Category: moved from livejournal

June 5, 2007

Aphids on my Salvia!

~~This afternoon~~ Yesterday (thanks for continuing to be crappy, LJ) while taking a break from poking with the DS Browser I went to water the plants. What did I find? Aphids all over the just-budded Salvia! These weren’t there yesterday, but had already seriously damaged one large stem (I figure they weakened it and the wind caused it to snap) so I wanted to do something about them.

A quick bit of research actually pointed me to a page on growing Salvia divinorum and specifically mentioned aphids andthe use of Pyrethrin-based insecticide for killing them. I decided to go with this, as it’s approved for use on food and can be applied the same day as harvest. I figured that this wasn’t too unfriendly to the environment, so I hurried out to Home Depot to find some.

I ended up picking up a bottle of Garden Safe-brand Houseplant & Garden Insect Spray, which contains 0.01% Pyrethrins and 1.00% Canola Oil, coming home, and soaking down the Salvia. I didn’t see any aphids on either the chilis or the rosemary (I figure they keep insects away themselves) nor elsewhere, so I only gave the other flowers a quick mist. Any ants hit with the stuff stopped pretty quickly.

Hopefully ~~tomorrow~~ today (thanks again, LJ) I won’t see any more aphids. If I do I’ve still got half a bottle of the spray left. I’d rather not use it, but I also don’t want my flowers to have their juices sucked until they die. :(

around the house moved from livejournal

Nintendo DS Browser

June 4, 2007

Nintendo DS Browser (Opera for Nintendo DS)

Guess what’s out? Yep, Opera for the Nintendo DS. Inside the package is a huge manual, Memory Expansion Pak [sic], and the software cartridge itself.

It seems to work pretty well thus far, although it doesn’t appear to support Flash, as Meatspin just didn’t display. Nor did YouTube content. Poopy. Google Maps seems to work, just very slowly. I haven’t had a chance to try Gmail yet.

UPDATE: Gmail seems to work fine. And I purchased it at Target for $29.99. I had called a GameStop earlier and the person answering the phone quoted a price of $34.99 and insisted that it must be preordered, and that there is no other way to get it on Wednesday.

acquired things computers games moved from livejournal

Buds!

June 2, 2007

One of the first buds on the Victoria Blue Salvia Farinacea.

The salvia in front of my house was fairly small when planted, and since then it has grown to a rather decent size without flowering. I’ve never grown a larger variety before, but I guess it buds rather late. At this point normal salvia would already have a good load of flowers on it.

The habernero chilis I planted have already begun to bud as well. I’m curious / nervous about these, as I’m slightly afraid I won’t be able to use the whole crop.

Also, when out to get Thai food I stopped by Lowe’s, returned a light bulb (wrong kind for my needs), and purchased an upside down feeder and some seed blend. This sort of feeder / seeds is designed for goldfinches. While I don’t desire to feed just one kind of bird, I’m hoping that the combination of hulled sunflower seeds, thistle, and the small opening on the feeder will help cut down on waste and keep various non-grass plants from growing in the grass below the feeder.

around the house moved from livejournal

Cable Management Is Fun!

June 1, 2007

Rack, cabled, ready to go.
(Click for full size image…)

Last night, in preparation for the coming (on the 6th, I hope) Mac Pro I decided to re-cable my office. Back in 2003 just before I first acquired my Power Mac G5 (photo gallery retired) (when the Power Mac G4 Cube (photo gallery retired) was my only Mac) I set up my office in what is generally its current configuration, with the large O’Sullivan Diplomat L-shaped desk, black wire rack, torch lamp, vertical bookshelf, etc.

Since then I’ve changed things slightly, but most of what I’ve done is just add on additional cruft (cabling) to the things without pulling out much of the unused stuff. Well, last night I pulled out a large pile of various cables from both behind my desk and behind the rack and cleaned everything up. I also pulled the VCR out of the stack, moved the DV bridge to beneath the computer, eliminated the USB 1.1 and FireWire hubs, etc.

With all this cabling done in the rack I was able to directly plug everything in smoothly, and the Mac Pro should fit in just as well. Beyond the MP, the rack also holds a JetDirect, HP LaserJet 5L, Formac StudioTVR (TV Tuner / DV Bridge), APC SmartUPS 1400, USB 2.0 hub, and two external hard disks. This is connected to the desk via a cable trunk which maintains a 1″ separation or right-angle crossing between data cables and power lines. On the desk there is a USB 2.0 hub, iPod cable, USB 2.0 CF/SD reader, speakers, LCD, keyboard, and mouse. It is all connected without any cables hanging on the floor or even visible beneath the desk, just how I like it. (I’ll post photos of the wholly done office once it’s… done.)

Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to finish moving everything to compact fluorescent lighting too. Right now I’ve got a 30W Sunwave full spectrum bulb in a lamp on the desk, but I need to redo the diffuser for it. A coworker gave me some 14W bulbs I’ll use in the ceiling fan in place of the extra-hot halogens, and I’ll move the torch lamp to some manner of CF spotlight. I’m putting X10 controls back on all lighting (except the ceiling fan), and I’ll probably put an X10 switchplate next to the normal one.

Then it’ll just be a matter of dusting a bit more, straightening up things in the closet, and waiting for the Mac Pro to arrive and I’ll be done with my office. Yay!

around the house computers moved from livejournal

Injured Dragonfly

June 1, 2007

Beheaded Dragonfly, Still Living
(Click for larger image…)

While driving home from work ~~today~~ yesterday (LJ has been giving me posting fits) I noticed an injured dragonfly on the seat next to me. I took it home, occasionally carrying it on my finger, and took some pictures of it. As you can see above, it seems pretty injured. It would only move around using some of its legs, always staying in that head-tilted-forward / almost-handstand position.

After taking some pictures and letting it set next to me for a while, I took it outside and set it next to the rosemary bush to die.

The other alternative was to kill it quickly with ether, but I didn’t really want to do that.

Anyway, all of the photos can be seen here (photo gallery retired).

Around midnight I went outside to look at it, and it was just barely moving. It still seemed alive, though. :(

around the house moved from livejournal

PowerMac G5

May 29, 2007

Well, thanks to the help of a friend I now have a Mac Pro on the way to me at a rather nice price. I’ve also ordered the extra RAM it needs to fit my needs. In the end it’ll be a quad core Xeon 2.66 GHz box with 3GB of RAM, 1x250GB and 4x320GB hard disks (two internal, two external for backups), and all my old peripherals.

That said, I’m now selling my Power Mac G5. If any of you are interested, I’ll give you first crack at it. I’m asking US$1500, and it is as follows:

Dual 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5 (PowerPC)
3.5GB RAM
2x 160GB Hard Disk
DVD Writer (SuperDrive)
All Original Software (Yes, I can ensure that Classic is on it.)
OS X 10.4 (Legal, Licensed, Boxed Retail Copy which I had purchased separately)
All original packaging, accessories, and cabling.
Apple Mighty Mouse

It’s been real well cared for, hasn’t left the air conditioned / non-smoking room it’s been housed in since I got it, and hasn’t ever had any problems. All but 512MB of the RAM was purchased from Crucial and is under their lifetime warranty.

I will ship it anywhere in the world, but please remember that the Power Mac G5s are mighty heavy. The case is beautiful, but it’s also a large hunk of solid aluminum.

This machine makes for a great photo / video editing workstation and is probably a bit overpowered for normal desktop use. Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator, all of those run great on it.

Oh, and it will run OS X 10.5 which is slated to be released this year — buying this machine isn’t a dead end of any sort.

acquired things computers moved from livejournal

Airport Extreme makes for working internets.

May 25, 2007

My new-ish network setup.

While the Airport Express + Cable Modem beneath the couch setup I put together back in January was working well for a while, within the last two weeks or so it’s started to become especially problematic. Last night I put a call into Comcast because the connection seemed to be dying fairly regularly. And by regularly, I mean many times per day. Eventually yesterday came around and I couldn’t really get it to come back at all.

After I had a case submitted and an appointment scheduled for next Saturday I did a bit more digging and found the actual problem: neither of my Apple Airport Expresses would link any more. I had this problem with one of them a while back, but I’d sort of forgotten about it. Now the other one was refusing to link.

Thinking that it was an autonegotiation problem I flipped it to 100/Full and that fixed the problem for about six hours. After that the PC light on the cable modem once again went out (indicating no link), would no longer light after many reboots / resets of each device. I then brought out my laptop and found that there were no problems linking to there. I tried a few other devices and the cable modem could link with them as well. Then I knew the problem was the Airport Expresses.

