I think this will be my most… well thought out…. project yet! Woohoo!
Some more great dive photo work by Neil Chan
by jafoca on May 17, 2009 in Photos
My good friend Neil Chan recently participated in a dive photo ‘shoot out’ contest in Byron Bay. He just told me that he had some of his photos posted on his blog over at www.neilchan.com – the photos are AMAZING! Some background – Neil is my dive buddy from Australia. He is a marine biologist [...]
The Best Twitter WordPress Widgets – the good, the bad, the ugly
by jafoca on April 29, 2009 in Work
This morning I spent a good amount of time attempting to get a decent twitter widget set up on this site to simply put my Twitter status into the widget sidebar. Fun part is I can actually justify this pursuit as work – we have been asked to integrate Twitter into a website we are [...]
New gear from Mouser – a digital multimeter! This is getting serious!
by jafoca on April 21, 2009 in Making
In addition to the stuff from NKCelectronics I got in the mail yesterday, I also received a box from Mouser. It seems like Mouser and DigiKey both have similar things, but there are always parts that you can find at one and not the other, as was the case with the digital multimeter I wanted [...]
NKCelectronics Rocks! – NKC has great customer service
by jafoca on April 21, 2009 in Making
I got some more gear in the mail yesterday. Below is an image of what my Arduino Ethernet Shield, from NKCelectronics looked like when I got it out of the packaging. I was totally willing to keep this, and repair it myself, but NKC stepped up to the plate and hit a customer service home [...]
Not your usual PIR sensor – playing with ZDots
by jafoca on April 18, 2009 in Making
I made an order a while ago from DigiKey. I got some basic electronics prototyping stuff as well as a few sensors and LEDs t play around with. One of the more interesting things I picked up was a Ziglog ZDots PIR sensor (click to view datasheet). Now this is not the usual PIR sensor [...]
Bad Audi! – Back in the shop again!
by jafoca on April 10, 2009 in Uncategorized
So as I mentioned before, my car has been having some problems. It all started with a “Check Engine” light about 1500 miles before my warranty went out. After going in and out of the shop 4 times for the problem, and subsequently leaking petrol all over the garage at my house, I was assured [...]
PySerial and Arduino – communication with software
by jafoca on April 6, 2009 in Tech
My first order of stuff from DigiKey arrived today – yay! Unfortunately it is so tightly packed inside the box that I am unable to dig in more here at work. More on that later… Yesterday i began exploring making the arduino communicate with the computer it is attached to. Not having a breadboard left [...]
electronic Odyssey – Sidenote – designing embedded hardware
by jafoca on April 4, 2009 in Tech
Last week it occurred to me that I was bothering Nick a bit too much for his knowledge of electronics. He has been pretty happy to assist me as I explore his realm of expertise, however I think i have a bit too many questions. I decided to find an alternate source of reference material and found O’Reilly’s [...]
Electronic Odyssey – pt.1.5 – First steps, and some info on driving 8×8 rgb matrixes
by jafoca on April 4, 2009 in Tech
So after receiving my arduino last week from Seeed studio, I have been itching to give it a roll. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I stupidly forgot to pick up a breadboard so I have been pretty limited to what I can do. That has not stopped me from hooking up a single LED and my giant [...]




