Slade Knowledge Base » Electronic

Ada Fruit – Electronic component supplier

MJC — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:16:11 +0000

Nice selection of useful parts for interactive/electronic work

http://www.adafruit.com

note: based in USA, customs charges most likely added for UK delivery

An introduction to Arduino

MJC — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 14:22:55 +0000

More: http://blog.makezine.com/arduino/

Arduino starting points

MJC — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:58:23 +0000

http://www.creativeapplications.net/category/objects/

http://arduino.cc/blog/category/artduino/

http://arduinoprojectspotter.com/

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Projects/ArduinoUsers

http://wn.com/Arduino_Art

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/arduino/

Arduino’s co-creator explains electronic circuits for absolute beginners

MJC — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:03:28 +0000

Looking to learn the basics of using the Arduino starter board? Well be sure to watch this informative video hosted by Massimo Banzi, one of the Co-Founders of Arduino.

The video explains how to build a basic circuit with the Arduino board, and how to use each of the basic components such as LEDs, switches, and resistors. So if you are new to engineering, or have only recently purchased the Arduino started kit, this video is a must-watch!

View this video and others at RS online: http://ow.ly/e3WVr

Buy the starter kit and related Arduino products: http://ow.ly/e3WVr

Audio speakers made from paper

MJC — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:16:45 +0000

Inspired by Marcelo Coehlo’s paper speaker and Vincent Leclerc’s Accouphene textile speaker.

These paper and fabric speakers are made by running 5-9V amplified sound signal through a very conductive coil in close proximity to a magnet. Unlike most speakers that have the wire coil wrapped cylindrically and placed around the magnet, here the coil is in the plane and directly adhered to the membrane that moves the air creating sound.

Also see: etched fabric speaker, carved and engraved wood speakers, plated seashell speakers:

http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1372

Battery recycling at Slade

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:36:12 +0000

Slade has a UCL recycling point for batteries. Located inside the main entrance, the box is orange and black in the shape of a very oversized battery.

Please take advantage of this recycling point for any used batteries.

Bundled, Buried and Behind Closed Doors

MJC — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:35:19 +0000

Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors is a short documentary explaining internet infrastructure, focusing on the art deco building 60 Hudson Street in Tribeca, which is now one of the most concentrated carrier hotels in the world. The internet has an “ironically very limited geography in terms of big strategic concentrations,” explains Stephen Graham, professor of cities and society, Newcastle University, in the short film. “The big affluent high tech information rich regions” is where the infrastructure is densely located. And 60 Hudson Street was especially ideal as a hub, given that the building was already designed to accomidate cables as it was first fitted for pneumatics tubes, then telegraph cables and telephone lines.

In an interview with The Atlantic’s Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, director Ben Mendelsohn explains, “The issue of how this infrastructure is hidden fascinates me. Andrew Blum has a book coming out in May about physical Internet infrastructure, which I’m very excited for. He was giving a lecture and handing out postcards of “data monuments” in New York City, and I asked him: if these are monuments, what do they reveal about the culture that built them? Their message is really one of ambivalence. Service providers need to let potential clients know where they are, but they generally decline to make their presence widely known beyond that marketing purpose. Andrew did say that he envisions ”brewery tour” style visits or class field trips to Internet buildings in the future, and I think that would be great, but the industry is not there yet.”

Codecademy: A Slick, Fun Way To Teach Yourself How To Program

MJC — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:09:17 +0000

It’s a web-based, interactive programming tutorial that holds your hand and walks you through the basics of JavaScript. At this point it’s just getting started — the lessons only go as far as ‘While’ loops — but it clearly has loads of potential for one key reason: it actually feels fun.

Website: http://www.codecademy.com

control VLC Media Player remotely from Processing environment

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:46:33 +0000

A New Library to control VLC Media Player remotely from Processing environment.

Website: http://www.sureskumar.com/RemoteVLC/

Create custom or global shortcuts that perform more complicated tasks on Mac

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:39:14 +0000

Macs have some great built-in keyboard shortcuts, but if you want to create custom or global shortcuts that perform more complicated tasks, you’ll need to do a little extra legwork. Here’s how to turn virtually any action into a keyboard shortcut

Website: http://lifehacker.com/5749811/turn-any-action-into-a-keyboard-shortcut-on-your-mac?skyline=true&s=i

Data visualisation tools

MJC — Tue, 22 May 2012 07:41:40 +0000

visualization.ch put together a selection of data visualization tools that they use the most and that they enjoy working with. It includes libraries for plotting data on maps, frameworks for creating charts, graphs and diagrams and tools to simplify the handling of data. Even if you’re not into programming, you’ll find applications that can be used without writing one single line of code. They will keep this list as a living repository and add / remove things as technology develops.

