hAxOrYoUrMoThErHaRdRiVe

Deck Finalized and Terracotta/Glass Table

2010-12-29T21:54:00.000-06:00

After a quarter of classes our deck is finally (well, mostly) complete...
The inspector approved it and we are good to go with our permit.

As soon as the deck was finished we needed another project of course and why not one that would complement what we had been working on for months. In order to further enjoy the deck we decided a table would be great. We weren't sure if a concrete table, a wood table or even an iron table would be best however we had a few requirements:

1. Immune to gusty south Florida weather.
2. Needs to be easy to clean.
3. Should be simple to build.
4. Should be cheap.
5. Obviously needs to be attractive.

We discussed a number of ideas but were still really stumped. There was a 42" glass table sitting on our porch that wasn't being used and it seemed like we just had to use it. The question of how to support it remained and we were really thinking concrete. During the first of many trips this winter break to Home Depot, we measured the heights of standard outdoor tables. They all measured around 27".
Earlier that day my girlfriend had the great (brownie points for me!!!) idea of using two terracotta pots to make an hour glass shaped pedestal for supporting the glass. We walked into the garden section and it was meant to be. Two attractive pots stacked on top of one another measured exactly 27".

We then agonized about how to connect everything and whether or not terracotta would be strong enough to support itself and a large piece of glass. We originally thought we would sink a bolt into the bottom pot (upside down) after filling it with concrete but eventually decided that we were tired of mixing concrete (from the deck). We got a preformed footer and decided to pin through the footer and the two pots. Then we would silicon the top of the pot to the glass and that would do it.

So, we had our game plan and got right down to construction. It turned out to be relatively simple and

we only had to make a few adjustments to our original plan. Once the hole was drilled through the footer, we dropped the pin in and bolted the bottom. Our sneaky secret (not anymore..) is that we turned the concrete footer on it's top so that the bolt laid neatly in the pocket created by the turret shape. One addition to our original design came in the form of some foam window insulation that we cut and stuck to the top (nee bottom) of the base pot. We figured this would help bolster the clay so that too much pressure wasn't added to it. So on went the bottom pot over the concrete block, the foam stripping on that pot, the right-side-up pot on top of that and then a washer and another bolt. Tightening the top bolt was a bit tricky but after some maneuvering we were pretty confident that it was stable.

Before going on from here, we gave the newly constructed table a push and lean test and decided it was ready for a top. After filling the top pot with glass beads (to cover the unsightly [in my girlfriend's opinion anyhow...] bolt in the middle) we squeezed out a bead of silicon and very carefully placed the glass top on. Lets not forget our glass prep work of cleaning it about a dozen times and spending an hour first finding and then measuring the center of the table top (vis-a-vis markers work great for this step).

Our terracotta pot/glass deck table was now complete! Cue some lovely (if not smelly) Narcissus and a beautiful 70 degree afternoon, and we had ourselves a spiffy new outdoor space.

Bet you're wondering why there seems to be a darker square patch underneath the table. The deck hasn't been sealed yet and we were a little impatient about our project and just couldn't spend such an amazing day sealing the whole thing. So...we sealed only the part we would cover with the table and left that messy job for another day.

(Post and project a joint effort by linuxhaxor and tsaw)

Deck Project: Update

2010-08-20T21:58:00.000-05:00

After a weeks of work in the hot summer sun, we are really making progress on our dock.
So far:
1. The ground dug out and footers mixed and poured.
2. Measured and assembled our frame.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY: GOT OUR PERMIT APPROVED

Remotely Knowing Your Home IP Address

2010-08-09T19:57:00.003-05:00

Ever want to use your home linux install as a server? Having it accessible on your home network for backups or media is great but being able to get to it remotely is even better. Rather than dealing with DNS or a hosting service, my roommate and I decided to use a gmail account and script to lookup and send an email containing our current IP. Then we would have easy access to our server for ssh or our experimental website (more to come later!).
This contains our script, an installation script and a few other example files.

Once you have your IP address you can ssh in:
ssh -X someone@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
or instead access it via a browser:
http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/
The Script's Contents:

 #!/bin/bash
cd ~
OLDIP=`tail -1 CurrentIP.txt`
echo "The old IP is" $OLDIP
NEWIP=`curl -s http://checkip.dyndns.org | sed 's/[a-zA-Z/<> :]//g'` 
echo "The new IP is" $NEWIP
if [ "$OLDIP" != "$NEWIP" ]; then
echo "Need to send an email"
echo $NEWIP >> CurrentIP.txt
msmtp -t < CurrentIP.txtelse echo "Don't need to send an email"fi

Have fun and let me know if you get it up and running. It's a funny work around and will probably take a little bit of hacking to get working on your own machine, but thats the fun in Linux!

