nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM

June 7, 2006

Hmm, so I’ve been thinking about a new camera lens. After reading reviews of the standardish zoom that I have, I’ve come to have the impression that it’s a pretty good lens, so I think I’ll stick with it.

That said, I’m thinking that it might be nice to get something a bit wider angle. Sigma offers the 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC HSM which looks fairly promising. It runs US$500 or so.

Mind if I ask if any of you have opinions on it?

The other lens I’m thinking would be nice to get is the Tokina AT-X 840 AF-II. It’s a 80-400mm zoom, and with that I’d have just about everything covered with zooms. Nothing especially fast, but it’s reasonable. It’s $650 and not quite available yet.

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Thumb Area Redux

June 5, 2006


Point Aux Barques Lighthouse
(Click for more photos…)

Yesterday I left my house, got a cheese sandwhich from Jimmy Johns, some gas, and a bit of cash. Then I headed east down 23 Mile Road to I-94 and up to Port Huron. Once in Port Huron I headed north / west along M-15 until I reached Port Austin, at the tip of the thumb. After that I wound my way south, eventually ending up near home. Then I grabbed some Thai food and went home. Not long after that it was time for bed.

So, let’s see… While that description was short, what sort of things did I see yesterday…

· The longest pedistrian suspension bridge in Michigan. (photo gallery retired)
· White Rock, which in 1807 indicated the furthest northeast point where non-native people could settle.
· What had once been a seagull.
· The Port Hope Chimney, a memorial to the original town.
· A true two-hole outhouse. (Yes, they really exist.)
· The Point Aux Barques Lighthouse.
· Huron City, an old logging company town which is now a National Historic District. (photo gallery retired)
· A Gadsden Flag flying on a museum.

Oh, and of course, lots of Lake Huron. It was quite a nice day. Despite both suddenly having a sore throat (which has lingered throughout today) in the middle of it and walking into this window† and hitting my head pretty hard I had a great time. It’s really nice to just get away and wander like that. I haven’t done such a thing since… Last weekend (in London) and the weekend before. And before that. Hmm. I think I notice a trend here.

Anyway, if you’d like to see all of the photos, they can be seen here: Thumb Area (June 4, 2006) (photo gallery retired)

† I was walking through this small room of vending machines, looking at them, and not really thinking. When in the room the glass appears pretty clear, and being floor to ceiling there was nothing to catch one’s eye. Also, the glass is in a location where one would typically locate a door. All of this together with my inattentiveness caused me to walk into the glass panel, solidly hitting the side of my head on it. Heh.

moved from livejournaloutdoorstravel

DS lite and MIDIbox SID-LC

June 2, 2006


Nintendo DS lite vs. Nintendo DS
(Click for more DS lite photos…)

Well, the photos of my Nintendo DS lite (photo gallery retired) are up. Like the phoot above there are also comparisons to the original DS. The screen is amazingly better. There’s almost no comparision… Oh, and the form of the device itself is much improved. The new one is so, so, so much nicer.

Also, last night I got that SID-based synth (which will hopefully become the for-sale MIDIbox SID-LC) to make its first sounds. At first I made this sample which has some background noise due to what I think is a bad SID. So, I then replaced the SID with a newer version one, supplied it with appropriate power, and got it to work. However, before I applied the proper firmware there was all manner of nifty glitchyness going on. Listen to this file right here for all the wonderful glitch: midibox_sid_first_-2.mp3

That was made by triggering a MIDIbox SID-LC prototype (stuffed with a MOS 8580R5) with an x0xb0x set to ‘Random’, occasionally switching back to keyboard mode and hitting a few keys.

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Nintendo DS lite

June 1, 2006


Pile of Nintendo DS lites at Meijer in Waterford, MI
(Click for more moblog photos…)

After some calling around, found that the Meijer store in Waterford, MI has Nintendo DS lites in stock. So, we headed over there at lunch and lo and behold, there they were. So, while I don’t really need it, I purchased one. After seeing ‘s DS lite when in the UK, I really had gear envy. Also, the better screen will be a lot nicer, especially when trying to play games in very bright or very dim rooms. (The brightness control will be a huge plus.)

I think I’ll wait until I get home to open it, though… I want to take step-by-step photos of the unboxing. For some reason.

Now, what to do with my Mario Kart DS…

Oh, and yes. That is ‘s crotch in that photo.

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SIDbox

May 31, 2006

Well, the SIDbox / whatever MIDI problems are sorted. I’m also able to load apps and things like that… The problem now is that it’s not making any sound. I’m not sure why yet, but that’s okay. At least one half of the device appears to be functioning as designed.

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Flowers & Patio Furniture

May 31, 2006


Vista Red and Vista Purple Salvia
(Click for all flower photos…)

No, my UK photos still aren’t uploaded. ‘s are, though. Well, somewhat. Not enough to link to yet.