Digital Artists Handbook: Game art: theory, communities, resources

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:37:29 +0000

Like all digital media, video-games can be designed, produced, deconstructed and re-appropriated within the context of art. Even though the history of video-games is relatively short, it is already rich with examples of artistic experimentation and innovation. Unlike film or video, games still represent a fairly immature medium, slowly evolving to locate itself in mainstream culture. The majority of games often present simplistic or crude visions of interactivity, narrative and aesthetics, but the mediumoffers unique potential for the creation of exciting new forms of art. Like any digital medium the evolution of art/games is closely tied to the development of software, hardware and thesocio-cultural forms that grow around this technology.

PDF: Game art: theory, communities, resources

Digital Artists Handbook: Graphics

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:08:29 +0000

Image reigns supreme. From the thousands of films churned out each year from Nollywood, to the persistent recording of images by security cameras in London to the scaling of windows on your desktop computer, you are already a pixel pusher. But, how can you reign supreme over images? How can you become an active participant in the creation of graphics and move beyond passive consumption. While the distinction between amateur and professional is erased in the Youtube-record-a-video-get-rich-generation, the focus upon high-quality content controlling tools is key. What is the point of mastering verion 3.5 of Killer Graphics App 97′s fuzz filter [1] if you don’t have a use, or you have become locked into a niche application that costs 2000 Euros for each new version? The focus of this chapter is about exploring free and open source tools that empower you to do what you want to say and if the tools aren’t working out, you are allowed to change them from the inside-out! The major tools in this chapter to be discussed are bitmap editor Gimp, vector drawing tool Inkscape, 3d graphics with Blender, and algorithmic graphics creation with Processing [2]. By the way, these tools are free! They have huge constructive communities around them waiting to help you with your tasks, adding new features and supporting vibrant actively producing pixel pushers.

In working with any graphics application, it is important to understand the difference between vector and pixel graphics. Vector graphics describe the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, Bezier curves, and polygons to represent images in computer graphics [3]. It is used in contrast with the term raster graphics (bitmap graphics), which is the representation of images as a collection of pixels (dots). Vector graphics are math equations to define curves, generally have a smaller file size than raster graphics and also, can be scaled from tiny to massively huge billboards with no loss in quality. The letterforms for these words I’m typing are vector graphics. Bitmaps on the other-hand, are the types of images that a camera outputs, for example. Maybe your camera is a 5-megapixel camera, meaning it can record 5 million pixels per image. With bitmap graphics the more data about an image, then generally the better quality image, and thus a larger file size.

Gimp is one of the oldest free and open source applications. It is now 10 years old and is on par with major closed-source [4] applications. Gimp is primarily a tool you can use to edit all aspects of a bitmap image, from color retouching of photos, to painting on a canvas to fixing blemishes on a face, Gimp is chock full of tools. Its vector-based sibling is Inkscape, an Open Source drawing tool. With it you can make complex typography, make huge billboards, draw architectural plans and make lovely charts. This powerful tool implements the World Wide Web consortium’s Scalable Vector Graphics specification (SVG) and points out another strength of Open Source graphics tools in supporting free and open standards that won’t just vanish because a company closes shop, or locks down a format under proprietary patents.

Another important concept for graphics is the difference between two (2D) and three-dimensions (3D). Most graphics applications, including Gimp and Inkscape, are two-dimensional, meaning they deal with height and width of graphics, also called X and Y coordinates. Think of 2D graphics as a piece of paper. 3D graphics, like those operated on by the free software editor, Blender, add depth (Z-axis) to 2D graphics. This is what you see in the famous Pixar movies like Toy Story and Cars [5].
These typical 3D animations also add a fourth dimension (4D), time. While Blender does handle the fourth dimension by allowing 3D creators to animate, for these chapters, the concept of 4D also includes the concept of graphics through time and interactivity. When Casey Reas and Ben Fry developed Processing, a simple Java-based language and runtime for creating generative graphics[6], the tools for creating graphics primarily relied upon manual creation with Gimp and Inkscape, or more sophisticated knowledge of graphics programming in C/C++. Processing lowered the barriers for participation in creating interested graphics from code, and also allowed for these graphics to take on a life of their own through user interaction. It should also be noted that Inkscape, Gimp and Blender all offer forms of scripting and automation as well to enable creators to be extended quickly. The main difference between these three apps and Processing, is that Processing generates standalone applications which can be run anywhere. This is great for artists who are making interactive installations, but way too much manual controls for simple photo retouching.

