Awesome Gadget Blog

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As a gadget guy, I am always searching for new tech stuff. Every once in a while, I stumble across a new Gadget Blog that is awe-inspiring. I recently found one that blew my mind, due to some of the inanely cool stuff they dig up.

Like this bad boy…

iphone calculator case

5 functions AND memory...awesome

That iPhone case almost makes me want to get rid of my Droid 2 and snag an iPhone 4. Almost…

Geekalerts.com is where I found that. I have been checking the site out for a while, and they seem to post a handful of awesome entries a day. I have no idea how they keep coming up with this stuff, but it is great. I obviously need to hone my interweb skills, as I would have a hard time finding a few head-scratcher nerd items in a week, let alone in a day. This whole work thing is for the birds. I need more free time. Or, more time to check this site out; they seem to have it figured out.

In addition to the gadgets themselves, these guys do a great job tracking down coupon codes for sweet geeky savings. I ran across an Office Depot coupon that is sort of the catch-all for gadgetry. Office Depot is perhaps a step above gadgetry, since they purvey hardware. Hardwaretry? I am fairly certain that isn’t a word.

Take a look at this Vistaprint coupon for another example. Pretty slick…plus it beats checking out the sites of places you might buy from. Again, the whole time thing.

Anyhow, I am off to check the webs for a Droid old school calculator case. That is too cool.

WordPress 3.2 Custom Layout

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After the whole fiasco that came with my upgrade to WordPress 3.2, I
decided to shell my old layout and go with a new free website
builder. Not only was it too bloated with jqueries, but the whole
thing was sort of outdated. Time for some new blood, to go with my new
(faster?) server.

Introducing: Swiz3

wordpress 3.2 free layout

swiz 3.1

Way quicker than the Swiz2* series. It turns out that WP has introduced a bunch of the custom menu junk that I formerly have fought with into their release, so out with the old.

Consider this a working beta, and pay no attention to anything wonky on IE…haven’t even looked at this site on that. Cheers.

WP 3.2 Dual Fail | PHP and MySQL

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My good friend Alexi from Siteground assured me that my new server is a good one. One that has MySQL 5.0 and PHP 5.2.17. Even though my cpanel was reporting 5.2.17, such was not the case for my PHP version…as fate would have it, my WordPress update to 3.2 puked violently.

I did the prudent thing; edited my .htaccess root file, etc. After getting good old swantron.com up and rolling, I still couldn’t access my admin page. That let me know that my SQL junk was also fishy.

Looks like I need to look into self-hosting options.

wordpress update error with php and sql

stock image? perhaps... something about sql... something about php


Long story short, Alexi got me migrated to a server with some real deal software. Siteground may have had my site hosted on some bullshit tech, but they did get me up and running quickly. I have done some research, and my server neighbors used to be primarily pr0n sites…I wish them luck with their hosting. Guessing they were unaffected by this upgrade that made me stumble, but if not, my condolences to the pervs.

We will see…I might get into the hosting biz.

Lunch in the Cubicle

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Still dining finely on fancy lunches in the cubicle. This week’s installment…three gourmet burgers.

nom nom nom burgers nom

nom nom nom

I find three to be the ideal number of main entree items at the office.
——————————————————————
Unit 1, consumed at 10:00 AM, acts to lessen the coffee shakes.
Unit 2, consumed around noon, acts to kill the smells of coworkers’ lunches
Unit 3, consumed at 2:00 PM, pretty much just food show-boating at this point

+1 food show-boating

Evolution of a Project

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I have two speeds when it comes to projects: percolate and bazooka. Whereas my swantron comment / to / LCD project was bazooka, this Twitter deal has been percolate. Haven’t been able to jump in completely, rather, I have been poking this one with a stick.

Still poking…

arduino controlling blue lcd

dual terminals and a terminal

Making progress…snagging my Twitter page via Python, and dumping it to LCD:

body and html closing tags on my lcd

+1 closing tags

I just need to hammer out some parsing, and I will be good to go. I really need to figure out some sweet regex and drop this whole ‘import (some junk)’ stuff. Who knows…at this rate, I just may.

Nerd Bucket List

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I guess I had better find a new bucket list entry…

ocarina of time 3D

ocarina of time 3D next?

I was so excited upon beating Ocarina of Time, I snapped a self portrait with the end-screen…

beating ocarina of time

zelda master

…and, I am in my 30s. Wow.

Now what? My nerd bucket list needs a new entry. Maybe I should finish my LED cube project. Maybe I should finish my command line Twitter work. Maybe I should take on Ocarina of Time 3D…

Probably not the last one…not pumped about the 3DS. Something great will ensue.

