So as you can probably tell I’ve been a bit busy last few months. However, I’ve been very busy with Arduino related stuff for both Medway Makers and Maidstone Hackspace, […]

I finally had some free time to make something fun and decided to write a new game for the Attiny85 ssd1306 keychain.  I reused the sleep, display and interrupts code from the “Breakout” game I created a while ago. This time I wanted a more addictive game. The game had to be playable using just … Continue reading Attiny85 UFO Escape Keychain Game

Over the past few weeks, I have been ‘secretly’ unfollowing people on my Facebook feed that re-post or share click-bait posts or wildly unbelievable posts. However, I have noticed that I am rapidly shedding ‘friends’ so I thought this would … Continue reading →

This is a helper class to split an area up into increasingly smaller areas.

In October last year, I got the opportunity to build a RepRap Huxley pro 3D printer for a community crafts centre based in Ashford, Kent. The craft centre wanted a means to demonstrate to its hub of artists how to incorporate new technologies such as 3D printing into their studio work, to create never before seen creations. By building the Huxley it provided me the confidence to build my own 3D printer, which in a series of posts I'm going to discuss further.

I decided to light up the Snow Shades by MakerBot for a party using an Attiny and some LEDs. I mocked up LED position and animation: Then worked out the wiring using the Attiny’s 5 pins. Modified the model in Blender to allow space for the microchip and LEDs. Model files on Thingiverse. Using strands … Continue reading Attiny85 Charlieplexed Makerbot Snow Shades

My FLiR Lepton Thermal Camera Module has finally arrived from the USA. I managed to hook it up to my Raspberry Pi yesterday and successfully receive thermal images from it. The […]

Helper class which will load in a png and convert it ready for display in a X window.

It would seem that everyone and their dog are getting their own Quadcopter or quadrotor (often misreported in the media as a drone, but that’s another story). A recent build day ran by Reading Hackspace allowed me to jump into their … Continue reading →

Occasionally you may find that a notable Twitter profile may remove tweets, or be shut down before preservation can be initiated by the forensic examiner. Should this be the case, you may be required to refer to caching services such as Google Cache or Twicsy for example. I recently had need to evidence data found on Twicsy, however the web interface isn't exactly forensic friendly when it comes to how it displays the data. Twicsy.com is a Twitter picture search engine, which appears to duplicate the original textual data from a tweet containing an image, and stores this information on their own web server. The image from a tweet is simply referred to from the source, and if the tweet is deleted or the profile removed, you'll find the image won't exist any more. However the textual data does still remains on Twicsy's website despite the original tweet not existing. After discovering this I wrote a ruby script to extract each of the archived tweets and place it into a format which is readable.

Crikey, nearly 3 weeks since my last post. Apologies if you’ve been waiting on part 3 of The Arduino Academy, but I’ve got slightly sidetracked lately with several things. Firstly, […]

Simple extended dir function for inspecting xcb.

Here is a nifty solution designed to populate a google map with geo location markers and infowindow popup boxes. Please enable iframes to view the content First you’ll need to get a Google Maps API developer key. Then we need to prep the data — we need a csv table with a title, content, latitude … Continue reading Loading CSV markers data into Google Maps API

Also known as “When responsible disclosure gets you no-where, make them listen by going public” but it didn’t have such a good ring to it. So, to the meat of the business. I have a Nokia Lumia 920 which a … Continue reading →

So I present to you Lesson 2 from The Arduino Academy – Basic Outputs: Look out for further lessons: Lesson 3 – Basic Inputs (Digital) Lesson 4 – Basic Inputs […]

Short review of "Effective Python"

So if you get a blue screen of death when using a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet on your desktop, the Wacom driver may be to blame. The error message reads DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE 0x0000009f In my case the issue was preceeded by the tablet switching off when I plugged the usb cable in. To fix the issue, … Continue reading Blue Screen of Death Caused by Wacom Driver

Following a recent discussion I had with a university dive club member about a request to remove a back-link from a now dead forum from a travel insurance company, I thought I’d take this opportunity to delve into the mystical … Continue reading →

So, here is my first video for The Arduino Academy. This lesson will introduce you to the #Arduino, tell you what an Arduino is and what you can use it […]

Using X build a desktop, learn to package and deploy it and create a login screen.