Deck Project

2010-07-18T20:35:00.000-05:00

A number of years ago we built a nice dock to fish and enjoy our backyard/lake. During summer without homework, homework, or any homework I needed a project and decided it would be fun to expand our existing dock. The final design calls for a deck that extends out at the same elevation as our pool deck with steps down to the existing dock.

Automated Rain Barrel/City Water Irrigation Project

2010-03-26T20:58:00.000-05:00

Irrigating a small garden is a relatively relaxing and sometimes therapeutic activity (well if you are a botany/biology nerd [or really in need of a hobby]) but going away for any length of time can present a problem. The simple solution of course is to purchase a hose-bib/timer package from Home Depot for about $30 and set up a small drip system to efficiently water each plant or row of plants (rather than a wasteful sprinkler system). Going along with conserving water is using a rain barrel collection system to capture rain for later use thus eliminating or more likely reducing treated water consumption.

Adding a rain barrel complicates the system significantly as there isn't much water pressure at its spigot compared to a standard city spigot which has somewhere around 40 psi. Also, if the barrel is empty, you don't want your plants to die and thus you need to be able to detect that the barrel is empty and switch to city water.

After a little bit of planning, shopping and construction I came up with a simple system for automatically or manually watering a garden that in an automatic mode could select the appropriate water source and turn on based on an off the shelf timer. The system uses a small 12 Volt Battery, Pump (for getting the rain barrel water pressure closer to the hose-bib, a solenoid valve, bilge pump float switch, etc. (see the documentation for more detail on parts and wiring [alt. download site: ]). Oh yeah, and in keeping with the eco-friendly approach I figured I should probably keep the battery charge with a small solar panel!

Hacking Debitek Systems

2010-03-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

Procedure:
1. Cut the phone line running from card-reader to the unit requiring money (yellow and green wires are the most commonly used inside the phone cable).
2. Using a perf-board, wire a male 1/8" audio jack in parallel with the transmission cable and reconnect so as not to disrupt normal service.
3. Plug this into your favorite audio recording device and send a payment through.
4. Export the audio as an mp3 and send it to as many friends as you feel like letting in(also helps to amp the signal before exporting).
5. Plug in your favorite mp3 player, play the file and voilà, money on the machine...elegant right?!
(6. Hide the perf-board inside conduit for that extra slick hack look!!!)

Thanks to all my good friends at Debitek for making this so easy...
Download the sound of money! (the audio sample)

Conky...

2009-08-20T22:02:00.001-05:00

Ah the things that boredom brings, on the other hand, it is pretty sexy.

Procedure:

1. sudo apt-get install conky

2. You will need some custom fonts:
I grabbed them from (dirt2 soulstalker, openlogos
specifically) and threw them on my desktop.
run these through terminal:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
sudo cp /home/daniel/Desktop/*.ttf /usr/share/fonts/myfonts/
sudo fc-cache -f

3. Now there is a conky config file that is empty that needs to be editted:

gedit .conkyrc

4. Paste in this text and edit it to your hearts content:

# set to yes if you want Conky to be forked in the background
background no

cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 2

out_to_console no

# X font when Xft is disabled, you can pick one with program xfontsel
#font 7x12
#font 6x10
#font 7x13
#font 8x13
#font 7x12
#font *mintsmild.se*
#font -*-*-*-*-*-*-34-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
#font -artwiz-snap-normal-r-normal-*-*-100-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1

# Use Xft?
use_xft yes

# Xft font when Xft is enabled
xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8

own_window_transparent no
#own_window_colour hotpink
# Text alpha when using Xft
xftalpha 0.8

on_bottom yes

# mail spool
mail_spool $MAIL

# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 1
# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,skip_taskbar
own_window_type override

# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes

# Minimum size of text area
minimum_size 260 5
maximum_width 350

# Draw shades?
draw_shades no

# Draw outlines?
draw_outline no

# Draw borders around text
draw_borders no

# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders no

# border margins
border_margin 4

# border width
border_width 1

# Default colors and also border colors
default_color white
default_shade_color white
default_outline_color white

# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
#minimum_size 10 10
gap_x 15
gap_y 70
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right

