salesforce will never make the speed of their website dependent on anyone else!!!

It will never wait for anyone else before opening a page
It will never wait for anyone else before saving a page
It will never wait for anyone else to do ANYTHING

Yes, you can call just about anything with Salesforce, but it will do this asynchronously, so it will make the call to the Third Party, then get on with its own stuff without waiting for an answer.

You just have to write your Salesforce code/page/whatever to deal with the result when it comes back from the Third Party, it’s well documented, there are lots of ways to deal with it: Batch runs, Ajax etc and plenty of neat solutions.. but none of them is “can’t it just wait”

Fin.

Omnicharge

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

The Omnicharge is the second “mains supply” battery backup that I have backed on kickstarter what seems years ago, and the second one to turn on in the last month

Heralded as far more advanced and adaptable compared to its competitors such as the ChargeTech Plug but it has a far lower output wattage (100Watt), so will it still be any use to me with my monster laptops?

⇑ The Omnicharge comes in a very nice compact box, minimal packing that survived the air trip perfectly.

The Omnicharge accessories match the amazing build quality of the main unit, with the adaptor tip being of especially high quality for some reason (not that im complaining)




One thing that bit me slightly is that if you are outside of the US you can’t order the accessories afterward so if you were dumb like me and did not order the DC cable or looked at the dirt magnet that is the case with its raised power button and realised a case is a mandatory requirement then poot to you.

When the Omnicharge arrived, I did not have a 90Watt power supply at hand, so I plugged my 130Watt in to see how it handled the extra load expecting a polite cut off message, but NOOOO, everything just worked, I glared at the info screen to see what was going on to discover that the giant power adaptor was ACTUALLY only drawing about 39Watts, let’s hear it for modern adaptive power supplies, this means I can use my P50 with the Omnicharge and my normal charger, sweet!!!, after a bit of experimentation, I found could make the Omnicharge peek at about 81 Watts (4 VM’s running, with me working in 1 of them) this is perfectly usable, I suppose I could have popped the limit if I have done something like video encoding, but that is not the goal.

⇓ The part of the Omincharge that sets it apart is that it will accept a very very wide range on its input charge, from USB solar panels up to monster power supplies (4.5V to 36V), if this circuit and it matching detailed control screen was built into actual laptops it would be a HUGE game changer but I will take it in any form at the moment.




⇓ The Omnicharge is only 20.4K mAh, about the size of my laptop battery, meaning it would only add about 2 hours to my battery life, then I had a realisation that I could charge the Omnicharge with the big Anka USB battery I normally carry at the same time it is providing power to the laptop, which should mean it should charge my laptop about 40% longer than it should on its own (on average my laptop takes about 40 Watts).




⇓ As you can see it works, but as you can also see the temp is rather on the high side, indeed its only 3 degrees short of the cut off temp with its little fan going for all its worth

conclusion The Omnicharge is truly a very smart bit of kit, by far the cleverest battery I have ever owned, again if a laptop provider incorporated this tech into their laptops it would be a massive game changer, but for the time being it is an essential bit of kit… just don’t forget to buy your accessories…

Cold Brewed Coffee

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment



I must first apologise for the lack of technical blogs recently, but real life has interesting bits in it at the moment.

As I mentioned earlier this year, life has been utter chaos and I have been drinking more and more caffeinated soft drinks. When I started seeing a litre’s-worth of cans on my desk each day, I decided it might not be as healthy as I might like — and it was costing a fortune too, so cold coffee it is!! I have tried cold coffee before and it tastes… well like coffee you have made then put in fridge. It has a nasty bitter aftertaste: perhaps I was just making it wrong?

Turns out there is this thing called “cold-brewed coffee.” I’ve had seen it online obviously, and it’s typically made in £40+ Kickstarter coffee pots then served in handcrafted mason jars… Meh. I dismissed as an over-priced fad.

Thankfully it turns out that large parts of the world have been making it for ages, and I could get a Japanese single litre glass pot that fits in the fridge door for a far more sane £17.

It turns out that pre-ground coffee is not suitable, after a period of suspicion I discovered that this is indeed correct: you get a lot of grit at the bottom of the pot with pre-ground coffee, <sigh> so how much is a fecking coffee grinder? Well about £9.50, and approximately 10 minutes of one’s time to prep. enough coffee for the week. That is bearable (ohh and un-ground coffee is a bit cheaper that ground, on a brand-by-brand basis). Sold!

You are supposed to use filtered water AS WELL (this is starting to sound like stone soup). Well, I drink London water so I can see their point there,. “But I’m not buying a water filter!” says I… Hang on, didn’t we get one when they had one of those “buy one cartridge get 10 free + plus the jug” deals a while back? <rummages in a back cupboard> Bingo! OK, we have filtered water. For more filters, Robert Dyas always has sales on.

Let’s finally make the stuff. It seems you use 80 grams of rough ground coffee for a litre (8 normal coffee spoons), pouring the water slowly over the coffee in a spiral just like with a normal filter coffee. Give it a good stir and pop it in the fridge for at least eight hours before attempting to drink (I have found a simple 24 hours works best). I wash out the filter and make the next batch as I put today’s in the thermos.

I normally have my coffee with lots of sugar and milk but found I did not need the milk at all as the coffee is far less bitter. The sugar on the other hand was a small pain as it obviously does not dissolve well in cold coffee, so I now make a batch of sugar syrup and keep it in the fridge with the coffee. I make the syrup like so:

Sugar syrup

  1. Put 1 cup of water in a pan.
  2. Add 1 cup of sugar
  3. Bring to boil while stirring until all the sugar has dissolved (it will go clear).
  4. Take straight off the stove as soon as it boils, cool it then bung it in the fridge.

Apparently sugar syrup lasts up to a month in the fridge so there is no worry there.

How does it all taste after this faff? It tastes really, really good — clean and fresh and just what I wanted as a replacement to an energy soda. Obviously you need to use a thermos to keep it cool. I use Chillys water bottles which work perfectly. Whilst I was initially worried about the coffee tainting the water bottle so I would no longer be able to use it for normal water, turns out the cold coffee doesn’t seem to do that as much as hot coffee. Even if there was some taint, a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda filled up with water overnight seems to remove any remaining taste.

Total costs:

Equipment

Coffee filter: £17

Coffee Grinder: £9

Water Filter Jug: £20 (I already had one)

Thermos or Chillys water bottle: £20 (I already had one)

total: £56

Running Costs

Coffee: A 1kg pack of good coffee beans costs about £13, 1 litre of coffee takes 80g, so a week is about a fiver.

Water Filters: £36 for 12 months (according to Robert Dyas) so a week is less than a pound.

Sugar: I go through 2 cups of sugar a week, i.e. 400 grams, so about 25 pence

total per week: £6.41 (let’s say £6.50 with a bit for electricity and water)

Conclusion Energy drinks were costing me £4 – £5 per day, so we are onto a winner after about 3.5 weeks. Nice!

An added benefit, that appeared later, is that too many soft drinks were making me cough! I had a nagging and persistent cough for about 6 months, and just thought it was a left-over from a chest infection, and that I would deal with it when I had time. Turns out a week after I moved to cold-brewed coffee it just packed in. When I switched back to soft drinks for a few days it returned. Well OK then: coffee is here to stay.