It works! Okay, back up a little. Getting a PHP web interface to talk to hardware proved to be rather difficult. You need root access to control hardware but the web service runs with minimal permissions. So how does one bridge the gap without compromising the system? The answer, very carefully. I found a few workarounds but they involved either using MySQL or the gpio-admin library that works from commandline or shell scripts. In my case I wanted to stay with using C programs with the wiringPi library being called from PHP. C is much faster to control GPIO and PHP gives me a web front end. Here is how I did it. First the PHP process needs a way to run the binary as …
Raspberry Pi, CommandIR and Beyond
Now that I have had some time to play with the CommandIR, progress has been made. Of the two initial issues I have one left. The first issue is that LIRCD doesn’t auto start even though it is configured in the hardware.conf. While researching, I came to the conclusion that LIRC isn’t reading the hardware.conf at all. I made a change to it, enabling the listen option to try an Android app but it didn’t take effect. When I manually start LIRCD I have to include the options at the commandline. This is still a mystery but I am working with support on it. The odd thing is the init.d service script doesn’t seem to do anything. TV with IR Emitter Xbox S with IR Emitter …
Raspberry Pi and CommandIR
While reading an article the other day I had an idea formulate in my head. I have a older USB CommandIR Mini that has 4 emitters and 1 receiver. This would make a great use of the Raspberry Pi, a network based IR gateway. Originally it was only for Linux, but now it is supported in WinLIRC which I haven’t tired. Newer version of mine First thing was to do some research and see about getting it to work on the Raspberry Pi with an ARM CPU. So here is a run down of how I got it to work. Rear ports Get LIRC installed: The version that is available in the Debian Squeeze repository isn’t new enough to support the CommandIR. In this case you need to download the lastest version …
AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III Has Arrived!
The time has finally come. Yesterday at 2:58pm Pacific Standard Time, I received the call from Best Buy that my phone would be ready in an hour. I couldn’t believe my ears, it was actually here! Good thing the call came closer to closing time because I wouldn’t have been able to wait all day. All I had to do is head home, dump my data, and do a factory reset it with the stock ROM. Once at the Best Buy store, the process was painless. The best part, other than getting the phone, is I got $260 for the Galaxy S II and I was able to price match the Galaxy S III for $150. Much easier than trying to sell it on …
AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III in Store July 6th
News at last! Keeping track of when and where the Samsung Galaxy S III will be available hasn’t exactly been the easiest thing to do, but we now finally have one more confirmation for those who prefer to do their business at AT&T’s stores. The carrier announced today that the phone will be available in-store on July 6th, where it’ll of course set you back the same $200 on a two-year contract. That’s also the day that you’ll be able to order online with overnight shipping, if the whole pre-order thing isn’t for you. VIA: Engadget MobileSOURCE: AT&T Consumer Blog
Accessories: No Phone
Just wanted to make a quick post about the status of acquiring a AT&T Samsung Galaxy S III in Pebble Blue. I have received the case from OtterBox.com and a 32GB Micro SD card from MicroCenter, but I am still waiting to get the actual phone. If you have been following the failed launch of the Galaxy S III in the United States on XDA then you know of all the problems, bad communication and device shortages there have been in getting this phone. Over all Best Buy management has been supportive and doing their best to get me one, but worst case I should have one by the end of the week as they have 6-7 on order at my local store. Here on XDA …
Smart Outlet: The Beginning
For a long time now I have been wanting to dabble in home automation but didn’t have the avenue to design a system. After becoming familiar with microcontrollers over the last two years I have been mentally designing a system starting with a smart outlet. Recently, before the Maker Faire I was talking with a friend and having seen a few blog posts about some projects in the home automation field I decided to move forward. I now have sometime to work on this in between other projects, mainly waiting for some parts for my new Sbot 2 redesign. With some SparkFun gift card money I decided to pull the trigger and order some parts. I decided to build a 1 channel/plug smart outlet. This would be enough …
Checking out the temperature of a Raspberry Pi
[Remy] has access to a very nice Fluke thermal camera, so when his Raspberry pi came in he pointed the thermal camera at the Raspi (Spanish, Google translation) to see how far this neat computer could be pushed before it overheated. There are three main sources of heat on the Raspberry Pi: the voltage regulator, the USB/Ethernet controller and the Broadcom SoC. At idle, these parts read 49.9° C, 48.7° C and 53° C, respectively; a little hot to the touch, but still well within the temperature ranges given in the datasheets for these components. The real test came via a stress test where the ARM CPU was at 100% utilization. The Broadcom SoC reached almost 65° C while the …
Samsung Galaxy S III: Still waiting
June 5th 2012 I pre-ordered my Samsung Galaxy S III from Best Buy. Today June 21st, US launch date, still waiting. According to my local Best Buy I could get it tomorrow, only time will tell. In the mean time… Samsung Galaxy S III
Blinky POV SMT
A short time after posting about the Blinky GRID SMT build I received an email from wayneandlayne.com. They had seen my build post and really liked it, especially the videos and pictures! I had mentioned that I was looking at getting their Blinky POV SMT kit so to say thanks they offered to send me one. I was super excited! Here’s my build. The Blinky POV SMT is similar to the Blinky GRID but it only has one row of LEDs. By waving the Blinky in the air you can see the design/text due to the effect of persistence of vision. This happens because your retina sees the image slightly longer than it is being displayed. Read more about persistence of vision. Last Thursday I came home and …