# Gap between borders of screen and text

# Add spaces to keep things from moving about?  This only affects certain objects.
use_spacer no

# Subtract file system buffers from used memory?
no_buffers yes

# set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
uppercase no

# none, xmms, bmp, audacious, infopipe (default is none)
xmms_player bmp

# boinc (seti) dir
# seti_dir /opt/seti

# Possible variables to be used:
#
#      Variable         Arguments                  Description                
#  acpiacadapter                     ACPI ac adapter state.                   
#  acpifan                           ACPI fan state                           
#  acpitemp                          ACPI temperature.                        
#  adt746xcpu                        CPU temperature from therm_adt746x       
#  adt746xfan                        Fan speed from therm_adt746x             
#  battery           (num)           Remaining capasity in ACPI or APM        
#                                    battery. ACPI battery number can be      
#                                    given as argument (default is BAT0).     
#  buffers                           Amount of memory buffered                
#  cached                            Amount of memory cached                  
#  color             (color)         Change drawing color to color            
#  cpu                               CPU usage in percents                    
#  cpubar            (height)        Bar that shows CPU usage, height is      
#                                    bar's height in pixels                   
#  downspeed         net             Download speed in kilobytes              
#  downspeedf        net             Download speed in kilobytes with one     
#                                    decimal                                  
#  exec              shell command   Executes a shell command and displays    
#                                    the output in torsmo. warning: this      
#                                    takes a lot more resources than other    
#                                    variables. I'd recommend coding wanted   
#                                    behaviour in C and posting a patch :-).  
#  execi             interval, shell Same as exec but with specific interval. 
#                    command         Interval can't be less than              
#                                    update_interval in configuration.        
#  fs_bar            (height), (fs)  Bar that shows how much space is used on 
#                                    a file system. height is the height in   
#                                    pixels. fs is any file on that file      
#                                    system.                                  
#  fs_free           (fs)            Free space on a file system available    
#                                    for users.                               
#  fs_free_perc      (fs)            Free percentage of space on a file       
#                                    system available for users.              
#  fs_size           (fs)            File system size                         
#  fs_used           (fs)            File system used space                   
#  hr                (height)        Horizontal line, height is the height in 
#                                    pixels                                   
#  i2c               (dev), type, n  I2C sensor from sysfs (Linux 2.6). dev   
#                                    may be omitted if you have only one I2C  
#                                    device. type is either in (or vol)       
#                                    meaning voltage, fan meaning fan or temp 
#                                    meaning temperature. n is number of the  
#                                    sensor. See /sys/bus/i2c/devices/ on     
#                                    your local computer.                     
#  kernel                            Kernel version                           
#  loadavg           (1), (2), (3)   System load average, 1 is for past 1     
#                                    minute, 2 for past 5 minutes and 3 for   
#                                    past 15 minutes.                         
#  machine                           Machine, i686 for example                
#  mails                             Mail count in mail spool. You can use    
#                                    program like fetchmail to get mails from 
#                                    some server using your favourite         
#                                    protocol. See also new_mails.            
#  mem                               Amount of memory in use                  
#  membar            (height)        Bar that shows amount of memory in use   
#  memmax                            Total amount of memory                   
#  memperc                           Percentage of memory in use              
#  new_mails                         Unread mail count in mail spool.         
#  nodename                          Hostname                                 
#  outlinecolor      (color)         Change outline color                     
#  pre_exec          shell command   Executes a shell command one time before 
#                                    torsmo displays anything and puts output 
#                                    as text.                                 
#  processes                         Total processes (sleeping and running)   
#  running_processes                 Running processes (not sleeping),        
#                                    requires Linux 2.6                       
#  shadecolor        (color)         Change shading color                     
#  stippled_hr       (space),        Stippled (dashed) horizontal line        
#                    (height)        
#  swapbar           (height)        Bar that shows amount of swap in use     
#  swap                              Amount of swap in use                    
#  swapmax                           Total amount of swap                     
#  swapperc                          Percentage of swap in use                
#  sysname                           System name, Linux for example           
#  time              (format)        Local time, see man strftime to get more 
#                                    information about format                 
#  totaldown         net             Total download, overflows at 4 GB on     
#                                    Linux with 32-bit arch and there doesn't 
#                                    seem to be a way to know how many times  
#                                    it has already done that before torsmo   
#                                    has started.                             
#  totalup           net             Total upload, this one too, may overflow 
#  updates                           Number of updates (for debugging)        
#  upspeed           net             Upload speed in kilobytes                
#  upspeedf          net             Upload speed in kilobytes with one       
#                                    decimal                                  
#  uptime                            Uptime                                   
#  uptime_short                      Uptime in a shorter format               
#
#  seti_prog                         Seti@home current progress
#  seti_progbar      (height)        Seti@home current progress bar
#  seti_credit                       Seti@hoome total user credit


