DonsDeals

Table Top Touch Screen, Bootstrapper recognizes users interacting with the table by observing their shoes using depth cameras.

2012-01-15T23:14:00.001-06:00

Recognizing Tabletop Users by their Shoes

Bootstrapper recognizes users interacting with the table by observing their shoes using depth cameras.

Summary of CHI 2012 note

In order to enable personalized functionality, such as to log tabletop activity by user, tabletop systems need to recognize users. DiamondTouch does so reliably, but requires users to stay in assigned seats and cannot recognize users across sessions. We propose a different approach based on distinguishing users’ shoes. While users are interacting with the table, Bootstrapper observes their shoes using one or more depth cameras mounted to the edge of the table. It then identifies users by matching camera images with a database of known shoe images. When multiple users interact,
Bootstrapper associates touches with shoes based on hand orientation. The approach can be implemented using consumer depth cameras because (1) shoes offer large distinct features such as color, (2) shoes naturally align themselves with the ground, giving the system a well-defined perspective and thus reduced ambiguity. We report a simple study in which Bootstrapper recognized participants from a database of 18 users with 89% accuracy, based on a single observed frame.

Publication

	Richter, S., Holz, C., Baudisch, P. Bootstrapper: Recognizing Tabletop Users by their Shoes. In Proceedings of CHI 2012, 4 pages (Note).

Go there...
http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/projects/bootstrapper.html

Video

Bootstrapper: Recognizing Tabletop Users by their Shoes

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G4TPlCJtXR0

Interesting... I wonder why they aren't using Facial Recognition? Facial Recognition has been working pretty well for quite a few years now. And with very inexpensive 320x240 Resolution Web Cams. I have tried out Facial Recognition Security Software that can recognize you, after a quick setup. Much like setting up a Game Controller. Then you can login to your Computer, by just gazing into the Camera. You can read more on that, here... Use Facial Recognition Software to automatically login to your Computer. I have also tried out some Open Source Software on WinXP, that will let you use most anything as a Mouse. Your eyes, hand, objects, like markers or pretty much anything that you can wave in front of the Camera. There's more info on that here...
http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2010/07/python-ir-tracking-for-handicapped-hack.html

And then there's the Retinal Scanning Method...

The rise of eye-tracking computers

By John Herrman | Nov 10, 2010 | 2 Comments

Beeping, flashing retinal scanners are a constant, and dare I say tired, fixture in films. And why not? They serve as convenient shorthand for wealth and technological sophistication, and their utility is easy to convey.

The thing is... We cab all change our Shoes... But, we don't often Change our Faces... I can see a rash of Shoe Theft, in their Future!:O Oh, the Security Risks!!!;) I guess then, they could just go Bare Foot!;)

Don

Table Top Touch Screen Bootstrapper recognizes users by observing their shoes using depth cameras: Nice shoes, wanna recognize some input? - Hack a Day; Hasso-Plattner-Institut: Bootstrapper; Bootstrapper: Recognizing Tabletop Users by their Shoes - YouTube; Hasso-Plattner-Institut: The Human Computer Interaction Lab; Hasso-Plattner-Institut: Publications at CHI and UIST; christian holz | small mobile devices, touch input, spatial interaction; Patrick Baudisch's Homepage

Facial Recognition: Galaxy Nexus debuts with Ice Cream Sandwich, facial recognition - The Washington Post; Facebook Photos, now with facial recognition auto-tagging; Polar Rose (facial recognition) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; Open Source Facial Recognition Software - Google Search; tagging - Facial recognition/detection PHP or software for photo and video galleries - Stack Overflow; Facial Recognition Software Open Source | Face Recognition Software; Are there any open source facial recognition systems? - Quora; Open Source Facial Recognition - Google Search; Page 2: Facebook New Facial Recognition Feature Raises a Few Eyebrows - ABC News; Facing Facts: Facebook's Facial Recognition | PCWorld; face.com developers site » Examples; CelebrityFindr - Celebrity photos caught on twitter!; face.com developers site. face.com for developers; Facial Recognition - Google Custom Search on my DonsDeals Blog; DonsDeals: Cat door unlocks via facial recognition - Hack a Day; DonsDeals: Dweb98 sent you a video: "Free Face Recognition"; Free Face Recognition - YouTube; DonsDeals: A Picture Search Engine That's a Must for Online Daters; DonsDeals: The rise of eye-tracking computers - SmartPlanet; keylemon.com - Google Search; KeyLemon – Face recognition software; KeyLemon – Face recognition software – FAQ; KeyLemon - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com; KeyLemon - Reviews and free KeyLemon downloads at CNET Download.com; KeyLemon – Face recognition software – Product; KeyLemon – Face recognition software – Download other versions; Facial recognition slipped into Google image search

Control Your Computer With A Webcam: Sunnybrook Surgeons are using Xbox - YouTube; Xbox Kinect in the hospital operating room - YouTube; web cam mouse computer - Google Search; DonsDeals: Use Any Object To Control Your Computer ***UPDATE; Camspace Developers; Control Your Computer With A Webcam - YouTube; Use Any Object To Control Your Computer « Tinkernut.com; Tinkernut.com

Fairest Lord Jesus, Norm Hastings, Piano - normhastingsmusic's Channel - YouTube

2012-01-15T04:45:00.000-06:00

Fairest Lord Jesus: Norm Hastings, Piano

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhFaKeNcshg

normhastingsmusic's Channel - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/normhastingsmusic

Free music from Norm Hastings and thought you might enjoy it. You can download it here: http://noisetrade.com/normhastings

Don

FreeBSD 9.0 is Here!

2012-01-14T04:15:00.001-06:00

Downloading and Installing FreeBSD 9.0

FreeBSD 9.0 is here and ready to download and install. The FreeBSD Handbook is the most detailed and complete set of instructions that I have ever seen for an Open Source Operating System (in my six years of installing and running Linux). Below are some excerpts that I thought would be interesting and help in deciding if you want to try BSD out. I downloaded the FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso and Booted it up in Virtual Box. I expected to get a GUI - Graphic Desktop Environment. But, I only got a Command Line Login Terminal. I was able to login as "root" (with no password). I tried "startx" and "wizard" which works in many Linux Distros, to get the X11 Desktop up and running. But, they are not recognized in BSD. I saw some info that said you could use the command "man man" to get to the Manual and "man -f keyword" will search for what ever key word or words that you enter. But, I couldn't find anything on getting the X-Server to work with a GUI Desktop. It may be that my Virtual Box Configuration, just doesn't work with the BSD Default Desktop. I never did find out which one that is... I did find out that you can install Gnome-2 and KDE though. So, it looks like BSD still has a Learning Curve for me. I actually looked into BSD before I ever tried out Linux, six years ago. But, a friend who is a programmer, told me that Linux was easier to get started with. And boy was her right!:) I've kept BSD in the back of my mind for all of these years. I had originally download 10GB from the BSD Servers. Back in the days when I was running Windows 98!:O I had no real idea of what I needed. So, I just got it all. And I was on a Dial-UP Connection, back then!:O I would set the Downloads at night, using Download Accelerator Plus (DAP). It only took me about a week to get it all!;) I kept those files for years. I wanted to put BSD on a 486 that I had - have. Till I finally realized, that I didn't want the older versions of BSD. Because updates and advances are good in BSD and Linux. Unlike Windblows, where their OS's become Obsolete with the next generation. And the new ones wont run on older Hardware, most of the time. Anyway, BSD still says it will run on a 486! And I now have several machines from 486 to 1.8GHz... So, I'm sure that if I take the time to learn how to install BSD 9.0, that it will run great on one or several of them...

Don

FreeBSD Handbook

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

Go there...
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/

About FreeBSD

What is FreeBSD?

FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium® and Athlon™), amd64 compatible (including Opteron™, Athlon™64, and EM64T), ARM, IA-64, PowerPC, PC-98 and UltraSPARC® architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. Additional platforms are in various stages of development.

Cutting edge features

FreeBSD offers advanced networking, performance, security and compatibility features today which are still missing in other operating systems, even some of the best commercial ones.

Powerful Internet solutions

FreeBSD makes an ideal Internet or Intranet server. It provides robust network services under the heaviest loads and uses memory efficiently to maintain good response times for thousands of simultaneous user processes.

Advanced Embedded Platform

FreeBSD brings advanced network operating system features to appliance and embedded platforms, from higher-end Intel-based appliances to Arm, PowerPC, and shortly MIPS hardware platforms. From mail and web appliances to routers, time servers, and wireless access points, vendors around the world rely on FreeBSD's integrated build and cross-build environments and advanced features as the foundation for their embedded products. And the Berkeley open source license lets them decide how many of their local changes they want to contribute back.

Run a huge number of applications

With over 20,000 ported libraries and applications, FreeBSD supports applications for desktop, server, appliance, and embedded environments.

Easy to install

FreeBSD can be installed from a variety of media including CD-ROM, DVD, or directly over the network using FTP or NFS. All you need are these directions.

FreeBSD is free

While you might expect an operating system with these features to sell for a high price, FreeBSD is available free of charge and comes with full source code. If you would like to purchase or download a copy to try out, more information is available.

Contributing to FreeBSD

Read More...
http://www.freebsd.org/about.html

FreeBSD Handbook
Prev	Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD 8.`x` and Earlier	Next

2.2 Hardware Requirements

2.2.1 Minimal Configuration

The minimal configuration to install FreeBSD varies with the FreeBSD version and the hardware architecture.

A summary of this information is given in the following sections. Depending on the method you choose to install FreeBSD, you may also need a floppy drive, a supported CDROM drive, and in some case a network adapter. This will be covered by the Section 2.3.7.

2.2.1.1 FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/pc98

Both FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/pc98 require a 486 or better processor and at least 24 MB of RAM. You will need at least 150 MB of free hard drive space for the most minimal installation.

Note: In case of old configurations, most of time, getting more RAM and more hard drive space is more important than getting a faster processor.

2.2.1.2 FreeBSD/amd64

There are two classes of processors capable of running FreeBSD/amd64. The first are AMD64 processors, including the AMD Athlon™64, AMD Athlon64-FX, AMD Opteron™ or better processors.

The second class of processors that can use FreeBSD/amd64 includes those using the Intel® EM64T architecture. Examples of these processors include the Intel Core™ 2 Duo, Quad, Extreme processor families, and the Intel Xeon™ 3000, 5000, and 7000 sequences of processors.

If you have a machine based on an nVidia nForce3 Pro-150, you must use the BIOS setup to disable the IO APIC. If you do not have an option to do this, you will likely have to disable ACPI instead. There are bugs in the Pro-150 chipset that we have not found a workaround for yet.

2.2.1.3 FreeBSD/sparc64

To install FreeBSD/sparc64, you will need a supported platform (see Section 2.2.2).

You will need a dedicated disk for FreeBSD/sparc64. It is not possible to share a disk with another operating system at this time.

2.2.2 Supported Hardware

A list of supported hardware is provided with each FreeBSD release in the FreeBSD Hardware Notes. This document can usually be found in a file named HARDWARE.TXT, in the top-level directory of a CDROM or FTP distribution or in sysinstall's documentation menu. It lists, for a given architecture, what hardware devices are known to be supported by each release of FreeBSD. Copies of the supported hardware list for various releases and architectures can also be found on the Release Information page of the FreeBSD Web site.

Prev	Home	Next
Installing FreeBSD 8.`x` and Earlier	Up	Pre-installation Tasks

Go there...
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-hardware.html

6.7 Desktop Environments

Contributed by Valentino Vaschetto.

This section describes the different desktop environments available for X on FreeBSD. A “desktop environment” can mean anything ranging from a simple window manager to a complete suite of desktop applications, such as KDE or GNOME.

FreeBSD Handbook
Prev		Next

Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD 8.`x` and Earlier

Table of Contents
2.1 Synopsis
2.2 Hardware Requirements
2.3 Pre-installation Tasks
2.4 Starting the Installation
2.5 Introducing Sysinstall
2.6 Allocating Disk Space
2.7 Choosing What to Install
2.8 Choosing Your Installation Media
2.9 Committing to the Installation
2.10 Post-installation
2.11 Troubleshooting
2.12 Advanced Installation Guide
2.13 Preparing Your Own Installation Media

Restructured, reorganized, and parts rewritten by Jim Mock. The sysinstall walkthrough, screenshots, and general copy by Randy Pratt.

2.1 Synopsis

FreeBSD is provided with a text-based, easy to use installation program. FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE and later use the installation program known as bsdinstall, with releases prior to 9.0-RELEASE using sysinstall for installation. This chapter describes the use of sysinstall to install FreeBSD. The use of bsdinstall is covered in Chapter 3.

After reading this chapter, you will know:

How to create the FreeBSD installation disks.
How FreeBSD refers to, and subdivides, your hard disks.
How to start sysinstall.
The questions sysinstall will ask you, what they mean, and how to answer them.

Before reading this chapter, you should:

Read the supported hardware list that shipped with the version of FreeBSD you are installing, and verify that your hardware is supported.

Note: In general, these installation instructions are written for i386™ (“PC compatible”) architecture computers. Where applicable, instructions specific to other platforms will be listed. Although this guide is kept as up to date as possible, you may find minor differences between the installer and what is shown here. It is suggested that you use this chapter as a general guide rather than a literal installation manual.

Prev	Home	Next
About the FreeBSD Project	Up	Hardware Requirements

Go there...

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install.html#INSTALL-SYNOPSIS

Getting FreeBSD

Release Information

Detailed descriptions of past, present, and future releases. Look here first to determine what the latest version of FreeBSD is.

Installing FreeBSD

There are many options for installing FreeBSD, including installation from CD-ROM, DVD, floppy disk, an MS-DOS® partition, magnetic tape, anonymous FTP, and NFS. Please read through the installation guide before downloading the entire FreeBSD distribution.

Buying FreeBSD

FreeBSD can be acquired on CD-ROM or DVD from FreeBSD Mall, or one of the other CD-ROM and DVD Publishers.

Download FreeBSD

Read More and Download...
http://www.freebsd.org/where.html

FreeBSD Handbook
Prev	Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD 8.`x` and Earlier	Next

2.3 Pre-installation Tasks

2.3.1 Inventory Your Computer

Before installing FreeBSD you should attempt to inventory the components in your computer. The FreeBSD installation routines will show you the components (hard disks, network cards, CDROM drives, and so forth) with their model number and manufacturer. FreeBSD will also attempt to determine the correct configuration for these devices, which includes information about IRQ and IO port usage. Due to the vagaries of PC hardware this process is not always completely successful, and you may need to correct FreeBSD's determination of your configuration.