In addition to these great free and open source tools that exist, there are projects as well, which focus on the community of graphics creation and on connecting together graphics applications into a coherently focused suite. The Open Clip Art Library encourages the upload and remix of public domain vector graphics under the guise of “clip art” and the Open Font Library goal is to build the world’s largest free and open collection of fonts [7]. The Open Clip Art Library has approximately 15,000 pieces of high quality public domain clip art, meaning anyone can do anything they want with these resources. The Open Font Library is still a fairly new project with ~40 high quality fonts that are either in the public domain or under the new SIL Open Font License [8]. The most notable font on the system is by famed kottke.org blogger, Jason Kottke. He created the super-popular font Silkscreen, a small bitmap-looking font used everywhere on the web. He recently licensed it under the Open Font License and uploaded it to the collection, signally clearly to other font creators that they can build upon it and make it better.

While all these projects exist in the free and open source software universe, the projects did not talk very much until two key projects developed. The first is the Create Project, whose goal is to provide a third-party space for creation applications to work together on standards, shared resources (palettes, brushes, patterns, keyboard mappings), and to encourage inter-project communication [9]. The other key development is the annual Libre Graphics Meeting [10] which is the major event where artists and developers come together to work on making free and open source tools better, seeing what is possible by artists, and massive amounts of cross-pollination to create the future for graphics pixel pushers.

The major difference to closed source proprietary drawing apps is that you can’t reign supreme over images. You can’t become a true pixel pusher. You can only be the pixel pusher that someone else wants you to be. By using Gimp, Inkscape, Blender, Processing or one of the many other free and open source applications, you can dig deep into the code and communities of these projects. You can even shape the direction of these projects by joining in the discussions, filing bugs about problems with the tools, and showing off how much you reign supreme over images pixel pusher.

Notes

[1] Please note, this is vast satire over learning tools rather than having a reason to use them. Also, please note, this should be called the cheese filter.

[2] See http://gimp.org, http://inkscape.org, http://blender.org, http://processing.org

[3] My Vector Graphics definition is based onhttp://www.webopedia.com/TERM/v/vector_graphics.html because of the object-oriented reference.

[4] I dare not link to the various Adobe applications you all know I’m referring to: Adobe Photoshop for the GIMP, Adobe Illustrator for Inkscape

[5] The irony of this is that 3D graphics are rendered back into a 2D representation onto a screen, or in a movie theater.

[6] See http://processing.org

[7] See http://openclipart.org and http://openfontlibrary.org

[8] See http://sil.org/openfontlicense (CHECK THIS URL)

[9] See http://create.freedesktop.org

[10] See http://libregraphicsmeeting.org

Jon Phillips, December 2007

PDF: Digital Artists Handbook: Graphics

Digital Artists Handbook: Hardware hacking: open hardware and stand alone objects

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:35:31 +0000

That’s a broad title. Building your own hardware can mean a lot of different things. To narrow thescope a bit, this article talks about embedded Single Board Computers (SBCs) and microcontrollersfrom birds eye view. An embedded SBC is anything that is complex enough to comfortably host astandard operating system, while a microcontroller is too small for that.

PDF: Digital Artists Handbook: Hardware hacking: open hardware and stand alone objects

Digital Artists Handbook: Pure Dataflow – Diving into Pd

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:06:37 +0000

This article introduces the possibilities of the software Pure Data (Pd), explains a bit why it’s so popular among artists and shows what Pd can be used for. The goal is to help artists decide if Pd is a tool for their own work.

Pure Data, or PD for short, is a software written by mathematician and musician Miller S. Puckette. It has become one of the most popular tools for artists working with digital media. Originally conceived in the late 90s as an environment to create sounds and to compose music, it was soon extended by modules to work with video and graphics. Pd is freely available for no cost, and it is Free Software in that the source code can be obtained, modified and distributed without restrictions as well. Pd runs on many operating systems including the big three: Linux, OS-X and MS-Windows.

PDF: Digital Artists Handbook: Pure Dataflow – Diving into Pd

Digital Artists Handbook: Software Art

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:30:29 +0000

The term ‘software art’ acquired a status of an umbrella term for a set of practices approaching software as a cultural construct. Questioning software culturally means not taking for granted, but focusing on, recognising and problematising its distinct aesthetics, poetics and politics captured and performed in its production, dissemination, usage and presence, contexts which software defines and is defined by, histories and cultures built around it, roles it plays and its economies, and various other dimensions. Software, deprived of its alleged ‘transparency’, turns out to be a powerful mechanism, a multifaceted mediator structuring human experience, perception, communication, work and leisure, a layer occupying central positions in the production of digital cultures, politics and economies.

PDF: Digital Artists Handbook: Software Art

Digital Artists Handbook: Working with graphics: Processing

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:11:05 +0000

You might have come across the ‘made with Processing’ hyperlink on the internet or heard ofProcessing before. Over the past six years it has become a real phenomenon, allowing creative mindsto access the digital world. Based on a rather simple syntax and minimal interface, Processingsmoothly drives beginners into the scary world of programming.This article is not a tutorial, but rather an attempt to give you a global idea of what the programmingenvironment is, looks like and why it was created. Should you decide it is the tool you need, thisarticle will hopefully provide enough pointers to online and offline resources to get you started on theright track.

