KODI: Update

Due to recent litigation surrounding the legality of KODI and it's add-ons, I will be holding off on posting. Many of the add-ons I've been using have either shut down, or gone on hiatus. Once this matter is resolved I will continue to post tips on KODI.

KODI

Just thought I'd put together a new category focusing on information around KODI software, and my personal top suggestions of getting it to run smoother. While I'm no expert, people often reach out to me with questions, and I'm more than happy to share my experiences. 

With this new category, I'll try to answer the most common problems and solutions. So send me feedback.

The World Is Flat: Sidoarjo Regency, Indonesia

Super cool visuals in this video by rider Zimmi Tanarata and Sports Gear.

"I often compare life to the ocean, in little boat we brave the elements and we wade through the waves to avoid catastrophe, as you keep the horizon in sight..."

Super cool outlook on life, check out his other video here.

2011 Nissan Versa: Trunk Light

This is the follow up to my last blog article, with some added information and pictures. As you can see from the picture above, I drilled a small hole in the stock battery terminal cover, so as to have added protection for my wiring. You can also noticed the previously mentioned soldered on ring terminal and heat shrink covering which connects to the car's battery.

2011 Nissan Versa: Power In The Trunk

Since selling my beloved Nissan Xterra, back in October of 2016, I've been driving Nadia's 2011 Nissan Versa sedan. While the Versa is a great economical car, with lots of room, it's a base model and really doesn't have much in the way of creature comforts. This statement couldn't be more true, when searching for the non existent trunk light. Yes, that's right, this vehicle does not come factory equipped with a trunk light! So I ask, what's the point of having such a large trunk, if you just can't find anything in it?

The World Is Flat: Amsterdam, Netherlands

This video has got a cool, mellow flow to it, just what I needed to put life in perspective. Here we have Gino shredding at the "Casino Amsterdam" in the Netherlands. Check out more videos featuring both Gino and Amsterdam at JD Video.

2005 Yamaha BWS: Taillight & Turn Signals

Following up on the documenting of my front fairing mods, this entry brings you my modifications to the rear taillight and turn signal indicators. I was hoping to replicate something similar to the photo below, which sell at scootertuning.ca for $79.99 (CAD).

The World Is Flat: Berlin, Germany

In this episode of 'The World Is Flat' we take you to Berlin Germany. While I prefer to highlight  and showcase amateur riders representing flatland from around the world, we here at Mass-IMO don't discriminate against the pro's who represent, or their sponsors. So a big shout out to Camilo Gutierrez for shredding up Berlin, and his sponsor G-Shock for making it happen.

ROM: R-BOX Pro (Update)

This is a small update to the previous R-Box Pro post detailing how to upgrade the stock firmware to a newer version. I managed to stumble upon a forum discussion on freaktab.com that detailed how someone (alienpearl) managed to manipulate (hack/mod) the firmware for the R-Box Pro to run Android TV.  The post is here.

(this is not an image of the R-Box Pro's Android TV, just a version of Android TV)

Having successfully flashed this rom to my R-Box pro, I can honestly say that it works, and works quite well. It was a rather different experience than the normal android tablet/phone environment, and it accepted my webcam without any problems. While it was a new refreshing look, at what could be an alternative for android boxes, it was a bit primitive for my mainstream use. I could however see how this O/S implementation could convert the more non tech savvy, as it was quite simple.  

If you want to give this a try, follow my previous post on flashing the R-Box Pro, and substitute the new android tv rom image file instead of the firmware update image file. You can get the android tv rom from the forum mentioned above or directly from here.

2005 Yamaha BWS: Front Fairing

It's been over a year since I've posted an update about my 2005 Yamaha BWS rebuild. 

(image stolen from www, might have been my scooter)

My build is nothing like reality TV, where customized rebuilds are completed in weeks. There are many factors that have resulted in my build posts to taking so long, the most serious issue has been my inability to post to BLOGGER (which has been documented before). Other factors, like the cold weather, a cold workshop, postal shipping delays, and the whole trial and error process have added to this lengthy build. Finally there are all the problems I've been plagued with during this build. It's also a bit surprising that, parts for this model of scooter are harder to find, considering that it's a newer model.

Now on to the actual build...

Supermarket Life: Preferential Treatment?

Why is it people are always in a rush at the checkout tills? People can spend hours shopping, yet when they get to the checkout tills, they can't wait for more than a few minutes.

Hey everyone, I have to say I'm almost embarrassed in writing this post, as it's the most unusual chain of events in my 26 years of working in a retail supermarket.

The World Is Flat: Toronto, Canada

I want to give a big shout out to the Canadian Freestyle Organization, and the city of Toronto for putting on this event.

Full Disclosure #1: It seems flatland, and maybe the BMX scene itself, is moving away from the 90's grunge look, and back to what seems like a more retro 80's look. This is definitely something I'm looking forward to. I'm tired of seeing pro-riders with mismatched bike parts and sloppy mismatched paint schemes. If you're a pro rider, you're bike should look the part, like the black and yellow or the red and white bikes featured in the above video. Now before I start upsetting people, I get it if your a struggling rider with no money and have to make do with whats available. In the end its all about the riding, but if you're a pro rider and are doing competitions, or your making promo video's then put some effort into the BMX scene and have a bike that looks the part, please!