Please enable iframes to view content. There are plenty of ways to use your equirectangular panoramas online. The main downside of the programs offering this functionality is the fiddly time consuming process you have to go through to publish the panoramas online, whether they have been saved as an .swf or as an html package. … Continue reading Virtual Tour Online Embedder

Sorry for it being such a long time since my last post. I have been so busy with other non-Arduino related things that I’ve barely had time to update the […]

Example demonstrating handling X keybaord events.

I’ve seen different attempts to make the dropdown menus work intuitively on touch devices and while some are trying to utilise the double tap (not the best as this triggers zoom) and various jquery contraptions, all you need is for the top level link to ignore the first tap and let the user see the … Continue reading Hover compatibility of dropdown menus on touch devices.

I’ve resurrected the Sensor Node project and I am experimenting in reducing the power consumption even further. This time I’ve removed the 3.3v voltage regulator from the circuit and I’ve […]

Example demonstrating handling X mouse events.

Design software is becoming more functional and sophisticated but as far as productivity goes — us humans still have to press the buttons to make stuff happen. Don’t get me wrong, if you are just starting out in design college it is ok to mouse through the menus to get to a function for those … Continue reading Use Wacom tablet’s buttons to streamline your workflow

Example on creating new window and attaching them to the root window.

Since my last attempt at using an ESP8266 to get the date and time from the internet I’ve tried out another module, this time with the NodeMCU firmware. This is […]

So, what can you do with Attiny’s 5 i/o pins? UPDATE: New game, “UFO Escape” side scroller I saw this great Attiny OLED project on http://tinusaur.wordpress.com/ and decided to try out the screen (It will be very handy as a mode display for a remote for my http://orb.photo/ project) So I set out to make … Continue reading Attiny85 Breakout Keychain Game

Short review of "App Accomplished"

So i’ve obtained some ESP8266 WiFi modules lately and have been having a play with them. If you’ve not heard of the ESP8266 they are tiny serial controlled WiFi modules […]

This is a 500 RGB pixels ceiling I made, the project was done in March 2013 and has been working non stop every day since then. The ceiling is installed in the kids department of The Golden Boot shoe shop.  

Example on detecting screen sizes and number of screens in a multi head setup.

I was sent a link to to the following great article on power saving techniques for microprocessors and in particular the ATMEga328P which is the chip used in the Arduino. […]

A nice use for the Attiny85 — a canon DSLR infrared remote. Parts required Attiny85 microcontroller NPN transistor 3.3 or 5 V voltage regulator Pushbutton Infrared led 12v car key/alarm battery Some copper clad board Design the PCB   Tweak the design for better looks in Illustrator (Download printable PDF) Print and transfer the pcb … Continue reading Attiny85 Canon DSLR IR Remote

Query available extensions and checking for availability.

Debugging XCB and catching errors and exploring the library.

This example shows how to get properties and use atoms.

Howto get a list of open windows and there titles.

Using launchpad we will create a ppa which will automatically generate your package from the standard debian packaging files.

Populate a listbox with custom widgets, in this case an example file downloader.

Howto create a new project and push it to launchpad.

Short review of "From Mathematics to Generic Programming"

OpenGL program that does pixel shading, OpenGL pixels with size and textures often used for particle effects.

Simple example on how to setup, connect to and trigger signals.

Kivy example draw two cubes with different shaders and vertices so they can be moved seperately.

Short review of "OpenGL ES 3.0 programming guide"

Kivy example on setting up a display and drawing a basic triangle

Kivy example drawing a square and loading an image and applying to the quad as a simple texture.