What and who was it designed for ?

As the Processing web site mentions: “Processing is an open source programming language andenvironment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used bystudents, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It iscreated to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as asoftware sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists anddesigners as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.”

PDF : Working with graphics: Processing

Digital Artists Handbook: working with others

MJC — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:33:37 +0000

It is of course a truism, often repeated, that the Internet has been the basis for a revolution in (remote) interpersonal communications, collaboration and data sharing. It is probably safe to say that there would be very few of the Free/Libre and Open Source (FLOSS) projects that exist today without the collaboration technologies the Internet supports. One of the many effects of the powerful tools FLOSS has put in to the hands of creative people is that it has potentially made them more independent. No longer are they reliant on specialists with access to expensive software and hardware to carry out aspects of their projects for them. Their limitations are now time and knowledge, not the lack of access. It is in fact precisely this issue that the Digital Artists’ Handbook seeks to address, by providing authoritative information to guide practitioners in to new fields of endeavour.

The downside of this independence is that many artists find themselves more isolated, working alone at home rather than interacting with others at shared studios or where shared resources were previously found.

The Internet, being fundamentally a communications medium, offers potential solutions to this isolation, but the solutions themselves have, to date, largely dictated that collaboration happens in new ways, shaped by the technology. For some, the thousands of FLOSS coders for example, the tools have made possible projects that would otherwise be virtually inconceivable, but for other artists looking to enhance their existing practice with new digital methods the situation is perhaps more double-edged.

It maybe be useful to step back for a moment and consider what we mean when we talk about working, or collaborating with others. For a start it could be divided in to five broad types of collaboration:

PDF: Digital Artists Handbook: working with others

Digital preservation – Rafaël Rozendaal

MJC — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:01:53 +0000

More and more I hear people talking on the subject of the preservation of internet art. It is a new medium and no one knows what exactly will happen. Will we still browse the web in 15 years? Will information be injected straight into our mind without any screens?

Art works should last a long time. I love seeing old art, and I think it’s not until an artist dies that we get the big picture of their work.

Many media came before the internet. Lots of those media were lost, and some were saved. Paintings, sculptures, books, celluloid, vinyl, tapes, they can all rot and wither. The internet is different. It is a universal, decentralized, universal library, controlled by no one.

When a file exists on the internet, it gets copied. If it is an interesting file, many copies are made. The data is no longer connected to any single physical medium, it exists on many locations at the same time. Old lost music and movies resurface as torrents. These torrent files exists on many machines and media at the same time. Those same movies might have deteriorated on celluloid. I think the internet is the safest place for data.

Operating systems, programs and protocols change all the time. The survival of software is both by emulation and translation. If you look at old video games, they have always survived. They are kept alive by communities of enthusiasts. Passionate geeks re-code old software for new platforms.

The context might change, but we will always be able to revisit old software in some form.
Transferring software to new platform is peanuts compared to preserving traditional art.
Sharks deteriorate in formaldehyde.

If something is interesting, it will survive. As long as someone cares, a copy will exist.

web: http://www.newrafael.com/digital-preservation/

Directory of APIs

MJC — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:34:30 +0000

website: http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory

Download Mac OS 9 for free

MJC — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:38:44 +0000

Following in the footsteps of the release of System 7.5.3 for free in January 1999, Apple has decided to give away Mac OS 9.0 operating system for free since it’s been replaced by Mac OS X

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1280?viewlocale=en_US

Dropbox – brilliant for sharing files

MJC — Wed, 11 May 2011 23:25:13 +0000

Your files, anywhere
Any file you save to Dropbox also instantly saves to your computers, phones, and the Dropbox website.

2GB of Dropbox for free, with subscriptions up to 100GB available. Your files are always available from the secure Dropbox website. Dropbox works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Works even when offline. You always have your files, whether or not you have a connection. Dropbox transfers just the parts of a file that change (not the whole thing). Manually set bandwidth limits — Dropbox won’t hog your connection.

Website: Dropbox
Website: Dropbox for ucl.ac.uk email address 500MB extra free!

Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 1: Resistors, Capacitors, Inductors, Switches, Encoders, Relays, Transistors

MJC — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:24:39 +0000

Want to know how to use an electronic component? This first book of a three-volume set includes key information on electronics parts for your projects—complete with photographs, schematics, and diagrams. You’ll learn what each one does, how it works, why it’s useful, and what variants exist. No matter how much you know about electronics, you’ll find fascinating details you’ve never come across before.

