Remember those movies where you had to know a secret knock to open up a passageway? Now you can make your own! You can do some amazing things with Arduino. Steve Hoefer of http://projects.grathio.com/ has designed a simple but amazing secret knock door lock using only some PVC pipe, a servo, a microphone, a few LEDs, and an Arduino board! Check out this amazing video of what one person using Steve’s source code did with some style and ingenuity!

The BlackBerry 9800 which we’ve been waiting on for months has finally arrived.  A top secret training call with RIM took place today where they officially announced the most anticipated BlackBerry in years. The best news of all; the official release date? August 12th!

First off, RIM calling the 9800 Torch. The Torch is a slider touchscreen phone with a full qwerty keypad will also have a 5MP camera and OS 6.0, but this is old news.

The phone is available for authorized dealers to order today and will launch in stores on August 12th. Just  9 days away. In one week and two days, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 could be in your hands and ready for playing. In fact, the device’s release is so close that AT&T sales reps will be going through mandatory training on the device starting today!

This is great news guys!  I can’t wait to get my hands on a Blackberry  Torch!

Here’s a cool little guide I found that takes the long way around installing washers on the Xbox 360 Heatsinks to fix the RROD. I’ve done the repair 3 times my self for me and friends, so I can vouch that it works. I only had one time it didn’t work, and that Xbox was totally wasted. The guide has a little humor in it so it’s actually a good read even if you’ve never repaired one.

I recently purchased as Seagate 1.5 TB Barracuda LP Series of Hard Drives. They sell for about $99 bucks for OEM on Newegg or $109 Retail Boxed. I will keep this hardware review short.

AVOID THE SEAGATE 1.5 TB LP DRIVE AT ALL COST!!!

Here is a forum with hundreds of people with the same thoughts as me: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/252416-32-seagate-barracuda-st31500541as-loud-random-clicking-noise

My Seagate Barracuda LP (ST31500541AS) has about 900 GB on it and I woke up one day to it clicking repeatedly (The click of Death). Luckly it’s not really dead, after a power cycle it returned to normal functionality, but it clicks on access. Clicking is the sound the drive makes when it is recalibrating, which if it does too much can damage the head, or disk. I believe this issue is related the Seagate’s attempt to save energy by adjusting the spindle speed and a read error occurs.

People have reported that SMART scans and firmware updates have no effect, and that the OEM and retail versions are both likely to develop this problem.

I’m just waiting on the day I wake up and it’s totally dead. I wouldn’t want anyone else to make the same mistake I did. I know people with problems are more vocal about them then those who don’t, but this is one of those times where they are correct. Don’t buy this drive thinking you can take better care of it. This reminds me of the 6 GB Mini Disk drive I bought from Seagate years ago, remember those? It took me a few years (Three I think) To finally get it working… It was a manufacturing defect that was actually easily fixable. I may write about it too….

*Click Click*

*Click Click Click*

*Click* *Click*

*Click* *Click Click*

Toshiba has released a preview of their new “IT” tv that everyone is going to be wanting this year.

Powered by LED (KIRA2) backlighting, the 55- or 65-inch Cell TV features multiple eight-core 3.2-GHz processors. What does that mean? It’s 10 times faster than standard desktop computers and will have 143 times the processing power of today’s televisions, claims Toshiba.

Toshiba is promising the Cell TV will deliver exciting new features. The Cell TV includes a converter to make everything that’s normally 2-D on your screen — football games, videogames, Blu-ray movies and so on — pop out in 3-D when viewed through active shutter glasses. That’s where the processing power comes into play — frame-rate conversions and rendering.

Toshiba packs in even more. It also features a video camera, microphone and software for video conferencing over an internet connection. To get on the web, there’s an ethernet port and 802.11N Wi-Fi connectivity. Also, the Cell TV will have a software menu called Net TV Channels to download streaming content from Netflix, Vudu and other web-based video services. On top of that, the TV uses a technology called Net Super Resolution+ to reduce compression artifacts seen in web video content.

A number of manufacturers are claiming 2010 will be the year of the 3-D TV, but Toshiba is the first we’ve seen announce a full-blown internet TV. It’s not just a device; it’s also a platform that can be increasingly expanded with the power of the internet and downloaded applications. Other gadgets that operate with a similar idea include the Xbox 360, the iPhone and the PlayStation 3, which each also have online stores that enable consumers to add to the capabilities of the respective devices.

The keyboards we use everyday to most of us are called “QWERTY” keyboards, because they have that name because the top row of keys are arranged in that order. They did that to slow you down, so the heads on old typewriters wouldn’t catch on each other. We use it today, cause that’s what our teachers learned on and it just became “the norm”.

Here is a simple guide to make your own dvorak keyboard out of any old qwerty keyboard.

Just grab an old popkey keyboard from the graveyard, pop the keys off and rearrange the keys like so.

