Had time today to log all my recent caches, forgot how many I had saved up, but thank god for blogger as I can keep up to date on what I've been up to on here.
After getting a new letterbox cache today we headed over to near Swindon to get the rest of a bi way series before coming home and uploading all the caches.
Later on in the evening I got some more including the new a34 cache and some more of the series I started last summer and to the Bicester and district geocache meet where there was about a dozen people and a few faces I knew.
The waze sat nav app has also improved as of tonight it now has a road closure option to help other users if a road is closed you mark it and helps other users be diverted around it, just about perfect now and they do listen to what people say.
Tomorrow we probably be off in the other direction to finish some more or complete more of the series.
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Sunday, 24 February 2013
Pideas.co.uk now live
Today pideas went live, its been started up by a student called Ryan Walmsley who kindly gave me a chance to enter my twitter furby project early before the site went live, however i had a few problems in getting it published so waited till the site went live and published it then.
At the moment there are four projects including my own for the raspberry pi, but i have done another write up waiting for moderation before that will be added and have also had ideas for another project thanks to one ive seen already called twitter letterbox.
So if you have a raspberry pi and dont have any ideas of a project to do or you have made tons of projects that you would like to share with other like minded people then pop over to www.pideas.co.uk and sign up. Once signed up you can submit your project for moderation before its published for the world to see.
All thats left to say is tell your friends and family and remember to mention the site in your posts as well as raspberryjam meets.
My blog stats and setup.
After having a look at my stats tonight i realised the blog had been set up as private so only people with a link could see it. So after a bit of tinkering around I have opened up my blog more and now included search engines to find it, surely its a win/win situation now, more people see my blogs, more people comment which in turn gives me more ideas for future projects and then the circle turns all over again, we will see...
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Twitter furby interview
In one tweet furby tells us how he works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUDzDX0kSs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUDzDX0kSs
Monday, 18 February 2013
Happy birthday
http://youtu.be/049CFUCs34c
Yes that time of the year, my birthday, twitby has sung me happy birthday as per link above and I'm trying to get this motion detector cam project on the pi going too.
Yes that time of the year, my birthday, twitby has sung me happy birthday as per link above and I'm trying to get this motion detector cam project on the pi going too.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
Twitter furby up and running tonight
Up and running for tonight is my twitter furby I blogged about recently. He has his own twitter account @smstextaddict.co.uk and will read out anything tweeted to him. Have ago.
Red barn lambourn
Out today with frodo doing the 6.25 mile red barn series with a few letterbox caches on route.
Although the route was muddy in places it was a lovely day, bumping into a few people on route like Mixta and following 8paws4legs around. Even through we missed a couple of bonus answers we soon found the bonus after cleverly playing with what we had, can't figure out how I missed the missing bonus maybe I forgot to look.
We then went on to get three letter boxes as drive bys after the walk and on our way to the last one found part of lambourn under water.
So nearly 30 for the day and doubles my finds for the year so far. Hopefully now the weather is getting better and new caches going out it could get to the stage I'm out again more often without the long travelling and long days I was doing last year.
I did wonder considering its the home of racing and many of these multimillionaire horse owners and trainers live in this village that they don't do more to keeping the bridle ways in better condition instead of the muddy and lack of track caused by 4x4 s and horses?
So big thank you to the cache owners for placing them out and a lovely afternoon.
Although the route was muddy in places it was a lovely day, bumping into a few people on route like Mixta and following 8paws4legs around. Even through we missed a couple of bonus answers we soon found the bonus after cleverly playing with what we had, can't figure out how I missed the missing bonus maybe I forgot to look.
We then went on to get three letter boxes as drive bys after the walk and on our way to the last one found part of lambourn under water.
So nearly 30 for the day and doubles my finds for the year so far. Hopefully now the weather is getting better and new caches going out it could get to the stage I'm out again more often without the long travelling and long days I was doing last year.
I did wonder considering its the home of racing and many of these multimillionaire horse owners and trainers live in this village that they don't do more to keeping the bridle ways in better condition instead of the muddy and lack of track caused by 4x4 s and horses?
