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Tech Projects

OmnutiaOmnutia
edited April 2009 in Technology
Not all of us draw or make music so I though a thread for people to post their technological tinkering was in order.

I haven't done much recently, other than hook an iPod dock up to the TV but, building a series of scrap home servers and running a computer help business is what I'm usually up to.
I also, recent-ish-ly, set Churba up with an stereo I had lying around and the end result looked and sounded pretty good.
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Comments

  • VhdbloodVhdblood
    I'm starting up a small business doing a mobile DJ service with one of my friends. I think it definitely fits in the tech category with all of the sound and lighting controllers, plus all of the electronic DJ equipment. Normally I'd be lost on what types of sound equipment and lighting stuff to use, but my brother is a professional DJ in Panama City Beach (Florida for those of you who don't know), so I've got a leg up on everything.
  • CremlianCremlian
    See this thread for my tech project

    A slight update is I have categorized about 8 computers as working and I got one that can actually output to my computer and no be slow as asssssss....

    Go me. Why is it that all my sub-Pentium 3 computers all work but everything beyond that does not.
  • ElJoe0ElJoe0
    edited April 2009
    Learn C and get all my G4's running Xubuntu
    Post edited by ElJoe0 on
  • Alex LeavittAlex Leavitt
    edited April 2009
    In a "24-hour hackathon," my friends and I put together this craziness: http://yawnlog.com
    Post edited by Alex Leavitt on
  • ElJoe0ElJoe0
    edited May 2009
    In a "24-hour hackathon," my friends and I put together this craziness:http://yawnlog.com
    Finally the 28 hour day can be a reality!
    Post edited by ElJoe0 on
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    edited April 2009
    Finally the 28 hour day can be a reality !
    Flying back from Japan to the UK, 24 + 9 = 33 hour day = Not fun.

    Today I worked out how to hook my iPod and PC up to my speakers, at the same time (Using RCA stack jacks.) and worked out an easy way to hook my iPod up to the TV and the amp in the living room, ordering parts tomorrow, if I have the money.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • Victor FrostVictor Frost
    I'm building a Windows XP based Multimedia PC for our house rather than going with the more common solution of Boxee. It's probably going to run either XBMC or Media Portal. If I can get Media portal to work with the tuner in the ATI card, It'll be MP. But If I can't, It'll be XMBC. It just looks sooo much cooler.
  • ......
    In a "24-hour hackathon," my friends and I put together this craziness: http://yawnlog.com
    That would be awesome and useful if I would actually be able to know what time it was when I fell asleep. Sadly, I cannot, so I can't use that site truthfully. ;-; Awesome idea though, gratz.
  • Luke BurrageLuke Burrage
    I've not done any serious computer tech projects for a while, except time-saving python scripting. To be honest, by trying to do programming way beyond my capabilities I found out enough to make simple scripting easy and useful, and enough to know I'm never going to put in the time and effort to go beyond.

    Anyway, here's my latest oldschool tech project:
    LukeBurrageRoom105 on Vimeo - password: room105

    It's a big geeky in ways that readers of this forum might not immediately appreciate, but you'll probably find it fun.
  • Alex LeavittAlex Leavitt
    In a "24-hour hackathon," my friends and I put together this craziness:http://yawnlog.com
    That would be awesome and useful if I would actually be able to know what time it was when I fell asleep. Sadly, I cannot, so I can't use that site truthfully. ;-; Awesome idea though, gratz.
    We're actually trying to develop an iPhone app and a Twitter (thing) so that people can just one-click the time they go to bed and wake up.
  • AprecheApreche
    We're actually trying to develop an iPhone app and a Twitter (thing) so that people can just one-click the time they go to bed and wake up.
    That would be very very good. However, I have one fundamental problem with the system, and I don't know if you can overcome it.