Convenient, concise, well-organized, and precise

Perfect for teachers, hobbyists, engineers, and students of all ages, this reference puts reliable, fact-checked information right at your fingertips—whether you’re refreshing your memory or exploring a component for the first time. Beginners will quickly grasp important concepts, and more experienced users will find the specific details their projects require.

Unique: the first and only encyclopedia set on electronic components, distilled into three separate volumes
Incredibly detailed: includes information distilled from hundreds of sources
Easy to browse: parts are clearly organized by component type
Authoritative: fact-checked by expert advisors to ensure that the information is both current and accurate
Reliable: a more consistent source of information than online sources, product datasheets, and manufacturer’s tutorials
Instructive: each component description provides details about substitutions, common problems, and workarounds
Comprehensive:Volume 1 covers power, electromagnetism, and discrete semi-conductors; Volume 2 includes integrated circuits, and light and sound sources; Volume 3 covers a range of sensing devices.

amazon.co.uk

Find PDF Manuals for your Electronics using Amazon

MJC — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:39:41 +0000

If you are looking to download the user’s manual of an electronic product that you own but it is nowhere to be found on the manufacturer’s website, you might as well try a search on Amazon.com.

The site hosts PDF manuals of thousands of electronic products including those of items that have either been discontinued or are no longer available for sale on Amazon.com.

The user manuals are primarily hosted on two Amazon servers – images-amazon.com and ssl-images-amazon.com – and here’s how you can find the one you are looking for.

Go to Google and type the following query. Replace the word PRODUCT with actual name of your product

PRODUCT filetype:pdf site:ssl-images-amazon.com OR site:images-amazon.com

Free alternative to Microsoft Office

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:41:46 +0000

The Document Foundation, which coordinates development of LibreOffice, a new, free and open office suite, has reached an important development milestone significantly ahead of schedule. LibreOffice 3.3 shipped this week; it’s the first, stable, road-ready version of the suite. A large, 100+ community of developers has been attracted to the project, and while it’s still clearly under construction, it’s an impressive showing in a short time.

Website: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

Free Computer Science courses from Stanford University

MJC — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:26:20 +0000

Stanford University offered three of their most popular computer
science courses to the public this fall, online for free. The courses
were so popular that Stanford’s doing it again in January.

This time they’re offering 7 computer science courses:

Computer Science 101 http://www.cs101-class.org/
Machine Learning (one of the offerings this past fall)
http://jan2012.ml-class.org/
Software as a Service http://www.saas-class.org/
Human-Computer Interaction http://www.hci-class.org/
Natural Language Processing http://www.nlp-class.org/
Game Theory http://www.game-theory-class.org/
Probabilistic Graphical Models http://www.pgm-class.org/
Cryptography http://www.crypto-class.org/

And two entrepreneurship courses:

The Lean Launchpad http://www.launchpad-class.org/
Technology Entrepreneurship http://www.venture-class.org/

No tuition, no textbooks, no set class times (students get a week to
complete the assignments).

Free DNS When You Need It

MJC — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:22:58 +0000

Dyn’s legendary free DNS service allows you to create a hostname that points to your home or office IP address, providing a easy URL for you to remember anywhere you have internet access.

Dyn also provides update mechanisms for making hostnames work with your dynamic IP address, delivery of your DNS records to five DNS servers in five Tier 1 bandwidth datacenters around the world, fast propagation/reliable static IP caching for DNS TTL values and more.

Website: http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi – book

MJC — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:47:00 +0000

What can you do with the Raspberry Pi, a £25 computer the size of a credit card? All sorts of things! If you’re learning how to program, or looking to build new electronic projects, this hands-on guide will show you just how valuable this flexible little platform can be.

This book takes you step-by-step through many fun and educational possibilities. Take advantage of several preloaded programming languages. Use the Raspberry Pi with Arduino. Create Internet-connected projects. Play with multimedia. With Raspberry Pi, you can do all of this and more.

Get acquainted with hardware features on the Pi’s board
Learn enough Linux to move around the operating system
Pick up the basics of Python and Scratch—and start programming
Draw graphics, play sounds, and handle mouse events with the Pygame framework
Use the Pi’s input and output pins to do some hardware hacking
Discover how Arduino and the Raspberry Pi complement each other
Integrate USB webcams and other peripherals into your projects
Create your own Pi-based web server with Python

About the Author

Matt Richardson is a Brooklyn-based creative technologist and video producer. He’s a contributor to MAKE magazine and Makezine.com. Matt is also the owner of Awesome Button Studios, a technology consultancy. Highlights from his work include the Descriptive Camera, a camera which outputs a text description of a scene instead of a photo. He also created The Enough Already, a DIY celebrity-silencing device. Matt’s work has garnered attention from The New York Times, Wired, New York Magazine and has also been featured at The Nevada Museum of Art and at the Santorini Bienniele. He is currently a Master’s candidate at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Shawn Wallace is an editor at O’Reilly and lives in Providence, RI. He is also a member of the Fluxama artist collective responsible for new iOS musical instruments such as Noisemusick and Doctor Om. He designed open hardware kits at Modern Device and taught the Fab Academy at the Providence Fab Lab. For years he was the managing director of the AS220 art space and is a cofounder of the SMT Computing Society

How to Make an Interactive Network Visualization

MJC — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:07:05 +0000

Interactive network visualizations make it easy to rearrange, filter, and explore your connected data. Learn how to make one using D3 and JavaScript.