So big thank you to the cache owners for placing them out and a lovely afternoon.
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Happy valentines Angela
A message for you Angela from me but through furby http://youtu.be/WgXUK-S9REQ thanks to piface and raspberry pi for making it possible.
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Hashtag furbtwit my latest pi project
After weeks of trying to find where I had gone wrong I re downloaded the piface image and had another go at my version of the twitter chicken, however this time with a furby and sure enough it works.
Sound occasionally gets interference but I expect that can be solved easily.
With the hash tag furbtwit and when the piface is turned on it will look for tweets with the hash tag before reading it out. And dance to it. I've done a video just need to find a way of adding it to this.
Update here is the link http://youtu.be/jVE5G-r3hzc
Sound occasionally gets interference but I expect that can be solved easily.
With the hash tag furbtwit and when the piface is turned on it will look for tweets with the hash tag before reading it out. And dance to it. I've done a video just need to find a way of adding it to this.
Update here is the link http://youtu.be/jVE5G-r3hzc
Saturday, 9 February 2013
Washing car without water
I've used this stuff before but recently bought one by a company called grease lightning. It's a spray on wipe off car cleaner and wax.
At first I thought ouch all that scratching, but if you know how to use it properly then it won't scratch and a large car can be done in twenty minutes, saving having to get buckets of water out, packing and unpacking the hose and all the other things that come with the old way of washing a car.
So how do I do it? Easy. I start from the top of the car, then the top half of the doors spraying the bottom sections to allow the juice to do its work and work a panel at a time. Spraying the micro fibre cloth so it's damp I do a light wipe across then move the cloth round to another clean section of cloth and another wipe. It takes about twenty minutes and you can do windows too and your car beads in the wet when it rains.
Don't press hard on the surface as this will push the dirt in and will scratch the paint work. Use plenty of micro fibres a few to clean the car and a couple for polishing at the end, lightly wiping the surface, I'm so pleased with it that I keep the bottle in the car with clothes and can easily get the car done on my tea break at work.
So next time you see my car you will see that it's pretty clean as its so quick and simply that there is no excuse for a dirty car.
At first I thought ouch all that scratching, but if you know how to use it properly then it won't scratch and a large car can be done in twenty minutes, saving having to get buckets of water out, packing and unpacking the hose and all the other things that come with the old way of washing a car.
So how do I do it? Easy. I start from the top of the car, then the top half of the doors spraying the bottom sections to allow the juice to do its work and work a panel at a time. Spraying the micro fibre cloth so it's damp I do a light wipe across then move the cloth round to another clean section of cloth and another wipe. It takes about twenty minutes and you can do windows too and your car beads in the wet when it rains.
Don't press hard on the surface as this will push the dirt in and will scratch the paint work. Use plenty of micro fibres a few to clean the car and a couple for polishing at the end, lightly wiping the surface, I'm so pleased with it that I keep the bottle in the car with clothes and can easily get the car done on my tea break at work.
So next time you see my car you will see that it's pretty clean as its so quick and simply that there is no excuse for a dirty car.
Waze navigation
I've been using waze which is available for most phones for over a year now. I prefer it to tomtom which I have too, the only thing I use my tomtom for these days is for caching as I can store caches on it, something I can't do on waze yet.
However in the last few days I have been doing tons of editing to improve the maps locally so it's more accurate and reliable. Luckily it's only been minor issues I've had to deal with.
There has been one thing I noticed, while I zoom out on the maps I can see all map errors marked, but can't see speed cameras awaiting approval till I zoom right in, which gives me this idea, if you mark a missing camera add a map error note straight after marking the camera and I and other volunteer map editors can spit it quickly and approve it. If you find a nap error, write a note then we can try and solve it quicker too.
However in the last few days I have been doing tons of editing to improve the maps locally so it's more accurate and reliable. Luckily it's only been minor issues I've had to deal with.
There has been one thing I noticed, while I zoom out on the maps I can see all map errors marked, but can't see speed cameras awaiting approval till I zoom right in, which gives me this idea, if you mark a missing camera add a map error note straight after marking the camera and I and other volunteer map editors can spit it quickly and approve it. If you find a nap error, write a note then we can try and solve it quicker too.
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
iPhone 6.1 untethered jailbreak
Well it arrived last night and I've spent every free moment today adding all my apps and cydia stuff and then came across a useful article. All iPhones have the same default password the word being alpine. A useful app on the cydia store helped me log in to my amazement to find the iOS is basically Linux so I was we'll at home and now have changed the default password so my phone is a bit more protected.
Sunday, 3 February 2013
Pop flash bang
Went the transformer for my tv project, so I took the transformer apart a 2amp 240 to 12v made in china.
The big blue resistor was totally destroyed however everything else salvageable. So out with my psu project and wired up the tv to the 12v on there. From this I can power a couple of dozen pi s as well as a few other bits in bobs and if I sit my pi next to it I have a nice cool air supply blowing over it, result.
Still not sure what even caused the transformer to go as the tv doesn't draw in much amps and had worked fine up till now and was never hot.
Although using a psu designed for a pc is slightly over kill, it does mean that I should not see many problems of lack of amps as this is designed to give out up to 26 amps and it has two 12v to 5v 3amp converters plus another 12v lead running just as a 12v lead for the pitv.
I've ordered some more bits in bobs today including another voltage step down and some magnetic reed switches for another project.
The big blue resistor was totally destroyed however everything else salvageable. So out with my psu project and wired up the tv to the 12v on there. From this I can power a couple of dozen pi s as well as a few other bits in bobs and if I sit my pi next to it I have a nice cool air supply blowing over it, result.
Still not sure what even caused the transformer to go as the tv doesn't draw in much amps and had worked fine up till now and was never hot.
Although using a psu designed for a pc is slightly over kill, it does mean that I should not see many problems of lack of amps as this is designed to give out up to 26 amps and it has two 12v to 5v 3amp converters plus another 12v lead running just as a 12v lead for the pitv.
I've ordered some more bits in bobs today including another voltage step down and some magnetic reed switches for another project.
Furbys operation
I managed to purchase a sick furby who had lost his voice box off eBay, so today carefully operated on him.
It was as suspected his voice box had gone and after carefully rewiring I now have two wires leaving him that can be connected to a new voice box aka a speaker. Plugged into my speaker he suddenly spoke "I'm cocoa" geez it made me jump.
The next was to find a way to get him to move and dance when a tweet comes through, this was solved using the reset button. If its connected to N/O on the relay then it should keep him still and when relay is hit with a command from the pi I will have 5 seconds of movement from him as he comes out of reset mode making him look like he has read a tweet out.
So furby recovering well, now to sort outthe coding that I'm struggling with so soon should be there.
It was as suspected his voice box had gone and after carefully rewiring I now have two wires leaving him that can be connected to a new voice box aka a speaker. Plugged into my speaker he suddenly spoke "I'm cocoa" geez it made me jump.
The next was to find a way to get him to move and dance when a tweet comes through, this was solved using the reset button. If its connected to N/O on the relay then it should keep him still and when relay is hit with a command from the pi I will have 5 seconds of movement from him as he comes out of reset mode making him look like he has read a tweet out.
So furby recovering well, now to sort outthe coding that I'm struggling with so soon should be there.
Baydon series and drive bys
Saturday me and frodo decided to go for a walk, a caching walk. We decided to visit the new 10 caches at Baydon and off we set.
The walk out was cold 4c with a heavy wind which wasn't noticeable till we made the return walk. We bumped into some other cachers near the end who carried on to do the aldbourne ones which we did as a drive by before doing a multi and two more traditionals one a snail the other hidden in a bus shelter and last found by a cacher called suspicious package, great name.
We managed to get rid of all trackables in a nice size cache which was nice as I hate hanging onto trackables for to long.
The walk out was cold 4c with a heavy wind which wasn't noticeable till we made the return walk. We bumped into some other cachers near the end who carried on to do the aldbourne ones which we did as a drive by before doing a multi and two more traditionals one a snail the other hidden in a bus shelter and last found by a cacher called suspicious package, great name.
We managed to get rid of all trackables in a nice size cache which was nice as I hate hanging onto trackables for to long.
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