Phriendly Phil's Velociraptor Pharm n' Pettin' Zoo » Compu-Geeky

Google Chrome

phillip — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:48:56 +0000

I’m trying Google Chrome out now. So far, not bad. I’ve had a little odd behavior in text areas, and when I loaded bigscary to write this post, all of my tabs and windows froze until the site loaded. If I understand the “every tab a process” model, this shouldn’t be happening, but it happens with some frequency.

Other than that, I’m just having the usual “where the hell is the button that does this” issues that always occur when moving from one application to a competing one. So far, I am not noticing any stark differences in performance between Chrome and Firefox 3. I’ve used it with GMail and Maps. I’ll take a gander at Google Docs later on.

Because I know you’re wondering…

phillip — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 04:54:23 +0000

The fermentation chiller project is on hiatus until I know whether getting a chest freezer makes sense. Now hop off those tenterhooks.

Poetry time!

phillip — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:36:03 +0000

A masterpiece on Gamers with Jobs:

This is just to say

I’m sorry that I
unloaded a whole clip
of 10mm JHP

Into you
Ian
Dogmeat
and Tycho

Forgive me.
I am not yet used to
How this SMG vibrates
And you guys were in the way

Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

phillip — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:52:07 +0000

Two of my favorite software bloggers, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky, have joined forces at stackoverflow.com.

This ought to be good.

You people cannot read my mind

phillip — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:21:07 +0000

I have to keep reminding myself of that.

It’s not clear from the previous post how I will get one chest freezer to keep things at two different temperatures. That’s because it’s impossible to do that with just a chest freezer.

What I plan to do is to keep the chest freezer cold enough to maintain the lowest temperature I need held. Anything that needs to be warmer will be heated to the proper temperature, probably with a heating pad.

One of the features planned for this temperature controller is a “master cool” mode, where the master cooling device will not run as long as everything is already cool enough. In my case, this would be the freezer, and the idea is that if the freezer does not run constantly, energy will be saved.

The Saga Begins: Building a Temperature Controller

phillip — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:17:11 +0000

I got a nice bonus at work last month, and decided to get a new toy. After toying with the idea of setting up a ventilation system so I could brew in the basement, I decided to set up a temperature controller so I can keep better control of the fermentation temperature of my beers.

Now, there are some nice controllers available on the market, but they run around $50 for analog or $80 for digital, and only control one device. This would be good for fermentation, but it would be nice to also be able to use the same cooler for serving beers, which would be too cold for ale fermentations.

I had heard a lot about the Arduino and a quick question to Professor Google brought me to an article on uC Hobby describing a project by Sean Coates that did just what I was thinking of.

I decided to run with the Arduino, and at first an LED display, but I quickly decided that I wanted a serial LCD display so as to take up fewer output lines. A brief deliberation led me to stick with the thermistors of Coates’ original design, rather than LM-35 or 1-Wire sensors (Coates has since gone to LM-35s.) I decided on a 4-channel controller, although I may change my mind on that.

I ordered the Bare Bones Board by Modern Device, and also a low-cost serial LCD driver kit and LCD display which they sell. Since the BBB does not have a USB driver as the official Arduino boards do (why have one just for programming the thing) I also bought a USB cable from them for programming.

I bought ten thermistors on eBay for around 60 cents each, shipped. For around 45 dollars, I bought six Opto22 solid state relays (these are $22 new from the manufacturer.) Total costs, including the cable, are $110 so far, and I have extra thermistors and SSRs for another project.

Next post — clipping leads and heading to Radio Shack, or: re-learning soldering.

Half-Life 2 Episode 2

phillip — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:22:44 +0000

Just finished it, and I have a spoiler here:

The battle against the striders near the end is a lot easier once you realize that you can barrel-ass into the hunters with your car and it hurts them lots.

Now you know.

Wow, that was cool.

phillip — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

The power adapter to my wife’s Powerbook has been flaking out, so I
went to the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue to buy a new one. I walked
in, looked around, and told one of the two men by the door what I
wanted. He led me upstairs, pulled the part off the shelf, and as we
were headed back down the stairs, he told me that if I had photo ID, I
could pay with a credit card right there, and have my receipt e-mailed
to me. This was very handy, as I was in a hurry.

I think this is the first time that such a mundane errand left me muttering “wow, that was cool.”

Fedora Core 5 on the Asus Z70V

phillip — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve had an Asus Z70V for almost a year now. I’ve been running Fedora Core 5 on it for most of that time, and in the last few weeks, as I’ve spent less and less time in Windows, I’ve gotten a little more serious about getting the last few things to work.

Here is the configuration of my Z70V, which is rather typical. You may have a different wireless card.

[phillip@quad-damage ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
01:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3)
01:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 08)
01:01.2 Class 0805: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 17)
01:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 08)
01:01.4 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 03)
01:02.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2915ABG MiniPCI Adapter (rev 05)
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M24 1P [Radeon Mobility X600]

Your first stop will be Stanton Finley’s site where you will learn to configure yum, and to get the configuration straight for the3d drivers for your Radeon Mobility x600. You will probably want to follow most of the other instructions on this site as well, but for crying out loud, do remember to do the

Best utility EVAR!!!!111!

phillip — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Process Explorer, by Mark Russinovich. Think of it as Task Manager on steroids and smart drugs, both at once.

There are a lot of other free, really good utilities on that site. Russinovich is the guy who discovered the Sony rootkit you may have heard of recently.