nick-web.co.uk

The blog of nick

Author: Publisher

  • Quick Note – Development Enviroment

    As well as creating the blog, I also have to create a development environment. There are plenty of ways to do it, and no way is right, but in my circumstances I have chosen to use a late 2012 Mac Mini running OS X 10.8.2 and using Bootcamp with Windows 7. I also have Ubuntu running on a nearby laptop, as well as a Virtualised image on OSX.

    The set up of everything went relatively smoothly, excluding using the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad in Windows 7. My specific issue resolves around both the mouse and trackpad appearing “jittery”, as if te batteries were dying and the full smooth movement of the mouse was not being sent to the computer. This has annoyed a lot of folk online, and as it turns out after lots of Googling, you have to do the following:

    1 – Head to Device Manager, Then Network Adapters
    2 – Right-Click the Broadcom 802.11n
    3 – Choose the Advanced Tab.
    4 – Locate Bluetooth Collaboration from the drop-down list, then choose “Enable”

    A quick and simple fix! Many thanks to Kemal Kocabiyik and his blog for assisting me with this one!

  • Flashing LED’s

    I ordered 20 cheap (what I thought was) slow flashing LED’s. To test them quickly, I hooked them up to my breadboard, threw in 10 resistors, and wired them all to the same + and – terminals of 4 AA batteries. I’ll explain how all this works in a different post, but this is just to show that by taking 2 minutes of your time, you can have something relatively good looking set up!

    Comments, questions or queries? Fire away!

    Nick

  • Hello world!

    Hello world!

    Hello World. Thats the default name of this post title. Hello World is quite an important saying when it comes to computers. Generally, the first program you learn to write with a new programming language is a “Hello World!” example. I’ve done it countless times for various different languages. It immediately gives you some feedback that what your doing is working. Hardware is no different. A simple “Hello World!” program can consist of flashing an LED. Arduino’s even come with one built in!

    It seems fitting, then that the first post of this blog is entitled Hello World. This blog is here mainly for me to remember what I’ve done, and how I’ve done it. If other people find it useful along the way, then brilliant. I’ll be charting my exploits with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, basic Electronics, even some programming away from the above devices. I’ll obviously be talking about languages that are used for Arduino, an implementation of the Wiring Programming language, a simplified version of C++. Python and C++ can be used for the Raspberry Pi amongst others. Then theres a web development side, which includes using PHP.

    I’m starting this blog with a smudged slate. It’s not completely clean, as I’ve messed about with various things before. But I’m no expert. Defiantly no expert.

    So, onwards an upwards. If you do find this blog, and find it interesting,  or helpful, please register and leave a comment on one of the posts. I’d appreciate it!

    Thanks,

    Nick