If you already have another operating system installed, such as Windows® or Linux, it is a good idea to use the facilities provided by those operating systems to see how your hardware is already configured. If you are not sure what settings an expansion card is using, you may find it printed on the card itself. Popular IRQ numbers are 3, 5, and 7, and IO port addresses are normally written as hexadecimal numbers, such as 0x330.

We recommend you print or write down this information before installing FreeBSD. It may help to use a table, like this:

Table 2-1. Sample Device Inventory

Device Name	IRQ	IO port(s)	Notes
First hard disk	N/A	N/A	40 GB, made by Seagate, first IDE master
CDROM	N/A	N/A	First IDE slave
Second hard disk	N/A	N/A	20 GB, made by IBM, second IDE master
First IDE controller	14	0x1f0
Network card	N/A	N/A	Intel® 10/100
Modem	N/A	N/A	3Com® 56K faxmodem, on COM1
...

Once the inventory of the components in your computer is done, you have to check if they match the hardware requirements of the FreeBSD release you want to install.

2.3.2 Backup Your Data

If the computer you will be installing FreeBSD on contains valuable data, then ensure you have it backed up, and that you have tested the backups before installing FreeBSD. The FreeBSD installation routine will prompt you before writing any data to your disk, but once that process has started it cannot be undone.

2.3.3 Decide Where to Install FreeBSD

If you want FreeBSD to use your entire hard disk, then there is nothing more to concern yourself with at this point -- you can skip this section.

However, if you need FreeBSD to co-exist with other operating systems then you need to have a rough understanding of how data is laid out on the disk, and how this affects you.

2.3.3.1 Disk Layouts for FreeBSD/i386

A PC disk can be divided into discrete chunks. These chunks are called partitions. Since FreeBSD internally also has partitions, the naming can become confusing very quickly, therefore these disk chunks are referred to as disk slices or simply slices in FreeBSD itself. For example, the FreeBSD utility fdisk which operates on the PC disk partitions, refers to slices instead of partitions. By design, the PC only supports four partitions per disk. These partitions are called primary partitions. To work around this limitation and allow more than four partitions, a new partition type was created, the extended partition. A disk may contain only one extended partition. Special partitions, called logical partitions, can be created inside this extended partition.

Each partition has a partition ID, which is a number used to identify the type of data on the partition. FreeBSD partitions have the partition ID of 165.

In general, each operating system that you use will identify partitions in a particular way. For example, MS-DOS®, and its descendants, like Windows, assign each primary and logical partition a drive letter, starting with C:.

FreeBSD must be installed into a primary partition. FreeBSD can keep all its data, including any files that you create, on this one partition. However, if you have multiple disks, then you can create a FreeBSD partition on all, or some, of them. When you install FreeBSD, you must have one partition available. This might be a blank partition that you have prepared, or it might be an existing partition that contains data that you no longer care about.

If you are already using all the partitions on all your disks, then you will have to free one of them for FreeBSD using the tools provided by the other operating systems you use (e.g., fdisk on MS-DOS or Windows).

If you have a spare partition then you can use that. However, you may need to shrink one or more of your existing partitions first.

A minimal installation of FreeBSD takes as little as 100 MB of disk space. However, that is a very minimal install, leaving almost no space for your own files. A more realistic minimum is 250 MB without a graphical environment, and 350 MB or more if you want a graphical user interface. If you intend to install a lot of third-party software as well, then you will need more space.

You can use a commercial tool such as PartitionMagic®, or a free tool such as GParted, to resize your partitions and make space for FreeBSD. Both PartitionMagic and GParted are known to work on NTFS. GParted is available on a number of Live CD Linux distributions, such as SystemRescueCD.

Problems have been reported resizing Microsoft® Vista partitions. Having a Vista installation CDROM handy when attempting such an operation is recommended. As with all such disk maintenance tasks, a current set of backups is also strongly advised.

Warning: Incorrect use of these tools can delete the data on your disk. Be sure that you have recent, working backups before using them.

Example 2-1. Using an Existing Partition Unchanged

Suppose that you have a computer with a single 4 GB disk that already has a version of Windows installed, and you have split the disk into two drive letters, C: and D:, each of which is 2 GB in size. You have 1 GB of data on C:, and 0.5 GB of data on D:.

This means that your disk has two partitions on it, one per drive letter. You can copy all your existing data from D: to C:, which will free up the second partition, ready for FreeBSD.

Example 2-2. Shrinking an Existing Partition

Suppose that you have a computer with a single 4 GB disk that already has a version of Windows installed. When you installed Windows you created one large partition, giving you a C: drive that is 4 GB in size. You are currently using 1.5 GB of space, and want FreeBSD to have 2 GB of space.

In order to install FreeBSD you will need to either:

Backup your Windows data, and then reinstall Windows, asking for a 2 GB partition at install time.
Use one of the tools such as PartitionMagic, described above, to shrink your Windows partition.

2.3.4 Collect Your Network Configuration Details

If you intend to connect to a network as part of your FreeBSD installation (for example, if you will be installing from an FTP site or an NFS server), then you need to know your network configuration. You will be prompted for this information during the installation so that FreeBSD can connect to the network to complete the install.

2.3.4.1 Connecting to an Ethernet Network or Cable/DSL Modem

If you connect to an Ethernet network, or you have an Internet connection using an Ethernet adapter via cable or DSL, then you will need the following information:

IP address
IP address of the default gateway
Hostname
DNS server IP addresses
Subnet Mask

If you do not know this information, then ask your system administrator or service provider. They may say that this information is assigned automatically, using DHCP. If so, make a note of this.

2.3.4.2 Connecting Using a Modem

If you dial up to an ISP using a regular modem then you can still install FreeBSD over the Internet, it will just take a very long time.

You will need to know:

The phone number to dial for your ISP
The COM: port your modem is connected to
The username and password for your ISP account

2.3.5 Check for FreeBSD Errata

Although the FreeBSD project strives to ensure that each release of FreeBSD is as stable as possible, bugs do occasionally creep into the process. On very rare occasions those bugs affect the installation process. As these problems are discovered and fixed, they are noted in the FreeBSD Errata, which is found on the FreeBSD web site. You should check the errata before installing to make sure that there are no late-breaking problems which you should be aware of.

Information about all the releases, including the errata for each release, can be found on the release information section of the FreeBSD web site.

2.3.6 Obtain the FreeBSD Installation Files

The FreeBSD installation process can install FreeBSD from files located in any of the following places:

Local Media

A CDROM or DVD
A USB Memory Stick
A MS-DOS partition on the same computer
A SCSI or QIC tape
Floppy disks

Network

An FTP site, going through a firewall, or using an HTTP proxy, as necessary
An NFS server
A dedicated parallel or serial connection

If you have purchased FreeBSD on CD or DVD then you already have everything you need, and should proceed to the next section (Section 2.3.7).

If you have not obtained the FreeBSD installation files you should skip ahead to Section 2.13 which explains how to prepare to install FreeBSD from any of the above. After reading that section, you should come back here, and read on to Section 2.3.7.

2.3.7 Prepare the Boot Media

The FreeBSD installation process is started by booting your computer into the FreeBSD installer--it is not a program you run within another operating system. Your computer normally boots using the operating system installed on your hard disk, but it can also be configured to use a “bootable” floppy disk. Most modern computers can also boot from a CDROM in the CDROM drive or from a USB disk.

Tip: If you have FreeBSD on CDROM or DVD (either one you purchased or you prepared yourself), and your computer allows you to boot from the CDROM or DVD (typically a BIOS option called “Boot Order” or similar), then you can skip this section. The FreeBSD CDROM and DVD images are bootable and can be used to install FreeBSD without any other special preparation.

To create a bootable memory stick, follow these steps:

Acquire the Memory Stick Image

The memory stick image can be downloaded from the ISO-IMAGES/ directory from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/arch/ISO-IMAGES/version/FreeBSD-version-RELEASE-arch-memstick.img. Replace arch and version with the architecture and the version number which you want to install, respectively. For example, the memory stick images for FreeBSD/i386 9.0-RELEASE are available from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/9.0/FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img.

The memory stick image has a .img extension. The ISO-IMAGES/ directory contains a number of different images, and the one you will need to use will depend on the version of FreeBSD you are installing, and in some cases, the hardware you are installing to.

Important: Before proceeding, back up the data you currently have on your USB stick, as this procedure will erase it.
Write The Image File to the Memory Stick
Using FreeBSD To Write the Image

Warning: The example below lists /dev/da0 as the target device where the image will be written. Be very careful that you have the correct device as the output target, or you may destroy your existing data.
1. Writing the Image with dd(1)
  
  The .img file is not a regular file you copy to the memory stick. It is an image of the complete contents of the disk. This means that you cannot simply copy files from one disk to another. Instead, you must use dd(1) to write the image directly to the disk:
```
# dd if=FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img of=/dev/da0 bs=64k 
```
  If an Operation not permitted error is displayed, make certain that the target device is not in use, mounted, or being automounted by some well-intentioned utility program. Then try again.
Using Windows® To Write the Image

Warning: Make sure you use the correct drive letter as the output target, or you may overwrite and destroy existing data.
1. Obtaining Image Writer for Windows
  
  Image Writer for Windows is a free application that can correctly write an image file to a memory stick. Download it from https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/ and extract it into a folder.
2. Writing The Image with Image Writer
  
  Double-click the Win32DiskImager icon to start the program. Verify that the drive letter shown under Device is the drive with the memory stick. Click the folder icon and select the image to be written to the memory stick. Click Save to accept the image file name. Verify that everything is correct, and that no folders on the memory stick are open in other windows. Finally, click Write to write the image file to the drive.

To create boot floppy images, follow these steps:

Acquire the Boot Floppy Images

Important: Please note, as of FreeBSD 8.X, floppy disk images are no longer available. Please see above for instructions on how to install FreeBSD using a USB memory stick or just use a CDROM or a DVD.

The boot disks are available on your installation media in the floppies/ directory, and can also be downloaded from the floppies directory, ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/arch/version-RELEASE/floppies/. Replace arch and version with the architecture and the version number which you want to install, respectively. For example, the boot floppy images for FreeBSD/i386 8.2-RELEASE are available from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/8.2-RELEASE/floppies/.

The floppy images have a .flp extension. The floppies/ directory contains a number of different images, and the ones you will need to use depends on the version of FreeBSD you are installing, and in some cases, the hardware you are installing to. In most cases you will need four floppies, boot.flp, kern1.flp, kern2.flp, and kern3.flp. Check README.TXT in the same directory for the most up to date information about these floppy images.

Important: Your FTP program must use binary mode to download these disk images. Some web browsers have been known to use text (or ASCII) mode, which will be apparent if you cannot boot from the disks.
Prepare the Floppy Disks

You must prepare one floppy disk per image file you had to download. It is imperative that these disks are free from defects. The easiest way to test this is to format the disks for yourself. Do not trust pre-formatted floppies. The format utility in Windows will not tell about the presence of bad blocks, it simply marks them as “bad” and ignores them. It is advised that you use brand new floppies if choosing this installation route.

Important: If you try to install FreeBSD and the installation program crashes, freezes, or otherwise misbehaves, one of the first things to suspect is the floppies. Try writing the floppy image files to new disks and try again.
Write the Image Files to the Floppy Disks

The .flp files are not regular files you copy to the disk. They are images of the complete contents of the disk. This means that you cannot simply copy files from one disk to another. Instead, you must use specific tools to write the images directly to the disk.

If you are creating the floppies on a computer running MS-DOS / Windows, then we provide a tool to do this called fdimage.

If you are using the floppies from the CDROM, and your CDROM is the E: drive, then you would run this:
```
E:\> tools\fdimage floppies\boot.flp A: 
```
Repeat this command for each .flp file, replacing the floppy disk each time, being sure to label the disks with the name of the file that you copied to them. Adjust the command line as necessary, depending on where you have placed the .flp files. If you do not have the CDROM, then fdimage can be downloaded from the tools directory on the FreeBSD FTP site.

If you are writing the floppies on a UNIX® system (such as another FreeBSD system) you can use the dd(1) command to write the image files directly to disk. On FreeBSD, you would run:
```
# dd if=boot.flp of=/dev/fd0 
```
On FreeBSD, /dev/fd0 refers to the first floppy disk (the A: drive). /dev/fd1 would be the B: drive, and so on. Other UNIX variants might have different names for the floppy disk devices, and you will need to check the documentation for the system as necessary.

You are now ready to start installing FreeBSD.

Prev	Home	Next
Hardware Requirements	Up	Starting the Installation

Go there...
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-pre.html

FreeBSD Handbook
Prev	Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD 8.`x` and Earlier	Next

2.4 Starting the Installation

Important: By default, the installation will not make any changes to your disk(s) until you see the following message:
Last Chance: Are you SURE you want continue the installation?  If you're running this on a disk with data you wish to save then WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO MAKE PROPER BACKUPS before proceeding!  We can take no responsibility for lost disk contents! 
The install can be exited at any time prior to the final warning without changing the contents of the hard drive. If you are concerned that you have configured something incorrectly you can just turn the computer off before this point, and no damage will be done.

2.4.1 Booting

2.4.1.1 Booting for the i386™

Start with your computer turned off.
Turn on the computer. As it starts it should display an option to enter the system set up menu, or BIOS, commonly reached by keys like F2, F10, Del, or Alt+S. Use whichever keystroke is indicated on screen. In some cases your computer may display a graphic while it starts. Typically, pressing Esc will dismiss the graphic and allow you to see the necessary messages.
Find the setting that controls which devices the system boots from. This is usually labeled as the “Boot Order” and commonly shown as a list of devices, such as Floppy, CDROM, First Hard Disk, and so on.

If you are booting from the CDROM then make sure that the CDROM is selected. If you are booting from a USB disk or a floppy disk then make sure that is selected instead. In case of doubt, you should consult the manual that came with your computer, and/or its motherboard.

Make the change, then save and exit. The computer should now restart.
If you prepared a “bootable” USB stick, as described in Section 2.3.7, then plug in your USB stick before turning on the computer.

If you are booting from CDROM, then you will need to turn on the computer, and insert the CDROM at the first opportunity.

Note: For FreeBSD 7.X, installation boot floppies are available and can be prepared as described in Section 2.3.7. One of them will be the first boot disc: boot.flp. Put this disc in your floppy drive and boot the computer.

If your computer starts up as normal and loads your existing operating system, then either:
1. The disks were not inserted early enough in the boot process. Leave them in, and try restarting your computer.
2. The BIOS changes earlier did not work correctly. You should redo that step until you get the right option.
3. Your particular BIOS does not support booting from the desired media.

