Craig B

I have an iPod/CD player with good sound but lousy built-in speakers. The only output is a mini-plug headphone jack. I've got a couple speakers sitting around, and the amp in the player has plenty of watts to drive them. How do I get that mini plug out to four speaker wires?

Does anyone know what oil and vinegar they use at Subway? No guesses, please. I can do that myself.

Phone repairmen have a number they call that tells them what number they're calling from, so that they can identify an unknown line on a phone jack. Anyone know what this number is? I'm in Los Angeles, if that matters.

I have an old fashioned passage lock with a small round hole, maybe 1/8" in diameter, for the keyhole. Nothing seems to unlock it when it is locked. I poke around in there with a screwdriver, but it stays locked. Any ideas? Is there any way to disable the lock if I can't get something to unlock it?

My wife's Lenovo R51 will connect to our wireless network and work fine for a while, then it just drops off. Sometimes she can't connect at all.

When I try ipconfig, it shows no IP. When I try to renew, it never resolves. When I use the XP interface to try to "repair" the connection, it can't grab an IP. the only solution to this seems to be plugging into the network with a hardwire. As soon as I connect to a website this way, I can unplug the LAN cable and the wireless will automatically connect. What in the world is going on? This is driving us crazy!

We have a few other laptops and none of them have this problem, though they do drop off the network occasionally, it's usually no problem to reconnect.

Is there a name for the grab bar or handle on the inside of a car door that you can use to pull the door shut?

Can anyone describe what this part looks like on a Crown Vic?

I have a program that will not run unless the installation CD is in the computer's CD player, but I have a laptop without a CD player. Is there some program that can make an image of the CD that looks, to the computer, like the CD is in a (virtual) drive?

I am looking for a font in order to change the address on my business cards, which were designed on a Mac several years ago. I use Windows. The font is called AuCasablanca, and I've found it and downloaded it. When I unzip it, there are two files, one just called AuCasablanca and the other called AuCasablanca.afm. Is there any way I can turn this into a TrueType or some other format that Windows (Photoshop) can access?

I've seen recipes that specify a skillet size, but my skillets have angled sides so the top of the skillet wall can be several inches more in diameter than the bottom. Which size are these recipes referencing?

I've got some leftover crab cakes from last night. What can I do with them besides topping a salad or just reheating?

Does anyone know a good website for finding what things are called?

For example, a key has two parts, the part you hold onto and the part that goes into the lock. What are they called?

Or what do you call the metal ring that holds an eraser on the end of a pencil? Stuff like that.

I have a Polycom 501 VOIP phone that came with a power POE cable. It works when the power line is disconnected but the LAN cable is plugged into a POE switch. But when I connect the power line, it stops working. Maybe I have a bad transformer? Anyway, I want to put it on the network where there is no POE switch, so I was thinking of gettting a power injector. There's a cheap one available, but it's 24v and the phone is 12v. Is that a problem?

I've also heard that some injectors have a 60-cycle hum. Is there a way to avoid this/

I have a Polycom VOIP phone that uses a 12v 400ma transformer if you don't have a POE port. I seem to have lost it, but I have a 12v 800ma transformer that fits. Can I use it without hurting the phone?

I have an XP computer, some Win 2K machines, a Vista Home Premium and a Vista Home Basic on my network. The Vista machines don't seem to want to allow the older OS computers in even though the Home Premium machine can access the others. The Home Basic laptop won't do anything but open password dialog boxes and then refuse access. What's the problem?

I have UAC turned off on all Vista machines and no firewalls enabled inside the network.

I have some Netgear powerline adapters and more than one router in my Network. One router is distributing 192.168.1.x addresses and the other is distributing 10.0.0.x addresses.

The 192 router is my DSL portal. The other router is a VOIP router and also feeds a wireless access point. I can get the Internet wirelessly from either router.

When I plug a computer into one of the adapters, it connects through the 192 router to the Web. But I want it to connect through the other router for security reasons and in order to hook up a VOIP phone. How can I do this?

I ran CAT 5 cable from my DSL input to my modem and put RJ45 jacks on the end. Now I realize that the jack on the modem is RJ11. I wired it "A". If I just plug a standard RJ11 phone cord plug into my RJ45 jack and run the other end into the modem, will the DSL be wired correctly?

I have a Netgear wireless N router with three antennas on top. What is the best way to aim them for best wireless networking? Are they directional? If the computing is going to be all around the router, should I point them in different directions? Or should I point all three parallel in the direction where they will be most used?

I have a rental house with my office in a separate unit downstairs. I want to share my DSL with the upstairs unit but I want to be sure that they have internet access without having access to my network. Changing workgroup names does not seem to be enough. Any ideas?

When you do a tattoo, do you start by sketching it on the skin? If so, what kind of pen or pencil is best to use? I'm talking about something you would draw on the skin BEFORE you do the tattoo. Or do you just go freehand from a paper sketch?

(This is not something I plan to do myself, it is research for a story I'm writing).

When you get tattooed, is there any smell associated with it while they're doing it? If so, what does it smell like?