Excellent customer service

As it is probably apparent, I'm a bit addicted to my new hobby and bought another helicopter. This time it was a Blade mSR. I flew it a few times and it flies pretty well. However, after those flights, I started seeing a problem where the helicopter looked like it was periodically losing power during flight.

I read a post where others have experienced the same problem. I contacted Horizon Hobby support describing the problem and referencing the post. They promptly replied, asked for pictures of the motor and a copy of my receipt. The day after I replied with the information, I had a new tail rotor and new main rotor in my hands at no cost and they didn't require me to send the parts back!

I was quite pleased with the service and definitely will keep me buying Horizon Hobby products. It makes perfect sense for a company to provide excellent customer service to keep you coming back for more. However, so many companies don't quite understand this. In this case, I paid just over $105 for the helicopter and they sent me about $20 in parts without having to send anything back and with no down time. For someone addicted to a hobby, they just help me feed my habit.

Automator to the rescue

This past week, I finally upgraded my wife's MacBook to Snow Leopard (yes, I realize it is a year late). The upgrade went fine, but last night my wife told me that her DYMO Labelwriter 4XL wasn't properly printing PayPal shipping labels. I wrote a few months ago about printing labels on the DYMO. I'm not sure what happened to my wife's machine, but I had to solve this problem. I went down the path of scripting it and sending the label to DYMO's software. Unfortuantely DYMO's software is junk and threw exceptions when I used their demo AppleScripts. So, I had to find an alternative.

After a ton of work, I managed to hack together an Automator workflow that used Pixelmator, Preview, and some GUI scripting. It isn't really pretty, but amazingly it works.

While my script works, I can't guarantee it will work for everyone, but here it is in case anyone wants to use it as a basis for their own. Download the script

End of Microsoft Office on my Mac

Last week after a colleague ask a client to send a Word document as a PDF, I asked him how he got away without Office on his computer and he said he used iWork. I tried this route several years ago, but had to install Office when I started by job 2 years ago to use some wacky templates. It dawned on me that I no longer had a reason to keep Office on my machine.

I purchased a copy of iWork '09 (yeah, I realize that iWork '11 will be out before I know it) and received it today. I deleted Office and install iWork. I use a text editor for composing things, but every once in awhile I need to use a word processor and a spreadsheet. iWork should fit the bill quite well for this.

On the off change that someone sends me an Office document I can't read, I can ask for a PDF or try loading it into Google Docs. It feels so refreshing to get Office off my machine. I know that things have changed for Office 2011, but it seems like it just keeps getting more and more bloated. Freedom!

Review: Blade CX3

First off, I have to admit that I'm getting addicted to RC helicopters which if I don't watch myself is going to get quite expensive! Now that I have that off my chest, I've now purchased my third helicopter, this time a Blade CX3. This helicopter is a huge step up in terms of size from my Blade mCX2.

When I first got the helicopter, I was a little afraid to fly it. The bigger the helicopter, the more it would cost to repair. I flied it around my office a little bit, but due to its size, it's pretty hard to do much with it. However, I did get the hang of it (it's quite loud) and decided to give it a whirl outside. Well, I was a bit overconfident and on my first flight outside, it ended up on the roof and I caught it as it came crashing down on me. Luckily I was able to repair the fuselage damage with some clear tape and it was as good as new.

I've been having a lot of fun with it and am excited to fly it outside. However, there has to be very, very little wind to do anything with it. The times I've flown it outside, the wind is just a little too strong so that when I try to go forward full speed, it goes no where. It is teaching me how to control it in adverse conditions which is kind of interesting.

One of the maneuvers  that I've pretty much perfected on the mCX2 is landings in a single spot. On the CX3, this is much harder because of the ground effect created by the blades; flying it low is kind of difficult due to this (the blades are pushing down a bit of air causing the helicopter to go up). This is something that I'm keep attempting.

The CX3 doesn't use anything that is the same as my mCX2, so I've already started collecting spare parts in the event of a crash. I've also had to pick up an extra battery as the 6 minute flight time is a bit short when it takes 2 hours to recharge the battery.

Many of the points below are similar to what I wrote about the mCX2. The two helicopters are quite similar as beginner helicopters.

Pros

• Not too hard to control.
• Moderate size allows me to fly outside.
• Replacement parts aren't that expensive.
• Comes with battery charger.
• Heading hold gyro attempts to keep the nose facing in the direction of travel.
• It's quite fast when flying inside.

Cons

• Size makes it a bit large to fly inside and do anything interesting (very small circles).
• Only comes with 1 battery.
• Long recharge time (2 hours).
• Navigation lights are optional (they look cool on the mCX2).
• It's noisy. In the house, it's hard to really hear anything when it's flying.
• Time consuming to disassemble. I added a heat sink to it and it took me about an hour to take it apart and install the heat sink. Maybe it was just me, but I had a problem removing one of the motors to get the heat sink in.

Summary

The CX3, like the mCX2, is a beginner helicopter. I kind of see it as a stepping stone from the mCX2 as it is larger and can fly outside. I'm glad that I got the mCX2 first as it let me learn to fly and maneuvers. I haven't abandoned my mCX2, but I find the CX3 a bit more challenging and more exciting. If you're interested in RC helicopters and don't have much room to fly, the mCX2 is the way to go. If you have more room and want to fly outside, the CX3 is the better choice.

I'm having a great time with my helicopters and am getting pretty good at flying.