FreeBSD will start to boot. If you are booting from CDROM you will see a display similar to this (version information omitted):

Booting from CD-Rom... 645MB medium detected CD Loader 1.2  Building the boot loader arguments Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found Relocating the loader and the BTX Starting the BTX loader  BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02 Consoles: internal video/keyboard BIOS CD is cd0 BIOS drive C: is disk0 BIOS drive D: is disk1 BIOS 636kB/261056kB available memory  FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1  Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf /boot/kernel/kernel text=0x64daa0 data=0xa4e80+0xa9e40 syms=[0x4+0x6cac0+0x4+0x88e9d] \

If you are booting from floppy disc, you will see a display similar to this (version information omitted):

Booting from Floppy... Uncompressing ... done  BTX loader 1.00  BTX version is 1.01 Console: internal video/keyboard BIOS drive A: is disk0 BIOS drive C: is disk1 BIOS 639kB/261120kB available memory  FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1  Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf /kernel text=0x277391 data=0x3268c+0x332a8 |  Insert disk labelled "Kernel floppy 1" and press any key...

Follow these instructions by removing the boot.flp disc, insert the kern1.flp disc, and press Enter. Boot from first floppy; when prompted, insert the other disks as required.

Whether you booted from CDROM, USB stick or floppy, the boot process will then get to the FreeBSD boot loader menu:

Figure 2-1. FreeBSD Boot Loader Menu

Either wait ten seconds, or press Enter.

2.4.1.2 Booting for SPARC64®

Most SPARC64® systems are set up to boot automatically from disk. To install FreeBSD, you need to boot over the network or from a CDROM, which requires you to break into the PROM (OpenFirmware).

To do this, reboot the system, and wait until the boot message appears. It depends on the model, but should look about like:

Sun Blade 100 (UltraSPARC-IIe), Keyboard Present Copyright 1998-2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved. OpenBoot 4.2, 128 MB memory installed, Serial #51090132. Ethernet address 0:3:ba:b:92:d4, Host ID: 830b92d4.

If your system proceeds to boot from disk at this point, you need to press L1+A or Stop+A on the keyboard, or send a BREAK over the serial console (using for example ~# in tip(1) or cu(1)) to get to the PROM prompt. It looks like this:

ok          ok {0}

: This is the prompt used on systems with just one CPU.
: This is the prompt used on SMP systems, the digit indicates the number of the active CPU.

At this point, place the CDROM into your drive, and from the PROM prompt, type boot cdrom.

2.4.2 Reviewing the Device Probe Results

The last few hundred lines that have been displayed on screen are stored and can be reviewed.

To review the buffer, press Scroll Lock. This turns on scrolling in the display. You can then use the arrow keys, or PageUp and PageDown to view the results. Press Scroll Lock again to stop scrolling.

Do this now, to review the text that scrolled off the screen when the kernel was carrying out the device probes. You will see text similar to Figure 2-2, although the precise text will differ depending on the devices that you have in your computer.

Figure 2-2. Typical Device Probe Results

avail memory = 253050880 (247120K bytes) Preloaded elf kernel "kernel" at 0xc0817000. Preloaded mfs_root "/mfsroot" at 0xc0817084. md0: Preloaded image </mfsroot> 4423680 bytes at 0xc03ddcd4  md1: Malloc disk Using $PIR table, 4 entries at 0xc00fde60 npx0: <math processor> on motherboard npx0: INT 16 interface pcib0: <Host to PCI bridge> on motherboard pci0: <PCI bus> on pcib0 pcib1:<VIA 82C598MVP (Apollo MVP3) PCI-PCI (AGP) bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0 pci1: <PCI bus> on pcib1 pci1: <Matrox MGA G200 AGP graphics accelerator> at 0.0 irq 11 isab0: <VIA 82C586 PCI-ISA bridge> at device 7.0 on pci0 isa0: <iSA bus> on isab0 atapci0: <VIA 82C586 ATA33 controller> port 0xe000-0xe00f at device 7.1 on pci0 ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0 ata1: at 0x170 irq 15 on atapci0 uhci0 <VIA 83C572 USB controller> port 0xe400-0xe41f irq 10 at device 7.2 on pci 0 usb0: <VIA 83572 USB controller> on uhci0 usb0: USB revision 1.0 uhub0: VIA UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr1 uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered pci0: <unknown card> (vendor=0x1106, dev=0x3040) at 7.3 dc0: <ADMtek AN985 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem 0xdb000000-0xeb0003ff ir q 11 at device 8.0 on pci0 dc0: Ethernet address: 00:04:5a:74:6b:b5 miibus0: <MII bus> on dc0 ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0 ukphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto ed0: <NE2000 PCI Ethernet (RealTek 8029)> port 0xec00-0xec1f irq 9 at device 10. 0 on pci0 ed0 address 52:54:05:de:73:1b, type NE2000 (16 bit) isa0: too many dependant configs (8) isa0: unexpected small tag 14 orm0: <Option ROM> at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff on isa0 fdc0: <NEC 72065B or clone> at port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq2 on isa0 fdc0: FIFO enabled, 8 bytes threshold fd0: <1440-KB 3.5'' drive> on fdc0 drive 0 atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> at port 0x60,0x64 on isa0 atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> flags 0x1 irq1 on atkbdc0 kbd0 at atkbd0 psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0 psm0: model Generic PS/@ mouse, device ID 0 vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0 sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0 sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300> sio0 at port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on isa0 sio0: type 16550A sio1 at port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa0 sio1: type 16550A ppc0: <Parallel port> at port 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa0 pppc0: SMC-like chipset (ECP/EPP/PS2/NIBBLE) in COMPATIBLE mode ppc0: FIFO with 16/16/15 bytes threshold plip0: <PLIP network interface> on ppbus0 ad0: 8063MB <IBM-DHEA-38451> [16383/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA33 acd0: CD-RW <LITE-ON LTR-1210B> at ata1-slave PIO4 Mounting root from ufs:/dev/md0c /stand/sysinstall running as init on vty0

Check the probe results carefully to make sure that FreeBSD found all the devices you expected. If a device was not found, then it will not be listed. A custom kernel allows you to add in support for devices which are not in the GENERIC kernel, such as sound cards.

After the procedure of device probing, you will see Figure 2-3. Use the arrow key to choose a country, region, or group. Then press Enter, it will set your country easily.

Figure 2-3. Selecting Country Menu

If you selected United States as country, the standard American keyboard map will be used, if a different country is chosen the following menu will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to choose the correct keyboard map and press Enter.

Figure 2-4. Selecting Keyboard Menu

After the country selecting, the sysinstall main menu will display.

Prev	Home	Next
Pre-installation Tasks	Up	Introducing Sysinstall

Go there...
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-start.html

FreeBSD 9.0: FreeBSD 9.0 Delivers More Power to Serve; New FreeBSD Release Boosts ZFS Support - InternetNews.; freebsd 9.0 - Google Search; FreeBSD 9.0 Release Process; FreeBSD 9.0-CURRENT Release Notes; FreeBSD 9.0 - Google Search; FreeBSD9 - FreeBSD Wiki; FreeBSD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; Release Engineering Information; FreeBSD BitTorrent Tracker; FreeBSD Snapshot Releases; Getting FreeBSD; Installing FreeBSD 8.x and Earlier; Hardware Requirements; Index of ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/i386/9.0-RELEASE/; Index of ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/i386/ISO-IMAGES/9.0/

Someone, likes my Blog so much!...

2012-01-13T07:08:00.001-06:00

Someone, likes my Blog so much!... That they Copied it, Verbatim! (http://saperblog.blogspot.com/) The background color is different and I have since changed my Blog Template too. But, before I changed my Template and Background, the only difference was the Background Color. Here's the Original Post on my Blog, http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2011/07/eevblog-184-open-hardware-multimeter.html (with the new Template and Background, that is). I was doing some searches the other day. Looking for a certain Post that I knew was on my Blog. But couldn't remember the name or date. Usually, if I can remember some of the Title or some of the Main Lines in the Text. Then I can find it on Google. And to my Surprise!:O I did find it, and more! I must be doing something right! Right? So much so, that someone would go to all of the trouble to Download and then Re-post most of my Blog. And under their Name too!... "baca.basmalah". Baca, goes back to 2009 and I started my DonsDeals Blog in 2005. Ok, wait! This one in 2009, is Not Mine!:O Saturday, December 26, 2009 - Enrique Iglesias sparked a slew of breakup rumors when he told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that he and Anna Kournikova had been secretly married... From, (http://saperblog.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=50). Boy, Baca, sure likes Blonds! Who doesn't??? But, who is this nricki and what's up with all of the Wrestler Guy Pics!!!!???:O Anyways... When I found so many of my Blog Pages Copied. And there are at least two years worth Copied on Baca's Blog... I started to get all Pissed off and Self Righteous! Then I thought... Well, isn't that the Whole Point of Open Source? And I am Big into Open Source... Everything. I say, Share the Knowledge and help others to Learn and maybe even change the World! So, what the heck... I quote other people on most every Post that I do. And I'm not getting paid for doing this anyway. And he's not selling my work for a profit, is he (or she)? And the more all of this info and the good work of all of these Talented and Creative People do, gets out there in front of others. And the more traffic, we can driver to their Sites. The better off we all are. Some of us, in gaining knowledge and some may even make some money along the way... I just hope that some of that money comes my way, one day and one day soon!;)

Don

Saperblog.blogspot.com has Identical Copies of my DonsDeals Blog Pages to 2011: search; saper blog; saper blog: Google's Blogger (blogspot.com) wont except svg images attached!:O; saper blog: This is a good, Complete History of Linux...; saper blog; saper blog: Adding a serial port through an RJ45 connector - Hack a Day

Flumotion Media Streaming Software - Open Source

2012-01-13T02:29:00.003-06:00

About Flumotion

Flumotion is an award winning streaming software company that was founded in 2006 by a group of open source developers and multimedia experts. They developed an open source multi-format video streaming software, closing the gap of competing industry standards and making streaming more accessible.
Flumotion Streaming Software allows broadcasters and companies to stream content live and on demand in all the leading formats from a single server. Flumotion also offers a Streaming Platform and WebTV which reduce workflow and costs by covering the entire streaming value chain. This end-to-end yet modular solution includes signal acquisition, encoding, multi-format transcoding, streaming of contents and state-of-the art interface design. The media back office allows for advanced content management and optimal monetisation through rich media advertising.
Flumotion was awarded 'Best Streaming Innovation' by industry leading Streaming Media Magazine. Companies such as Cuatro, Antena 3, Nestlé and Real Madrid trust Flumotion with the delivery of their high value content. Flumotion's scalable and cost effective technology enables telcos and hosting companies worldwide to create their own end-to-end video and audio streaming platforms. Partners include NTT Europe Online, Telefonica and British Telecom. More info at www.flumotion.com
Go there...
http://www.flumotion.net/about/

Download Flumotion

In general, you should first try to find packages that were specifically made for your distribution.
Do not compile from source yourself unless you are certain you have to or want to. Do not compile from git master unless you really need some specific feature that is not released yet, or want to help out developing Flumotion.

Read More...
http://www.flumotion.net/download/

Flumotion is in my Fedora 14 Repo's and I'm installing it now to try it out. I would like to setup a Home Media Server. I got the VLC Media Server up and running a few years ago. But, it was pretty hard to setup and I never did end up using it for actual TV Watching. I'll see how Flumotion works out now... It's installed and now I'm Testing Flumotion out. There is a Flumotion manual here... http://www.flumotion.net/doc/flumotion/manual/en/trunk/html/

Here's some commands that came up in a Setup Window...

The admin client will now connect to the manager.

Configuration files are stored in
/tmp/tmphA8TBg.flumotion/etc
Log files are stored in
/tmp/tmphA8TBg.flumotion/var/log

You can shut down the manager and worker later with the following command:

/usr/sbin/flumotion -C /tmp/tmphA8TBg.flumotion/etc -L /tmp/tmphA8TBg.flumotion/var/log -R /tmp/tmphA8TBg.flumotion/var/run stop

Well, the setup Wizard hangs up on me. And there is one option in the Manual Screen Shots, that's not in my installation. The Connect button wont do anything. But, it looks like Flumotion is running. The GUI shows up in my Running Apps area of my Panel. But it wont respond to any clicks at all, Not on the Wizard or the Flumotion GUI Window. I added port 7531 to the allowed list in my Firewall for both udp and tcp. And I have SSH up and running on my System already. I added Flumotion as a Startup Service and it is running now. "The flumotion service is started once, usually when the system is booted, runs in the background and wakes up when needed." But, I still have the same problems. Maybe it will work after a Reboot. I'll see... IF not then I guess I'll just uninstall Flumotion...

Here are some Screen Shots...

Don

Flumotion Streaming System for Servers: www.flumotion.net; Flumotion - Demosite; About Flumotion; Flumotion manual

Media Server Search on my Blog...

DonsDeals: Thecus N4100PRO NAS Media Server - 4-Bay 3.5 ...

Jul 2, 2009 ... Thecus N4100PRO NAS Media Server - 4-Bay 3.5" SATA to USB 2.0, Dual Gigabit LAN, Multimedia Support, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, JBOD at ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../thecus-n4100pro-nas-media-server-4-bay.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: How to turn a spare Linux machine into a media server

Nov 3, 2009 ... How to turn a spare Linux machine into a media server. Your home hub awaits. By Tech Staff. October 4th | Tell us what you think [ 3 comments ] ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../how-to-turn-spare-linux-machine-into.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: 6 of the Best Free Linux Music Servers

Nov 1, 2009 ... Icecast, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 streaming media server. Music Player Daemon, Flexible, powerful, server-side application for playing music ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../6-of-best-free-linux-music-servers.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: GNUMP3d [GNU MP3/Media Streamer] - About ...

Feb 11, 2009 ... GNUMP3d - The GNU Streaming MP3 / Media Server. GNUMP3d is a streaming server for MP3s, OGG vorbis files, movies and other media ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../gnump3d-gnu-mp3media-streamer-about.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

media server

Oct 5, 2009 ... Linux Today - How to turn a spare Linux machine into a media server. How to turn a spare Linux machine into a media server. Oct 5, 2009, 08 ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../linux-today-how-to-turn-spare-linux.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals

Jan 26, 2011 ... Flumotion is a streaming media server created with the backing of Fluendo. It features intuitive graphical administration tools, making the task of ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/2011/01/news-flumotion-0.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: News - GUADEC is first event worldwide streamed in ...

