Gisvold blog - Vikings still go abroad (and use Mac's to surf the Internet)

On my way to work

torarne — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:16:29 +0100

On my way to work

Originally uploaded by torarne

Tor

Sent from my phone.

Uploaded from my iPhone

Insanely lots of light from LED's

tor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:33:02 +0100

(Ok - the english in the Title sucks - but then again....

I'm impressed, a module with 12W of LED light, this should be enough for most projects I can think of.

TerraLUX TLE-300M 600 Lumen LED
sku: COM-08711

Description: If you need a lot of light, the MiniStar30 TLE-300M is just about the most powerful LED lamp on the market. Capable of producing nearly 600 Lumen and normally intended for a 4-6 D cell Maglight flashlight, the TLE-300M can be hooked up to any 4V to 24V source. The module will internally step-up or step-down the voltage to correctly run three high-power LEDs at approximately 12 Watts. That's 5V at over 2Amps!

[From SparkFun Electronics - TerraLUX TLE-300M 600 Lumen LED]

Bonjour stopped working on my laptop

tor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:21:07 +0100

For a period of time Bonjour has stopped working on my laptop - but it did not become a problem until I needed to add a new printer. So I hunted around for a fix - and found this :

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

which seems to have fixed it for me.

Sun Star Office for Mac

tor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:36:00 +0100

Hm! Is this too little too late? Still interesting though.

Another option if you want to dump Microsoft Office

Sun has released the long-awaited Mac version of its powerful Microsoft Office alternative, StarOffice 9 beta.

[From Sun Star Office 9 beta ships for Mac]
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Kayaking on the Wey

tor — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:14:09 +0100

Benjamin (my son) and I went out on the local river (the Wey) with our kayaks today - and even though it rained we had a very good time, and met a surprising lot of people

- in Narrowboats

- In rowing boats

- Walking along the towpath

- Cycling along the towpath

It's great the see all this activity, even though we had a bit of rain while we were out.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, forgot to bring the waterproof camera.
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My first Arduino application

tor — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:06:05 +0100

My first real Arduino application was written today - and unfortunately I will not be able to write it all up tonight.

But - it is a simple application that reads values from a thermistor and a light sensor, tries to convert the thermistor value to a reasonable approximation of a real temperature, and then displays it all on a LCD shield.

It's still very rough - but I will refine it somewhat before I publish it on the blog.

Exiting!
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Arduino in parasitic (and wireless) spread of messages

tor — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:26:02 +0100

What a cool project - it's made by putting a Arduino and a zigbee module together, and every time one of these finds another similar module nearby, the 2 devices checks who's the "strongest" and a message is passed from the strongest to the weakest, in a parasitic mode.

The message is displayed on a small LED matrix.

I can see this working on a conference!
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ABI says consumers giving Blu-ray players the shifty eye

tor — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:02:07 +0100

IMHO the research company misses out on one serious reason for consumers not buying Bluray players - the mindnumbingly stupid copy protection system, which to be honest makes it easier to just rent movies online.....

We have for years used a 200 slot DVD player - but I am unable to find anything similar for the new hi-def formats, so I will stick with a decent upsampling technology, and using a computer (in my case a Mac Mini) as a DVR (in addition to the Sky HD PVR we also have.
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Energy monitoring on the Mac

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:22:03 +0100

At long last a energy monitor (electricity only) that actually bothers to record the data and lets you upload it to a Mac (ok ok - it works on PC's as well) for further analysis.

And even better - it is made and distributed in the UK>

The meter itself is wirelessly connected to the display unit, using a current sensing clamp around the main input cable to the house.

So a little bit more about the analysis part :

I’m as straightforward to use as wattson. Set me up correctly, and I talk to wattson whenever you plug him into a spare USB port on your computer. He tells me about the amount of energy you’ve used since he and I last spoke, and I store all this information on your computer.
read more....... »

Test of PWM on Arduino

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:33:07 +0100

One of the easiest way of testing PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) for regulating power on electric motors, such as fans, is to attach a standard LED to the Arduino.

Put the short pin of the LED into the socket marked PWN 13 on the digital side of the board, and the other pin into the socket marked GND.

Run the following little program (called a Sketch) on the Arduino.
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New OsX error message for me

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:30:05 +0100

Seen in my log files :

30/07/2008 20:49:15 mDNSResponder[23] NOTE: Wide-Area Service Discovery disabled to avoid crashing defective DNS relay 172.16.2.5:53

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What I've just been reading

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:30:05 +0100

This is the book I've just been reading - for a first book from a new writer it's really, really promising.

The book paints a complete new ecosystem on a artificial planet - with a whole underclass living under the city, among the cooling fins for the energy systems. I really look forward to the next book!

"Principles of Angels" (Jaine Fenn)
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AirPort Extreme supports harddisks

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:29:07 +0100

I was not aware of this - the Airport Extreme actually supports USB storage devices directly!

You can connect USB-based storage devices to an AirPort Extreme (802.11n). Learn which formats and protocols are supported.

Products Affected
Airport Extreme Base Station/802.11n
The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) supports USB storage devices that have a block size of 512 bytes, and are formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, or FAT32. Not all USB storage devices use a block size of 512 bytes.

The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) shares storage devices based on the format used to initialize the storage device. For example, if HFS-plus formatting was used, AFP and SMB/CIFS protocols are used to share the device on the network. If FAT16 or FAT32 was used, SMB/CIFS protocols are used.
read more....... »

iPhone as a wireless drive

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:27:03 +0100

Good idea - I better get the 16 Gb model if I'm going to use this...

Filed under: Software, Wireless, iPhone, App Store
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New Arduino variant

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:20:00 +0100

I love the opensource hardware movement that has risen around the Arduino - this is the latest addition to the family:

Filed under: misc hacks, daily
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The book I am reading at the moment

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:02:04 +0100

I am currently reading another new book from Richard Morgan - "Black man". It tends to be a bit violent - but otherwise excellent.

"Black Man (Gollancz S.F.)" (Richard Morgan)
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Norways pension fund and transparency - aka sovereign wealth fund

tor — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:36:05 +0100

Interesting reading - most funds are not exactly known for their tranparency...

OSLO, Jul 31 (IPS) - Norway’s ‘oil fund’ has risen to become the second largest fund in the world despite housing an ethical investments council which has kicked out major companies such as Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The ‘oil fund’, properly called the Government Pension Fund - Global, and worth an estimated 390 billion dollars, has become the world’s second largest sovereign wealth fund, now only trailing the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority after overtaking the Dutch fund for public employees.

The fund invests some of the huge profits from Norway’s oil and gas sector in companies worldwide to raise money in anticipation of increased pension costs and a future without oil exports.
read more....... »

Site outage

tor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:36:04 +0100

Due to a power outage in Godaming today the server has been down for a few hours, and it's email database is currently being rebuilt.
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Automatic testing and release management(?)

tor — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:23:01 +0100

Automatic testing and release management is one of my Holy Grails - so I really do wonder if this works as advertised? I may have to investigate this soon :

Cruise is a continuous integration and release management system that enables software teams to go live with new, tested features quickly and repeatably. By lowering the effort and risk associated with releasing complex applications, Cruise leaves your team free to focus on the stuff that really matters: delivering value through innovation.

Cruise draws from the extensive continuous integration experience of ThoughtWorks, the creators of the original CruiseControl.

[From Cruise - Continuous Integration and Release Management System - From the Creators of CruiseControl ]
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Too hot for the MacBook Air?

tor — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:36:01 +0100

As others have reported, it looks like the MacBook Air has the ability to shut down one core when it gets too hot :

UPDATE : This seems to happen at 66 degrees Celsius on my MacBook Air