Charge directly, not via hub..

Having an electronics background, I really should've realised this sooner - however - if you're using a USB data cable to charge your smartphone, and it seems to be taking forever - is it plugged into an unpowered, very cheap, USB hub?

"We need more power captain!"

Turns out mine was, and was taking about an hour for 1% of charge, because the power supplied by the hub is so little it was only just managing to supply more than the phone was using.

I plugged it directly into the USB port on the PC and it's gained 2% in 5 minutes.

Might be a useful tip, so figured I'd stick it on t'blog.

Raspberry Pi - ordered

I have ordered a Raspberry Pi.

It would seem I have "up to 10 weeks" to get my brain (and workshop) in gear to think what I'm going to do with it.

Lots of cool basic ideas.  None of them have actually solidified into anything resembling a "plan" yet.

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Update - 13/8/2012 - still no Pi.

I bid on one on eBay, but it eventually went for over £100, which considering it was a bog-standard one without even the O/S card, seems a bit crazy-insane.

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Update #2 - 23/8/12 - Woohoo!!

"You have a shipment being sent from RS COMPONENTS LTD that is due to be despatched on 22/08/2012" Looks like it's on it's way!!

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Update #3 - 04/09/12 - ARRIVED

It arrived..   I haven't done anything with it yet as have been too busy, but I have lots of plans.

Angry birds and mouldy Apples

This is a story of how my continuing quest to get Angry Birds Space on my iPod led me through a journey of rage, disappointment and finally, acceptance that everything is, in fact, just a bit crap.


I finally bit the bullet and updated my iPod touch. You may remember to do it from my Mac would basically require me to buy a new Mac, so I installed iTunes 10.6 on my PC, upgraded the iPod and got it running iOS 4.2.1

I tried installing Angry Birds Space again - the original reason for the upgrade - only to be told that it doesn't support that particular iPod HARDWARE because it needs better graphics capabilities..

A small red light began to blink in my brain as my rage inhibitor burnt out.

"You could've told me that....  "    I said quietly...

The skies darkened, the crackle of rage filled the air and everything fell eerily quiet. 

"...BEFORE I UPGRADED THE O/S!!!"  

Parsing bookmark files using PHP and writing it out as an HTML link

Here's a code example of something I knocked together to import Windows .url shortcut files to a MySQL database on my home-server system that I'm building.

The shortcut files are actually just text, so you can read them really easily..  

They just contain a header, then the URL.. For example:

[InternetShortcut]

URL=http://www.hackerspace.co.uk

Here's a PHP code snippet... 

//  Create a function and give it the filename of the URL file.. 

function readurl($filename)
{

// Pull the .url off the end.. 

$filenamebits= explode(".url",$filename);

// Create a "Link Description" from the filename

$linkdesc=$filenamebits[0];

// Open the file to get at it's juicy contents

$file = fopen("$filename","r");

// Set up a counter

$linecount=0;

// Set up a "While there's still stuff in the file" loop

while (!feof($file) ) {

// Open the file and get stuff from it, line by line

$line_of_text = fgets($file);

// If you're on line number 1... 

if ($linecount==1)

{ 

// Explode the line of text into pieces

$pieces = explode("=", $line_of_text);

// Extract the bits we want and wrap it in some friendly HTML

$URLTOADD="<a href=\"$pieces[1]\">$linkdesc</a>";

// You can either then write this string out to the screen, or like I do, fire it 

// into a database for later use

}

// Increment the line count

$linecount++;

}

// Close the file. Otherwise the operating system gets cross. Probably. 

fclose($file);

}

Why I can't play Angry Birds Space.

I wanted to play Angry Birds Space.  It's a simple thing. Should've been a no-brainer.

I tried it on my iPod touch, but it doesn't have iOS 4, so I'm deemed not-worthy.  I can't upgrade to iOS 4 because to do that requires a newer version of iTunes than my Mac OS version will let me install.  I can't upgrade my Mac OS because it's an old Mac and won't RUN a newer version..   So, to play it on my iPod, I would need to buy a new Mac.
Not going to happen.

Or I could install iTunes on my Windows PC and struggle to sync my music over, and then struggle to get it to do anything because the Windows version of iTunes is just not very good. (Sorry)

So, I thought I'd try the Android version on my phone..  I went to the Google app store thing (or Google Play as it now appears to be called) and went to download it.  Glancing at the permissions made me stop in my tracks..