You’ll start out with this:

and end up with this:

Now to get windows to recognize it as Dvorak instead of qwerty, goto…

For Windows XP

1. Select Start->Control Panel.

2. If you’re viewing by categories (the default), click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.

3. Click Regional and Language Options.

4. Click the Languages tab

5. Click the Details button

6. Click the Add button

7. Under Keyboard Layout/IME, select United States-Dvorak (or Left- or Right-handed), then click OK.

8. If you want it to be default, select United States-Dvorak again in the Default input language pull-down

Then just press ok and your done!

Why use Dvorak?

• Learning: Dvorak is much easier to learn than QWERTY, especially for new typists. Beginning lessons designed for Dvorak can be much more productive (and interesting) because you can type thousands of real words on the home row.
• Speed: With careful training, it seems most QWERTY typists can switch to Dvorak and regain their old speed in about a month. After that, it’s all gravy.Some people have had trouble regaining their old speed. This seems to happen if they don’t give up QWERTY entirely while they retrain, or if they train too hard.If you have to type constantly and can’t afford to lose a few weeks’ work, I suggest you put off switching until you can take some time off.Although many people (including myself) achieve much higher speeds in Dvorak, a few have complained that they still can’t type much faster after switching, especially fast QWERTY typists (perhaps 60 or more WPM). Even so, they usually find Dvorak more comfortable.
• Comfort: Dvorak wins this contest hands down. The Dvorak keymap is carefully adapted to the English language. For example, most typing in Dvorak takes place on the home row, so your fingers and hands don’t have to move around so much. Dvorak also divides words more evenly between hands, so one hand isn’t typing whole words like agree, fact, grass, greater, opinion, regard…

The Dvorak keyboard layout is a free control panel option on every modern computer. Dvorak is a vastly more comfortable and efficient alternative to the old-standard “QWERTY” pattern, which was designed in the 1800s with no effective attempt at typing comfort.

Here is a quick lesson guide on learning Dvorak, it’s quite good as most Learn to type lessons are just rehashed qwerty typing courses. http://green.cx/dvorak-lessons

!!WARNING!! The following guide is provided without warranty of any kind. Changing firmware does not come without risk. Proceed at your own risk. Hey, if you do brick, you can try my next guide on recovering your Linksys WRT54GL’s firmware using tftp.

This guide explains how I flashed my Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 with  ddwrt version 24 preSP2 Build 12188 VPN firmware . You will need to flash to a smaller version of the dd-wrt firmware (the mini version) first due to a flash file size limit on the version 1.0 WRT54GL firmware before flashing to the standard, VOIP, or VPN versions. The mega version will not fit, so it’s not listed.

Step 1. Start by downloading the firmware:

You will need BOTH of those files. (Please note, they are for the Linksys WRT54GL ONLY)

Step 2. Update the Firmware to the Mini Generic.

The reason for this is, the mini firmware is small enough to get onto the router. Linksys’s firmware has a 3MB limit to firmware uploads.
Once the DDWRT mini firmware is on, that limit is increased, so then we can upload larger firmware images.

Be sure to give the router a few whole minuets to reboot after it says success. If you unplug the power while it’s booting the new firmware to the first time you could mess things up. So grab a beer, whatever and let it boot up. This applies after the next step aswell.

Step 3. After the router is rebooted, set a username and password and continue to update the firmware once again, to the DWRT VPN firmware, or which ever you perfer, as DDWRT comes in a few flavors. I wanted the VPN abality, which I’ll cover soon enough in another article.

And that’s it! It’s actually really simple when you break it down right?

Why would someone want to use DDWRT anyway? It’s been around for a few years now and I really don’t see that changing. It gives you incredible control over your home networking for the cost of a little time. It works on many routers, but the cheapest and easist method is just buying a Linksys WRT54GL in the first place. There’re under 60 bucks at newegg with free shipping. Can’t beat that for what you get, speaking of, here’s a breif feature list.

1. VPN
2. Better Port Forwarding
3. Bandwith Graphs
4. Wake on Lan features
5. Setup a Hotspot that’s either Paid, Free, or Ad-Driven(Yes earn ad revenue from others surfing), with Multiple SSID’s
6. Use the Wireless as a bridge instead of an Access point.

Photo’s coming soon.

What is CHDK? It’s a firmware enhancement (I like that word because it’s not a replacment) that work on many of Canons Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera’s memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware. The CHDK project allows users to non-destructively modify the firmware and write custom programs with new features.

CHDK is not a permanent firmware upgrade: you decide how it is loaded (manually or automatically) and you can always easily remove it.

Quick answers to 7 key questions about CHDK:

1. What is CHDK?

CHDK is not just one thing! The term CHDK refers to free software – currently available for many (but not all) Canon PowerShot compact digital cameras – that you can load onto your camera’s memory card to give your camera greatly enhanced capabilities.