    Let's say I get in bed at 10pm. I lay in bed with my eyes closed for awhile, but I don't fall asleep immediately. I actually have no idea what time I actually fell asleep. It could have been 10:30pm, it could have been 11:30pm. If I try to remember to wake up and look at a clock or push a button, I'm going to ruin my sleeping.

    Ideally we need some sort of heart rate monitor or some other biological monitor that can detect when you've actually entered a sleep state.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    other biological monitor
    Does the iPhone support EEG over Bluetooth?
  • AprecheApreche
    other biological monitor
    Does the iPhone support EEG over Bluetooth?
    I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet no. However, with iPhone 3.0 you could make an app that communicates with an accessory that connects to the dock connector. The problem there is that I like to charge the phone when I sleep. That means the phone is plugged into power, and an accessory would get in the way.
  • Luke BurrageLuke Burrage
    I'm sure I read somewhere there's an iPhone app that monitors your sleep via the motion sensor (and maybe the mic) and wakes you at the most biologically pleasant time. Would this be able to tell when you fall asleep?
  • AprecheApreche
    I came up with a suggestion for the Yawn Log that you can add right now without some difficult technological barrier. Right now, the way it works is I input when I went to sleep, and when I woke up. That assumes one big sleep, the typical sleeping pattern. How am I supposed to record a nap?
  • FunfetusFunfetus
    edited April 2009
    I'm sure I read somewhere there's an iPhone app that monitors your sleep via the motion sensor (and maybe the mic) and wakes you at the most biologically pleasant time. Would this be able to tell when you fall asleep?
    Probably would for most people. However, I am often completely motionless while trying to fall asleep, so probably not for me.
    Post edited by Funfetus on
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    I've decided that learning how to do some basic VB scripting (mostly making complex Excel macros) may be very handy for my job, as nobody else in the lab seems to want to bother, and our Information Systems division sucks. Knowing absolutely nothing whatsoever about programming anything, I'm going to set out to learn the fundamentals, and then give it the college try.
  • Alex LeavittAlex Leavitt
    To approach Scott's two apprehensions:

    1) We're definitely not going for EXACT measurements of sleep. If you input your sleep through the website, you'll notice that we round it to every 15 minutes of the hour. If you were to do something biological though, I think that this is the closest someone's come: http://www.sleeptracker.com/ (It's a crazy watch, btw.)

    2) If you want to record multiple sleeps, then you just record them. The daily sleep amount is calculated from midnight to midnight, so instead of recording sleep periods, the graph tracks no. of hours of sleep per day.
  • AprecheApreche
    I've decided that learning how to do some basic VB scripting (mostly making complex Excel macros) may be very handy for my job, as nobody else in the lab seems to want to bother, and our Information Systems division sucks. Knowing absolutely nothing whatsoever about programming anything, I'm going to set out to learn the fundamentals, and then give it the college try.
    There are two ways you can go about this.

    1) You can be like most business people where you learn enough to be dangerous. You will learn to create your macros, and they will work. However, they will be horrifying under the hood. Much like a machine that works, and you open it up to see a jumble of wires.

    2) You can learn to do things "the right way". In this case you can make beautiful and powerful Excel macros with ease. However. you will also become aware of and frustrated with the inherent problems in the VB scripting itself. At that point, you will fully comprehend the hatred of Microsoft and open source ftw.
  • fluxflux
    At that point, you will fully comprehend the hatred of Microsoft and open source ftw.
    I categorized VB as "crap" the moment I saw scripts written in it. The fact that comments start with a single quote (') especially disturbed me.
  • AprecheApreche
    At that point, you will fully comprehend the hatred of Microsoft and open source ftw.
    I categorized VB as "crap" the moment I saw scripts written in it. The fact that comments start with a single quote (') especially disturbed me.
    It's total crap, but it's how you make shit happen in Excel.
  • AndrewAndrew
    At that point, you will fully comprehend the hatred of Microsoft and open source ftw.
    I categorized VB as "crap" the moment I saw scripts written in it. The fact that comments start with a single quote (') especially disturbed me.
    It's total crap, but it's how you make shit happen in Excel.
    I've had two summer internship where I developed Microsoft Office addons. I've done enough Microsoft programming to last me a lifetime.
  • TheWhaleSharkTheWhaleShark
    I've decided that learning how to do some basic VB scripting (mostly making complex Excel macros) may be very handy for my job, as nobody else in the lab seems to want to bother, and our Information Systems division sucks. Knowing absolutely nothing whatsoever about programming anything, I'm going to set out to learn the fundamentals, and then give it the college try.
    There are two ways you can go about this.