Since I don’t currently own a device which has AppleCare they are both out of warranty. With the Somerset Apple Store being closed I had to either pay full price (I normally get Student Discount), wait a week for shipping, or drive out to the Apple Store in 12 Oaks Mall. Fortunately today found me leaving work early to run down to the RenCen to pick some things up, and with me downtown at 2:15pm, I figured it wouldn’t be too far out of the way to swing by Novi on the way home.

While I hit a few slow bits of traffic (I-94 between I-75 and I-96), most of it moved surprisingly well. I-696 was horribly backed up going westbound, but not where I was going.

Anyway, long story short, things are working much better now. The shared hard disk thing is interesting (mounts HFS+ and FAT32, at the very least, but partitions can’t be edited), the built-in switch has allowed me to use my JetDirect, wired network on the G5 (hopefully Mac Pro soon), and provide a link for the workbench. I’ve had no dropped connections at all, and the Airport Expresses are all set up as clients of the main base station (no WPA) to save on bandwidth, and music can stream out as desired.

around the house computers moved from livejournal

Fibrament-D

May 22, 2007

13 3/8″ x 17 1/2″ Fibrament-D baking stone in my oven.
(Click for more photos…)

Well, the 13 3/8″ x 17 1/2″ Fibrament-D baking stone I ordered from bakingstone.com arrived yesterday. After my previous sandstone stone broke while baking this pizza I had to get a new one. While I thought I could do without, I soon realized that I do almost all of my bread and pizza baking on a stone, and I’ve been unable to make fresh or frozen pizzas at home!

Following along with the directions packed in with the stone I put it in the oven to temper it. This needs to be done by raising the temperature of the stone 100°F every hour until it reaches 500°F, then holding it there for two hours. This is to dry and temper the stone and get it ready for use. Doing this reminds me of the time I made a stand for my PowerMac G5 from 6061 aluminum and brought it to a T6 temper in my oven (photo gallery retired), except it smells of damp concrete instead of metal.

One interesting thing is that the top of the stone is rough almost like natural stone, and the bottom is textured almost like cardboard, which leads me to believe that it is poured into a form before setting.

The rest of the photos can be seen in my Fibrament-D photo album (photo gallery retired), if you are so inclined.

acquired things food moved from livejournal

RS232 to Eaton Leonard Interface Prototype

May 22, 2007

Completed Prototype PCB

Well, after about five hours of working this evening (after laying out the board in free time at work) I’ve finished the prototype PCB for the project I’ve been working on for a friend’s company.

As with the last few boards I’ve done, I etched it in the laundry room, as the laundry tub and large flat surface makes for a good place to work. (Photo of PCB being exposed.)

Then I drilled the board, breaking more PCB drill bits than I like to. Next came manual bridging of vias (which is a really awful chore), and then finally assembly. After I had it put together I powered it up, probed around for shorts, and generally confirmed that it wouldn’t explode.

Tomorrow I’ll confirm that the pinout of the board is as expected, and hopefully I’ll be able to deliver it at lunch time. If it works I’ll (hopefully) have some production boards made for them. I stayed late at work avoiding traffic and worked up a first draft of a mostly-SMT board layout, fitting in ~30mm x ~85mm. If I end up producing these boards I can see the final product being something like this, should I choose to do it SMT.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get to unpack the new baking stone, the new x0xb0x kit, and maybe just relax a bit. For now it’s bed time. Goodnight.

electronics making things moved from livejournal

HMLiberator Assembled

May 18, 2007

First HMLiberator Assembly with Honda Music Link

Well, there’s an assembled version of the first HMLiberator, strapped to the top of a Honda Music Link. This is very similar to what the final assembly will look like, except the ISCP connector will not be soldered on, the part will be encased in shrink tubing, and there will likely be slightly different cable / connectors used.

I still have a good ways to go on the software. If connected it’s possible to use all controls on the iPod to play music and hear it through the stereo (the initial goal), but I still have to address the following things:

· iPod does not pause / power off when vehicle is powered off.
· HML continues charging iPod while vehicle is powered off. (HML’s software is hanging and not cutting power to the iPod.)
· Attempting to change track on the head unit hangs the HML. (I think it’s not getting the response it desires.)

I think most of these are just a matter of getting the false polling mode, track change responses, and things like that working. After I get back from up north (and get the serial level converter prototype made) I’ll put together another serial sniffer and get back to work on the software.

automotive electronics moved from livejournal