Linux Support for the Parallax BOE-BOT (Board of Education Robot)

I'm leading a robotics class for the Boys and Girls Club of Collin County on Saturdays. Today I got my BOE-BOT working with Linux over USB! (albeit the interface is still limited to the command line). Here's how I did it:

1) Download the Basic Stamp Tools for Linux from SourceForge

2) Extract to a local directory and make/make install (w/ sudo when necessary)

3) Plug your Boe-Bot into the USB port, and use the "dmesg" command to deterime the correct port. My port was ttyUSBO:

usb 2-3: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001
usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 2-3: Product: FT232R USB UART
usb 2-3: Manufacturer: FTDI
usb 2-3: SerialNumber: A7005rCF

4) Create a symbolic link from your USB port to /dev/bstamp and to the Parallax Tokenizer shared library:

bash-3.2$ sudo ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/bstamp

bash-3.2$ sudo cp tokenizer.so /usr/lib/libbstamptokenizer.so

5) Compile, tokenize and transmit your object code to the BS2 microcontroller using these piped commands (the output of the first command is redirected as input to the next command, etc.):

cat filename.bs2 | bstamp_tokenize | bstamp_run


Make sure the BS2 stamp is turned on! Here's the result from "hello.bs2":

bash-3.2$

cat hello.bs2 | bstamp_tokenize | bstamp_run
PBASIC Tokenizer Library version 1.23

Basic Stamp detected!Model: Basic Stamp 2
Firmware version in BCD = 16
18 characters transmitted
18 characters echoed
18 characters transmitted
18 characters echoed
DEBUG OUTPUT: (Press [Control]-[C] to complete sequence)
_____________________________________________________________________
Hello world
^C
_____________________________________________________________________

Received [Control]-[C]!

Shutting down communication!
bash-3.2$

Good-bye Samba. Hello CUPS!

I've finally resolved a long standing issue printing from windows PC (xp and vista!) to the laser printer attached to my Fedora based linux workstation. So far this solution has been very reliable and doesn't required SAMBA.

1) In Fedora, Define a "Raw Print Queue" and make sure its shared (select the "Generic" drop down when you reach the "Printer model" step of the wizard, then select "Raw Print Queue")

2) In Windows XP (or Vista), "Add Printer", select "Connect to a printer on the Internet", and use the CUPS URL for the raw print queue on your Linux workstation (mine is http://192.168.0.102:631/printers/Raw)

3) Print a test page from Windows. If you have a problem make sure you have the correct Windows/XP/Vista print drivers installed, just as if the printer were connected locally.

2009 Quotes

“We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard… because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” (JFK)

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent… It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” (Charles Darwin)

“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.” (Henry Kissinger)

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.’" (Jedi Master Yoda)

“Look for the sudden and significant change…” (Judy Spitz)

For the Children! 2008 Softball Champions -- Corporate Challenge - City of Richardson
Continuing a fine tradition of winning for Texans Credit Union, our team won gold this year with the Division D Softball tournament. We started the tournament with Game 1 on Saturday morning at 8am and led the team to a 6-2 win. The Texans then made it through the tournament with one loss (4-14) Sunday afternoon in a double-elimination gold medal round.

We played the final gold medal round with lots of passion and energy on Sunday afternoon. Coming from behind with 6-8 deficit, we gained four runs to post a 10-8 lead. However, our opponents managed to tie the game 10-10 with a minute left on the game clock. The Texans again rallied with a 1 run and held our opponents scoreless in the bottom of last inning to win the gold medal 11-10.

The Richardson Corporate Challenge is an Olympic style competition involving many athletic (and non-athletic events) held in the fall of each year. This charity event has raised nearly half a million dollars for the Special Olympics.

Resolving GDM issues with Fedora 9 (Sulpher)

GDM is not fully supported in Fedora 9 because GDM was rewritten during the GNOME 2.21 release cycle (ref). gdmsetup is missing so you cannot customize your login and I had issues with user switching (Cannot communicate with GDM (The GNOME Display Manager)). Also, GDM would not put my monitor into powersaving mode from the login screen which was a real issue.

To resolve I reverted back to the fedora 8 versions of gdm and fast-user-switch applet. Note: this could be "dangerous" (ie, see below - you may be required to recreate your user account).

1) Download fc8 rpms for gdm, fast-user-switch-applet and fedorainfinity-gdm-theme (required to resolve a gdm dependecy)

gdm-2.20.1-5.fc8.i386.rpm
fast-user-switch-applet-2.20.0-1.fc8.i386.rpm
fedorainfinity-gdm-theme-8.0.1-1.fc8.noarch.rpm

2) Remove the fc9 versions of gdm and gdm-user-switch-applet

$sudo yum erase gdm

3) Install the fc8 versions:

$sudo rpm -Uvh gdm-2.20.1-5.fc8.i386.rpm fast-user-switch-applet-2.20.0-1.fc8.i386.rpm fedorainfinity-gdm-theme-8.0.1-1.fc8.noarch.rpm

4) Logout to restart GDM. I was then able to confirm gdmsetup and that the power savin mode was enabled after a few minutes of no activity from the GDM login screen.

