Neat products alert

Ryan, one of my Micro students, pointed out a neat product from Sparkfun, their LCD display. It's $35 and has an easy-to-use interface (serial commands to an attached ATMega), which is great.

Reading the latest IEEE Spectrum, here's a Roomba competitor which uses a laser rangefinder to SLAM the room it's in. Wow! I'd certainly love to play with one of those...

Camstudio bring-up

From what I can tell, development on Camstudio has died. I'd prefer to use Camtasia Studio, but don't have the money to purchase it (sigh). However, it does work. Here are my setup notes:

1. I prefer the Beta version, which shows corners around the area you record. Download it from the Camstudio blog.
2. Fix the audio settings, which don't work on Vista: per this video, from the Recorder choose Options, Audio Options, Audio Options for Microphone, then use PCM, 22050 Hz, 16 bit, Stereo, 88200 Bytes/sec.
3. I prefer something other than the default Microsoft Video 1 video codec, which does a poor job. The DivX codec I have is compatible with YouTube. The CamStudio lossless codec also works with YouTube.
4. Be careful -- don't record movies longer than 10 minutes, or YouTube won't take them.
   

Using that, here's a tutorial on how to convert a bitmap to a laser-cuttable vector image. I chose an octopus from the web; below are the before and after images.

 

I made a video tutorial of the steps. Then I discovered the my microphone died right before I recorded this. Aargh. I'll re-do it when I'm back in operation...update: it's finally done.

Today's PC task: convert movies on a DVD to YouTube. While Google shows lots of commerical apps, I'd like something both trustworthy and free. So, I downloaded the DivX Author program, which allows me a 30-day trial, and I'm converting. So far, so good. Though somewhat tedious, since I need to break the videos up into 10 minute chunks.

Snow day

Amazing -- today is a snow day. I'm working from home, which is nice. As always, a big goal is sorting through my e-mail inbox, which still needs some work.

Random PC stuff: I'm trying to figure out how Google docs folder permissions interact with per-file permissions. I'd like to handle all sharing of the Micro labs using a folder, instead of changing the permission for each file. It seems like the permissions last edited take priority -- that folder permissions simply modify each file's permission. This would make sense in the case that a file can live in multiple folders. As long as I can get all the permissions looking the right way, I'll be happy for now. Part of the confusion is a lag: it seems to take a couple of minutes before the revised permissions take effect, which makes it harder to determine.

An amazing video Ricky found:

Today's goal is marketing: I'd like to look for proposal possibilities, develop PowerPoint slides to market our research, etc. More soon.

Classes have started

Classes started today; I've finished my lecture. Although enrollment for the last two spring semesters exceeded 60 students, we're at 50 this semester, so I've started the process of canceling a lab section. I also spent some time updating my syllabus with reading assignments. I'm thinking of trying some selective release features on myCourses to remind students to read; we'll see.

One big problem right now: I can't log in to the Wiki in order to edit it!

The list for today:

• Micro:
  
• Read through Micro papers
• Updated permissions for Google docs access
  
• Get Micro e-mail lists organized
• Work on a Micro exam 1
• Schedule room for Micro exams
• Send lab files to Steve 
• E-mail Justin re: time change
• E-mail TAs re: meeting and plans
  
• Reply to Ian's e-mail re: trunk kinematics
• More e-mail work and cleanup
• Schedule a review with Nick
• Work on my annual review
  
• Schedule lunch
• Schedule a research group meeting

Whenisgood makes scheduling a meeting soooo easy. I've got two pending.

Shape sensing

Krishna found a neat shape sensor that might work for a continuum robot; it looks similar to ShapeTape. Some videos (here, here) nicely illustrate its capabilities.

More random PC fixes:

• Annoying MS security: viewing a downloaded .chm file doesn't work until you unblock it. Here's another method.

I'm mostly ready for classes with an updated schedule for Micro. I think I'll try some conditional release use this semester to assign homework, etc. Or perhaps I'll stick with e-mail, since that seems to work.

Getting organized for the new year

I'm back at work -- it's been two weeks. Wow.

Some random thoughts and links I haven't had time to really categorize yet: the MSU budget (where is research spending shown?). The ARM Cortex-M3 Technical Reference Manual gives general ARM info, but lacks and instruction set encoding. That's in the ARMv7-M Architecture Reference Manual, which ARM doesn't publicly post (annoying). Of course, it's findable via Google. I wonder if there's a good textbook for the ARM Cortex? I haven't found one yet.

PC fixes:

• Windows Defender kept complaining and couldn't auto-update. The manual install method worked fine (follow the link from here).
• To define a custom paper size in Windows, use File |  Server properties from the Windows Explorer when viewing Printers in the Control Panel (I'd never seen that one before!). However, the laser printer seems stuck on a max page size of 11x11 in. Grrr.
  
• After playing with it, I've decided that Photoshop Elements is a disappointment. I keep wanting to use tools from the full version, which I have on the laptop. Sigh.
• Perhaps this is why the laptop takes forever to resume after sleeping. We'll see.
  

To do:

1. A class schedule for Micro. I need to replace section numbers with page numbers for the reading assignments.
2. Better plans for what I'd like to accomplish this semester.
   

Painting in the new year

Vika and I decided to repaint our kitchen. The old paint demonstrated several big problems. First, because it was a flat sheen, it both showed food stains, hand prints, etc. Second, washing it (even with a damp rag) discolored the wall, meaning any stain was for all purposes permanent. Third, it flaked off easily, so that any semi-vigorous rubbing would actually remove the paint from the wall! The color (an earthy tan) was nice, but definitely not kid-friendly.

So, we began by asking friends, reading a book, borrowing some tools, then making many trips to Lowe's for supplies and more supplies. Neither Vika nor I have any painting experience, so we began without a clear picture of how to do this! It made for an adventure, a learning experience, and a fun time. To work around our kids' schedule, we painted in afternoons when they took a nap, then again in the evenings after they were in bed. We ended up painting until midnight or so for two nights, including new year's. There's nothing like doing something to really learn it. Lessons learned:

• The AccuBrush (on the left), which I received as a Christmas present, works wonderfully. It takes a bit of time to learn and can't paint all the way into a corner, but it's very fast. The thing that took me time to realize was that the brush needs to paint in one direction: backwards when doing a long section of wall to avoid marks from the wheel, brush, etc.
• A corner brush (on the right) was fairly useless. It doesn't paint the seam when the two corners meet. I found using a standard paint brush easier.
• The paint stirrer was fairly useless. It works, but leaves a lot of paint on the stirrer afterwards. A free paint paddle would have worked better. Live and learn...
• A trim edger is very, very helpful. However, be sure not to paint against one side, then place that painted side against something you don't wait painted. Oops.
• Painter's tape it good, but not a cure-all.  Some paint actually seeped under it. In other places, pulling the tape off de-laminated the paint, since the paint formed a continuous sheet from wall to tape. So, it helps but don't rely on it too heavily.
• A paint stirrer isn't that helpful -- a lot of paint sticks to it. A free paint paddle would have worked fine.
• Rollers are wonderful. Brushes are much slower and harder to use.
• It's really fun to see the results after you're done! Not perfect, but much, much better than it was...

Here's the final result. If only I could paint that fast in real life...