    1) You can be like most business people where you learn enough to be dangerous. You will learn to create your macros, and they will work. However, they will be horrifying under the hood. Much like a machine that works, and you open it up to see a jumble of wires.

    2) You can learn to do things "the right way". In this case you can make beautiful and powerful Excel macros with ease. However. you will also become aware of and frustrated with the inherent problems in the VB scripting itself. At that point, you will fully comprehend the hatred of Microsoft and open source ftw.
    Knowing me, I'm probably going to wind up going with route 2, but only after time. Still, I figure it's going to be a good skill, since I doubt that New York State civil service is going to change to anything else...ever.

    There was a thread on the subject where Sail posted a link to How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, which uses Python to teach principles of coding. It seems like a good place for me to start, seeing as how the most programming I've ever done has been in the Codex of Alchemical Engineering. Any thoughts on that?
  • AprecheApreche
    There was a thread on the subject where Sail posted a link toHow to Think Like a Computer Scientist, which uses Python to teach principles of coding. It seems like a good place for me to start, seeing as how the most programming I've ever done has been in the Codex of Alchemical Engineering. Any thoughts on that?
    Yes, that is the best thing I have found for self-teaching basic principles of modern programming. Python is very good for learning because it has an interactive interpreter.
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    After adding a second hard drive to my scrap server, the two hard hard drives began resonating, causing a hum that went from silent to really loud and back to silent every ten seconds or so. I've taken all but one of the optical drives out and suspended the two hard drives on rubber bands in the space. The server now makes no noticeable noise.
  • WindUpBirdWindUpBird
    Yes, that is the best thing I have found for self-teaching basic principles of modern programming. Python is very good for learning because it has an interactive interpreter.
    My first real programming, outside of a class in LOGO where I built some games, was writing a sort of proto-text adventure in Python. It was great fun (the experience, not the game), but that was about 4 years ago and I lost time to work on programming. I'm thinking of picking Python back up, and maybe Perl or C/C++ over the summer.
  • AndrewAndrew
  • Victor FrostVictor Frost
    @Andrew If you can get some sort of video going on that thing, you would be most awesome. The resolution would suck, but even one video would make for greatness.
  • DkongDkong
    Yes, that is the best thing I have found for self-teaching basic principles of modern programming. Python is very good for learning because it has an interactive interpreter.
    My first real programming, outside of a class in LOGO where I built some games, was writing a sort of proto-text adventure in Python. It was great fun (the experience, not the game), but that was about 4 years ago and I lost time to work on programming. I'm thinking of picking Python back up, and maybe Perl or C/C++ over the summer.
    C++ is garbage. If you just want a language to dick around with, Qbasic is actually pretty fun. The syntax is easy as hell and a good base for learning programming (it's what my school teaches for the intro to programming class). It's a bit limited, but you can actually make some pretty cool (albeit simplistic) games with it. It's fun for just toying around (and it's free to download), but learning it for practical use outside of your personal life and free time is kind of worthless since it's outdated as fuck.
  • lackofcheeselackofcheese
    edited April 2009
    C++ is garbage.
    Riiiight...
    If you want low-level system access, you can't go past it. What language would you use to do embedded systems programming? Assembly? It's also pretty much the best way to get something that runs fast. Sure, it might be harder to program in, but you can't call it garbage just for that...

    However, WindUpBird, just stick with Python. Not only is it easy, it's extremely useful.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
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