Note: After the upgrade logged in and verify 2 of 3 of local accounts defined on my system. The third account wouldn't login correctly (GDM complained that it couldn't find the home directory for that account). I doubt it was related to the above actions (I was playing with installs for debian, opensuse etc from that account). To resolve I created a new account, and moved the files over from the old home directory that I wanted to keep. I didn't have any other issues.

The Everyman’s Library 100 Essentials

The Aeneid by Virgil
The Analects by Confucius
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Arabian Nights by Husain Haddawy
The Audubon Reader by John James Audubon
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Black Mischief, Scoop, The Loved One, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh
The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Carried Away by Alice Munro
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler
Collected Stories by Roald Dahl
Collected Stories by Franz Kafka
Collected Stories by W. Somerset Maugham
The Complete Henry Bech by John Updike
The Complete Short Novels by Anton Chekhov
The Complete Short Stories by Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Dubliners by James Joyce
Essays by George Orwell
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani
The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Histories by Herodotus
A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipul
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Human Factor by Graham Greene
The Iliad by Homer
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann
The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, Playback by Raymond Chandler
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
Mr. Sampath–The Printer of Malgudi, The Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma by R. K. Narayan
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The Odyssey by Homer
Offshore, Human Voices, The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays by Albert Camus
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Selected Stories by James M. Cain
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Girls of Slender Means, The Driver’s Seat, The Only Problem by Muriel Spark
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Rabbit Angstrom by John Updike
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
The Republic by Plato
Rights of Man and Common Sense by Thomas Paine
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher by R. K. Narayan
Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
The Woman Warrior and China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Ulysses by James Joyce
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live by Joan Didion
Zeno’s Conscience by Italo Svevo

WiFi Antenna Hacks for (Almost) Free!

I "stumbled" across a couple of cool tools to improve performance of your wireless router at home. The "Ez-12" parabolic reflector took a few minutes to make and really worked great. My WiFi router is upstairs. I got a 10db signal boost and my WI-FI connection quit dropping on my laptop downstairs.

Ez-12 Parabolic Reflector Template: http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html

If you are adventurous you might also try this. I’ve got everything ready but haven’t made the commitment to cut the existing wiring on my WiFi antenna. The parabolic reflector appears to be working well enough. At any rate this one was fun to build and beats spending $50 at Best Buy.

WiFi Antenna Hack: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/837885/wifi_antenna_hack/

Measure Signal Strength (Signal/Noise ratio) of your Wi-Fi Signal
NetStumbler: http://stumbler.net/

Love of My Life - Queen/Freddy Mercury
(Top 5 All Time Favorites!)

Love of my life, you hurt me,
You broken my heart, now you leave me.

Love of my life cant you see,
Bring it back bring it back,
Dont take it away from me,
Because you dont know what it means to me.

Love of my life dont leave me,
Youve stolen my love now desert me,

Love of my life cant you see,
Bring it back bring it back,
Dont take it away from me,
Because you dont know what it means to me.

You will remember when this is blown over,
And everythings all by the way,
When I grow older,
I will be there by your side,
To remind how I still love you I still love you.

Hurry back hurry back,
Dont take it away from me,
Because you dont know what it means to me.

I've got Straight Edge! Listen to the NOFX cover of Minor Threat's "Straight Edge" from their White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean CD.

Refer to : wikipedia

And yes, that's my Porsche 911 in the slide show. 1996, air cooled flat six 993, speed yellow, custom centerline 19" chrome wheels. I use it both for fun and show!

How To...

Embed MP3 in your homepage:
EMBED SRC="filename" HIDDEN="TRUE" AUTOSTART="TRUE">

Embed a flikr slideshow:
http://flickrslidr.com/index.php

Revisiting Hardcore Roots
I've recently been listening to Bad Brain's "Banned in DC" album again. Some of their reggae tracks are really worth listening too as well. Mainstream types might enjoy watching the recently released DVD American Hardcore. The rest of you should check out Penelope Spheeris' now classic film from 1981 titled Decline of Western Civilization.

25 Greatest Science Books of All-Time
This list was published this month in Discover magazine. I would welcome any of these on my "wish list" and will be watching ebay to find rare editions or even reading copies if that's what it takes to get these added to my libarary.

1. and 2. The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin [tie]
3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687)
4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)
5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)
6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)
7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)
8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)
9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)
11. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)
12. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger (1944)
13. The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973)
14. The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson (1971)
15. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg (1977)
16. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
17. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (1981)
18. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)
19. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1814)
20. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by* Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands (1963)
21. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey et al. (1948)
22. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (1983)
23. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (1943)
24. Micrographia by Robert Hooke (1665)
25. Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)

Only The Gods are Real...

A few weeks ago I purchased the book The Sandman by Alisa Kwitney. Her introduction to the King of Dreams quickly drew me into a world I have been vaguely aware of but more or less disinterested in for the past 15 years. Sandman has turned out to be one of those rare joys when you discover something comletely new and fascinating by accident- the pleasure of discovering something that you have long overlooked.