Sep 4, 2010 ... Flumotion is a streaming media server created with the backing of Fluendo. It features intuitive graphical administration tools, making the task of ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../news-guadec-is-first-event-worldwide.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: About The Asterisk Project | Asterisk

Aug 22, 2010 ... Asterisk as a feature/media server. Need an IVR? Asterisk's got you covered. How about a conference bridge? Yep. It's in there. What about an ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/2010/08/about-asterisk-project-asterisk.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: Pic: Battlestar Galactica PC case mod | Geekend ...

Nov 14, 2008 ... Now, all I need is a matching Cylon Basestar media server… (Personally tough... I think that steampunk stuff is Way Cooler though...!;) ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../pic-battlestar-galactica-pc-case-mod.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

DonsDeals: TCP Port Service Multiplexer (tcpmux-server)

RCA Wi-Fi Streaming Media Player Tear Down - RCA DSB772WE - eLinux.org ... TCP Port Service Multiplexer (tcpmux-server) · Dia Frampton - The Broken ...

donsdeals.blogspot.com

donsdeals.blogspot.com/.../tcp-port-service-multiplexer-tcpmux.html

clipped from Google - 1/2012

See More links from Media Server Search on my Blog...
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-2221791110207294%3A3qlpn0jxpl8&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=media+Server&sa=Search&siteurl=donsdeals.blogspot.com%2F#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=media%20Server&gsc.page=1

Homemade Soldering Station

2012-01-13T01:59:00.001-06:00

Homemade Soldering Station

Homemade pro-like soldering station for under $40

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnUUIst8e8&feature=player_embedded

Homemade soldering station - soldering demonstration

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA97AWkvwWI&feature=player_embedded

Worklog - The idea - some materials (May 14 2010)

The 30 Watt 13 Euro soldering iron that i hope i will transfer into an expensive soldering station

Soldering stations comes in a variety of prices and capabilities. The cheaper stations have a power controller, to control the power delivered to the soldering iron. More expensive stations will have a temperature controller near the tip of the soldering iron, and control the temperature using this feedback.

The quality of soldering with a station is much higher than with a simple soldering iron. Especially if the station has a temperature controller on the tip. That is because, the solder has a very specific working temperature. For example, the one i use (60% tin 40% lead), is liquefied at 190^oC. Of course, you do not solder at 190^oC! The soldering iron i use, exceeds by far this temperature. I measured it up to 410^oC! This has negative effect on the soldering quality.

The idea

The idea was simple, yet the implementation according to the standards that i had set was much harder to follow as i originally thought. I will use a 30 Watt soldering iron for the job. Somehow, i will measure the temperature as close to the tip as possible. For temperature sensor, i will use a K-type thermocouple pair. I have a complete theory for thermocouples that you may be interested to read. A controller circuit will read the temperature. A potentiometer will be used to set the requested temperature, according to which the controller will turn on or off the soldering iron heater.

An unexpected surprise from Maxim

The chip soldered on the PCB

I got myself a couple of them

If you read the theory of thermocouple pairs, you will see that the controller must compensate the cold junction temperature. Moreover, the temperature acquisition from the thermocouple voltage, is a result of a long polynomial solution. I was just about ready to start the design using a thermistor for the cold junction compensation, when i accidentally came across this:

MAX6675 - Cold-Junction-Compensated K-Thermocouple-to-Digital Converter (0°C to +1024°C)

This chip will do all for you. It has a built-in temperature diode, used to do the cold junction compensation. The thermocouple pair is directly connected to it. It also carries an analog to digital converter, and produces a 12-bit number, with 1/4 of a degree precision. With the simplest protocol ever (3-Wire/SPI), the microcontroller can acquire directly the hot junction temperature in degrees Celsius. The chip comes in a tiny SO package.

There is only one drawback with this chip. It is somehow expensive and cannot be found everywhere... From where i get the PICs, i buy the 16F88 for 3.9 Euro. This chip is sold for over 8 Euro per piece. So, the question here is: Do i buy this expensive chip that will double the price of the controller and avoid all the hard work, or do i go the hard way and save 8 Euro? I was too curious to see how this chip works, therefore i had no time to answer the previous question. My finger followed the checkout procedure by reflects... I got myself a couple of these chips to check them.

And then i got the chips! There is only one word to say: "It works!". With minimum effort and even less programming effort, i got an accurate reading from the thermocouple! The connection and the communication protocol are ridiculously simple.

The display

I got 3 LCD modules, one is already on the workbench

The original idea was to use some 7-segment digits to display set temperature value and tip temperature. But then i decided to give it a more professional look and feel, by using a 16x2 character LCD module. Surfing the ebay, i found a manufacturer that made a terrible mistake. A whole batch of these displays had a mistake: the backlit connections were not according to standard pinout! Pins 15 and 16 were in reverse order, and therefore he was selling them ridiculously cheap. I got 3 of them, one was for this project.

The first line, will have the set temperature value, and the real temperature value on the tip. The other line, will have a slick bar with the set value. That is subject to change of course.

The thermocouple pair

Some K-type thermocouple pairs

I will use the one size fits all K-type thermocouple pair. I already have some wires. Yet, i am not sure which to use. I still have to solve the problem of the thermocouple mounting. I need to install it as close to the tip as possible. So, i have a thermocouple pair from a multimeter, some thermocouple extension wires, and some pieces of thermocouple wires. If you are interested, i have run some interesting experiments with K-type thermocouple. You may also like to read the theory of thermocouples.

So, let's get to work...

Go there and click on next page at bottom of the page to Read More...
http://pcbheaven.com/projectpages/Homemade_Soldering_Station/?topic=worklog

I like this Project allot. I have a Weller Hand Held Soldering Gun, with a Trigger and it is very good for De-soldering and Soldering Bigger things, like Audio Jacks and Cabling. But, it is heavy and hard to hold still for very long. And the Tips are too Big for Precise work. I also have two smaller Soldering Irons something like the one he uses for the Project Build. They have no Heat Settings at all. The Temp goes up and then back down, the longer I leave them plugged in. You never know exactly what you are going to get. Until you start Soldering. They are pretty hard to use on Precise work to, even with a small Tip. So, I find my self ending up using the Big Weller Soldering Gun, for everything that I can. Since it heats up fast and then cools back down when not in use. But, it is hard to keep from burning things up with all of my Soldering Irons. One's too hot and one is too Cold. The Weller gets too hot too fast, and may burn things up. And the smaller Irons take too long to heat things up, and end up heating and melting other things, too far from the intended soldering point. I have been Researching and looking at Soldering Stations. And Yep, the good ones are Expensive... While I was watching the videos. I got to thinking about Thermo Couples that I am familiar with, for Gas Heaters. And the old Auto Switching - Heat - Cool Thermostat that I have in my Closet. It still works, but it stopped switching from Heat to Cool... I wonder if it could be used to Control my Soldering Irons. I would only need to use the Heat Side of the Thermostat. But, I would have to "fool" it some how or find a way to update the Firmware to work with Much Higher Temperatures. I live in the USA, and we use Fahrenheit. So, that would be something like 350F to 750F if I remember right from another couple of Videos I saw... http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2011/07/eevblog-180-soldering-tutorial-part-1.html

Don

Homemade Soldering Station: Homemade Soldering Station; Homemade Soldering Station; Homemade sodlering station - soldering demonstration - YouTube; MAX6675 Cold-Junction-Compensated K-Thermocouple-to-Digital Converter (0°C to +1024°C) - Overview; Homemade Soldering Station; Homemade pro-like soldering station for under $40 - YouTube; pcbheaven's Channel - YouTube; Homemade Soldering Station; DonsDeals: EEVblog #180 – Soldering Tutorial Part 1 – Tools @ EEVblog – The Electronics Engineering Video Blog; DonsDeals: How-To: The Hacker’s Soldering Station - Hack a Day; DonsDeals: [Fwd: Get the Right Tools for the Job from Parts Express]

Exposing some fake electronics with too-good-to-be-true prices: Exposing some fake electronics with too-good-to-be-true prices - Hack a Day; Product Review - How cheap is a cheap power supply; How cheap is a cheap power supply? - YouTube; Projects - PCB Heaven

Product Review - How cheap is a cheap power supply

2012-01-13T00:39:00.002-06:00

Or, Exposing some fake electronics with too-good-to-be-true prices

Product Review - How cheap is a cheap power supply

Author
Giorgos Lazaridis
December 28, 2011

(Excerpt)...

The camera needs 2 AA batteries to operate. I use of course rechargeable batteries. But then i decided to buy a power supply to have my camera always ready on the fly. As a matter of fact, i wanted to make one power supply instead (big deal), but the DC jack of the camera was very small and i did not really knew which one to get, so i decided to buy one instead.

First stop - ebay. I immediately found one for this camera, and bought it for 4.99 USD including shipping. This is ridiculously cheap!

When i received the item, it looked as a normal power supply. I immediately plugged it in. At first, i did not notice anything strange, only that some times when i was moving the jack the camera would turn off. It was not very annoying. But after some time, things became really strange.

Go there...
http://www.pcbheaven.com/userpages/how_cheap_is_a_power_supply/

Exposing some fake electronics with too-good-to-be-true prices

(Excerpt from Hack a Day Article posted Jan 4th 2012 3:01pm by Mike Szczys
filed under: misc hacks)...

His first instinct was to hook up the adapter to his oscilloscope and see what is happening on the power bus. The signal is incredibly noisy. Shockingly so. [Giorgos] cracked open the case to see what is going on with the power supply circuit inside. You simply must view the video after the break to see the horror-show he found. The board is poorly soldered, components are not properly seated in their footprints, and our favorite is when [Giorgos] points out a squiggly trace which takes the place of the smoothing inductors.'
Read More...
http://hackaday.com/2012/01/04/exposing-some-fake-electronics-with-too-good-to-be-true-prices/

Watch the following video:

How cheap is a cheap power supply?

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DZDh8z9UDTo

Good to know!:O Thanks Giorgos, for sharing that info and making the video. I don't like buying anything from China. And I try not to. But, it is getting harder and harder to even know where the parts inside of any Product comes from, these days. Oddly enough... The Manufacturer being "Ripped Off" here is in Japan. And I still remember, like it was Yesterday... Wen made in the USA Electronics were just beginning to be Copied and made in Japan. The stories told US, back then... Was that the Designs for our US Invented and Made, Electronics. Was "Shared" (Sold to the Highest Bidder for Greed and Short Term Profit) in order to help the "Rest of the World" to catch up to our "Great and Prosperous US Society". I was just a Teenager back then. But I knew that our "Prosperous Days were ever growing Shorter and were Numbered, when I saw our Technology being Sold to Foreign Competitors. The argument was actually... That these "Under Developed Countries" could never catch up or compete with the Wonders of our US Knowledge and Technology. "Pride Comes Before the Fall" and so does Greed!:O Now, I know, dear Grand Children... You have never heard of Electronics being Made in the USA. But, "Once Upon A Time" they were and they were considered the Best and Most advanced of all... Now, now we live in a world of Cheap Crap of all Types. That often is Broken when it Arrives to our Homes!:( What a World, What a World...

Don

Exposing some fake electronics with too-good-to-be-true prices: Exposing some fake electronics with too-good-to-be-true prices - Hack a Day; Product Review - How cheap is a cheap power supply; How cheap is a cheap power supply? - YouTube; Projects - PCB Heaven; Homemade Soldering Station; Homemade Soldering Station

PCB Heaven Projects

Welcome to our project pages!

Here you will find the complete projects of PCB Heaven.

Hack a Hg Lamp to a Powerful UV Light Source
I got some UV curable paint for my homemade PCBs. This paint needs UV radiation to be cured. I thought that my UV artwork transfer box would work, only to discover that this paint needs much more radiation. So, i hacked a mercury vapor gas discharge lamp that i had and turned it into a high power UV lamp.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Triple PID Temperature Controller
A customer asked me to design a PID system that will control 3 different heating resistors and it will get temperature feedback from 3 J-type thermocouples. This industrial application will be used for an IMA edge-banding glue pot maintenance base.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Tiny LED Debugging Board for Breadboard Prototyping
I made a very simple tiny breadboard PCB with 4 LEDs and 4 resistors pre-wired, mainly for debugging purposes during prototyping. The boards are very small, two boards can be placed side by side and still will occupy 8 breadboard columns - each board occupies 4 columns, one for each LED.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

K-Type Thermocouple PID Controller
I plan to make a pre-heater for my SMD works, and i will need a controller for the air heater. After learning how the PID controllers work, i will make my own PID controller. The controller will read the temperature from a K-type thermocouple pair. 3 7-segments will be used to display the current temperature and 3 more for displaying the set-temperature. A PWM output will be used to control the fan speed for the hot-air, and an optocoupler-TRIAC pair will be used to control the power of the heater.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

DIY Battery Pack holder with dual voltage outputs
In this project, i make a DIY battery pack holder for 4 AA batteries with 2 voltage outputs, one for 3 volts and one for 6 volts.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Servo-Actuated Door Keylock Hack with capacitance touch-pad
Opening the apartment’s door by entering a security code is super cool and usually prepares those who enter of what they are about to see inside, in my case they face my techlab. In this hack, i will show you basically 2 things: First, how you can hack and mod the simple classic keylock mechanism to make it servo-actuated for less than $5, and second how you can make a very cool capacitance touch-pad to enter the security code, with extremely low power quiescence consumption to be long-term battery operated.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Acrylic Glass Folding Heater
I made a heating apparatus to heat the acrylic glasses so that i can fold them easily.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

A Portable LED Head Lamp
During some experiments with LEDs and acrylic glasses, i came up with this idea of an LED head lamp. The construction and the electronic staff are so simple, that even a kid can make them. This project is addressed not to those who want to have a cheap head lamp, but to those who want to get some more ideas for LEDs and acrylic glass constructions.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

A Camping LED Lamp
I chopped a very old electric lamp that i had and converted it into a sophisticated LED light lamp. The interesting part of this project is the way that the LEDs light. There are 4 scales, which not only control the brightness of the lamp, but also control the direction of the light.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

An LED Pushbutton
With materials ripped off from old appliances and junk-PCBs, i made a fancy LED pushbutton. The LED is fully functional and can turn on and off independently, while if you press it, it makes contact at a NO micro-pushbutton.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Men Of War Game Console
Men Of War is my favorite game so far! I made a Game Console for this game, so that i can take advantage of game shortcuts. But more important is the joystick that this console will have. This joystick simulates the keyboard arrow keys along with the control key. In other words, this keyboard will engage and disengage Direct Control automatically upon move! This is the best feature that all Men Of War gamers would like to have, especially when playing this boring "Only Tanks"....

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Instant Cold Coffee Machine
The Greek style instant cold coffee is an excellent coffee for the warm days. Yet, there is no machine built for this, as it would only sell in Greece. So, i have to make my own machine...