# variable is given either in format $variable or in ${variable}. Latter
# allows characters right after the variable and must be used in network
# stuff because of an argument
#${font Dungeon:style=Bold:pixelsize=10}I can change the font as well
#${font Verdana:size=10}as many times as I choose
#${font Perry:size=10}Including UTF-8,
# stuff after 'TEXT' will be formatted on screen
#${font Grunge:size=12}${time %a  %b  %d}${alignr -25}${time %k:%M}
#${font bold:size=16}${color #0af4eb LinuxHaxor Dmritard96}
#${font size=1}

TEXT
${font dirt2 soulstalker:size=70}${color #0af4eb}Dmritard96 
${font openlogos:size=70}${color #0af4eb} t u S${font Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8}
${color #0af4eb}$sysname $kernel $machine - $nodename 
${color #0af4eb}Uptime:${color lightgrey} $uptime ${color #0af4eb} Load:${color lightgrey} $loadavg
${color #0af4eb}${execi 1000 cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'model name' | sed -e 's/model name.*: //'} ${color lightgrey}${freq_dyn}Mhz

${color #0af4eb}Usage:${color #0af4eb} ${color lightgrey}${cpu}% ${color #0af4eb}${cpubar}
${color #0af4eb}${cpugraph 000000 0af4eb}
${color #0af4eb}Process:${color lightgrey} $processes  ${color #0af4eb}Run:${color lightgrey} $running_processes ${color #0af4eb}CPU:${color lightgrey} ${i2c temp 2}C${color lightgrey} ${color #0af4eb}MB:${color lightgrey} ${i2c temp 1}C

${color #0af4eb}RAM:${color lightgrey} $mem/$memmax - $memperc% ${alignr}${color #0af4eb}${membar 5,110}
${color #0af4eb}SWP:${color lightgrey} $swap/$swapmax - $swapperc% ${alignr}${color #0af4eb}${swapbar 5,110}

${color #0af4eb}Battery:   ${battery}   
${battery_bar 6,350}

${color #0af4eb}CPU Usage         PID     CPU%   MEM%
${color lightgrey} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color #0af4eb} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color #0af4eb} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${color #0af4eb}Mem Usage
${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem pid 1} ${top_mem cpu 1} ${top_mem mem 1}
${color #0af4eb} ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem pid 2} ${top_mem cpu 2} ${top_mem mem 2}
${color #0af4eb} ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem pid 3} ${top_mem cpu 3} ${top_mem mem 3}

${color #0af4eb}Network: ${color lightgrey}${addr wlan0}

${color #0af4eb}Down:${color lightgrey} ${downspeed wlan0} k/s $alignr${color #0af4eb} Up:${color lightgrey} ${upspeed wlan0} k/s
${color #0af4eb}${downspeedgraph wlan0 27,120 000000 0af4eb 180} $alignr${color #0af4eb}${upspeedgraph wlan0 27,120 000000 0af4eb 25}
${color lightgrey}${totaldown wlan0}           $alignr${color lightgrey}${totalup wlan0}

${color #0af4eb}Port(s)${alignr}#Connections
${color #0af4eb}Inbound: ${color lightgrey}${tcp_portmon 1 32767 count}  ${color #0af4eb}Outbound: ${color lightgrey}${tcp_portmon 32768 61000 count}${alignr}${color #0af4eb}Total: ${color lightgrey}${tcp_portmon 1 65535 count}

${color #0af4eb}Hard Disks:
${color #0af4eb} 500 Gig ${color lightgrey}${fs_used_perc} %${alignr}${color #0af4eb}${fs_bar 5,120 /}
${color #0af4eb} 160 Gig ${color lightgrey}${fs_used_perc /media/sda1} %${alignr}${color #0af4eb}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/sda1}

5. Run conky from alt+f2 or from a shell and tada.

6. If you want to run from startup it needs to have a delayed start rather than immediately on
on startup. Put into a script:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 30 && conky

And run this on startup.