Networks! They are all around us. The universe is filled with systems and structures that can be organized as networks. Recently, we have seen them used to convict criminals, visualize friendships, and even todescribe cereal ingredient combinations. We can understand their power to describe our complex world fromManuel Lima’s wonderful talk on organized complexity. Now let’s learn how to create our own.

In this tutorial, we will focus on creating an interactive network visualization that will allow us to get details about the nodes in the network, rearrange the network into different layouts, and sort, filter, and search through our data.

In this example, each node is a song. The nodes are sized based on popularity, and colored by artist. Links indicate two songs are similar to one another.

Try out the visualization on different songs to see how the different layouts and filters look with the different graphs.

http://flowingdata.com/2012/08/02/how-to-make-an-interactive-network-visualization/

How To Remotely Control Your Mac Using Simple AppleScripts

MJC — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:32:48 +0000

If you’re lucky to have two or more Macs in your home or office, you no doubt find occasions where you would like to remote control a Mac either from another room or from another part of the country. You probably know that you can use the Shared feature to remotely control another Mac on the same network. But by creating some simple AppleScript commands you can control a remote Mac much faster, alleviating the need to open the Shared screen feature.

If you have never worked with AppleScript before, don’t fret. The following Mac remote control scripts are very short and easy to use.

web: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remotely-control-mac-simple-applescripts/

Imacon Flextight Scanning

Sarah — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:00:57 +0000

pdf Screen shots of all set up menus on Flextight Scanner

pdf Basic Setup for RGB scanning on Flextight Scanner

pdf Advanced Setup for RGB scanning on Flextight Scanner

pdf Automatic Film Holder Setting info – Important!

pdf 16 bit versus 8 bit files

pdf Advanced Setup for B&W scanning on Flextight Scanner

instructions for converting all of your DRM’d Kindle books into a non-DRM format that you can read on any number of devices.

MJC — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 09:42:16 +0000

Migrating from Kindle to iBooks

I started off reading eBooks from the Amazon Kindle store. As time has progressed, I’ve found myself using my physical Kindle less and less. Partly because I forget to charge it, and partly because I can never get the lighting in my favorite reading locations quite right. And at night? Forget about it.

So I’ve converted all of my Kindle purchases to ePubs for use in iBooks. I could use the Kindle app for iOS but I’ve found iBooks to be faster at syncing read position, and it feels a lot more natural to use.

Since I went through the effort of converting all of my Kindle documents, I figured I’d write a mini guide to getting it done. I’m specifically focusing on the Mac since that’s all I know; other users will have to venture elsewhere.

Setting up Calibre

Calibre is a Java application which is an eBook management suite. It’s a bit ugly but it does what it says and works well. Since the Kindle’s eBooks are encrypted, we need to install a decryption plugin to do the heavy lifting there.

Download and install Calibre.
Download and decompress the DeDRM archive.
Open Calibre’s preferences (⌘,).
Go to “Plugins”.
Click “Load plugin from file”.
Choose the K4MobileDeDRM plugin’s zip file (zip within the main zip; don’t extract).

The encryption used on Kindle books is fairly basic. The decryption key is a product of the serial number for your device, so it’s not difficult to determine.

Getting eBooks

The DeDRM scripts work by understanding Kindle for Mac’s settings files, so to get the eBooks we need use the application. There are scripts to do conversions directly from Kindle hardware’s eBooks, but it’s more effort.

Download Kindle for Mac.
Register it with your account.
Download all of your eBooks (open them from the “Archived Items”).

Converting eBooks

Kindle eBooks are in the MobiPocket format. However, iBooks requires ePub, so we need to both decrypt and convert the files. At this point, we’ve got all we need, so we can use Calibre to do the conversion.

Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Kindle/My Kindle Content/
Drag all of the .azw files into the Calibre window.
Select the books in the Calibre window which you wish to export.
Click the “Convert books” toolbar item.
Choose “ePub” as the output format in the top-right of the convert window.
Go to the “Page Setup” item in the left list, and configure the conversion as so:
1. Select “Kindle” as the input profile.
2. Select “iPad” as the output profile.
Hit the “OK” button to begin the conversion. It may take a while.

