How (not) to install a dishwasher

The below steps are what I did to replace our ailing dishwasher. They should NOT be followed by anyone and your dishwasher should be installed by a professional. However, please note that the $100 install charge that Home Depot and Lowes charges may not cover your install if something is not simple.

1. Shut off water supply to dishwasher.
2. Shut off circuit breaker to dishwasher.
3. Figure out how to remove cabinet kick plate. This proved to be challenging because tile was put in after the cabinetry and dishwasher was installed>.
4. Disconnect water supply from dishwasher.
5. Carefully open box with power supply.
6. Unscrew wirenuts and use test meter to verify that power is off.
7. Attempt to pull dishwasher out.
8. Realize that dishwasher is too tall because tile was put in after dishwasher was put in.
9. Try to lower feet by hand, but it doesn't work.
10. Grab pliers and screw in feet.
11. Pull out dishwasher.
12. Disconnect drain line.
13. Put dishwasher aside.
14. Notice extra wires in the back with a wirenut only on the hot.
15. Put wirenut on the neutral (just because).
16. Push wires back into hole in wall.
17. Notice that wires seem like they're going to break.
18. Take off wirenuts and test wires.
19. See that no current is flowing.
20. Cut wires below where it looked like it was going to break.
21. Thank goodness that I was using rubber handled cutters.
22. Wait for heart to stop racing.
23. Think about how on this green earth was I going to cap this live wire without shutting off power to the whole house.
24. Put on leather gloves.
25. Put test meter on newly exposed wires and see that they are live.
26. Realize that the reason that the meter initially said there was no current was because the wires were broken.
27. Shut off circuit breakers and retest wires.
28. Carefully finish cutting the wires.
29. Carefully strip the wires and apply wirenuts.
30. Push wires back in wall.
31. Turn breaker for that circuit back on.
32. Call it a day.
33. Wait for dishwasher to arrive.
34. See that hole for drain line and supply line wasn't big enough.
35. Use recipricating saw to make hole bigger.
36. When saw doesn't finish the job, grab Dremel and work on the hole.
37. Attach supply line to water line and feed it through the hole.
38. Feed drain hose through hole (it's attached to the dishwasher).
39. Put supply line in channel under dishwasher.
40. Screw right angle connector onto dishwasher for water supply line after putting Teflon tape on it.
41. Think that the direction the right angle connector ended up could be a problem later.
42. Push dishwasher into hole.
43. See that power doesn't come through the channel like it should have.
44. Attempt to pull dishwasher back out and see it get stuck.
45. Spend awhile trying to yank the dishwasher out and figuring out what to do.
46. Grab plastic drywall knife and jam it into the side to try to get dishwasher out.
47. Pull dishwasher out.
48. Grab Dremel and make modifications to cabinet.
49. Attach lead wire to power cable with electrical tape to help feed it.
50. Push dishwasher back in cabinet.
51. Yank on wire for power.
52. See feed wire come off.
53. Pull dishwasher out.
54. Tie feed wire to power and re-tape it.
55. Push dishwasher back in.
56. Connect water supply line.
57. Turn on water supply line.
58. See water leak at supply line side of right angle connector.
59. Turn off water supply.
60. Redo Teflon tape and re-attach water supply line.
61. Turn water back on.
62. Wait a few minutes.
63. See water leak on other side of right angle connector.
64. Shut off water supply.
65. Unscrew water supply line.
66. Unscrew right angle connector.
67. Reapply Teflon tape on right angle connector.
68. Reattach right angle connector.
69. Reapply Teflin tape on right angle connector on supply line side.
70. Reattach water supply line.
71. Turn on water.
72. See that water didn't leak.
73. Connect power supply with wirenuts.
74. Attach drain hose to airgap.
75. Attempt to level front feet.
76. Directions say to use 1/4" ratchet to screw down feet.
77. See that my socket fits, but the wrench doesn't physically fit no matter what I did.
78. Look all around for something to lower the feet.
79. Find Gerber multitool in garage.
80. As a last ditch effort, use tool to lower feet. The big issue was the tile made it difficult to get access to the feet.
81. Finish leveling dishwasher.
82. Secure top brackets of dishwasher.
83. Attempt to put cabinet kick plate back.
84. Struggle with it.
85. Make cutout for dishwasher bigger.
86. Try to put it back; still didn't work.
87. Excess grout was causing it not to fit.
88. Chip out some grout with a screwdriver.
89. Use Dremel to grind down some grout.
90. Push kick plate back in and put in a nail (one seems to hold it).
91. Turn on circuit breaker, cross fingers.
92. Test dishwasher.
93. Cleanup. (This took awhile as I made a complete mess out of the kitchen.)
94. Relax and pat yourself on the back.

As you can see, this experience was not easy and if I had to do it again, I probably would have just spent the money to have someone else do it (I think I always say that, but come back to thinking that I can do anything around the house).

Another fight with OS X Server

It seems that every few weeks, I have another fight with OS X server. I still run Leopard Server as most of our Xserves are PPC and won't run Snow Leopard, so these issues may have been addressed. I was moving our wiki and our sites from one server to another and that's where the fun started. It appeared that the setting for where the wiki would be located wouldn't stick. There appeared to be an issue with LDAP.

