[Techtalk] Soldering irons (OT?)

[Rasjid Wilcox]

Ever since my early teens I wanted a soldering iron.  But neither my 
grandmother (who I grew up with) nor my mother and step-father were really 
into such things, and so I never had one.

Well, I'm now in my 30s and, damit, I'm going to get myself one.  And some 
electronic components to play with.  (And an Xbox to put Linux on - which 
requires a soldering iron if you want to flash the bios and run it 
exclusively as a Linux server.)

I've been to Dick Smith's electronics, and my question is:
Do I get a 25 watt soldering iron, or a 40 watt?  Particularly with things 
like linking the jumpers required to flash the bios on a Xbox, it is not 
clear to me that 'bigger is better'.  Or do I get both?

And on a similar vein, muti-meters.  There were some cheap ones (under AUD$50) 
and there were quite a few expensive ones (over AUD$100).  I'm currently 
assuming that a cheap one is fine for learning with, but is it worth 
investing in a good one?

And can anyone suggest a good book for teaching myself stuff.  I have a degree 
in Maths and did one year of physics, so something at intermediate level that 
ideally briefly covers the basics would be good.  Either online references or 
books.

Mostly I'm interested in playing around with stuff.  I'd like to make a 
home-made home security system (hey, Linux on an XBox could work here too!), 
and do a little home automation (turn on the watering system etc).

Cheers,

Rasjid.

* My appologies about the frequent Xbox references, but I just got one for 
AUD$228 to put Linux on, and really, it seems to me such a cheap way of 
getting a very quiet low-powered linux box.  I hope that all the info on the 
xbox-linux site works as expected.

-- 
Rasjid Wilcox
Canberra, Australia (UTC +11 hrs)
http://www.openminddev.net