If you have any issues at the decryption step, you should delete your~/Library/Application Support/Kindle folder and start again.

Enjoy

You can now “Save to disk” from the toolbar item to save the books which you’ve converted, and import them into iTunes for use in iBooks. Calibre is powerful enough to do many other formats if you want to use other devices as well.

Remember, don’t post any of the unencrypted documents anywhere. Just because the DRM is gone doesn’t mean you’re legally authorized to do so. They’re for your personal use only.

http://zacwe.st/blog/kindle-to-epub

Journalism school teaches students pre-digital newspaper production techniques

MJC — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:50:20 +0000

While archeologists try to recreate what life was like 10,000 years ago, and historians try to recreate what life was like 1,000 years ago, journalists can’t even recreate how they published a newspaper 20 years ago. No one documented the details or saved the old equipment. (I had to buy some of it from creepy old men through Craigslist.)
Journalists may write history’s first draft, but when it comes to covering their own history, they don’t even take notes. I can imagine college students 20 years from now asking their aged adviser…

Your digital cameras didn’t just beam images to the cloud as you shot them? What’s a “memory card”? And you had different programs for writing, design, and photo editing? Does anyone still have “Word,” “InDesign,” and “Photoshop”? It’d be fun publishing an issue that way – maybe we can buy copies from some creepy old men on Craigslist.

Website: http://journoterrorist.com/2011/08/02/paperball2/

KeyShowX 2.0

MJC — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:03:44 +0000

KeyShowX is a simple, yet powerful, tool for making multi-screen presentations and shows. It is a companion product for Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint. Consider it as a universal, flexible and scriptable remote control unit that allows simultaneous execution and synchronization of multiple presentations running on different computers. As an extra bonus, you can also control Apple DVD Player and QuickTime Player.

Laser cutting and engraving for creatives

MJC — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 08:50:01 +0000

Laser cutting and engraving for creatives

Cut Laser Cut
mail@cutlasercut.com
+44 (0)20 3490 9886
Arch 45b
South Lambeth Road
London
SW8 1SR

Learn Processing

MJC — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 18:58:42 +0000

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Initially developed to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, Processing also has evolved into a tool for generating finished professional work. Today, there are tens of thousands of students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists who use Processing for learning, prototyping, and production.

Online book, free: http://natureofcode.com/book/

LibreOffice free alternative to Microsoft Office

MJC — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:08:16 +0000

LibreOffice is the power-packed free, libre and open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Support and documentation is free from our large

See what LibreOffice can do for you »

List of free & open source software

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:40:18 +0000

Comprehensive list of free & open source software

Website: http://hellebaard.nl/en/software.html

Mac anti-virus software review 2012

MJC — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:14:16 +0000

So Mac invulnerability to malware is a myth, at least according to security researchers from Kaspersky Lab. And although such a blunt statement may be a blow to the ego of some Mac users, it remains true. Security researchers from all walks have long argued that it was only a matter of time before the Mac became popular enough that virus, malware, and spyware makers would come calling, and the recent Flashback scare has only served as a reminder that overconfidence precedes carelessness. Especially when it comes to technology.

The Flashback flare-up happened less than a year after another malware spike, which came in the form of fake antivirus app Mac Defender. Though neither incident ended up infecting every single Mac, they both showed that malware on the Mac is ever-so-slowly inching its way into our public consciousness. “Market share brings attacker motivation,” Kaspersky Lab told the press last month, and Mac market share is definitely on the rise.

Is it time to begin installing antivirus software on our Macs? We leave that up to you to decide for yourself, but given the spike in questions we’ve been receiving about which antivirus software is the best, we thought we’d take a look at a handful of the most well-known apps out there for Mac users. Your mileage may vary, but here are our impressions of five different antivirus packages after installing and using each one. In no particular order:

Mac laptop battery monitor

MJC — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:46:03 +0000

With coconutBattery you’re always aware of your current battery health. It shows you live information about your battery such as how often it was charged and how is the current maximum capacity in relation to the original capacity your battery had when it left the factory.

Of course you are able to save the current maximum capacity of your battery. So you can see the changes of your battery health over time.

coconutBattery is and will always be freeware. If you like it, a donation is always very welcome.

http://www.coconut-flavour.com/

Mac OS X Must Haves

MJC — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:26:19 +0000

A few friends have only recently become Mac-converts! I know! What took them so long?!?! Anyway, they always come with the same questions about 3rd party software etc- so here is a list of what I personally consider to be the must-have applications when you first get on your mac from another, strange operating system.

Website: http://www.mattjarvis.co.uk/article/mac-os-x-must-haves

Make: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery (book review)

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:04:20 +0000

Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun, hands-on way? With Make: Electronics, you’ll start working on real projects as soon as you crack open the book. Explore all of the key components and essential principles through a series of fascinating experiments. You’ll build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them!

Build working devices, from simple to complex You’ll start with the basics and then move on to more complicated projects. Go from switching circuits to integrated circuits, and from simple alarms to programmable microcontrollers. Step-by-step instructions and more than 500 full-color photographs and illustrations will help you use — and understand — electronics concepts and techniques.

Discover by breaking things: experiment with components and learn from failure
Set up a tricked-out project space: make a work area at home, equipped with the tools and parts you’ll need
Learn about key electronic components and their functions within a circuit
Create an intrusion alarm, holiday lights, wearable electronic jewelry, audio processors, a reflex tester, and a combination lock
Build an autonomous robot cart that can sense its environment and avoid obstacles
Get clear, easy-to-understand explanations of what you’re doing and why

Website (Amazon): http://is.gd/7XhnY

MULTI TOUCH TOOL FOR TRACKPADS

MJC — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:14:33 +0000

Duncan just pushed the latest version of an open-source tool he’s been working on that sends touch events of a trackpad via OSC. It currently only works for Apple trackpads (MacBooks, maybe Magic Trackpads?).

The app reads finger data from the trackpad, assigns a unique ID to each finger, and continuously sends OSC events about the position, orientation, size, etc. of the touch event. These OSC events can be read by something like Unity 3D, so that you can test a mobile multitouch interface without having to compile to a touchscreen device. I’ve made small demos for Unity 3D, Processing, and Flash, so hopefully everyone can find a cool use for this!

Check out the GitHub here: https://github.com/dboehle/SendMultiTouches

Or download the app directly from GitHub:http://cloud.github.com/downloads/dboehle/SendMultiTouches/Send%20Multi%20Touches.app.zip

Online electronics shops

MJC — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:58:45 +0000

All UK based

Earthshine Electronics

Active Robots Limited

Phenopti

http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/!HobbyTronics

online tool to create vector graphics

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:44:13 +0000

ONull is an image based Vector Generator for Mac OSX. It allows the user to convert images into rasterized vector graphics. This tool was developed to give graphic designers the ability to transform small images from the Internet into printable and editable graphics.

Website: http://www.onull.net/

Open Street Block – lat/lon coordinate convertor

MJC — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:13:11 +0000

OpenStreetBlock is a web service for turning a given lat/lon coordinate (e.g. 40.737813,-73.997887) into a textual description of the actual city block to which the coordinate points (e.g. “West 14th Street bet. 6th Ave. & 7th Ave”) using OpenStreetMap data.

There are likely many applications for such a service. It should be quite useful any time you might need to succinctly describe a given location without using a map.

Website: http://transit.frumin.net/openstreetblock/

Processing for the iPhone

MJC — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:02:33 +0000

The Processing Javascript library has been adapted for use on the iPhone.

iProcessing is an open programming framework to help people develop native iPhone applications using the Processing language. It is an integration of the Processing.js library and a Javascript application framework for iPhone.

Programming Languages Reference Sheets

MJC — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:21:57 +0000

syntax for common tasks in a side-by-side format

Scripting Languages:	PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby
Embeddable Languages:	Tcl, Lua, JavaScript, Io
Shell Languages:	Bash, Zsh, AppleScript, PowerShell
C Style Languages:	C, C++, Objective C, Java, C#
Pascal Style Languages:	Pascal, Ada, PL/SQL, SQL/PSM
Lisp Dialects:	Common Lisp, Scheme, Clojure, Emacs Lisp
Type Inference Languages:	Standard ML, OCaml, Scala, Haskell
Declarative Languages:	Prolog, Erlang, Oz
Concatenative Languages:	Forth, PostScript, Factor
Computer Algebra Software:	Mathematica, Sage, Maxima
Numerical Analysis Software:	MATLAB, R

Puredyne is the USB-bootable GNU/Linux operating system for creative multimedia

MJC — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:42:45 +0000

Instant USB-bootable creative desktop

Puredyne is the USB-bootable GNU/Linux operating system for creative multimedia.

Puredyne is a live distribution, you don’t need to install anything. Simply boot your computer using the live USB or CD and you’re ready to start using software such as Pure Data, Supercollider, Icecast, Csound, Fluxus, Processing, Arduino and more. Read more

One tiny USB provides you with the complete puredyne GNU/Linux system including all software, and extra space to store your files. Ideal for workshops, installations, or super lightweight travelling.

For who?

Puredyne is developed for artists, by artists.

It’s used for live music, installation art, hardware hacking, teaching, and more.

Get Puredyne here – download it for free, or buy a clever little USB stick.

Scripting Languages: PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby

MJC — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:20:38 +0000

Scripting Languages: PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby
a side-by-side reference sheet

website: http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting