From HPR: Python Roundtable Discussion
Feb 11th
This may be old news to some of you but I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a blog post.
The Podcast site Hacker Public Radio has a rather interesting episode about the current and future plans for the development of Python. Hope it’s useful to someone.
Back up again!
Feb 5th
The great hosting provider migration is finally over! Good riddence fasthosts (or should I say farsehosts) and hello Cyberhostpro!
From TehnikService: Quick PCB Etching
Jan 11th
TehnikService has an interesting article about PCB etching using the “Sponge Method” This seems like a good way for beginners to get started making their own PCB’s.
Has any one tried this?
New Development Board Offering from Protostack
Jan 9th
Protostack has released a new and improved version of it’s 28-pin development board. It’s priced at $9.60 and includes a number of welcome changes from the one I reviewed here in a previous post.
Read on to see what’s changed….
Handy Link: Programing an AVR with a Bus Pirate
Jan 7th
The guys over at HintShop have published a tutorial on using a bus pirate as an In-Circuit Programmer to flash firmware to an AVR Microcontroller using SPI.
As if that wasn’t cool enough, they also include instructions showing how multiple Mircocontrollers can be flashed by one Bus Pirate on the same board, in their tutorial! Is there anything this little gadget can’t do?
Handy link: Arduino Ethernet Bumper Pack
Jan 7th
Georg Kaindl, over at gkaindl.com has developed a collection of libraries for the Arduino environment which allows developers to make use of the DHCP, DNS and Bonjour (Apple Computers’ implementation of Zeroconf) protocols in their network-enabled Arduino projects. Documentation for each individual library (including installation instructions) can be found on Georg’s site.
If anyone is using these libraries in their own projects already, then feel free to share you experiences in the comments section. I’d love to hear about some of the cool stuff other people have made with them.
Handy Link From tehnikservice: TV EEPROM Dumps
Jan 6th
Ever wondered what was contained in the EEPROM memory of your TV? Well, you may find the answer here. This page on tehnikservice.net has EEPROM dumps from a variety of TV models available for download. Hope this is useful to someone.
Handy Link: bpython
Dec 31st
bpython is a Python interpreter interface on steroids! It’s main features are:
- Syntax Highlighting
- A save function (to save code you’ve entered to a file)
- Auto-intending (we all know how important correct indenting is when you’re writing python scripts!)
- Auto-Completion which displays suggestions for any built-in functions, helping you to get the syntax for a statement spot-on without having to dig through reference manuals. The auto-completion feature also helps with import declarations, showing you a list of available modules as you type.
Installation in Ubuntu is as painless as typing sudo apt-get install bpython Other packages are available for Debian, Fedora and OpenSUSE as well. You can also obtain the source code from here and compile it yourself if need be.
If you need any help with using bpython, then check out the project’s webpage. Hope this is useful to someone.
Happy new year!
From hackedgadgets: Drink Mixing System
Dec 31st
How’s this for a class project! Based around a PIC32 Microcontroller and sporting a touchscreen interface, it allows the user to custom mix their own drinks or select one of the preset options programmed into it.
There’s also some clever use of RFID technology here as well. RFID tags embedded in the cups are used to match up users with their selections. Faster than you can say “Same again please, Bar Tender.” It’ll whip up your usual based on your previous choice.
Handy Link: “Invent with Python”
Dec 29th
Need an accessible guide to learning Python that won’t send you to sleep? “Invent with Python” is just what you need!
Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 2nd Edition (to give it its full title) is a book written by Al Sweigart. It is available for free on-line in both HTML and PDF format. You can download the PDF format from here.
The book is released under a Creative Commons licence and is aimed at people who are completely new to programming.
Comprised of 19 Chapters (at the time this post was written), it guides the reader through the basic concepts (Installation of Python, use of the Python interactive shell, Variables, functions, etc) and some of the more advanced stuff as well.
The coding examples in the book are all games (so you can actually have some fun with what you create as you go through the book!), which increase in complexity as the chapters progress.
There is also a Blog related to the book, so you can keep up with any future additions that are made to it.
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