Exploring Neil Gaiman's other work, I just finished American Gods, which won the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards for Best Novel in 2002. If you have any interest in religion or ancient mythology, this book is absolutely worth reading. The themes have been explored before (think of Thor and Odin from Douglas Adam' classic Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul) but Neil's prose kept me turning the pages till late at night then filling my dreams till early morning.

Interesting Links:
http://www.frowl.org/gods/gods.html
http://www.rambles.net/gaiman_amgods.html

Nothing on DirecTV tonight? Has the wife commandeered the TiVO with Chick Flicks? Try YouTube! Bonus- If you're into juggling be sure to check out Vova and Olga Trying to beat the World Record in 11 club passing... and the many related videos.

So you want a day off
So you want a day off? Let's take a look at what you are asking for!

There are 365 days this year.

There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have 2 days off per week, leaving 261 days available for work.

Since you spend 16 hours each day away from work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available.

You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break. That accounts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available.

With a one hour lunch period each day, you have used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work.

You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave. This leaves you only 20 days available for work.

We are off for 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days.

We generously give you 14 days vacation per year which leaves only one day available for work and I'll be damned if you're going to take that day off!

I'm In Love With My Car
Words and music by Roger Taylor (Queen)

The machine of a dream
Such a clean machine
With the pistons a pumpin'
And the hub caps all gleam

When I'm holdin' your wheel
All I hear is your gear
When my hand's on your grease gun
Oh it's like a disease son

I'm in love with my car
Gotta feel for my automobile
Get a grip on my boy racer rollbar
Such a thrill when your radials squeal

Told my girl I'll have to forget her
Rather buy me a new carburetor
So she made tracks sayin'
This is the end now
Cars don't talk back
They're just four wheeled friends now

When I'm holdin your wheel
All I hear is your gear
When I'm cruisin' in overdrive
Don't have to listen to no run of the mill talk jive

I'm in love with my car
Gotta feel for my automobile
I'm in love with my car
String back gloves in my automobile.

Excellent Op-Ed piece on New Orleans

"Will New Orleans Recover?" Nicole Gelinas

Excerpts:
...No American city has ever gone through what New Orleans must go through: the complete (if temporary) flight of its most affluent and capable citizens, followed by social breakdown among those left behind, after which must come the total reconstruction of economic and physical infrastructure by a devastated populace...

...New Orleans has no real competent government or civil infrastructure—and no aggressive media or organized citizens’ groups to prod public officials in the right direction during what will be, in the best-case scenario, a painstaking path to normalcy...

...Sure, the feds must provide cash and resources for relief and recovery—but it’s up to New Orleans, not the feds, to dig deep within itself to rebuild its economic and social infrastructure before the tourists ever will flock back to pump cash into the city’s economy. It will take a miracle. New Orleans has experienced a steady brain drain and fiscal drain for decades, as affluent corporations and individuals have fled, leaving behind a large population of people dependent on the government...

...The current mayor, Ray Nagin, can’t help but be an improvement. Mayor Nagin is no doubt in shock, like everyone else. In a perfect world, this would be no time to criticize his performance. But it’s now that the eyes of the country are on him, and it’s now that he must take charge, to counter the indelible images marauding looters have already stamped on a deluged city. Nagin must stop making comments like this: “We’re not even dealing with dead bodies. They're just pushing them on the side.” He must recover himself and vow publicly, over and over, to mourn the dead, to recover his city from the waters, and to rebuild as quickly as is humanly possible.

Why Hillary Can't Wait Till 2008!
Verry Funny Stuff: http://www.michaelhodges.com/stuff/funny/2008cc1.swf

Grocery Star Wars. Starts a bit slow but well worth the three and a half minutes to watch. The audio is hilarious- click on the "meet the puppets" link if you miss any of the characters names (like Obi Wan Cannoli or Tofu-D2). Very well done!

Renewable Energy Resources
NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Home Power Magazize - Guide to Photovoltaics Systems
Premier Power Solar Electricity Specialists
Mr Solar.Com Grid Connected System Kits
Altair Energy Turn Key Systems
National Geographic Article Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough

April Quotes Roundup

"Never confuse movement with action." (Ernest Hemingway)

"A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance." (Benjamin Disraeli)

"The things that we love tell us what we are." (St. Thomas Aquinas)

“For every complex problem there is a simple solution- And it is wrong.” (Anon)

"No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days." (Max Planck)

"I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire." (Winston Churchill)

“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time -- literally -- substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it." (Peter F. Drucker)

"I make big mistakes. Like I've said, I was wrong 80 percent of the time. But there was that 20 percent..." (Artie Shaw)

"Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements." (Queen Elizabeth II)

"Ye can lead a man up to the university, but ye can't make him think." (Finley Peter Dunne as "Mr. Dooley")

"I don't know about technology and I don't know about finance and accounting." BERNARD J. EBBERS, former chief executive of WorldCom, at his trial.

"An architect proves his skill by turning the defects of a site into advantages." (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini)