Robot Penguin

Universe

Brian — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:56:35 +0000

I head this song today while listening to grooveshark, and it made me think of a video about the known universe. Instead of making a copy of the video with the song overlayed, I decided to make youtube do it for me, you can watch the end result, here.

Khan Acadamy

Brian — Thu, 13 May 2010 16:01:56 +0000

"The Khan Acadamy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere."

Salman Khan has created over 1200 video tutorials on topics ranging from Basic Arithmetic, to advanced Calculus, from Chemistry to Finance. I highly recommend his videos. I wanted to refresh and review my maths knowledge, and came across his site. So far I've watched from Arithmetic to Pre-calculus (OK I skipped a lot of videos at the beginning), but has definitely been beneficial to get my mind thinking about all of the basics again.

VWS-8 Balloon Launch

Brian — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:49:13 +0000

I made it out to the Vienna Wireless Society's balloon launch today. The balloon was launced at 13:35:02/GMT and made it to 117683 ft at 15:16:29/GMT. The payload touched down in Henson Creek Park, MD at 15:59:48/GMT for a total flight time of 2:24:46.

You can download the raw APRS packets here, or the decoded packets here. You can view the flight of the balloon in Google Earth by using this KML file.

Mel from VWS has put up a lot of good information about this launch, and previous ones, one his site.

You can see the pictures from the payload on Phil's site. Here are two of my favorites:

You can see my photos of the launch and recovery on my flickr page. (geo map) You can also find Mark Adams photos of the launch on flickr.

On the air

Brian — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:25:34 +0000

I passed my amateur radio exam for the technician license two days ago (on Saturday), and I already showed up in the FCC database! My call sign is KJ4UBZ. =D

WP7 Impressions

Brian — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:08:11 +0000

I hate to give more fuel to people that think I'm a fanboy (god I hate that term), and trust me, I would love nothing more than for Nokia, LG, anyone to come out with an amazing new phone that blows WP7, iPhone, Android, everything away, but am I the only person that absolutely thinks WP7 sucks? (Hows that for a run-on sentence).

IMHO:
The UI looks like something I made when I was learning basic HTML back in '92, when people sill used frames. The "panorama views" are a horrible idea IMO. It annoys the hell out of me that you can't read "People" in your contacts page because the word goes off the screen. It's like I just installed WinXP and the video drivers aren't installed, so WinXP is yelling at me to turn up the resolution. There is no visual distinction between UI elements in lists (or anything for that matter). The keyboard is the same old crap keyboard from forever ago. The flipping animation between pages takes way too long, and I'm sure would get annoying after the fifth time. The whole thing just feels... cramped, and for no good reason. Is this really your best MS? It's worse than I expected.

I'd love to hear others input on why my views are wrong, but really, I have no inclination to buy a WP7 over a Android phone or an iPhone. Heck, I'd take a BB over it....

iPhone vs. Lint

Brian — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:05:41 +0000

I recently bought a new iPhone 3G, has my previous iPhone 1st gen had an unfortunate meeting with jagged concrete. (It works well as an iPod touch now! just watch the cut glass ;p). Since I've had this phone, the microphone/button on the apple head phones hadn't worked. I tried the new pair I got with the new phone and the old pair that I had from the previous phone, didn't make a difference.

http://www.everythingicafe.com/forum/iphone/mic-button-on-headphones-not-working-6796-2.html

Shadow

Brian — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:01:45 +0000

I bought a motorcycle... I'm very happy with it.

2002 Honda Shadow Spirit (VT750DC)

Trixbox and home PBX systems

Brian — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:31:13 +0000

Recently, I have decided to get some IP phones and setup my own PBX system at home so that my wife and I can more easily communicate on the different floors. (Mainly when I'm down in the basement and shes on the top floor) I also had some added goals of having using the pbx system as an interface to my future home automation system, and then there is always the added bonus of becoming more familiar and learning about a different technology. I knew that asterisk is the most widely used/talked about free PBX system, but I had also heard about how difficult it was to setup and configure. This led me to search for an easier way or prepackaged system with asterisk.

Enter trixbox. Fromally Asterisk@Home, trixbox is a free CentOS based installation that comes pre-loaded with asterisk, FreePBX (the wui for configuring asterisk), as well as more custom wui aspects that make using the system much more user friendly. When I had tried setting up a custom system on my own, after an hour or two, I hadn't gotten very far. Trixbox installed in about 30 minutes and as soon as it came up, all I had to do was add an extension and it was working!

So far, I'm really liking trixbox. I currently have a Cisco 7940 using the SIP firmware to connect to it, as well as a softphone for testing. Trixbox's documentation seems to be were its lacking. It feels very hard to find, and rather lacking. The community forums have much more information, and you'll probably be able to find your answer there, but it will take some digging. I plan on switching over the 7940 to using the SCCP firmware (as I like the features better), and trying to get that working with Trixbox, and eventually getting the whole thing to talk to the outside world.

G-speak

Brian — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:05:37 +0000

A seriously cool new interface and operating environment from Oblong.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Happy Halloween

Brian — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 02:01:25 +0000

One day late, but not too late.