Dropbox, iOS and Time related problem!

So, I just tried to get a screenshot of Angry Birds Space telling me I couldn't install it because I needed iOS 4 on my iPod touch. Which I can't do easily for long, complex, stabby making reasons..

Anyway..  Tried to upload it to dropbox and it continually failed..   Which was odd.

I ended up unlinking the dropbox app on my ipod, and then relinking it. Only then did it tell me that it couldn't connect because my system clock was more than 10 days out of date.  (Due to a battery charge issue. Well, me not charging the battery for about 2 months, anyway)

Reset the date, tried dropbox again, and hey presto it works. Worth remembering.

The picture I was trying to transfer. Damn you old iPod. 

Links of stuff and things

I've been pretty busy recently, so the weekly part of weekly links went out the window.   Still, here's some interesting stuff I've found recently..

HP give WebOS to OpenSource - Good plan. Could lead to some interesting alternative O/Ses for things.

Tron Derezzed music - played on floppy drives!

EZ-Robot - Upgrade your old robotic toys to something way more cool

How gaming can enhance real life - Very interesting article in New Scientist about how gaming reactions can spill into real life. It's pretty rare that an article like this doesn't pull in all the classic negative stereotypes.

Turn the beep off!

Random, quick tip - I can't believe I didn't know this already, but it turns out you can turn off the annoying DOS style BEEP from a command prompt in Windows.

Open a command prompt.

Type
net stop beep

you should get a response of
The Beep service was stopped successfully.

To turn it back on -
net start beep. 

To test it type "echo [ctrl G]"  - which will look like


echo ^G

on screen.

Re-purposing an old laptop

I just rediscovered a draft post from 2011 that I had forgotten about..  may as well post it now.

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Old laptops are dirt cheap on eBay these days, and while they may not have touchscreens, quad-core processors or gigs and gigs of RAM, they can still be used for a bunch of different purposes, depending on your needs.

I've been experimenting with an old Toshiba Tecra 8200 to see what I can get it to do.

First problem is that it doesn't have a lot of memory. 128Mb to be precise.
Second problem is that it's got a Pentium processor with not-a-lot of gruntage.

That limits options for what operating system we can run.  It was either something ancient, like Windows 98 (SE, of course), or DSL (Damn Small Linux) which at least has some modern functionality and networking.

So, I opted for DSL and sure enough, it installs and boots up straight off CD.  It detected the built in ethernet port, and the wireless straight away - although attempting to use the wireless connection causes a totally epic fail of a system lockup, complete with old-school graphics glitching..  Nice.

Still, on a wired connection it seems to work ok.  

The web-browser is basic, but functional, and of course terminal / SSH works just fine, so the machine would make a good terminal / basic web browser.  It's also a pretty reasonable resolution screen so it'd make a good digital photo frame, if the case was redone a bit.

A step towards proper "Help me ObiWan Kenobi" holograms.

So, I've seen this a few places now, some researchers in Japan have created a "True 3D" display similar in appearance to the holographic displays we've been promised in SciFi for years and years.

I am not entirely sure how air molecules can be excited to create plasma by targeting lasers, without the lasers being dangerously powerful. Perhaps it's a resonance thing.  Need to read up on it.

What I want to know is can I build one using two £2.50 laser pointers and a fish tank? :-)

Probably not, but it's a nice idea to add to the "I'll never get time to do this" pile.

Weekly Links #4

Ok, so I just realised I didn't publish this last Friday.
Time just sort of got away from me - slippery stuff that it is.

Anyway.. Some cool stuff that I found on the interwebs this week..

The Rolson 28600 Gaming Toolkit - A toolkit specifically designed for fixing games consoles.  This is a genius idea, and although, judging by the reviews, the quality of the tools seems a little bit suspect - it's still interesting.

On a similar tool related theme - Make your own handles for micro-screwdrivers - An instructable on how to make your own handles to improve the torque on micro-screwdrivers, so you can actually un-do screws with them rather than just get annoyed and jab violently at whatever it is you are trying to fix.

Looks good!!!

Nutella and banana ice cream. A food hack  (Or Recipe, as they used to be called)  Sounds really good and surprisingly low-calorie. I must try it at some point.