Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Tech things I've recently discovered

My paper punch is adjustable

I have owned my three-hole paper punch for, I dunno, at least a quarter century.   I recently started using a very old (translation: scrounged) small-ish 3-ring notebook for planning purposes, where the rings are 7 inches apart.  I like it so much that I actually started searching for a new paper-punch that would match the book, so I could make my own pages more easily.  
My standard 3-hole paper punch,
which I use for standard 8.5"x11" paper.

But then some of my friends in our Registrar's office told me that their punch was adjustable, so on a whim, I checked mine, and behold!, the punches are adjustable on mine, too! A simple flathead screwdriver allows me to loosen or tighten them in a new position. How about that!  No need to buy/scrounge something new.
There are even marks (very faint, but readable under strong light)
that help to line the punches up in the right place. 

My old sewing machine has a button-hole attachment

About a year or so ago, I bought a fancy new sewing machine that does fancy stitches (letters! words! ivy!)  It's actually more finicky than the machine I got maybe 40 years ago, so mostly I still use the old machine anyway.  At any rate, one day I decided to use my new machine's fancy button-hole attachment, but the attachment didn't fit up properly . . . and then I realized it was actually the attachment for my old machine, an attachment I hadn't even realized I'd had!  Too cool.

Command K to add links
When I was associate dean-ing, I spent a LOT of time creating memos or documents that had links to other documents or memos.   When I learned that command-K was a shortcut to create a hyperlink for some text in a document (just like command-C is a shortcut for copying, or command-I is a shortcut for italics), it was a moment of great happiness and awe for me.  Adding links this way still makes me smile.  Sometimes, if you do something the "hard" way for a long time and then discover a cute timesaver, you appreciate the newfound technique all the more.  

My Cuisinart blades have alignment icons

To set up my food processor, I choose a blade that I want to use, put it on a handle that has a tube at one end, and then I put the tube onto a stick on the base.  (I'm sure there are more technical terms than "tube" or "stick").  The stick on the base isn't circular; it's more like a moon just past half-full.  


The top of stick (shaft?) on the base is half-moon shaped.

For pretty much all the time I've owned this (again, decades), I've just spun the tube around a bunch of times on the stick until the tube and stick would finally align and slip into place.  So I was gobsmacked when I realized, just last year, that each blade has a half-moon-ish symbol in the middle that helps align the blade/handle with the stick right away.  Admittedly, the symbol is very faint, but how the heck did I not see this for decade upon decade?!?  

Look: do you see that faint half-moon shape?  

Car fuel gauges have an arrow/triangle

. . .  to show which side the fuel tank is on.  Now you tell me.


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