RC Helicopter Tear Down

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A while back, I collected my first Woot BOC. The prize crap in the bag of crap was, without any doubt, the radio controlled Batman helicopter. Great Scott…

batman rc helicopter

shadowy

Wrong movie catch phrase, right? Well, so too are the aerodynamics of a helicopter SHAPED LIKE BATMAN. She is not a very sky-worthy vessel. The rotors push air directly into the clear plastic tab connected to his booted feet…it is not stable at all. Time to tear it up.

helicopter tear down

injured vet batman

I figured that I could remove the obstructive plastic and have a machine that would function well enough to navigate around the garage-shop. I removed the guys legs, which were light enough to be approximated with a zip tie.

As I had hoped, the new lower portion acted to dampen some of the erratic flight.

black hawk up

black hawk up

It was stable enough to allow me to snap that picture…not a possibility with the unmodified original.

Curiosity got the best of me, as it always tends to. I had to break this apart to see how it worked. I am sort of impressed I took the intermediate steps this time…most of my tear down sessions are done quickly and rabidly.

batman guts

guts

This was sort of impressive, actually. The foam chest cavity was hollow to allow for the constituent components…including the mechanical gears. Light, protective, and durable…the triple threat. It was, until I removed it completely…

bare bones

bare bones

There you have it…pretty basic design. Two variable motors, an IR receiver, a battery, a DC power jack, a switch, some caps and resisters, and a chip to run it. The IR sensor was hidden in Batman’s utility belt. Great Scott that is clever.

After all of that, this puppy still flies…

flight worthy

flight worthy

I was pretty gun shy to let that rip. It took a couple of dives in my first two picture attempts, wrapping the battery cord around the rotor assembly. It still works…pretty tough little guy.

Next step…I’m going to get into that controller. It acts as both the charging unit and IR sender, in addition to providing the variable control to the motors. It shall be awesome. Stay tuned.

Twitter CLI Teaser

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I sort of forget what my original project entailed…something about tweeting via the command line, for Arduino purposes. You can pretty much just toss a bunch of words in a hat, and add ‘Arduino’ and ‘Command Line’ to them, and there you have one of my typical projects.

Anyhow, here we find ourselves. I am missing some dependencies with OAuth, but have managed to get twitter working from an interactive python shell:

cli twitter

command line-y

This section is as much for my reference as it is for public knowledge…I snagged the commands that I ran to snag my comments. It first prints swantr0n (my dev account) and then my primary Twitter feed, @swantron

swantron@mini9:~$ python
Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:05:24)
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license” for more information.
>>> import twitter
>>> api = twitter.Api()
>>> feedSwantron = api.GetUserTimeline(‘swantron’)
>>> feedSwantr0n = api.GetUserTimeline(‘swantr0n’)
>>> print [ x.text for x in feedSwantr0n]
['development account for @swantron | tune into http://t.co/SpDFBkK for projects', 'hello world']
>>> print [ x.text for x in feedSwantron]
['@vftb ...you better believe it', 'Twitter Project Teaser : http://t.co/7ZrOLUn | one step closer to tweeting from the #CLI ... might take a run at make it tweet', 'Might need to implement some sleeves into my wardrobe... @adafruit just flipped the script with open source cuff links', 'unsafe at any speed... updating #ubuntu on the road http://t.co/Q8gfc56', 'Upgrading Mini 9 to #Ubuntu Natty http://t.co/7yT9w81 | posting to kill time... review here ( http://t.co/RM675lX ) lunch-aft on the morrow', 'http://swantron.com/basic-mower-cord-repair/ #DIY lawn mower repair from a #math major. spoiler: it works', "#arduino no you didn't http://swantron.com/html-to-python-to-arduino-to-lcd/ #LCD project, stepped up a bit", 'working on a python script to dump info from web to LCD http://swantron.com/python-teaser/ #arduino', 'http://youtu.be/MpomhE6dgww video of #boc unboxing (for the win)', '#woot bag-o-crap unboxing @ http://swantron.com/woot-boc-unboxing/ not too shabby', 'http://swantron.com/compiz-error-in-ubuntu-natty/ still finding some compiz issues in #ubuntu 11.04', '#Arduino project @ http://swantron.com/command-line-lcd-arduino-interface/ | driving LCD screen via command line', '@RobotGrrl... what version are you running? I had no problems with IOIO / Droid 2 (froyo 2.2)', 'Easy LCD #Arduino Display | http://swantron.com/easy-lcd-arduino-display/ | feels good to have a warm soldering iron and functional hardware']
>>>

I will keep plugging away until I get this thing hammered out. If not, I can print this suff to my LCD for a real-time Twitter display. Could be cool either way.