computoman

Using legacy systems to do home automation when an Arduino or Raspberry Pi may not be available. They can work just as well.  Server is a Pentium III with Ubuntu and Apache2. Enabled CGI (common gateway interface). Wrote all my own scripts using html, bash, and compiled freebasic (controls the leds).    Leds are connected to the parallel port via a home made adapter cable. Most of the code and interfaces are described in previous articles.  Added the video to the home web page: Time to control real world object such as a coffeemaker. For more information: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/text/Coffee

 Set up your own computer based radio. radio - locator .com is a good place to start for looking to find available stations. Many radio stations will let you listen to their live stream, Sometimes you can find and use the link on their web page. Sometimes you have to venture through web page html to find it the file and download it from their server. So if that file gets updated, you will need to get the file again. A play list might look like: $ cat klolfmaac.pls [playlist] File1=http://2243.live.streamtheworld.com:80/KLOLFMAAC_SC File2=http://2243.live.streamtheworld.com:3690/KLOLFMAAC_SC File3=http://2243.live.streamtheworld.com:443/KLOLFMAAC_SC Title1=KLOLFMAAC_SC Title2=KLOLFMAAC_SC-Bak Length1=-1 NumberOfEntries=3 Version=2 or $ cat koda-fm.m3u http://107.14.43.102:80/7/597/20097/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/koda-fm http://koda-fm.ng.akacast.akamaistream.net:80/7/597/20097/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/koda-fm http://koda-fm.ng.akacast...

Old computer power supplies can still deliver +5, +12,  ground and more. Great for conversion to workbench supplies. Examples of pinouts. Use at your own risk. Your wiring will vary. Warning: deadly if not handled properly! Get professional help if you are the least bit unsure.

Many people will disagree with me when I say the cloud is just a server. Clouds can be classified as public, private or hybrid, but that is what it really boils down to it is a machine or set of machines providing services over the web. Certainly you can argue that cloud can provide infrastructure, platform, and the traditional application services. Talked about some of these services in earlier articles. However the internet is a network of systems that can be clearly defined. In the systems on the network can be described sort of like a road map or a set of telephone lines connected like below. It may not be important exactly how they are put together, except that we know they are there. To know who is where either by what is known as a web address or an ipaddress (sort of phone number) allows you to access part of the cloud that you wish to connect to. It is impossible to know every phone number or ipaddress by heart, so the internet has a built in phonebook known as a Domain name s...

Many people will disagree with me when I say the cloud is just a server. Clouds can be classified as public, private or hybrid, but that is what it really boils down to it is a machine or set of machines providing services over the web. Certainly you can argue that cloud can provide infrastructure, platform, and the traditional application services. Talked about some of these services in earlier articles. However the internet is a network of systems that can be clearly defined. In the systems on the network can be described sort of like a road map or a set of telephone lines connected like below. It may not be important exactly how they are put together, except that we know they are there. To know who is where either by what is known as a web address or an ipaddress (sort of phone number) allows you to access part of the cloud that you wish to connect to. It is impossible to know every phone number or ipaddress by heart, so the internet has a built in phonebook known as...

Ways to put old equipment back to work, The server is only 800 MHZ. Once we replace it, things will load a lot faster. Pentium 1 Raspberry PI Celeron sort of Pentium III laptop.

Packets instead of rail cars.

It's almost the holiday season and you might want to get geekie. If you are unsure about this, get profession help for the project. Try this at your own risk. We take no responsibilities for anything you may or may not do. This article is not a how to, but it is informational. What we want to do is to control lighting so that we can turn it off or on with electronic equipment instead of doing it manually with a traditional light switch. In this case, we may want to control holiday lights Such as an Xmas tree. We could use the light switch like above, or we can use a computer or a micro-controller. In this case we will suggest three posiblilities. The computer using a traditional parallel port, A raspberry Pi, or an Arduino. The simplest way to do this is with a solid state relay. Basically it is just like turning on an led. If you turn on the data line so it goes to near 5 volts, the led will turn on  or the SSR will allow the output side to work. An SSR let y...