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Homemade Soldering Station
For under $40, i made a professional-like sodlering station. This controller will read the temperature from the soldering tip, and will turn on or off the heater accordingly. This is a characteristic only for very expensive soldering stations. Cheaper sodlering stations have only (unlike my controller) a PWM or a similar power controller, that only sets the power delivered to the heater, WITHOUT TEMPERATURE FEEDBACK.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

A 7-seg pre-wired Breadboard Module
Another project for my lab. I made a 5 digits 7-segment module for my breadboard circuits. It will save me a lot of time, as all digits are pre-wired for multiplexing. Also, the 13-pins connector has an offset of about 15mm from the breadboard, and this saves also a lot of space on the breadboard.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

High Frequency Function Generator with the Maxim MAX038
Using the MAX038 function generator IC, i will make a function generator circuit with many capabilities. I plan to install this project on my workbench and use it for my experiments. According to the chip's documentation, i will have rectangular, sine wave and triangular waveform output up to 20 MHz, with duty cycle adjustment from 15 to 85%.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

PCB Etching Bath with Heater and Agitation
Every lab must have an etching tank for home-made PCBs. I make my own etching tank with heater and air-bubbles for agitation. My design is for low production - high quality PCBs. The tank that i use can make up to 10 x 22cm PCBs.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Homemade Foot Pedal For PCB Drills
A really handy project for those who prefer to make their own PCBs, or those who just love the dremel-jobs. A foot pedal that turns on and off the drill makes drilling easier.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

PC System Health Monitor
This project is a complete PC System Health monitoring system and has 6 PWM regulated fans with rpm feedback and rpm stabilizer, 9 NTC temperature sensors for the 6 HDDs and 3 positions in the PC box, 5 auxiliary analog inputs for future upgrades and 2 precision temperature sensors for the air inlet and outlet.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

PCB Photographic Artwork Transfer UV Cabinet
This is my second PCB UV Photo Transfer cabinet. Unfortunately, the first one was rather old, and i don't really have any photos from the construction. It was made for single sided PCBs, and it used an 150W Hg lamp. This one is for double sided PCBs and has 140 UV LEDs, 70 for each side.

[ PROJECT DETAILS ]

Automating the shutdown of APC UPS devices with a APC UPS Shutdown Manager

2012-01-12T23:16:00.001-06:00

APC UPS Shutdown Manager

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Ishan Karve

I work in an office where working late in the night is the norm including weekends.. This post is not about my office or about the work we do late into the night but about a problem statement posed to me by my subordinates. It goes like this..

The office or rather the building rules demand that we shut down (hard off) all electrical equipment once the office is finally shut for the day. This means that our office servers also requires to be shut down along with the UPS (APC SMART 2200). Now this has nothing to do with our office trying to be green but more to do about obviating any fire risks.

So, whats the problem. The problem is that, once we (management) leave the office, the duty staff has to shut down all the equipment including the servers. The issue is that our two servers running WindoZe 2008 R2 and WindoZe 2003 take about 15 minutes to shut down cleanly. And the UPS then needs to be shutdown afterwards. 15 minutes may seem a small time interval for an office which works routinely for 15+ hours in a day in a single shifts 7 days a week. But at night 2330 when its time to go home every minute looks like an hour to the subordinate staff. So the problem was narrated to me over a short tea break. Since I believe in working Smarter and not Harder, I decided to save 15 man minutes every day.

Thus (coming to the point), this post describes a circuit / contraption I have devised which shuts down the UPS once it detects that both the computers dependent upon it have secured for the day.

Detection of the state of the servers is done by pinging the servers at a predetermined time interval. However generally since persistent ICMP pings are blocked by firewalls, I have decided to do an ARP request to find the state of servers. So in a nutshell if a server responds to ARP request it is deemed to be alive.

Read More...
http://karve.in/?p=255

This Project gives me an idea for my own personal use. I have a UPS Battery Backup Hooked up in my Van to run AC Electric Devices from Two 1000 Cranking Amp Batteries. I have them wired in Series to give the needed 24v DC for the UPS Backup to send out 120 volts AC. This works as a Southern Engineered (as we use to say here in TX and the Deep South) or as the Kids these days, say... Hacked... DC to AC Power Inverter. I have to Plug in my UPS to an Extension Cord with 120 volts AC, first. Then I can unplug the Extension Cord and the UPS will keep on Powering my stuff for over an hour. I don't know for sure how long the Batteries will last, since I haven't tried it longer than that. I can run a PC, CRT Monitor, a Router and a 65 watt Light Bulb on this Setup (I don't leave the light on for long though, no need for it rally). Adding more of a Load than that, causes the Power to Drop. So, Ishan has me thinking... This could be a solution for... What if I forget to turn something off, when I go in the House and it runs my Big Batteries Down. They are not Deep Cycle Batteries. They are actually Batteries for Diesel Trucks, which were given to me by a friend. So, I don't want to run them all they way down and ruin them. If I built Ishan's Auto Shutdown Device. I could have it shut down my PC, in case I forget... I wonder if it could shut down a Router too???

Don

Electron Cloud

APC Arduino bash BeautifulSoup CCS Controller Default delhi DIY & Mods download Duemilanove ENC28j60 epaper EtherShield GPS Haversine hd44780 INA122 INA126 INA128 INA2126 India Linux microchip MPX2010DP MPX2100DP NMEA NTP PHP PIC PIC16F877 PIC Microcontroller Ping Programming Pump pycurl Python RTC sed shell script SMART tracker UPS vehicle wget

Internet Opens Up to All Names

2012-01-12T20:58:00.001-06:00

Internet Opens Up to All Names

A historical day dawns as the formal process that will expand the number of top level domains available on the Internet begins.

By Sean Michael Kerner | Jan 12, 2012

Every since the very beginning of the Internet, new top level domains (TLD) have been added incrementally. Currently the number of TLDs stands at 22, but thanks to a process that begins today that number could be over 1,000 by this time next year.

The new TLDs are known as generic top level domains (gTLD) and can potentially be any word, in nearly any type of human language script. The current pool of TLDs are entirely in Latin script and include among others: .com, .net, .org and country codes TLDs (ccTLDs) like .de (Germany) and .cn (China).

"This is the first time in the history of the Internet that generic top level domains can be created in non-Latin characters," Rod Beckstrom, CEO of ICANN said during a press conference announcing the start of the gTLD program.

Non-Latin characters had previously only been available as part of internationalized domain names (IDNs) for country code TLDs (ccTLD). The IDN process officially approved the first non-Lation IDN ccTLDs in 2010.

The path to today's historic milestone comes after over six years of debate and discussion. The gTLD program was officially approved by ICANN as a program to implement in a meeting in Singapore in June of 2010.

"We think the world is ready for this innovation," Beckstrom said. "We believe that this program will do what it is designed to do, which is open up the Internet domain name system to further innovation."

Read More...
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/datacenter/internet-opens-up-to-all-names.html

So, what will I still have to come up with $185,000 to start selling my own ".don" Domains??? "Applicants are required to pay a fee of $185,000 to even be considered."

Don

Helpful Links

Yankee Group Mobile WAN Optimization Report

Mobile work continues to evolve. Your organization must keep up with the demands of its mobile workforce. This report introduces the concept of mobile WAN optimization and provides three case studies including RCM, PRTM and Einstein that highlight how this emerging technology can help IT departments achieve what previously appeared to be conflicting goals. Read >
Network Security Resources

More threats than ever before pose a danger to today's enterprise network. Get the latest tips and intel on the newest risks in our guide to network security resources. Read >
Extreme Savings: Cutting Costs with WAN Optimization

Did you know it's possible to cut IT costs without impacting day-to-day IT operations? In fact, when you download this whitepaper from Riverbed on cost-savings through WAN optimization, you'll discover how businesses of all different sizes have realized a return on investment in just a few months through significant hard cost savings in areas such as bandwidth reduction and IT consolidation. It's called Extreme Savings and its only from Riverbed. Read >

Resources

Mastering Network Protocols
To be an effective network engineer or administrator, you need to understand the blocks on which all networks are built. In most cases, that means a thorough understanding of IP addresses, subnets, CIDR, and TCP protocol. Download this free guide now and learn in-depth concepts covering the foundation of networking. Read more
Getting the Most from Your WAN
It's important that employees have access to the data and applications they need over a wide area network as if they were on the local area network. Using application acceleration, wide area file services (WAFS), and WAN optimization, businesses can increase productivity and save money by reducing server and storage sprawl and the number of necessary software licenses. Read more
Protecting Your Network with Intrusion Detection and Prevention System
An intrusion detection system (IDS) is designed to monitor all inbound and outbound network activity and identify any suspicious patterns that may indicate a network or system attack from someone attempting to break into or compromise a system. The term IDS actually covers a large variety of products that all detect intrusions. An IDS solution can come in the form of cheaper shareware or freely distributed open source programs, to a much more expensive and secure vendor software solution. Read more

Future of Technology - Tiny hard drive stores one bit of data with just 12 atoms

2012-01-12T20:34:00.001-06:00

Tiny hard drive stores one bit of data with just 12 atoms

IBM Research - Zurich

Miniaturized information storage in atomic-scale antiferromagnets show the binary representation of "s" (01010011).

By John Roach

Twelve atoms are all that's required to store a bit of computer code – a 1 or 0, according to a new discovery that probes the limit of classical data storage.

Computer hard drives on the market today use more than a million atoms to store a single bit and more than half a billion to store a byte, which is an eight-bit-long unit of code sufficient to write the letter A, for example.

The new technique uses just 96 atoms per byte, allowing for hard drives that store 100 times more information in the same amount of physical space, according the researchers behind the discovery.

"We can put the neighboring bits at the same atomic spacing that the atoms have inside the bit," Andreas Heinrich, a lead investigator in atomic storage at IBM Research in California, told me.

"So, we can really pack them right next to each other."

Unconventional magnetism
The storage technique is based on an unconventional form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism.

Normal magnets used in today's hard drives — and to hold your child's artwork on the refrigerator — are made of ferromagnetic materials. The spins of atoms in these magnets align with each other.

That's "good" because it provides an overall magnetic field that we can read as a bit — a 1 or 0, explained Heinrich.

"But it is bad because the magnetic field from one bit will interfere with the magnetic field from the neighboring bit and so you can't pack these bits too close together because they'll just talk to each other," he said.

Antiferromagnets, by contrast, cancel each other out, so there's no magnetic field emanating from them. That means they can be packed close together, allowing for the increased data storage density.

Atomic building blocks

Read More...
http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/12/10140571-tiny-hard-drive-stores-one-bit-of-data-with-just-12-atoms?chromedomain=cosmiclog

Pretty Cool stuff. I think I'll just skip getting a Solid Sate Drive and wait for these to come out;) Hey, it worked out great for me! When I went from Windows 3.11 to Win98... And even better once I discovered Linux! Just had to mention Linux;)

Don

More on atomic-scale computing and storage:

Microcontroller based audio volume level compressor - The Great [Volume] Leveler (AVR Audio Compressor) | Non-Lexical Vocables

2012-01-11T17:12:00.001-06:00

The AVR Audio Compressor (Volume Leveler)

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaEc6_wQ9FM&w=470

The Great [Volume] Leveler (AVR Audio Compressor)

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Mike

Like many people, I have fairly diverse taste in music. My media library holds tracks from Bach, Beethoven, Billy Joel, Bonobo, Brent Lamb, Brahms, Brian Hughes, and the Bee Gees (to name just the “B” section). I love variety. The trouble is, all of these different genres tend to require slightly different volume settings. Worse still, in the case of some classical music, you can get quite a wide range of volumes within a single piece (e.g. O Fortuna). So if I hook up my BlackBerry and set it to shuffle, I find myself having to continually adjust the volume knob – either because I can hardly hear the current track, or because my neighbors are about to come banging on my door.

Well, I’m not the first one to have this problem. Nor am I the only one to attempt to solve it. In fact, it’s already been solved. As you may know, there are plenty of software solutions out there for so-called volume leveling. But before the advent of the BlackBerry, or the personal computer, there was the analog compressor.

The sole purpose of such a device is to compress the dynamic range of an incoming audio signal: amplifying the soft parts and reducing the volume of the loud parts (thus decreasing, or compressing, the range of the track’s volume). It’s quite a simple thing, really. And you can buy one of these units for between $100 and $200. But why buy something when you can build it from spare parts?

Now for all of you comp-sci majors out there who are planning on commenting on any one of a million different audio leveling programs out there, don’t worry, I know they exist. The trouble is, even if I leveled every single MP3 I possess, what about internet radio? Specifically, the Pandora app for my BlackBerry? Alright, maybe there’s a software-only solution for that too (although I haven’t found it), but you know what? Just for the fun of it, I’m going with hardware this time. Well, mostly. Actually, it’s going to be a mix of analog hardware and an 8-bit Atmel AVR running some embedded C code. Sound good? Alright, then let’s get started!

First Prototype: Powered by LabVIEW

Read More...
http://www.nlvocables.com/blog/?p=803

Looks great!:) I would like to try building one...

Don

Microcontroller based audio volume level compressor: Microcontroller based audio volume level compressor - Hack a Day; The Great [Volume] Leveler (AVR Audio Compressor) | Non-Lexical Vocables; The AVR Audio Compressor (Volume Leveler) - YouTube

Running Linux on a Digital Picture Frame

2012-01-11T15:34:00.001-06:00

Picture Frame Repurpose with Linux

DF3120 + Wiimote

Video Link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cwN6eztHQSA

Parrot DF3120 320x240 Bluetooth/SD/USB Picture Frame

This port was made by a combination of mostly 3 hackers to start with:

Michel Pollet aka @BusError
Jeroen aka @SpriteMods aka Sprite_tm
Claude Schwarz aka Claude :-)

With excellent contributions from Simon Taylor in particular, and a few others, including Bifferos of the bifferboard project.

This 3.5" display frame seems to have the highest potential for hackability so far. When compared to the hacked keychain models, this has a much faster CPU, larger screen, more RAM and is hardly any more expensive. As of Nov 2010, they are on Amazon for a ridiculous £10! (@Biff) I have some theories as to why.

This frame is now "owned" almost entirely and can run Linux without needing JTAG or even a uart cable. Here is a screenshot of the 320x240 display running the Linux framebuffer:

The Frame running the 'sdl newvox' demo with wiimote input:

Status

Overall the unit works great now and boots Linux, there are no longer any "major" gotchas. Linux boots with busybox and has about ~3MB RAM remaining, largely enough for an application or two. Unit now has:

u-boot (from open-moko branch) working with:

serial console
NAND access
NAND boot
SD card
DFU & USB slave (upgrade NAND via USB)

kernel 2.6.36.1

buttons
LCD (with issues remaining)
USB device ~~(with issues remaining on usb-gadget)~~
SD card
Bluetooth

Still missing:

u-boot:

A way to watch for a Button press at boot to stop auto-booting and stay in DFU mode.
U-boot status messages on the DF3120 screen, instead of just on the serial port.

kernel:

~~NAND access (MTD device not showing for now)~~
~~LCD has issues when booting from NAND~~
~~ADC for the light sensor~~
~~Bluetooth UART hooked up to some sort of stack~~
~~Issues with speed of USB device ethernet~~

Toolchain/rootfs

Read More...
https://sites.google.com/site/repurposelinux/df3120

I like this Project!:) I have been wondering if this was posable, ever since I got my Mom a Digital Picture frame for Christmas a couple of years ago. I wonder;)... Don't tell Mom!:)

Don

Running Linux on a Digital Picture Frame: This digital picture frame runs Linux better than you might think - Hack a Day; DF3120 + Wiimote - YouTube; Parrot DF3120 320x240 Bluetooth/SD/USB Picture Frame - repurpose_Linux; Picasa Web Albums - Michel Pollet; Picasa Web Albums - Michel Pollet

Three Reasons to Insulate Pipes, Metal Framing Materials

2012-01-11T14:15:00.001-06:00

Thought for Today: "Confidence is the feeling you sometimes have before you fully understand the situation." ~ Author Unknown

Three Good Reasons to Insulate Water Pipes

There are at least three very good reasons to insulate water pipes. Insulation stops cold water pipes from sweating when moisture in the air condenses on their cold surfaces and drips in problem areas. It prevents hot water from losing its heat as it flows through the pipes from the water heater to upstairs bathrooms and laundry areas. Lastly, insulation ensures that pipes running through unheated crawl spaces do not freeze and burst in winter's chill. The local hardware store or home improvement center offers several methods and materials.

View the Video. Read the Article.

Why Choose Metal Framing Materials Over Wood?

Metal framing materials compare favorably with wood and, in fact, have some advantages. Steel studs are lightweight, strong and uniformly straight and true. Metal framed walls use a track or channel at the top and bottom to hold the studs in place, but the basic wall frame construction is the same. Working with them requires only two tools: a power drill and a pair of snips. Here’s a quick, to-the-point primer on how to work with these materials.

View the Video. Read the Article.

RonHazelton.com | On TV | Media Inquiries
Copyright © 2010 Ron Hazelton Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.

Explore Content

Water Pipes Hot Water Pipe Configurations Insulating Products Product Features Tubular Insulation Products Cold Water Pipes Cold Surfaces Flexible Elastomeric Insulation Inslulate Pipe

I like his Tips. This is from the e-mail he sends out...

Don

If you aren't already using Audacity. My favorite free and Open Source Audio Editor and Recording App..

2012-01-11T14:09:00.001-06:00

If you aren't already using Audacity.... My favorite free and Open Source Audio Editor and Recording App... Then What are You Waiting for!:) It is both Powerful and Easy to use. Here is some great and interesting info from the Audacity Web Site and Online Manual...

Don

The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor

Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information.

The latest release of Audacity is 1.3.12 (Beta). This is our active "work in progress" version with our latest features. Documentation and translations into different languages are not quite complete. We recommend this version for more advanced users, and for everyone on Windows 7, Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.6. See New Features in 1.3 for more information about the 1.3 Beta series.

Audacity 1.2.6 is our main release, complete and fully documented, but no longer under development. You may install Audacity 1.2.6 and 1.3.12 on the same machine.

Go there...

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity User's Manual

This manual is a work in progress. It relates to the current Beta release (1.3.12) not 1.2.5 or 1.2.6! Audacity Beta is the basis for our upcoming 2.0 stable release.

The Audacity Manual current at time of release is included in the Windows .exe or Mac .dmg Audacity installers.

To view the Manual, click Help > Manual (in web browser), or Help > Quick Help (in web browser) to access the "Getting Started" section of the manual. This will load the local Manual files in your web browser, without the need for an internet connection.

If you have obtained the zip version of Audacity or are on Linux, you can download and install the most current Manual here.

Using Audacity

Quick Where and How

Diagram of Audacity - Find your way round the interface
Getting Started - Recording, Importing, Editing, Exporting...
Frequently Asked Questions
More help - Search the Wiki, ask on the Forum

Tutorials

Editing an Audio File - Import the file, edit and export it
Your First Recording - Connect and record an audio source
Mixing a Narration With Background Music - (for podcasts)
Copying tapes, LPs or minidiscs to CD - Digitize analog media
Example Workflows - Some sample workflows

Read More...
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Main_Page

Glossary

From Audacity Manual

Jump to: navigation, search

This page gives very brief explanations of technical terms related to digital audio, with some links to Wikipedia for much more comprehensive explanations.General Terms

I removed the example of a volume control in the description of "Linear", since it is actually a logarithmic control, even though it is usually marked linearly. I haven't thought of an alternative, though. Also, made small changes to CBR and Gain. - Paraic Nov 24/09

	Term	Description
	ADC:	Analog to digital converter. The part of a sound card which records an analog, real world sound like a voice or guitar and converts it to a numerical representation of the audio that a computer can manipulate.
	Algorithm:	A set of steps or a procedure that will produce a desired result.
	Amplitude:	The level or magnitude of a signal. Audio signals with a higher amplitude will sound louder.
	Audacity Project Format (.aup):	The format in which Audacity stores its projects. This consists of a reference file with the extension .aup and a large number of small audio files with extension .AU. This structure makes it quicker for Audacity to move audio around - ideal for cutting and pasting audio in a project.
	Audio CDs:	CDs containing PCM audio data in accordance with the Red Book standard. They can be played on any standalone CD player as well as on computers.
	Bit:	A measure of quantity of data. A bit is one binary digit, a 0 or a 1.
	Bit Rate:	The number of computer bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. Normally expressed in kilobits per second (kbps).
	CBR:	Constant Bitrate - In this format, the rate at which audio uses its data does not vary. Silence uses as much 'space' as audible sound.
	Cepstrum:	The cepstrum of an audio signal is related to the spectrum, but presents the rate of change in the different spectrum bands. It's particularly useful for properties of vocal tracks and is used, for example, in software to identify speakers by their voice characteristics.
	Clipping:	Distortion to sound that happens when the audio is too loud. When a waveform shows 'flat tops' rather than smooth curves it is usually an indication of clipping.
	codec:	A computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream. The term is a portmanteau (a blending of two or more words) of coder and decoder.
	Companding:	Refers to the process of compressing the dynamic range of an audio signal before storage or transmission, then expanding the signal on retrieval or reception. The term is a portmanteau (a blending of two or more words) of compressing and expanding.
	Compressed Audio Format:	Any format that will reduce the space required in storing or representing an audio signal. Space savings can be made for example by discarding certain frequency components which may be inaudible. MP3 takes this approach. Other formats such as FLAC compress without audio loss, but achieve lower compression rates.
	Compression:	A process that tends to even out the overall volume level by increasing the level of softer passages and decreasing the level of louder passages. See also Compressed Audio Format.
	Cycle:	An audio tone consists of an oscillating sound pressure on the ear. One cycle is one full transition of positive pressure through to negative pressure, back to positive pressure again.
	DAC:	Digital to analog converter. The part of a sound card which plays back a numerical representation of audio as an analog, real world sound like a voice or guitar.
	Data CDs:	Data CDs contain data intended to be read directly by a computer. The data may include audio and any other types of file such as images and documents. Most standalone CD players will not play data CDs, but some DVD players will. Including compressed audio files on a data CD can greatly increase the playing time compared to audio CDs.
	dB:	Decibels. A logarithmic unit (typically of sound pressure) describing the ratio of that unit to a reference level.
	Dynamic Range:	The difference between the loudest and softest part in an audio recording, the maximum possible being determined by its sample format. For a device, the difference between its maximum possible undistorted signal and its Noise Floor.
	FFT:	Fast Fourier Transform. A method for performing Fourier transforms quickly.
	File name extension:	A suffix of three or four characters added to a file name which defines the format of its contents. The suffix is separated from the file name by a dot (period), as in "song.mp3". The extension of common formats is often hidden on Windows, but can be turned on in the system's Folder Options.
	Filter:	A sound effect that lets some frequencies through and suppresses others.
	Fourier Transform:	A method for converting a waveform to a spectrum, and back.
	Frequency:	Audio frequency determines the pitch of a sound. Measured in Hz, higher frequencies have higher pitch.
	Gain:	A measure of how much a signal is amplified. Usually expressed in dB, positive gain increases the amplitude of a signal, while negative gain reduces it.
	Harmonics:	Most sounds are made up of a mix of different frequencies. In musical sounds, the component frequencies are simple multiples of each other, for example 100 Hz, 200 Hz, 300 Hz. These are called harmonics of the lowest frequency sound.
	Headroom:	The difference between the peak level of an audio track and the the maximum level that can be achieved without clipping. Recording at -6 dB below maximum level is a good compromise between getting far enough above the noise floor while having sufficient headroom to make edits that increase loudness.
	High Pass Filter:	A filter that lets high frequencies through
	Hz:	Hertz. Measures a frequency event in number of cycles per second. See Frequency and Sample Rate, both of which are measured in Hz.
	Interpolation:	Completing waveform data by estimating missing values. The values are estimated as being between other known values. To convert a waveform recorded at 22000 Hz or samples per second to one at a higher rate such as 44000 samples per second requires interpolation.
	LAME:	A software library that converts audio to MP3 format.
	Latency:	A short delay between an audio signal being sent and received. In computer audio this is due to analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion. Most commonly refers to the delay between recording a sound and a) hearing its playthrough or b) laying it down on disk.
	Linear:	A simple, straight-forward, directly proportional, one-to-one relationship. This term is used to contrast with logarithmic, or other complex relationships.
	Logarithmic:	A non-linear relationship where one item is proportional to the logarithm of the other item. Some measures, such as dB, are logarithmic by definition.
	Lossless:	A format for size-compressing audio that does not lose any information. The quality is exactly as good as before compression. An example is FLAC.
	Lossy:	A format for size-compressing audio that may sacrifice a small amount of quality in order to reduce the file size more than lossless compression. Examples are MP3 and OGG.
	Low Pass Filter:	A filter that lets low (bass) frequencies through.
	MP3 CDs:	A specific type of data CD containing only MP3 audio files. All computers can play them as can some DVD and portable MP3 players.
	Noise Floor:	A level or amplitude representing the amount of near-continuous background noise present in the signal. A background hiss would raise the noise floor, and could prevent a faint signal (one below the noise floor) being heard at all. Unwanted sporadic noise such as a member of the audience coughing is noise, but it doesn't contribute to the noise floor.
	PCM:	Pulse code modulation. A method of converting audio into binary numbers to represent it digitally, then back to audio. The waveform is measured at evenly spaced intervals and the amplitude of the waveform noted for each measurement.
	Pitch:	Generally synonymous with the fundamental frequency of a note, but in music, often also taken to imply a perceived measurement that can be affected by overtones above the fundamental.
	Red Book:	The most widely used standard for representing audio on CD, requiring stereo, 16-bit, 44100 Hz.
	RMS:	Root-mean-square. A method of calculating a numerical value for the average sound level of a waveform.
	Sample:	A discrete value at a point in a waveform representing the audio at that point. Also the act of taking a sequence of such values. All digital audio must be sampled at discrete points. By contrast, analog audio (such as the sound from a loudspeaker) is always a continuous signal.
	Sample Rate:	Measured in Hz like frequency, this represents the number of digital samples captured per second in order to represent the waveform.
	Sample Format:	Also known as Bit Depth or Word Size. The number of computer bits present in each audio sample. Determines the dynamic range of the audio.
	Spectrum:	Presentation of a sound in terms of its component frequencies.
	Uncompressed Audio Format:	An audio format in which every sample of sound is represented by a binary number. Examples are WAV or AIFF.
	VBR:	Variable bit rate. A method for compressing audio which does not always use the same number of bits to record the same duration of sound.
	Waveform:	A visual representation of an audio signal.
	Zero Crossing:	The point where a line joining the audio samples crosses the zero horizontal line.

Audio File Formats

There are numerous audio file formats for storing audio on a computer.

WAV format is widely used on Windows and is needed for creating an audio CD.
AIFF is widely used on Apple's operating systems.
Compressed formats are used on portable music players.

ToDo

Description of FFmpeg formats (AC3, AMR NB)
As we have now decided not to have separate pages for the different formats (only separate pages for format export options), we need to rethink where these Glossary entries link to - best left until we decide if we have an appendix containing details of "audio file formats" - Gale
Ed 13 Nov 2009 consider adding MP4 (aka M4A) formats which are also supported (see [1] the wikipedia article)

	Term	Description
	AAC:	A lossy, size-compressed audio format. AAC files usually have M4A extension, with variants such as M4P (protected) and M4R (ringtones). Usually gives better quality for the same bit rate than the older MP3 format. Is default audio format for iTunes®, iPod® and iPhone®, and Sony PlayStation 3.
	AIFF:	A container format, almost always used for lossless, uncompressed, PCM audio. The format is in Apple's Big-endian byte order.
	AU:	A container format, used by Audacity for storage of lossless, uncompressed, PCM audio data
	FLAC:	An Open Source lossless, size-compressed audio format
	MIDI:	MIDI is a small-sized file format which stores how to play notes, widely used for keyboard instruments. It is not an audio file format like WAV that uses thousands of samples to record the full sound of the notes actually being played.
	MP2:	A lossy, size-compressed audio format mainly used by the broadcast media
	MP3:	A lossy, size-compressed audio format which is the main format for transmitting audio over the internet
	Ogg Vorbis:	An Open Source lossy, size-compressed audio format
	WAV:	A container format, almost always used for lossless, uncompressed, PCM audio. The format is in Microsoft's Little-Endian byte order.
	WMA:	A container format. Windows Media Audio is a lossy, size-compressed audio format developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs.

Go there...
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Glossary#lame

FAQ:Installation and Plug-Ins

From Audacity Manual

Jump to: navigation, search

> Forward To: FAQ:Recording

< Back to: FAQ:About Audacity

|< Index of Frequently Asked Questions

[hide]

How do I download and install the LAME MP3 encoder?

Read more...
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#How_do_I_download_and_install_the_LAME_MP3_encoder.3F

Copyright: Unless otherwise noted, all pages on this site are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In essence, you are free to (1) copy, distribute and transmit the work (2) to adapt the work, under condition you must attribute the work to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from us.

