The rain held off until the end of this year’s 13th Annual America’s Children’s Holiday Parade on December 1, 2012 in Oakland, California. Unfortunately, there was no helium for the balloons.
Dungeness Crab Report November 2012
Commercial crab season opened yesterday in California. Live Dungeness crabs were $3.99/lb at Lucky Seafood Market #2 in Oakland, CA.
Price on December 11, 2012: $5.99/lb
Price on December 14, 2012: $4.99/lb
Price on December 16, 2012: $4.69/lb
Price on December 22, 2012: $8.69/lb
Price on January 6, 2013: $4.99/lb
Price on January 7, 2013: $3.99/lb
Price on January 18, 2013: $3.99/lb
Price on February 9, 2013: $4.69/lb
Price on February 23, 2013: $4.99/lb
Price on March 26, 2013: $4.99/lb
Raspberry Pi Webcam
I’ve had a webcam serving live images using WebCam2000 running on my Macbook. I recently bought a new webcam, a Creative Live! Cam Chat HD
When the Raspberry Pi was released, I thought it would be a great webcam server. I ordered one from Allied Electronics last July, but they never had stock. When Adafruit started selling them, I bought one.
After I acquired a compatible USB keyboard and dug up an Intellimouse Explorer 3.0, I started out with the 2012-09-18-wheezy-raspbian image. Googling found a Romanian site, BobTech, with an excellent tutorial for setting up a Raspberry Pi streaming webcam (English Google translation). Basically, the instructions just worked.
Later, I bought an Edimax EW-7811Un USB Adapter
iface wlan0 inet static
address 192.168.1.115
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
nameserver 208.67.222.222
wpa-ssid Skynet
wpa-psk xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I made a change to have MJPG-streamer serve a single image instead of a stream. Instead of using http://raspberrypi:8080/?action=stream, I used http://raspberrypi:8080/?action=snapshot. I use a script to reload the page every 10 seconds. In mjpg-streamer.sh, I set FRAME_RATE=”10″ You really don’t see much action unless it’s windy.
Once the Raspberry Pi was setup, I used puTTY to connect to it, so I can start mjpg-streamer and do other things without having the Raspberry Pi connected to a monitor.
Windows 8: “Tough Luck, Bub”
Today I purchased and downloaded Windows 8 Pro on my c. 2003 Shuttle SB51G computer. It has a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz CPU. At the end of February 2012, I was able to install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on it. Last June, I tried installing the Windows 8 Release Preview, which didn’t work.
I started the upgrade purchase through the Microsoft site and one of the upgrade adviser warnings said that the NX bit needed to be enabled in the BIOS. I knew that my CPU (Northwood) didn’t have this feature which was also the reason the Windows 8 Consumer Preview wouldn’t install. I still completed the purchase knowing that I would use the license on another computer. The Windows 8 installation procedure went through like everything it was fine. It was, until the reboot:
The message on the reboot said, “Your PC needs to restart. Please hold down the power button.” This same message was displayed after several cold boot attempts. The error code, 0x0000005D, with the parameters 0x030F0207, 0x756E6547, 0x49656E69, 0x6C65746E, as far as I can find, refer to an incompatible CPU.
I think it would have been nicer on Microsoft’s part to say, before I plopped down $39.95, that Windows 8 wouldn’t work with my CPU. I can imagine this happening to a customer reading the hype about Windows 8 and trying the upgrade, paying for it and then getting a cryptic message. It seems to be Microsoft’s way of saying, “Tough luck, bub.”
I restored XP from an image, and my ancient computer is back to being a file server.
Solder : Time Watch Kit
This is a SpikenzieLabs Solder : Time™ watch. It uses a a 4-digit 7-segment red LED display that displays the time for about four seconds when the “stem” is pushed in.
There is a CR2032 lithium battery for power, though there is a connection on the circuit board for a power supply. The display could be kept on continuously with a AC/DC power adapter if you wanted to use it as a desk clock (or you could carry around a large battery wired to the watch on your wrist).
The component count is very low – you can see all of them in the photo. The two ICs and the LED module are soldered directly to the board to keep a low profile. The build time for someone familiar with soldering is probably less than an hour. It took me a little longer because I tried to use a yellow LED display module that I ordered from Digi-Key but the digits did not light evenly. The SpikenzieLabs forum suggests that a higher voltage (<5v) might work but I didn’t try it. I unsoldered the yellow module and used the red one.
You should note that this is a big ass watch. A woman’s watch case might be 23-29mm in diameter while a men’s watch case is normally 37-42mm. The Solder : Time case measures ~ 60.8mm (2.4 in). People will notice the Solder : Time on your wrist unless you are the size of Andre the Giant.
The kit sells for $29.95
The new, improved version, the SpikenzieLabs Solder:Time II Watch Kit