How-To: IR Remote Control your Computer – Engadget
For today’s how-to we spent some time rummaging around in our parts box to build a serial IR remote interface for our PC. We took a few pieces from various designs to come up our own, built specifically to work with WinLirc or LIRC; it can transmit and recieve IR signals, just imagine the possibilities.
Is it me or does Sourceforge just suck lately?
In the last 3 months it seems that half the time I’ve wanted to download something hosted by them I cannot connect. I’ve tried from home, both my web servers, and work and the connection times out from all locations.
[update:]
Now that I’ve complained about it things have improved. The preferred mirror options seems to be working correctly and downloads are once again fast.
Making hobbyist PCBs with professional CAD tools
Very cool tutorial on using EagleCAD to design a circuit and etch a board with the toner transfer method.
Intro Making hobbyist PCBs with professional CAD tools
It’s nice that there are some professional circuit board tools available to the hobbyists. Here are some tips for using them ito design boards that don’t need a professional fabricator to actually MAKE them…
dailywireless.org – WiFi Routers for Cars
Daily Wireless has a small roundup of Stompbox alternatives. All of them are cheaper and at least one offers a GPS option.
Travelers this summer will be able to stay plugged in at broadband speeds using The WavBoard CM3 ($379.00), by Omniwave, one of the first broadband cellular routers specifically designed to be used in a moving vehicle.
The family and I made a spur of the moment trip to Galveston this weekend and took the stompbox with us.
I didn’t spend anytime on line but my wife was able to surf the web and IM with people for the whole trip. The connection didn’t drop once in 250 miles.
There’s a new mp3 player in the gnome world. May have to check it out when Dapper stablilzes and I get mp3 and m4a files working with gstreamer again.
With listen you can
* Play your favorite songs
* Manage your library
* Manage your ipod
* Make playlists
Voyage – Software | Voyage Linux
Weighing the options for another distro to use on the stompbox. Alternately I may consider Pebble x Voyager which adds the Voyager packages to an existing Pebble Linux.
Voyage Linux is a Debian sarge-based distro (voyage) built from scratch. It is best run on a x86-based embedded platform such as Soekris 45xx/48xx and WRAP boards. It can also run on low-end x86 PC platforms. Typical installation requires 64MB disk space, although larger storage allows more packages to be installed. Voyage Linux is so small that it is best suitable for running a full-feature firewall, wireless access point, VoIP gateway and network storage device.
Link Right 2 » Top Secret Gas Pill
If any of you gas pill believers really wants to convince me that this works send me a month supply and I’ll post the results here. I drive a 2000 Olds minivan. My commute is 60 miles round trip and we average one trip a month of ~500 miles. Including nights out, church, visits to friends and shopping we drive about 2200 miles a month and will fill up about 6 or 7 times.
I’m posting a challenge over on lr2 for any of the gas pill believers out there to prove to me that this stuff works.
A cool looking emulator. I’m going to give this a look tonight and see if I can start understanding how to build something with a PIC.
KTechlab provides a powerful environment for electronic circuits and microcontrollers. This includes simulation of a variety of components (logic, integrated, linear, nonlinear and reactive), simulation and debugging of PIC microcontrollers via gpsim, and its own closely-linked and complementary high level languages: FlowCode and Microbe.
It has also been designed to be as easy to use and unintrusive as possible; all components and FlowParts have context sensitive help, and simulating electronics is as simple as dragging components onto the work area and creating connectors that autoroute themselves between their pins. FlowCode allows users new to PICs to instantly create their own programs, while the electronic simulation allows stepping through a PIC’s assembly program inside a circuit.
Future project idea. If for no other reason than to learn how IR remotes work.
This project describes an innovative multimedia thermometer of great visual impact.* The temperature is shown on an ordinary TV with crisp, full color graphics.
* To add more magic, pictures can be animated, and stereo CD-quality audio announcements can accompany every temperature change.
* Pictures can be varied according to the application.