NOVA - The Fabric of the Cosmos Video Series

2012-01-11T01:10:00.001-06:00

The Fabric of the Cosmos

Acclaimed physicist Brian Greene reveals a mind-boggling reality beneath the surface of our everyday world. Airing 11/2, 11/9, 11/16 and 11/23, at 9pm on PBS Airing 11/2, 11/9, 11/16 and 11/23, at 9pm on PBS

Posted 10.27.11

"The Fabric of the Cosmos," a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe. With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we’d hardly recognize—a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected.

Brian Greene is going to let you in on a secret: We've all been deceived. Our perceptions of time and space have led us astray. Much of what we thought we knew about our universe—that the past has already happened and the future is yet to be, that space is just an empty void, that our universe is the only universe that exists—just might be wrong.

Interweaving provocative theories, experiments, and stories with crystal-clear explanations and imaginative metaphors like those that defined the groundbreaking and highly acclaimed series "The Elegant Universe," "The Fabric of the Cosmos" aims to be the most compelling, visual, and comprehensive picture of modern physics ever seen on television.

Go there (The links to each Video are on the left side in green text)...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-of-cosmos.html#fabric-of-cosmos

I've watched "What Is Space?" and "Universe or Multiverse?" so far (as of 01-11-12). And I really enjoyed them. I will be watching the rest soon!:)

Don

NOVA | A Quantum Leap in Computing

2012-01-11T00:23:00.001-06:00

A Quantum Leap in Computing

Posted 07.21.11
NOVA

Imagine a futuristic computer so powerful that it could quickly solve problems that even a supercomputer of today would need billions of years to grapple with. While it doesn’t exist yet, prototypes of such a magical machine are currently in operation at MIT, sorting out puzzles of quantum physics that no ordinary computer could handle. In this interview, MIT mechanical engineer Seth Lloyd, who helped establish the field of quantum computing, describes its revolutionary potential.

Seth Lloyd thinks that quantum computers similar to this one will not only have practical applications but also help solve mysteries of the utterly strange and super-small quantum realm. Enlarge Photo credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

WEIRD LEMONADE

NOVA: Quantum mechanics has taught us that nature is pretty weird. Is it possible to take advantage of that?

Seth Lloyd: Quantum mechanics is weird, that's just the way it is. It's a sad thing, but it's true. In fact, there's a funny phenomenon where people who get their Nobel Prizes in quantum mechanics don't believe in quantum mechanics because it's so weird—starting with Einstein. Einstein got his Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect, all about quantum mechanics and photons, yet he never really believed in quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is just completely strange and counterintuitive. We can't believe that things can be here [in one place] and there [in another place] at the same time. And yet that's a fundamental piece of quantum mechanics. So then the question is, life is dealing us weird lemons, can we make some weird lemonade from this?

Well, if you can have something that's here and there at the same time, then you can have a quantum bit [of information], or Q-bit as it's sometimes called, that can effectively register zero and one simultaneously. If you can do that, you can start processing information in some funky, quantum mechanical way, which nobody understands, that allows you to take advantage of this quantum weirdness.

Let's back up to some basics. How does a traditional computer store information?

Sure. A traditional digital computer like the one that I have on my desk operates by breaking down information into its smallest possible chunks. The smallest chunk of information is a bit. A bit is normally thought to be either zero or one. What a computer does is simply bust up the information into the smallest chunks and then flip them really, really, really rapidly in a systematic fashion.

Is that information—that zero or one—something physical, like a switch?

Yeah. The IBM physicist Rolf Landauer was fond of saying "information is physical." It's a slogan, but it really is true in the sense that whenever we process information, be it in a computer or in our brains, that information is represented by something. In your computer, if you have a bunch of electrons over here—we call that a zero—and a bunch of electrons over there—we call that a one. And if these electrons go from here to there, then zero is turning into one, the bit is flipping. An ordinary computer is simply doing that with many, many bits, billions of times a second.

How is a quantum computer different?

Think of miniaturizing a computer so that a bit is stored on an individual electron, so that a single electron over here is zero and a single electron over there is one. Now, an electron has this funny feature in quantum mechanics that it's really a wave, and this wave can be both here and there at the same time. And that means that the quantum bit that the electron represents registers both zero and one simultaneously. It also wiggles up and down a lot like a wave.

So how do you make those quantum bits into a computer?

Well, that's trickier! But nature supplies us with lots of electrons. And at bottom, nature is quantum mechanical, so all the things that we think of as particles like electrons have waves associated with them. If we can control them in a systematic fashion, then we can make a quantum computer.

The Q-bits at the heart of this quantum computer are superconducting circuits roughly the size of bacteria—far too tiny to see with the naked eye. Baffling our notions of what’s possible, these circuits can run both clockwise and counterclockwise simultaneously. Enlarge Photo credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

CODEBREAKING: A "QILLER" APP

Why are quantum computers useful? Are they, in some sense, better than a standard computer?

Well, the first reason that quantum computers are useful is that they're just cool, let's face it! Like, so weird, like, whoa! Amazing, can that really happen? And the answer is "yes," because you can build quantum computers, and we've been building them for years now.

But the second reason is that if you have a different way, and a fundamentally weird way, of registering and processing information, then it means you can do computations in ways that our classical brains could not have dreamed of.

Now, actually, for many years, nobody could really figure out any problems that quantum computers could solve better than classical ones, and quantum computers were largely just a kind of a curiosity. They were known to be possible in theory. Then, about 15 years ago, I showed that they were possible in practice by proposing a way to build quantum computers. But nobody had a good application for them.

Then, in 1994, Peter Shore, who was then at AT&T and is now at MIT, came up with a killer app for quantum computers. (And maybe we should spell it Q-I-L-L-E-R because whenever you quantize something, you take a letter and turn it into a Q.) The Qiller app for quantum computers is breaking codes, codes like the ones we use whenever we use our bankcards.

How do these codes work?

Read More...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/quantum-computing.html

Tech & Engineering Resources

Text

(43)

Artificial Intelligence Pioneer
MIT’s Marvin Minsky, one of the fathers of AI, expounds on the current state of the field and hopes for its future.
Watson on Jeopardy!
Three artificial-intelligence experts, including the leader of the Watson team, discuss the supercomputer’s prospects.
Smartest Machine: Expert Q&A
The head of the AI team that programmed the computer "Watson" to compete on Jeopardy! answers questions.
Toward a Smart Electric Grid
Should the U.S. be upgrading now to a "smart" electric grid? An energy expert insists there's no time to lose.
A Quantum Leap in Computing
MIT’s Seth Lloyd, a pioneer of quantum computing, explains its applications and revolutionary potential.

Video

(51)

Mystery of a Masterpiece
Art experts investigate whether a portrait sold for about $20,000 in 2008 is actually a lost Leonardo worth millions.
An Interview With Steve Jobs
Watch a rare interview with the late Apple visionary, conducted in 1990, and see how remarkably prescient he was.
Reflections on the 9/11 Memorial
Visitors to the newly opened 9/11 memorial share their impressions.
Rebuilding 7 World Trade Center
Developer Larry Silverstein explains what's different about the new 7 World Trade Center.
The Memorial Plaques
Visit the factory where the 9/11 Memorial plaques are made.

Multimedia

(45)

Inside a Nuclear Control Room
Explore a panoramic image of the control room at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station's training simulator.
Chemical Bonds Quiz
Explore what holds atoms together to form the myriad chemical substances found in our world.
What's This Stuff?
Think you know your stuff? Identify 10 mystery materials from a set of clues.
The Stuff of Smartphones
See the materials and technologies that go into a smartphone as well as their environmental impact.
Putting Bacteria to Work
Bacteria help us in all kinds of ways, from fermenting foods to aiding medicine, cleaning oil spills to mining minerals.

Audio

(11)

Wireless Electricity?
Using a new wireless charging system, plug-in electric cars may be able to shed their power cables entirely.
A Clean Energy Future?
Developing clean energy technologies makes sense not only environmentally but economically, Nobelist Steven Chu argues.
Training for a Nuclear Crisis
Are workers at U.S. nuclear power plants prepared to deal with earthquakes, tsunamis, and other disasters?
The Dangers of Nanotech
Nanomaterials are used in consumer goods from cell phones to sunscreen. But how safe are they?
Rescuing the Miners
Hear from Greg Hall, the drilling expert whose team reached 33 Chilean miners trapped more than 2,000 feet underground.

NOVA Education

ModSecurity: Open Source Web Application Firewall

2012-01-10T02:53:00.001-06:00

From the ModSecurity Manual Documentation, which comes with the Download...

ModSecurity® Reference Manual

Current as of v2.5.13 and v2.6

Introduction

ModSecurity is a web application firewall (WAF). With over 70% of attacks now carried out over the web application level, organisations need all the help they can get in making their systems secure. WAFs are deployed to establish an increased external security layer to detect and/or prevent attacks before they reach web applications. ModSecurity provides protection from a range of attacks against web applications and allows for HTTP traffic monitoring and real-time analysis with little or no changes to existing infrastructure.

HTTP Traffic Logging

Web servers are typically well-equipped to log traffic in a form useful for marketing analyses, but fall short logging traffic to web applications. In particular, most are not capable of logging the request bodies. Your adversaries know this, and that is why most attacks are now carried out via POST requests, rendering your systems blind. ModSecurity makes full HTTP transaction logging possible, allowing complete requests and responses to be logged. Its logging facilities also allow fine-grained decisions to be made about exactly what is logged and when, ensuring only the relevant data is recorded. As some of the request and/or response may contain sensitive data in certain fields, ModSecurity can be configured to mask these fields before they are written to the audit log.

Real-Time Monitoring and Attack Detection

In addition to providing logging facilities, ModSecurity can monitor the HTTP traffic in real time in order to detect attacks. In this case, ModSecurity operates as a web intrusion detection tool, allowing you to react to suspicious events that take place at your web systems.

Attack Prevention and Virtual Patching

ModSecurity can also act immediately to prevent attacks from reaching your web applications. There are three commonly used approaches:

Negative security model. A negative security model monitors requests for anomalies, unusual behaviour, and common web application attacks. It keeps anomaly scores for each request, IP addresses, application sessions, and user accounts. Requests with high anomaly scores are either logged or rejected altogether.
Positive security model. When a positive security model is deployed, only requests that are known to be valid are accepted, with everything else rejected. This model requires knownledge of the web applications you are protecting. Therefore a positive security model works best with applications that are heavily used but rarely updated so that maintenance of the model is minimized.
Known weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Its rule language makes ModSecurity an ideal external patching tool. External patching (sometimes referred to as Virtual Patching) is about reducing the window of opportunity. Time needed to patch application vulnerabilities often runs to weeks in many organisations. With ModSecurity, applications can be patched from the outside, without touching the application source code (and even without any access to it), making your systems secure until a proper patch is applied to the application.

Flexible Rule Engine

A flexible rule engine sits in the heart of ModSecurity. It implements the ModSecurity Rule Language, which is a specialised programming language designed to work with HTTP transaction data. The ModSecurity Rule Language is designed to be easy to use, yet flexible: common operations are simple while complex operations are possible. Certified ModSecurity Rules, included with ModSecurity, contain a comprehensive set of rules that implement general-purpose hardening, protocol validation and detection of common web application security issues. Heavily commented, these rules can be used as a learning tool.

Embedded-mode Deployment

ModSecurity is an embeddable web application firewall, which means it can be deployed as part of your existing web server infrastructure provided your web servers are Apache-based. This deployment method has certain advantages:

No changes to existing network. It only takes a few minutes to add ModSecurity to your existing web servers. And because it was designed to be completely passive by default, you are free to deploy it incrementally and only use the features you need. It is equally easy to remove or deactivate it if required.
No single point of failure. Unlike with network-based deployments, you will not be introducing a new point of failure to your system.
Implicit load balancing and scaling. Because it works embedded in web servers, ModSecurity will automatically take advantage of the additional load balancing and scalability features. You will not need to think of load balancing and scaling unless your existing system needs them.
Minimal overhead. Because it works from inside the web server process there is no overhead for network communication and minimal overhead in parsing and data exchange.
No problem with encrypted or compressed content. Many IDS systems have difficulties analysing SSL traffic. This is not a problem for ModSecurity because it is positioned to work when the traffic is decrypted and decompressed.

Network-based Deployment

ModSecurity works equally well when deployed as part of an Apache-based reverse proxy server, and many of our customers choose to do so. In this scenario, one installation of ModSecurity can protect any number of web servers (even the non-Apache ones).

Portability

ModSecurity is known to work well on a wide range of operating systems. Our customers are successfully running it on Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, AIX, Mac OS X, and HP-UX.

Licensing

ModSecurity is available under the Apache Software License v2 [1]

Note: ModSecurity, mod_security, ModSecurity Pro, and ModSecurity Core Rules are trademarks or registered trademarks of Trustwave Holdings, Inc.

OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) Project

Overview

ModSecurity is a web application firewall engine that provides very little protection on its own. In order to become useful, ModSecurity must be configured with rules. In order to enable users to take full advantage of ModSecurity out of the box, Trustwave's SpiderLabs created the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) Project. Unlike intrusion detection and prevention systems, which rely on signatures specific to known vulnerabilities, the CRS provide generic protection from unknown vulnerabilities often found in web applications, which are in most cases custom coded. The CRS is heavily commented to allow it to be used as a step-by-step deployment guide for ModSecurity. The latest rules packages can be found at the OWASP ModSecurity CRS Project Site.

Core Rules Content

In order to provide generic web applications protection, the CRS use some of the following example techniques:

HTTP protection - detecting violations of the HTTP protocol and a locally defined usage policy.
Common Web Attacks Protection - detecting common web application security attack.
Automation detection - Detecting bots, crawlers, scanners and other surface malicious activity.
Trojan Protection - Detecting access to Trojans horses.
Error Hiding - Disguising error messages sent by the server.

Installation

Prerequisites

ModSecurity 2.x works only with Apache 2.0.x or higher

Version 2.2.x is highly recommended.

mod_uniqueid

Make sure you have mod_unique_id installed. mod_unique_id is packaged with Apache httpd.

libapr and libapr-util

libapr and libapr-util - http://apr.apache.org/

libpcre

http://www.pcre.org/

libxml2

http://xmlsoft.org/downloads.html

liblua v5.1.x

This library is optional and only needed if you will be using the new Lua engine - http://www.lua.org/download.html

Note: that ModSecurity requires the dynamic libraries. These are not built by default in the source distribution, so the binary distribution is recommended.

libcurl v7.15.1 or higher

If you will be using the ModSecurity Log Collector (mlogc) to send audit logs to a central repository, then you will also need the curl library.

http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/

Note: Many have had issues with libcurl linked with the GnuTLS library for SSL/TLS support. It is recommended that the openssl library be used for SSL/TLS support in libcurl.