Full Disclosure #2: I love seeing full brake setups on BMX bikes. Maybe it's something nostalgic, maybe it's out of some primal safety concerns, but I honestly think BMX bikes look better with full brakes. Now I totally understand the skill level needed to do tricks without brakes, and I get that, but couldn't you still ride with brakes, just not use them for tricks. On the flip side, to riding with no brakes, what happened to the skill set of knowing how to feather brakes, it, in itself, was a challenging skill set to learn, which seems lost in today's BMX scene.

Awesome work, Steven Lapsley, on capturing this video, keep up the good work.

Link Exchange Is Now Open

I just added a link exchange menu to the Mass-IMO website. I will be adding links to it in the future, so reach out and let me know if you think you deserve to be on it.

New Media Center

It's been a few years that I've had to do without my beloved Yamaha surround sound home theater system. When Nadia and I moved in together I learned something new to me, that cats and speaker wire don't cohabitate well together. As a result of this new found knowledge, when we started renovating, I decided that not only are we going to run network wires throughout, but also surround sound speaker wires. This advanced renovation planning brought me one step closer to finally getting my home theater system back.

Besides stereo speakers being a great interactive knock down toy for cats, they are also really good at collecting dust. My solution to both these problems was to find a media center that would hide stereo speakers, and their wires. Now I looked at finding a media center at various home furnishing store, and high fidelity stereo stores, but I just couldn't justify paying the prices they were asking (yup, I'm a bit cheap).

Craigslist became my beacon of hope, as I decided it might be easier up cycling and old dresser into a more modern functional media center. I started my search looking for something made out of real wood, something strong, so as to support a large TV (my last dresser was made using some particle board material, and bowed under the TV's weight). I knew I wanted the top row to consist of three shallow drawers, as they would house my left, center, and right speakers. I also wanted a wide middle drawer to place my receiver and the whole dresser had to be less than 67.5 inches wide.

After months of searching on Craigslist, and many failed attempts to finalize a sale, I finally became the new owner of this.

The PRO's of this dresser is that it's 66 inches wide, it was made of some hardwood (I think it's cherry wood), and would house all my home theater components excellently and it only cost me $80. The only drawbacks is that it had some noticeable water damage to the finish (the wood was still in good shape) and it cost me $80. In hindsight, I should have brought Nadia with me to negotiate the price, she is so much better at haggling than I am.

My original plan, after getting this dresser home, was to sand it down and re-stain it. All the snow we got this year changed those plans. I was also going to simply remove the drawers and insert my stereo components, but I was growing rather fond of the beveled drawer faces, and I refocused my attention to keeping them. My solution was to order 2 inch speaker grills to allow for sound to come out while still maintaining the overall structure of the dresser. Once the grills arrived I cut 1 3/4 inch holes with a hole saw bit, and fastened the grills in place.

 I also used a dowel to fill in the drawer handle holes, lightly sanded the surfaces, and painted the dresser using a satin dark walnut paint.

Wood strips were used to braces the speakers in place. I also removed the middle drawer face and reattached it with t-hinges so as to be able to control the receiver when needed and hide it away when not. A hard drive magnet holds the middle drawer face closed when not being used.

 I think it turned out awesome, and above all its functional, with plenty of room to add game consoles and controllers. I still want to properly strip and re-finish this unit, but we'll have to wait for sunny weather.

The World Is Flat: Kumasi, Ghana

A big shout out to Anane Deco for this next flatland video!

Isn't this what flatland is all about? Cruising around, checking out new spots, having a good time, and just showing off your skills. Nicely done Anane Deco!

On a personal note, I just loved the scene (about 54 seconds in) where Anane Deco throws down a backyard between traffic, almost as if saying, this is my backyard no cars allowed.

ROM: R-BOX Pro

Before we dive in on updating the firmware of the R-BOX Pro, I wanted to give a little review (or maybe it's an insight into why I'm upgrading the firmware of my R-BOX Pro).

I purchased the R-BOX Pro, thinking that a new Octo-core (8 Core cpu) would vastly improve my TV viewing experience over my aging Quad-core (4 core cpu) OUYA game console/TV set-top box. In fact on paper the R-BOX Pro outperforms almost all existing android TV Set-top boxes on the market, with the exception of the NVIDIA Shield. With a price of $74 U.S. dollars it's quite inexpensive, seeing as 4 years ago I paid $125 U.S. dollars for my OUYA.

The World Is Flat: Lampung, Indonesia

The first installment of 'The World Is Flat' series comes to us from Lampung, Indonesia. While it's a rather short video, for me, it invokes those nostalgic feelings of flatland. Big shout out to Alif Raja for the video.

Supermarket Life: Preventing A Loss To The Business

I want to preface this post by saying I love my job, and it's because I love my job that I feel the way I do. The intention of this post is to demonstrate the real world environment one finds themselves in while working in the world of big supermarket chains. This post isn't meant to insult, degrade, or vilify anyone, but more importantly as a satirical look at the mundane world of supermarkets, and all the not so common sense policies and rules that make up that world.

Supermarket Life: 101

I'm starting a new category called 'Supermarket Life'. This category will give a brief insight into the world of supermarkets from the perspective of those of us employed in this industry. Many of the views and opinions will be purely and solely generated by me, but I encourage and welcome others to contribute.

If you have an idea for a segment, would like to contribute an article, or would like me to add to an existing article contact me via email.

Website Colors

Yesterday's post showed the new color scheme used on my updated media server. I liked this color scheme so much that I decided to change Mass-IMO's color to match. And so here we are with the newly redesigned Mass-IMO blog.
While I don't think the colors match exactly, its the closest I could get, so...if anyone knows the exact HEX# for RUST-OLEUMS Satin Oasis Blue, I would love to know it, so send me a message.