Fighting with computers

Yesterday night my router died on me. Apparently it is no longer coming up after powering it up. Minutes later it seemed that a hardware reset had brought it back to life: It was not true, while DHCP and router lights were working, only a firmware reload web page was available. After downloading several versions of firmware it became apparent that the damage to the router was beyond the original firmware. Time to buy a new one (or to check with SMC whether a lifetime warranty was included). However, hours later I came across this news . I know it may sound a bit paranoid on my side but timing was just perfect. While I wait the new unit to be delivered, I've borrowed an ASUS WL-500G from the lab. I've been told this unit has a lot of potential once you reflash it with new firmware. A couple of cool projects are possible: OpenWRT or DD-WRT .

I was browsing this photography blog when I learned about a cool and very useful service . The image below describes better than I would do it what it is about. In the past I featured a similar service but I've found this new service better. Assignment #4 - Get more documents Please note I throw at it the first document I've found on my desktop. It seems to handle many different type of popular office files. I think I'll be using this system for my students in the future. In order not to change my site CSS code I've shrunk the width of the embedded object a bit too much :-( You may use the link on the left bottom side of the image to go to the home page of the document where it will be shown full width.

I was thinking about controlling multiple color LEDs to make an elaborate panel with different light areas that can be contolled remotely from a laptop. As each LED needs three PWM outputs and many microcontrollers have just a few of them (I mean PWM outputs) the use of a microcontroller per LED makes sense. It did for this project . I've just changed the LED type for a Superflux RGB LED to get what you can see in the video. The next step is to make a version that can be addressed (also available from the same site) so as each LED can be commanded to show a certain color. (One PIC 12F675 plus a Superflux LED cost less than $2!). I'll be using an Arduino board with an XBee wireless module to control a bunch of leds. Alternatively I could use a Wi-port to control the panel via wifi.