When I was touching the Web settings, I saw error messages in the log like was reported here

May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: servermgr_web: htcleancache disabled
May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: *** -WPWebServices updateWebServices:withVirtualHosts:withSession:: Couldn't update the WebServices record in /LDAPv3/127.0.0.1. Reason: Unable to set value(s) for dsAttrTypeNative:apple-serviceinfo in record $.
May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: servermgr_web: Failure saving group services update: (null)
May 27 20:17:22 server servermgrd52: servermgr_web: Multi instance key 'SSLLog' has a single value=''!
May 27 20:17:22: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

(I was so frustrated, I didn't copy the error messages, so what you see above is from the link referenced above.)

I gave up on this the other day and hacked on LDAP to get things working, but today I had to revisit it. I was starting to wind down my work day today when I had a stroke of genius; the error message referenced a host that I thought I had changed (I thought that when the LDAP server was setup, forward and reverse DNS were setup as those are critical to Open Directory working). I remembered one reference to the old hostname in Workgroup Manager. I went in Workgroup Manager, clicked on the computer tab, selected the old hostname, and changed the name to the real name, saved the entry, restarted servermgrd and presto, the error went away! Yeah!

I might give Snow Leopard server a test drive, but as long as Apple wraps command line tools up with a GUI, there are going to be problems. There is no way that they can handle all possible issues

If this solution helps you and saves you time (I think I spent a full day fighting with this), please purchase something through the Amazon link.

Review: Squeezebox Duet

I've been a big fan of the Squeezebox music systems for a number of years since I installed a music system in our house. I had 2 of the Squeezebox Classic boxes (before the cool redesign). Last year I saw a special on a Squeezebox Duet, so I splurged and bought it.

We didn't need the box and had controlled all our music using the web interface to the Squeezebox software, so this box was quite gimicky. One of the things that this gave us was a 3rd source to our music system so that we could easily switch between our son's music and our music. We didn't use the controller much and it sat on my desk for most of the last year.

In the last few months, our son has wanted to listen to more music and changes what he wants to hear quickly. This has made the controller not just ideal, but almost necessary. The frequent upgrades to the software have really refined the interface and it lets us control all 3 music sources running off the Squeezebox software.

If you don't already have a music server or aren't willing to leave a computer on all the time to run the Squeezebox software, the Squeezebox Duet is pretty useless. In addition, if you don't have a distributed music system, it may also have limited utility. The system is a bit hard to grasp for non-techies, but once I showed my mother-in-law how it worked (and how our music system works in general), she basically wanted a system like it.

Pros

• Easy to use.
• Bright screen.
• Controls other Squeezebox units.

Cons

• Pricey. List price of about $350 is not for the faint of heart.
• Squeezebox software requires a computer to be on most, if not all, of the time.
• Not all that useful without a distributed audio system which makes it even pricier.
• Battery life is not great, so we leave it in the charger most of the time.

Summary

You're probably saying that I usually give high marks to things that I review. Well, you're kind of right. I usually do a lot of research before my purchases, so I'm not disappointed. The Squeezebox Duet falls into the same category (initially it didn't). If you have a music setup like mine, this device is almost a must have. It's price is a bit of a stumbling block, but if you factor it into the cost of a full house music system, it is much easier to justify.

Note

While not directly related to the Duet, each time I upgrade the Squeezebox software, I have to wait for some nice person to update the XMRadio Plugin. While Logitech (they bought Slim Devices) directly supports Sirius, use XMRadio subscribers rely on third parties. I wish that Logitech would work with XM to directly support the plugin. XM and Sirius are now the same company, so it seems that there is precedent for online streaming.

Review: Big Skinny Wallet

In a break from my normal tech reviews, he's a review for the average Joe.

Before we left for New York, I emptied many items from my wallet and saw that cards became much looser, so I had to rearrange things a bit. While we were in New York (as seems to happen in most cities we visit), there was a street market with people selling all kinds of junk. We passed a few places selling wallets, but I couldn't justify spending $10 on a cheap wallet when I had only paid $15 for my wallet at Mervyn's (RIP).

On our way back, we saw another vendor selling Big Skinny Wallets, so we stopped. These wallets were different from the others we saw and my wife asked if the cards would fall out when there were fewer cards in it. The vendor said no and turned a sample wallet upside down. That was only the icing on the cake. He also had a comparison with a normal, leather wallet and the thickness difference was stunning. I asked the cost and he said $20. I was sold. My wife reminded me that I balked at $10, but jumped at $20. Oh well, the salesman was pretty good.

I've now had the wallet for about a week and a half now and I keep thinking I'm going to lose it because all my back pockets are stretched to fit my old leather wallet! While the salesman was good, I was a bit cautious in my enthusiasm when I bought it. Well, so far, I'd buy one of these wallets again without hesitation (provided it holds up).

Pros

• Very thin
• Cards stay in when the wallet is turned upside down

Cons

• A little more expensive than the average wallet I've gotten
• Unknown lifetime

Summary

I have absolutely no complaints with this wallet. Every time I pick it up, I'm amazed at how thin it is. I'm hoping that it lasts; all other reviews I've read have also given it high marks.