gmail notifier project (for dummies)

I’ve been really interested in doing J4mie’s Physical Gmail Notifier ever since it came out in February. I only recently dropped into the project and got to learn a lot about python, plists, and arduino auto-reset functionality. I’m going to share what I’ve learned because I think there are lots of other people out there …

2008 Arduino Holiday Gift Guide

In making my list annual of goodies I usually look for other people who have compiled “gift guides” aimed specifically at geeks like me. Usually they are written for the wrong kind of geek, and are full of things like star trek stuff, D&D, LEGO, or model airplane parts. All of those things are definitely …

Removing the auto reset in Bare Bones Board Arduino

I’m currently working on a project that requires the Arduino to accept serial input from my mac. This would ordinarily be fine, but the auto-reset function means that the arduino resets whenever I send it data, and then it forgets the data! I emailed Paul at Modern Device company to ask if there was an …

Freeduino Bare Bones Board Build (w/Macro shots!)

Last night I built two Freeduino Bare Bones Boards. I had two kits. One was from Moderndevice, and one was from MAKE. They were essentially the same kit, but different versions. There was one resistor difference I believe. The first kit took me quite a while to put together – probably about an hour. The …

Lego NXT vs Arduino

I have always been interested in Lego NXT. It seems like a really easy way to get into robotics, and programming. I have never really figured out how functional it is in the “real world” (whatever that means) The other day a coworker was really pushing the idea on me telling me I needed to …

ModernDevice Company is the best!

Sometimes I get bummed out about how much of the internet is negative. Here’s my chance to say thanks for someone doing something positive. I’d like to give a lil’ shout out to Modern Device Company for having really good customer service. I placed an order and included a few questions along with it. The …

Sheesh… Sorry I haven’t called! It’s been a while!

so in the last lil’ bit I have not been blogging at all. Happily that has been because I’ve been swamped with projects, vacation, and work. Now I’ve got a big old backlog of updates on everything. Here we go! Grow your own shiitake mushroom log My beautiful girlfriend gave me a kit two years …

A new frontier(s) in geekdom

After taking receipt of my arduino kit from adafruit industries I have been looking for cool projects to make. There is so much cool stuff out there! The first and most exciting one is from a youtube video. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_hiz-Kx0kM[/youtube] I love the whole idea of this. Creating your own type of bell tower (or orchestra) …