Yesterday I took the time to (finally) plant flowers out front. I’d been wanting to wait until I returned from the UK so that I didn’t have to worry about finding someone to water them for me. I also planted the Chia Herb Garden thing which I’d had growing in the kitchen. I don’t know how well they will continue to grow outside, but it can’t hurt.

There are more photos of the flowers planted in 2006 here (photo gallery retired) if you would like to see them.

As a quick summary, I planted Vista Purple Salvia, Vista Red Salvia, Margarity Orange Portulaca, Liberty Lavender Snapdragons, and Regatta White Lobelia in the various flower holding spaces around my front porch. I also doubled the number of salvia plants in the rectangular planters on the front porch as opposed to previous years. Each box now has six plants, three each of red and purple. Hopefully they’ll grow well and provide some nicely mixed colors.

Now, back to more work… I just finished balancing my checkbook, which it was definitely needing. One and a half weeks of mixed currency charges, scheduled debits, and a few other things need a good bit of sorting out to handle. Fortunately I was sitting on a conference call for the better part of the morning, providing plenty of time to handle this.

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rez.nuxx.net

May 18, 2006

Gur. rez.nuxx.net threw some SMART errors on /dev/ad10. I’m thinking that box needs some replacin’.

I mean, I would just replace the disks, but I can’t quite take the server down for long enough to replace them all.

My current thoughts are that a Supermicro 1U with four large SATA disks (in hardware RAID 0+1) would be ideal. Unfortunately, I don’t think FreeBSD supports the ICH7 raid stuff directly.

Hmm, I’ll have to do some digging on this… Definitely won’t happen within the next few weeks, though.

computersmoved from livejournal

Dump Switch Support for Windows

May 18, 2006

Ah! I finally came across this again… I’d been looking for it:

Dump Switch Support for Windows

Yes, it’s a schematic of a NMI switch which fits into a PCI slot, and it’s provided by Microsoft. Quite nifty, in my opinion.

Also, add DWORD CrashOnCtrlScroll set to a value of 1 under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters to enable manual crashing when holding the right CTRL key and pressing Scroll Lock twice.

(This is documented for my purposes.)

computersmoved from livejournal

SIDbox… Goes Somewhere…

May 11, 2006


Well, power works.
(Click for more SIDbox photos…)

Well, the SIDbox PCBs came in today, and thusly, I assembled one. Well, as much of one as possible… I’m still waiting for some more sockets to arrive tomorrow, and then I need to finish building a PIC programmer. But after that I will hopefully have a working prototype of a single board SID-based sound module.

For background, I’m using what are basically a bunch of different designs from the MIDIbox projects, implemented by me on a single PCB. It will also run the MIOS software which Thorsten Klose has so kindly shared with the world. The main project has a bunch of small ‘modules’ which can be wired together and fitted together in a case to make a synth of one type or another. Well, I wanted a specific type, build portions of a number of the different modules, so I made just that.

I’ve actually been thinking seriously about selling these as kits, and after asking Thorsten (TK) about it in the MIDIbox Forum, I’m seriously thinking about doing it. If I do this, I’ll be merging 5 or 6 of the MIDIbox modules (I can’t remember right now — but it’s a good bit more hardware than seen above) on a single PCB and sticking it in a single case. With my design it’ll be possible (just with the main PCB) to have 8 buttons, an LCD, and all the stuffs I mentioned before. I’m still not sure if I want to do this work, but… I may… We’ll see. :)

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about SIDbox (photo gallery retired) photos, so I’ll link to some specific ones here:

· Mmm. SIDs. A MOS 6581, MOS 6581R3, and CSG 8580R5.
· The nifty note sent by along with some ridiculously generous SIDs.
· 600dpi scans of the finished PCBs. (photo gallery retired)
· Ahh, a nicely laid out array of six SIDbox PCBs.
· Ooh, and the SIDbox PCBs even fit in the enclosure. They fit a little too well, but that’s all right.
· Test fitting parts to be sure there won’t be any dimensional surprises when actually soldering. Everything looks good from here…
· Well, the power supply works. I was getting a solid 5VDC and 12VDC, which should be ideal for a MOS 6580 SID.
· The PCB with all parts fitted except for two sockets and all ICs.
· The bottom side of the SIDbox PCB, where one can see a hardware bugfix. After I ordered the boards I found out about a potential problem, and the blue wire should resolve that.
· The SIDbox PCB fitted with a PIC18F4620 to test on-board ICSP. It works.
· A photo which may look familiar to those of you who liked the laser printed board layout plus parts photo from before…

So, yeah. If I’m lucky I will have a working SID-based sound module either tomorrow or Saturday. If not, I’ll probably have a lot to learn… And I’ll be really upset with myself… We’ll see. For now, I’m pretty excited.

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