img_1469 Living Rainforest IMG_5768 The moon and the trees img_16917 Last boat img_19703 Living Rainforest p1040711 crw_0265 img_17037 img_1686 img_15647 img_12968 img_18780 img_15814 crw_5636.jpg img_16418 img_16994 img_15730

The Myth of the Genius Programmer

YouTube recently suggested this video to me, being several years old you may have seen it, but if you haven’t then I also recommend watching it. It is an interesting talk on the idea of a genius programmer, and will probably ring true for most programmers out there.

I found quite a few similarities . . . → Read More: The Myth of the Genius Programmer

Arduino talking to an I2C LCD display

I had a spare Matrix Orbital 20×4 character LCD floating about so I decided to try and connect it up to my Arduino. The display is a LK204-25, which is a brilliant little serial display, with support for a 25 button keypad and six outputs that can be used to control power to something else.

. . . → Read More: Arduino talking to an I2C LCD display

process forking in perl

This is a very geeky topic, but I was having a conversation at work today with someone who was trying to do several really simple things in parallel in perl because they didn’t want to wait several minutes for each one to finish. They had knocked up a change to the existing perl, but had . . . → Read More: process forking in perl

Arduino 1-wire temperature sensors

So you have played a bit with your Arduino, and have heard about other people using it to monitor the temperature, but weren’t sure how they did it – Here is how I did.

Maxim make a very simple 1-wire temperature sensor – the DS18B20 (the replacement to the DS1820). This 3 pin sensor looks . . . → Read More: Arduino 1-wire temperature sensors

App Inventor for Android

Saw this recently on the Google blog:

App Inventor is a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone—programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students—to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices. And today, we’re extending invitations to the general public.

via Official Google Blog: App Inventor for Android.

It looks really cool, and . . . → Read More: App Inventor for Android

A Debian Packaging Howto

I do a fair bit of Debian/Ubuntu packaging at work (kind of on the side) and have had several people tell me that although the New Maintainer’s guide (http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/ or it is available offline in the package maint-guide and also has some translations) does do an introduction it is a bit hard to follow, particularly . . . → Read More: A Debian Packaging Howto