www.justblair.co.uk

This weekend I have been playing with a Foobar Plug-in called Foo_HttpControl.  Essentially what the plug-in does is set up a small web server on your machine, allowing you to control Foobar remotely through any web enabled device.

My HTC HD2 Smartphone is an ideal device to use as a remote control. It sports a large (very large in fact) 800x480px resolution touch screen.

The Foobar plug-in allows for users to add their own themes, created in JavaScript.  There are already some themes available, most designed for I-phones.  However the due to the increased screen resolution, the HTC HD2 displays the i-phone themes with obvious pixilation. 

Though I have to admit that my coding skills are rudimentary to say the least. Hacking around with code from IxoFith, and using styling from the phone’s own ui, I have managed to create a pretty decent and functional HTC HD2 Theme for the web interface.  I have some tidying up to do, but hope to post the files here shortly for other HTC HD2/Foobar Users…

The plugin and some skins are available here if you wish to give it a try…

I have always found the care and attention that PC Case modders take over their creations fascinating.  It is not unusual to see hours lavished upon themed PC Cases.

Well “Mr Chey” has posted his 6L6 / 5881 Single-Ended (SE) DIY Tube Amplifier over at www.diyaudioprojects.com.  And this amplifier is a little different as he has gone for a Transformers theme to the build, much in the same way that PC modders frequently theme their creations. 

Transformer covers have logos and other Transformer’s inspired detailing has been hewn from aluminium to create this smart looking device. 

More information on the build can be found on his project page

Over at Twisted Pear, they are taking orders for the revised version of their Buffalo DAC.  Name wise they have gone for the catchy title “Buffalo II”

In Twisted Pears own literature

“The first generation Buffalo DAC was the first DAC available based on the ESS Technology Sabre-series DACs, then the ES9008. The second generation Buffalo32S was the first DAC available based on the ESS ES9018 Sabre32 DAC chip. In in it's third generation, the Buffalo-II DAC embodies the culmination of our nearly three years of experience working with Sabre DACs, and it our best effort to provide the pinnacle of performance, as well as a high degree of customization.”

Retailing at $249 USD, the DAC boasts an impressive feature set:

Eliot Phillips over at Roboskirts.com has posted a blog update on the DSO Nano.  In his blog he points out the few changes that have been made to the Nano since I reviewed one of the Pre-production (Beta) machines.

From his comments, it is clear that SeeedStudio have taken on board comments and suggestions from the beta testers.  As well as minor quality improvements (I got my missing switch cover BTW) they have improved on the ease of setup of the unit. 

I also like the improvements that they have made to the included accessories.

Find out more at www.roboskirts.com.

I am sure that everyone who has seen the footage streaming back from Haiti has been shocked and upset by the suffering that the people there are currently enduring.  The folk over at Twisted Pear Audio most certainly have been moved.  They are conducting a raffle to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, a charity providing desperately needed medical care in the region.

Raffle tickets are $10 each. 100% of the the money raised will go to Doctors Without Borders.  On top of that Citrix Systems will match money raised with a donation of up to $5000!

Up for grabs prize wise are some of their excellent audio kits. 

BrianGT over at chipamp.com is celebrating the start if a new decade by offering customers a 20% Discount on all available kits during January 2010. 

For those that have not heard of chipamp.com before, they supply a selection of high quality kits based around the National Semiconductors Overture series amplifier chips. 

Read more at chipamp.com

Everyone likes a bargain, and Sparkfun, a company well known amongst amateur electronics enthusiasts really captured the attention of it’s existing and potential customers with a 100 thousand dollar giveaway on the 7th of January. 

Offering to giveaway 100K of stock is surely a generous gesture indeed and no doubt should have won Sparkfun the admiration and adoration of many customers.  Well that’s what you would think.

Now I doubt that many people will be surprisedIt  to hear what happened next… Sparkfun’s servers crumpled under the immense self inflicted DDos attack, even before their giveaway had begun.  Now what should have been an incredible good news story turned into a massive digital lottery for those trying to access the site.

Long before the server’s had returned to anything approaching usability, twitter and other social networking sites started to buzz with disgruntled customers who had been unable to complete their orders, despite attempting for two hours to log in an check out their goodies!

It will be interesting to see how Sparkfun fares in the aftermath of what can hardly be seen as a successful campaign.  I hope that many will take the “I didn’t loose anything” viewpoint on this one. This is a company that had a lot of goodwill in the DIY electronics community, question is will the community be in a forgiving mood?  

Recently I gained possession of a vintage pair of Koss Pro4AA Headphones, age unknown, but circa 1970’s. My initial inspection of the headphones proved favourable, but with any electrical equipment which is 40 years old, some work was required to restore these to what hopefully approaches their former glory.

The Koss Pro4AA is a headphone that has a good reputation.  A closed headset design (i.e. it isolates the user from outside noise) it was first produced in 1970 and remained in production until the late 1980’s.  By popular demand Koss resurrected the design in 1988 and a modern equivalent of the 1970 design remains in production today.  The modern version shares the looks of the original but internally is a different design.

This project was a quickie really, taking only around 8-10 hours of my time (across 3 evenings) to complete.  To be honest when I took the project on, I kind of hoped that it would be more involved.  I suppose it is a tribute to Koss’s robust design and industrial strength build quality that there was not really that much work required to get these headphones back up to scratch.