http://www.austinriba.com/projects/mytime-time-keeper/

Dell Laptops with model numbers 1555, 1557 and 1558 have issues with suspend and resume on linux, there is a patch, but it has not been included in the latest kernel version yet.

I have sucessfully gotten my new Dell 1558 to sleep and wake using a patch I found here. The patch is for the linx kernel, specifically drivers/acpi/sleep.c It adds just a few lines.

For those of you using Arch Linux, I’ve uploaded the patched kernel packages here:

http://www.austinriba.com/misc/kernel-patched/

If you are using Ubuntu, you can find packages here.

If you are using another distribution, you must apply the patch to your kernel’s source and recompile. Follow the instrucions for whichever distro you use on how to do this. You can find the patch here:

http://www.austinriba.com/misc/kernel-patched/dell.patch

Enjoy your functional laptop!

http://www.fingel.com/misc/awesomedeb.tar.gz

Its a website where you can post scripts, dotfiles, config files, or anything else linux. Other people can comment and rate your stuff. Very cool for us people who love the hand crafted linux enviroment. Check it out! Its text based browser friendly as well!

Here is the breakdown.

The rebellious wallpaper comes from http://gangsterserver.com/ This guy makes some amazing stuff.

The stuff on the right is Conky. You can download my config here.

The embedded terminal on the right is just gnome-terminal with some special settings applied to it from compiz. You can find a howoto here.

Besides that its a basic ubuntu install using the murrina theme.

Mint Linux has some cool custom applications, one of them being mintUpload. It allows you to upload a file in 2 clicks to a FTP server and gives you the URL. Unfortuneatly, Mint doesnt make it easy to confugre the tool to use any service other than its own crappy one. But it is possible.

If you have your own server you want to use with mintUpload, just follow these steps.

1) Create a writeable directory on your webserver where you want the uplaods to go, ex. /httpdocs/uploads

2) Create a file in that directory named “space.html” and put a single line in it: 100000000/100000000 This will tell mintUpload how much space you have, but since its your own server and we dont really care to keep track how much space is left, it will be static.

3) Go to /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpload/services and create a file with the name of your server.

4) Put this in your file:

name=<YourName>
host=<YourHost>
user=<FTP Username>
pass=<FTP Password>
path=<Path to upload folder, ex httpdocs/uploads/>
space=<Path to space.html>
url=<URL to upload directory>/<TIMESTAMP/<FILE>
maxsize=1000000000
persistance=365

Note that <TIMESTAMP> and <FILE> are variables used by mintUpload and you should leave them as they are.

Save the file, and you should now have a working service in mintUpload! This works great, but there was one thing that still annoyed me. mintUpload places the files in subdirectories named from timestamps of the main upload folder. This is great if you are hosting a service that thousands of people will be using and the files will be deleted every so often. But I’m the only one using this service so it would be better if the files went directly into the uploads folder without and subdirectories so they can be easily viewed. To fix that:

1) change url=<path to upload directory>/<TIMESTAMP/<FILE> to url=<path to upload directory>/<FILE>

2) Open /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpload/mintUpload.py and comment out lines 155, 156, 157 and 162. To comment out a line, simply put a # in front of it. ex: #ftp.cwd(directory)

Save the file, now all uploads will go directly into the upload directory without any subdirectories. Cheers!

I plugged in the power and booted up the computer. To my dismay, the box did not pick up any wifi signal. Not even a trace. The computer was sitting in a complete dead zone. To be honest, I was not surprised. The signal had to travel up a floor, to the opposite side of the house, through a kitchen. Kitchens are notoriously bad for wifi, all the equipment tends to block the RF waves.

So I did some research on the net. What could I do to increase my routers power and thus give life to my new jukebox? Thats when this link, like an angel out of heaven, found its way to my eyes.

The EZ 12 from freeantennas.com

Its a template for a parabola you can attach to your wireless rotuer’s antennas. All you have to do is cut out the template, resize it to your liking, glue on some tinfoil and attach it. I made one for each antenna and it only took me about 10 minutes.

The thing worked much better than I would have ever thought! All of a sudden my jukebox could pick up signal, not that great, but better than nothing. I also noticed that the signal strength in my room with my laptop went from 80% to 95% +.

My D-Link router with the windsurfers attached.

The windsurfers work by focusing all of the RF waves in one direction, instead of all directions like the antennas without them. If you are anywhere in front of the direction of the router, you will see a significant increase in signal. From behind, not so much.

The directions on the site say that you need to use thick paper, but I found that regular printer paper works just fine. After you insert the tabs into the reflector, just bend the tabs up and use a piece of scotch tape to hold them there.

Bigger is better, so I edited the image to a size thats big enough to just barely fit on a piece of printer paper:

The Windsurfer Template (click for fullsize)

Enjoy the increased signal! I know I am.

The board is going to have many great features. One of the cool things already housed there are the helper scripts – written by myself – that attempt to solve several common problems people have with linux. The first one has already been written. If you have problems with Linux, Ubuntu and Flash not working or not having sound, you should give this a try:

http://www.linuxcult.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5

See you there!

I met my fellow roboticists in SOU’s physics classroom on Friday, which was yesterday, with a bag of clothes in my hand and my computer on my back. The triple digit temperatures outside promised an extremely uncomfortable trip, possibly dangerous to my sanity, but I didn’t care. I was on my way to my first robotics competition after all, and I had been looking forward to the trip all week. I was pumped and ready to go. The 5 of us who arrived on time waited in the classroom for half an hour for stragglers, and then we were off.

I tried to enjoy the 5 hour car ride even after listening to the System of a Down cd for the 5th time in a row. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, despite our sweaty backs and tortured burger king filled digestive tracts. The burning freeway air trapped us at mercy of our Kia Sedona’s climate control system, fastened permanently between boiling and freezing. To be fair, there was a temperature dial on the thing, but we couldent figure out how to use it for hours, and once we did, nobody seemed to remember it was there. Fanally, the horrible funny-because-they-arent –funny jokes and painfully nerdy converstation, came to a close once we pulled up to the Dunes Motel, our home away from home for the night.

AGGH! The wireless internet didn’t work. You could practically hear the nerds wail in despaired unison down the dark motel hall. Maybe it was a good thing, because we had to wake up early the next day and it was already 1am.

We woke up in the morning and met at the van, all of us except for one. The missing roboticist was instead rushed away by two wailing ambulances because of low blood sugar. He was released four hours later. Not the morning we had imagined, but still a promising morning nonetheless.

Finally, to even our own disbelief, we made it to BotFest ’08 at the Children’s Museum in Portland. The floor was packed full of 15 year old kids rushing around our ankles. Robots butted heads in the sumo competitions, became hopelessly lost in the mazes. One humanoid bot tried to start a conversation with me as I walked by. A flock of agitated Pleos cried out for attention in one corner of the madness. Pockets of men conversed around the floor furiously taking notes about each other’s machines. “Transistor”, “Microcontroller” and “C plus plus” could be heard over the noise of servos and and screaming.

Finally, we felt as if we were home. The first event that we entered was the medium sized sumo bots. Silver dragon did alright by beating the robot that was beat by everyone. After that, it was all downhill. Bluedragon never even had a chance, he was swept off the rink like dust. SOURC did fare slightly better in the line following challenge, Twitch was one of 3 robots that actually finished the course. One 3rd place ribbon for us.

After the competition was over came the robot talent show. There were only two entries, an impressive balance bot that was able to stay upright on two wheels like a segway, and a very large remote controlled arm on four wheels that played robot basketball. The judge gave both entries second place because they were so different, though I thought the balance bot should have gotten first because it was a true autonomous robot, and the big arm was RC.

After a few hours of mingling, we decided to get pizza and then go home. And that is where I am now. It is pretty much the same drive that we had on the way up, minus the System of the Down. There was enough moaning in the back seat that the DJ decided against it. I’m dirty, smelly and sweaty, and I’ve been doing far too much sitting down. A nice shower and clean clothes sounds better than root access right now!

All in all a great trip, we learned what we have to do to kick butt next time and we are all inspired to make it happen.

I cant wait to kick some 12 year old ass. I don’t care how old they are I will have no pity – Carl

Boston Dynamic’s Big Dog

From Boston Dynamic’s web site: “BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog’s legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.”

This thing is as creepy as it is cool. It seems unreal that a machine could exist that appears so lifelike. The only way to really see how impressive it is would be to watch the video. It recovers after being kicked, slips on ice but never falls over, and walks over a pile of bricks. The amount of work put into this dog must be staggering. Check it out:

Robotic Exosuit

This robotic exoskeleton designed by Sarcos gives the wearer superhuman strength. Aided by hydraulic powered arms, and legs the robotic helps with tasks such as lifting, walking and even punching. Sarcos says that later versions will include protective armor that will cover the body, and versions that become autonomous once stepped out of.

The Crusher

Another one of DARPA’s research projects. The “Crusher” is one helluva vehicle that can handle a wide variety of terrain. The machine can be remote controlled or drive itself autonomously. the thing already has a machine gun mounted on top – it will have obvious uses for the military.

My Little Robozinho

Sure, he doesn’t look like much now, but he’ll soon be taking over the world and hes only going to answer to one man – me. Start sending in checks for protection now and you will be spared.