2. Am I likely to be interested in CHDK?

The enhanced capabilities that CHDK provides are most likely to be of interest to experienced photographers – if you believe that your Canon PowerShot camera already has more features than you will ever need, you probably won’t be interested in CHDK.

3. Is CHDK safe to use?

Probably. See this page for more information

4. How does CHDK work?

CHDK makes use of the microprocessor that controls the camera (every digital camera contains a microprocessor) to act as a programmable computer that provides the extra capabilities.

5. What extra capabilities does CHDK provide?

The current set of extra capabilities fall into six categories:

a. Enhanced ways of recording images – you can capture still pictures in RAW format (as well as JPEG), and for video images you can have increased recording time and length (1 hour or 2 GB), and a greatly increased range of compression options.

b. Additional data displays on the LCD screen – histogram, battery life indicator, depth of field, and many more.

c. Additional photographic settings that are not available on the camera by itself – longer exposure times (up to 65 seconds), faster shutter speeds (1/25,000 sec, and faster in some cases), automatic bracketing of exposure, etc.

d. The ability for the camera to run programs (‘scripts’, written in a micro-version of the BASIC language) stored on the memory card – these programs allow you to set the camera to perform a sequence of operations under the control of the program. For example, a camera can be programmed to take multiple pictures for focus bracketing, or take a picture when it detects that something in the field of view moves or changes brightness.

e. The ability to take a picture, or start a program on the memory card, by sending a signal into the USB port – you can use the USB cable to take a picture remotely.

f. The ability to do a number of other more useful (and fun) things, such as act as a mini file browser for the memory card, let you play games on the LCD screen, etc.

6. What else should I know?

Developers around the world are continuing to add new features to CHDK. Because the idea of using the camera’s microprocessor is so flexible, various developers have made different versions of CHDK, and new features continue to be developed – for example, one version of CHDK has features assist in taking stereo photographs, and even allows two cameras to be synchronized to take pictures at the same time (with an accuracy of better than 0.1 milliseconds, providing they are the same camera model).

7. How do I get started with CHDK?

See CHDK for Dummies and the Firmware Usage page !!!

(http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ , http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_for_Dummies and http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_firmware_usage)

A sampling of those additional features/functionality.

Main features:

• Save images in RAW format
• Ability to run “Scripts” to automate the camera
• Live histogram (RGB, blended, luminance and for each RGB channel)
• Zebra mode (blinking highlights and shadows to show over/under exposed areas)
• An “always on” full range Battery indicator
• Ability to turn off automatic dark-frame subtraction
• a higher compression movie mode, and double the maximum video file size
• exposure times as long as 65 seconds
• exposure times as little as 1/10,000 of a second
• ability to use the USB port for a remote trigger input

Additional features:

• a depth-of-field (DOF)-calculator
• File browser
• Text reader
• Calendar
• Some fun tools and games

Why would I want to use CHDK?

• To get Raw file capability on cameras that don’t have that ability
• To get the ability to use scripts
• to be able to know the battery status at all times (not just when it’s about to run out of power)
• you want or need any of the other enhancement features that CHDK provides

What are scripts? Scripts are BASIC language programs that give you the ability to control the operation of the camera under program control. They have been used to add or extend the native capability of the camera: more flexible intervalometers, extended-range exposure compensation, extended bracketing ability, lightning photography, etc. See the script pages for more details.

Beyond “Standard” CHDK

Several developers have extended the basic features of CHDK to add additional major functions. You’ll find these extended features in “special builds”.

There are several “Motion Detection” versions available that allow scripts to detect when motion (or any change in light intensity) occurs in one or more predefined regions of the images (the script can then take a photograph, a video, start a timer, etc) and there are some *very* cool applications based on this implementation.

There is a “Stereo Data Maker” (SDM) version, specifically geared to stereo image applications (which also incorporates the Motion Detection routines).

Additional video compression options (more or less), and the ability to go beyond the 1 Gbyte limit.

Use your USB port as a remote control / “cable release”.

See the CHDK Special Builds section at the bottom of the front page for more information, and then follow the links to the developers’ pages for the details.

]]> http://green.cx/dark-tech/chdk-canon-cameras-feet-wet/feed/ 1 http://green.cx/hardware/share-pc-multiple-users/ http://green.cx/hardware/share-pc-multiple-users/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:32:40 +0000 +Jason http://blog.jhawk.ws/?p=28
There's been a lot of buzz lately about sharing computers with multiple users at the same time. I found one of these setups recently as I was researching them...]]>

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about sharing computers with multiple users at the same time. I found one of these setups recently as I was researching them. I’m still too afraid to try one out. It seems like they would be problematic, and any support calls would double or triple because If one station goes down, that’s 2 or 3 people unable to work….
http://www.rose.com/datasheet/multistationpcquad.pdf or http://www.rose.com/htm/multistationcatx.htm