Installation Methods

Before you begin with installation you will need to choose your preferred installation method. First you need to choose whether to install the latest version of ModSecurity directly from CVS (best features, but possibly unstable) or use the latest stable release (recommended). If you choose a stable release, it might be possible to install ModSecurity from binary. It is always possible to compile it from source code.

The following few pages will give you more information on benefits of choosing one method over another.

SVN Access

(Download ModSecurity to get the above Documentation and Read More)

Or go here...

Documentation

Live Wiki Documentation

The Wiki Documentation will always be the most up-to-date.

Availability of ModSecurity 2.6.3 Release
(December 27, 2011)
The ModSecurity Development Team is pleased to announce the availability of ModSecurity 2.6.3 Release. The stability of this release should be good and it includes some new features and bug fixes, specially came from SDBM garbage collection code. Please see the release notes included into CHANGES file.
For known problems and more information about bug fixes, please see the online

Read More...
http://www.modsecurity.org/

This one looks very interesting... and I found ModSecurity in my Fedora 14 Repo's too. So, I should be able to just install it from Package Manager and then add the latest ModSecurity Core Rule Set. See the info above "ModSecurity is a web application firewall engine that provides very little protection on its own. In order to become useful, ModSecurity must be configured with rules. In order to enable users to take full advantage of ModSecurity out of the box, Trustwave's SpiderLabs created the OWASP ModSecurity Core Rule Set (CRS) Project." The CRS is available from the Download links on the http://www.modsecurity.org/ Site. I think I will try this one out when I get a chance...

Don

ModSecurity is a web application firewall engine: ModSecurity: Open Source Web Application Firewall; ModSecurity Mitigations for ASP.NET HashTable DoS Vulnerability (CVE-2011-3414) - SpiderLabs Anterior; ModSecurity - Browse /modsecurity-crs/0-CURRENT at SourceForge.net; http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/project/mod-security/modsecurity-crs/0-CURRENT/README; ModSecurity: Open Source Web Application Firewall - Documentation; SourceForge.net: mod-security; SourceForge.net: Reference Manual - mod-security

Fwd: $25 Linux PC 'Raspberry Pi' to Go in Production Early Next Year ~ Ubuntu Vibes

2012-01-10T02:16:00.001-06:00

Sunday, December 25

$25 Linux PC 'Raspberry Pi' to Go in Production Early Next Year

Much awaited credit card size $25 computer Raspberry Pi is about to go in production early next year. First run beta devices are currently being tested. If all goes well, you will be able to purchase it in January.

If you don't know, Raspberry Pi can plug into your TV and a keyboard. It can be used for many of the things your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. The device will come with an ARM processor, a USB hub, an HDMI out, a 3.5mm jack and will support Linux out of the box.

Debian, Fedora and ArchLinux will be supported from the start and more distributions will be added later on.

Go there and See Video in Page too...

http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2011/12/25-linux-pc-raspberry-pi-to-go-in.html

The Raspberry Pi is one little Board - Computer that I am really looking forward to!:) I would love to experiment with different light weight Linux Distros on it. It has Video Outputs for TV's (Composite Video or RF, not sure) and HDMI too. And since it already has been tested with Fedora Linux. I would be right at home, setting up a PC or maybe a Media - TV Watching PC with the Raspberry Pi!:)

Don

Raspberry Pi presents the $25 PC at ARM TechCon 2011

Video Link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X9cmxoSmOxU

Uploaded by Charbax on Oct 26, 2011

They plan mass production and deliveries by January of the $25 ARM Powered PC. It's basically a Broadcom ARM11 based SoC on a PCB with USB host, Ethernet, SD Card slot and a HDMI output.

Category:

Science & Technology

License:

Standard YouTube License

Raspberry Pi $25 PC: Raspberry Pi Foundation; YouTube - Raspberry Pi - the £15 computer; Questions remain over $25 Raspberry Pi - TECH.BLORGE.com

by Nitesh Labels: ARM, Hardware, Linux, Raspberry Pi

FreePlay 555 Coin Circuit | Zitt's Blog

2012-01-08T01:53:00.001-06:00

FreePlay 555 Coin Circuit

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Zitt

My Sega Star Trek Captain’s Chair is destined to be present at the 2012 Texas Pinball Festival. As a result; the game needs to have a FreePlay feature (IE a way for the public to play the game without needing quarters). I know Sega Star Trek has a freeplay rom hack available; however, at this moment, VectorLabs isn’t supplying freeplay roms with their devices. I haven’t spent enough time with the multi-vector boardset to determine how easy/hard it would be to convert to Freeplay. As a result; I wanted a simple inexpensive way to credit up the machine when the user pressed the Start button (1UP).

I toyed with the idea of using a cheap 8pin ATMEL microcontroller; but decided a simple 555 timer could be developed to do most of the heavy lifting. In the end I decided to go with a dual 555 timer (NE556) in a cascaded mono-stable configuration. The circuit features:

PowerOn Reset to “credit up” a single credit when power is applied to the machine. Jumpered feature.
Ability to drive COIN_NO signals
Ability to “interrupt” COIN_NC
Can be alternatively stuffed for AC power supplies (6.3VAC GI circuits in Pinball Coindoors).
Jumper configuration to “disable” circuit.
Barrier Diodes to help prevent “installation error”.

I have decided to release this design under to the public under the TAPR Non-Commercial Open Hardware License which indicates:

You may make products based upon this design, provided you do not make more than ten units in any twelve month period for your personal use.

Schematics...

Read More...
http://pinball-mods.com/blogs/?p=155

Sounds like a great way to go. Now if I just had that Elvis Pinball Machine, that my Sisters family had, back when the kids were growing up... I was allot of fun to play, when we would get together on the Holidays:)

Don

Using 555 timers to add “free play” functionality to classic arcade machines: Using 555 timers to add “free play” functionality to classic arcade machines - Hack a Day; FreePlay 555 Coin Circuit | Zitt's Blog

Constellation

2012-01-06T19:14:00.001-06:00

About Constellation

Constellation is a platform for research projects that use Internet-connected computers to do research in various aerospace related sciences and engineering. You can participate by downloading and running a free program on your computer.

Constellation is supported by

Rechenkraft.net e.V. (German)
DGLR Stuttgart (German)
Selfnet e.V. (German)
shack e.V. Hackerspace Stuttgart (German)

Server is powered with Dotsch_UX operating-system and apps will use Java and still to be announced programming and scripting languages.

Constellation Details

Constellation is a platform for all kind of aerospace related simulation. Currently we are working on ...

TrackJack: trajectory optimization of launchers, satellites and probes (subtask for DGLR-Group HyEnD - Hybrid Engine Development)
On The Moon: simulation of Moon's near-surface exosphere
Extreme Machine: analysis of dynamic systems of exploration-rovers

If you want to join our development team or if you have an simulation idea just contact us!

For further information visit About Constellation

News

How to be involved? Overwhelming 28c3 response
Hi everyone,

we received some emails after the 28c3, where you asked us how to be involved.

There are quite some ways.

A:
You can participate in the distributed ground station network and help building it. There is a special email list constellation@lists.shackspace.de

B:
You can propose your own project and we would love to let it run on Constellation. So when you need massive computing power for your aerospace simulation or want to build your own sensor grid, just ask us via email (constellation@aerospaceresearch.net) or in our forums.

C:
Or you can just be generous and passively donate your idle PC time to our project by joining it. This project uses BOINC. If you're already running BOINC, select "Attach to Project". If not, download BOINC.
When prompted, enter http://aerospaceresearch.net/constellation/ .

So there are some ways to do some good for the (science) community, you just have to pick one.
We're really eager to receive more comments.

And here are some FAQs http://shackspace.de/wiki/doku.php?id=project:hgg:faq

What an overwhelming response to our project presentation on 28c3. THANK you, but you have to thank yourself, because it's the community that makes this platform run!

Questions?
Just send us an email, follow us on twitter.com/ARDNnews, like our site on facebook.com/AerospaceResearch.net

Andreas 31 Dec 2011 13:01:30 UTC · Comment

Read More...
http://aerospaceresearch.net/constellation/

Cool Project!:) I use to run BOINC for SETI@home at Home and a couple of Health Research Projects on Rosetta@home. It was easy to setup on a Windows XP System. This was long was long before I go into Linux OS's, which I have been running exclusively for 6 years now... Fedora and Debian are my favorites. I believe I tried out BOINC for Linux a few years ago, if I remember fight. But, I have been running my Web Sites on a Home Server for a couple of years now and can't spare the Band Width for BOINC right now. I think this would be an interesting Project to add to BOINC if you are running it though...

Don

BOINC Projects - SETI@home - Rosetta@home - Constellation: Constellation; boinc - Google Search; SETI@home; Rosetta@home; BOINC

Hackerspace Global Grid

Hackerspace Global Grid [shackspace wiki]

Constellation

Project HGG: FAQ [shackspace wiki]

AMSAT - The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation

Flying Laptop

Hacking confab conjures visions of space-borne 'SOPA Wars' | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Hackerspace Global Grid Meetup » shackspace = der hackerspace in stuttgart

Constellation

28c3: Building a Distributed Satellite Ground Station Network - A Call To Arms - YouTube

boinc - Google Search

BOINC

SETI@home

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rosetta@home

Flying Laptop

Flying Laptop; News

Flying Laptop

2012-01-06T18:01:00.002-06:00

Flying Laptop

The small satellite Flying Laptop is the first satellite of the Small Satellites Program in Stuttgart. This mission shall establish the foundation for the required infrastructure as well as the expertise for the Small Satellites Program of the Institute of Space Systems (IRS), University of Stuttgart. The satellite is developed and build at the IRS and will be operated with the institutes' own ground station. The design, development, construction and future operation are primarily done by Ph.D. students and undergraduate students.
Flying Laptop will have the dimensions of 60x70x80 cm³ and a mass of 120 kg. It is three-axis stabilized and will orbit and survey the earth in a low polar orbit of approximately 700 km. The Flying Laptop shall be launched into orbit with an indian PSLV as a secondary payload. The objectives of the Flying Laptop are the test and verification of new technologies, e.g. a reconfigurable FPGA onboard computer, a novel unfolding meachanism and a GPS experiment, as well as scientific earth surveillance.
The Flying Laptop is currently between the end of phase B and the beginning of phase C. In 2011 the construction of the flatsat for functional verification will be started. In parallel, the structure-thermal model will be built to verify the environmental capability. The launch is projected to be in early 2013. The lifetime of Flying Laptop shall be two years.
Read More...
http://www.kleinsatelliten.de/index.php/en/flying-laptop.html

Pretty Cool Project. I didn't see, how they plan on getting it into Orbit. I wonder, if they are planning on using a Rocket or a Balloon?

Don

Flying Laptop: Constellation; Flying Laptop; News

Hackerspace Global Grid: Hackerspace Global Grid [shackspace wiki]; Constellation; Project HGG: FAQ [shackspace wiki]; AMSAT - The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation; Flying Laptop; Hacking confab conjures visions of space-borne 'SOPA Wars' | Privacy Inc. - CNET News; Hackerspace Global Grid Meetup » shackspace = der hackerspace in stuttgart; Constellation; 28c3: Building a Distributed Satellite Ground Station Network - A Call To Arms - YouTube; boinc - Google Search; BOINC; SETI@home; Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; Rosetta@home

DonsDeals

Table Top Touch Screen, Bootstrapper recognizes users interacting with the table by observing their shoes using depth cameras.

Recognizing Tabletop Users by their Shoes

Summary of CHI 2012 note

Publication

Go there... http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/projects/bootstrapper.html

Video

Bootstrapper: Recognizing Tabletop Users by their Shoes

Fairest Lord Jesus, Norm Hastings, Piano - normhastingsmusic's Channel - YouTube

Fairest Lord Jesus: Norm Hastings, Piano

FreeBSD 9.0 is Here!

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

About FreeBSD

What is FreeBSD?

Cutting edge features

Powerful Internet solutions

Advanced Embedded Platform

Run a huge number of applications

Easy to install

FreeBSD is free

Contributing to FreeBSD

Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD 8.x and Earlier

Go there...

Getting FreeBSD

Buying FreeBSD

Download FreeBSD

Someone, likes my Blog so much!...

Flumotion Media Streaming Software - Open Source

About Flumotion

Download Flumotion

Homemade Soldering Station

Homemade pro-like soldering station for under $40

Homemade soldering station - soldering demonstration

Product Review - How cheap is a cheap power supply

How cheap is a cheap power supply?

Most commented on (30 days) on Hack a Day...

Automating the shutdown of APC UPS devices with a APC UPS Shutdown Manager

APC UPS Shutdown Manager

Electron Cloud

Internet Opens Up to All Names

Internet Opens Up to All Names

A historical day dawns as the formal process that will expand the number of top level domains available on the Internet begins.

Related Articles

Yankee Group Mobile WAN Optimization Report

Network Security Resources

Extreme Savings: Cutting Costs with WAN Optimization

Future of Technology - Tiny hard drive stores one bit of data with just 12 atoms

Tiny hard drive stores one bit of data with just 12 atoms

Microcontroller based audio volume level compressor - The Great [Volume] Leveler (AVR Audio Compressor) | Non-Lexical Vocables

The AVR Audio Compressor (Volume Leveler)

The Great [Volume] Leveler (AVR Audio Compressor)

First Prototype: Powered by LabVIEW

Running Linux on a Digital Picture Frame

DF3120 + Wiimote

Video Link...

Parrot DF3120 320x240 Bluetooth/SD/USB Picture Frame

Status

Overall the unit works great now and boots Linux, there are no longer any "major" gotchas. Linux boots with busybox and has about ~3MB RAM remaining, largely enough for an application or two. Unit now has:

Toolchain/rootfs

Three Reasons to Insulate Pipes, Metal Framing Materials

Explore Content

If you aren't already using Audacity. My favorite free and Open Source Audio Editor and Recording App..

The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor

Audacity User's Manual

Using Audacity

Quick Where and How

Glossary

From Audacity Manual

Audio File Formats

FAQ:Installation and Plug-Ins

From Audacity Manual

Contents

How do I download and install the LAME MP3 encoder?

NOVA - The Fabric of the Cosmos Video Series

The Fabric of the Cosmos

Related Links

NOVA | A Quantum Leap in Computing

A Quantum Leap in Computing

WEIRD LEMONADE

NOVA: Quantum mechanics has taught us that nature is pretty weird. Is it possible to take advantage of that?

Go there...
http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/projects/bootstrapper.html

Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD 8.`x` and Earlier