First Shot at Noise Cancellation, Has Yet To Be Tested On The Arduino

2009-07-14T18:55:00.001-05:00


/*
Noise Cancelation Project on Arduino Diecimila
Author : Daniel Myers
Requires:

1.  two microphones
2.  one small speaker or buzzer
3.  larger amplified sound system

The first microphone (micOut) is placed outside of the quiet location 
to pick up incoming sound ahead of time.
The second microphone (micIn) is placed as close as possible to the 
quiet location and serves as a correction microphone.
The small buzzer (buzz) assists in setup to produce a test sound and 
is located outside of the quite location.
The sound system (cspkr) actuall produces sound in order to cancel 
out the incoming sound and should be located in a consistent and close 
position to the quite location.

Order of Operations:

1.  First the outside "buzz" will turn on.
2.  "micOut" reads this in and plays it back on "sound"
3.  "micIn" will read levels and the delay between "micOut" and 
"cspkr" will be adjusted until the average sound has been minimized.
4.  Once the correct delay has been found the volume of "cspkr" is 
adjusted until the signal from "micIn" is once again minimized.
5.  The delay and volume should be correct at this point and outside 
noise should be close to gone (most likely too optomistic).

*/

int micOutPin = 0;
int micInPin = 1;
int buzzPin = 9;
int cspkrPin = 10;
int volumePin = 11;
int bufferSize = 512;
//int buff[bufferSize];
int buff[512];
int bestDelay;

void setup()
{
pinMode(micOutPin, INPUT);
pinMode(micInPin, INPUT);
pinMode(buzzPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(cspkrPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(volumePin, OUTPUT);
bestDelay = findDelay();
analogWrite(volumePin, findVolume());
}


void loop()
{
for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) {buff[i] = analogRead(micOutPin);analogWrite(cspkrPin, buff[i - bestDelay]);}}int findDelay(){digitalWrite(buzzPin, HIGH);int aveArray[2] = {0, 512};int inside[bufferSize];int average;for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) { //filling the buffer initiallybuff[i] = analogRead(micOutPin) / 4;}for (int delay = 0; delay <= bufferSize; delay++) {int sum = 0;for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) {buff[i] = analogRead(micOutPin) / 4;analogWrite(cspkrPin, buff[i - delay]);inside[i] = analogRead(micInPin);   }for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) {sum += inside[i];}average = sum / bufferSize;if (average <= aveArray[1]) {aveArray[1] = average;}}return aveArray[0];}int findVolume(){int aveArray[2] = {0, 512};int buff[bufferSize];int inside[bufferSize];int average;for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) { //filling the buffer initiallybuff[i] = analogRead(micOutPin) / 4;}for (int volume = 0; volume <= bufferSize; volume++) {int sum = 0;for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) {buff[i] = analogRead(micOutPin) / 4;analogWrite(cspkrPin, buff[i - bestDelay]);inside[i] = analogRead(micInPin);   }for (int i = 0; i <= bufferSize; i++) {sum += inside[i];}average = sum / bufferSize;if (average <= aveArray[1]) {aveArray[1] = volume;}}digitalWrite(buzzPin, LOW);return aveArray[1];}

Ubuntu Macro Problem

2009-07-14T10:48:00.000-05:00

I have been playing with various x11 macro recorders but have had little luck. The most interesting one is xnee complete with pnee, cnee, and gnee. After looking through it, it looks perfect aside from not actually working. This version (Jaunty 64), has a segmentation fault when trying to record...if this gets fixed it would be a great program.

xmacro also doesn't have a functioning record but is close. It however has no guis and takes a little research to use... It would be nice to have something that works... right out of the box.

Noise Cancellation Project

2009-06-13T21:34:00.000-05:00

After living in my apartment just off campus this year I became extremely frustrated with the morning garbage truck and all of the noise produced in the alley. Just as a fun project, it seemed like the obvious solution would be some kind of noise canceling device that would use a mic in the Alley and a correction mic in my room (as if my room were one side of a pair of noise canceling headphones). My plan is to use an arduino with the alley mic as an analog input and a speaker on analog out (with an amp) delayed by a varied amount (phase shifted). The correction mic will measure the leftover sound and the delay will be adjusted until the average is lowest. Then the amplification of the speaker will be adjusted to completely eliminate the remaining noise....we'll see what happens.

Problems with Intrepid

2009-04-02T12:58:00.000-05:00

For some reason at NU I cannot connect to the network in Intrepid... wasn't a problem in Hardy.
Also, after trying various things I gave up on trying to VPN into the school from off campus as well... Looking forward to see whether or not this will actually be fixed in Jaunty.