Here are where I will place my witterings on matters geekiness.
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| Written by Justblair |  On the 2nd of July 2011 I am organising an Arduino Workshop at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. The workshop is being held at the Electron Club room and we meet at 1pm (Presentation starts at 1:30). We are going to begin with a presentation about the Arduino programming environment which will be suitable for everyone. I hope to give a short guide on the software and demonstrate the building of a couple of simple sketches. After there will be a chance to compare projects, seek advice from other attendees and generally chat and plan how to move a regular meeting forwards.  I will also bring my box of "toys" so there will be other hardware (sensors, servos, displays etc) available for people to experiment and play with. If you have an Arduino, bring it and a laptop with you! If not, still come. I have a couple of spares and others may have more too. This is the first event of this kind that i have organised and I hope that it will become a regular event! If you are in the area and can spare some time, come along and try out some Arduino programming with us. |
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| Written by Justblair |  John Boxall has got his hands on what looks to be an intriguing and very versatile product. The XMEGA Xprotolab by Gabotronics is in the words of its makers:
“…the first mixed signal oscilloscope with an arbitrary waveform generator in a DIP module. It measures only 1 x 1.6 inches, and can be mounted directly on a breadboard. The Xprotolab can also be used as a development board for the AVR XMEGA microcontroller.” The Xmega Xprotolab from Gabotronics is a tiny little device but has a few features that the hobbyist might find useful, in fact to call it an Electronic Digital Oscilloscope it seems is selling it short, it has a waveform generator and power supply built in there as well, ideal tools for someone prototyping a new circuit design. |
| Written by Justblair |  Today in a blog post SeeedStudio released a surprise announcement about the new entry to their range of pocket oscilloscopes. I reviewed an engineering sample of the DSO Quad, 4 channel digital storage oscilloscope last week and was impressed with the specifications of the little device. However Seeedstudio have by overclocking the AD9288-40 dual A/D converter increased the smaple rate on the analogue channels from 36MS/s to 72MS/s. That is quite a jump in specification. The DSO Quad was already a very attractive buy, but with the improved sample rate it's just getting better and better. We are still waiting for a final price from SeeedStudio, but they have released what they describe as the final specification: |
| Written by Justblair |  Today I was out on my travels trying to locate a weird sized nut for a rotary encoder I am playing with. In desperation I visited Glasgow’s Famous (some say infamous) Barras, an indoor/outdoor market. I had no luck finding the nut i was looking for (for a 6.8mm or .268’ diameter shaft) but did stumble upon a young man who was setting up an interesting stall at the market.
Juan Fuente, a product design student has been creating goods from 100% recycled materials. Using old stereo’s, DVD players and even a VHS machine, Juan re-cases the devices in recycled wood.  I am sure that Juan’s designs are not to everyone’s taste, but I find the minimalism of his work rather delightful. He lays bare some of the electronics which I think makes you more aware that this is their second life.
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| Written by Justblair |  The O2 Joggler (A rebranded OpenPeak device) is out of the box a fairly mediocre device. However when it started selling at a £50 price mark quite a few hackers got interested in the capabilities of the Linux driven unit. Now there are a number of software options available to Joggler that take it from mid table obscurity to being a top performer.
I have already investigated improving the cooling on the Joggler and replaced the standard cooling system with something more substantial. I have also been using and improving the Squeezeplay software ported over by Tarkan. All in all my Joggler is providing excellent value as a touchscreen media player on my headphone rig… But I had a niggle or two left to solve… Here is the problem, a standard Joggler has one side mounted USB port, and that is awkward and limiting in equal measure. Time for change! |
| Written by Justblair |  Ok before you get excited/upset, the site contains no nudity, not even a stripped down Gibson… But don’t fret what Jon Elliots’ blog www.guitarporn.co.uk does contain are photos of classic guitars, enough to get a few pulses racing if you are an enthusiast of the instrument.
The site is fairly new, but Jon is collecting an interesting record of classic designs and historically significant pieces. Head over and start wishing you could own them! My favourite is Jimi Hendrix's 1965 Fender Stratocaster, complete with more than a little charring. |
| Written by Justblair |  OK, So justblair.co.uk is an electronics and audio site primarily, but i though I would share with you a half hour hack that converts a Cross Ion Pen into a touch screen stylus for resistive touch screens.
For those who have not seen this pen before, the Cross Ion Pen is a bullet shaped pen approximately 3/4 the size of a standard pen when closed. It opens by pulling the two halves of the pen apart which both unsheathes the pin nib and elongates the pen to full size. It’s pretty ingenious though the drawback is that the pen uses non-standard refills which are both expensive and difficult to buy off the shelf. Some people have resorted to converting other ink refills for use in their Cross Ion. I bought mine a few years ago and after the pretty miserly ink refill ran out, it was vanquished to the bottom of a toolbox for years. Recently though I repurposed it for use as a stylus for my Asus T101MT Tablet PC. The conversion it turns out is a pretty easy job. I am sure that this little hack could be applied to other pens with similar refill cartridges. |
| Written by Justblair |  I noticed this Digital to Analogue Converter(DAC) on the Thai forum HTG2.net. It’s a rather nice build based on the Twisted Pear Buffalo II DAC and Placid Power supply kits. The owner has made good use of Perspex (or like material) to produce what is an interesting looking product. Using two colours of clear material to sandwich the electronics. I have seen many Perspex cases before, it’s a popular way to house low voltage electronics in a cheap yet attractive manner. In fact I have a headphone amplifier and a couple of chip programmers manufactured in a similar style.
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