tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32941352011-04-21T21:37:37.414-05:00WD5GNR RamblesWD5GNR rambles about microcontrollers, ham radio, electronics, the Internet, science fiction, and other oddball things.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comBlogger391100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1153486422783279422006-07-21T07:53:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:31.039-06:00I'm blogging a little more regularly on http://www.hotsolder.com. Check it out.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1082595436030411262004-04-21T19:57:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:30.930-06:00Program Microcontrollers in C Check out one of our newest kits: http://www.awce.com/app4.htm -- Everything you need to build embedded apps using GNU C!Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1080679991881031902004-03-30T14:53:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:30.802-06:00It's next year already? Ok I've had a bit of a hiatus. Lots of new products and other things. However, of interest is that I switched my office phones to Vonage (VoIP). This is where you use regular telephones to call other regular telelphones (and other telephones can call you). But instead of going over the phone company lines, it goes over your Internet connection. Not for the faint of heart. Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1068248050511525142003-11-07T17:34:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:30.686-06:00Mousey Mousey! A lot of people use our PAK-VI to interface with a mouse. You'll have a hard time finding a cheaper high-resolution, two-axis position sensor. Some of the optical mice do 800 DPI now. So many people (including me) have been doing this, we rolled out the PAK-XI just for this purpose. It is practically plug and play. Connect a PS/2 mouse to the chip and it will track the X and Y Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1068247858612891022003-11-07T17:30:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:30.558-06:00This Would Make a Great... Christmas present: http://www.doublesight.com/. Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1065622854096222382003-10-08T09:20:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:30.438-06:00Champaign Tastes on a Beer Budget Want a Segway but can't afford one? Check out http://www.tlb.org/scooter.html. Still about $2000 according to the author.
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1064778662470964522003-09-28T14:51:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:30.322-06:00Cruising...My wife and I recently went on a Carnival cruise (the MS Celebration from Galveston to Cozumel and back). Great fun. You can read all about it.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1061840245597801162003-08-25T14:37:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:30.187-06:00Mad Scientist Central Need I say more?Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1061840192714141202003-08-25T14:36:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:30.066-06:00Need Help? Off hand, this looks like a good site. Searching it, I found an answer to a problem I was having a tough time with.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-1058838959885337572003-07-21T20:55:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:29.929-06:00CD Burning I recently needed to recommend some free software for burning CDROMs. I like Nero, but if you are on a budget, you'd rather get something free. I found two programs, both of which look really good. Burn 4 Free and CDBurner XP Pro both look good. A quick inspection: XP looks nicer, but I think it only burns WAV and MP3 audio files. Burn 4 Free doesn't look as nice, but it does support Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-947840402003-05-23T08:21:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:29.762-06:00Dayton Went to the Dayton Hamvention for the second time ever last week. A fun trip. However, there was way too much rain. The crowd seemed light compared to the last time I was there. Some blamed the economy, others the weather. This time I did not go alone, but went with N3LLL who grew up in the area. This greatly enhances the trip since he knew all the local geek haunts. I've done business Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-933959072003-04-28T07:56:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:29.626-06:00Overdue Update Been busy! In fact, I had a mother board crash last week and it took me just about a week of solid work to get it back in shape.
If you ever need to move an XP drive to another drive, try BOOTITNG. This is a share ware program and you can try it free for 30 days which is plenty of time to copy your disk, you hope!
This is a shareware program for booting from multiple partitions. Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-875578802003-01-16T17:09:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:29.470-06:00Hardware Documents Some interesting PDF documents at http://www.oselectronics.com/downloads.htm
QRP Transmitter Design 300 kb
Winding and Using Toroids 306 kb
US Amateur Radio Bands courtesy of ARRL 39 kb
Direct Conversion Receivers 66 kb
All About Broadband Transformers 57 kb
Tutorial on building PC Boards 349 kb
All About Capacitors 293 kb
A One Tube QRP Transmitter 514 Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-874181982003-01-14T08:35:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:29.341-06:00Simple Electronics Project If you have a PDA (especially one with Windows CE) you know what a problem battery life is. I have a Casio E-100 and an AudioVox Maestro (just a Toshiba E570 with half of the memory taken out). These both have the same plug as an iPaq. Radio Shack sells these connectors (274-1532) in packs of 2. They also make a really neat enclosed AA battery holder that has a switch Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-868020882003-01-01T17:39:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:29.144-06:00World Domination
Happy New Year... Here's something a bit ... um... risky:
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-861993882002-12-17T21:14:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:28.994-06:00wwsaWebmaster Fun Here are a few neat things I've found to use with my server:
http://www.dnsreports.com - Check your DNS settings. Very informative!
http://www.dnsstuff.com - More DNS and network tools online.
http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/ - Accelerates PHP pages (for free). Wow!
http://www.ximian.com/products/redcarpet/ - A great X Windows package/update manager. Makes it easy to keep up Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-844976912002-11-13T18:21:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:28.884-06:00Browsers, BrowsersFor a long time I've used an IE shell called MyIE that was written in Japan. There's no English documentation and I had to customize all the search stuff, etc. to use English. The nice thing is that it is free and appeared to contain on spy ware. It was a little quirky though. However, now I've found another nice free spyless browser that is very similar called CrazyBrowser. It Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-842766592002-11-09T08:22:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:28.764-06:00Gotta love Unix I've long been an avid Unix/Linux user. Of course, under Windows I use Cygwin's tools to make Windows act more like Unix than you'd think possible. Really, if you are a programmer or a power user, you should install Cygwin and learn to use the Korn Shell (ksh; here is a tutorial or, if you prefer, here is another one). Once you use a real shell, you won't care much about Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-839196552002-11-02T08:53:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:28.661-06:00Interesting portal page Tired of pop up ads and the like, try www.myway.com. Clean, useful, and unobtrusive.
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-824720342002-10-03T11:18:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:28.555-06:00Free Telezapper You've probably seen the Telezapper that sells for about $50. It sends a tone on the line that makes telemarketers think your number is out of servce. Guess what? You can record this same tone on your answering machine and get the same result for free. This page tells how.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-824653792002-10-03T08:40:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:28.406-06:00Interesting Web Sites If you want science links, try http://www.scientopica.com/sci/index.php. A large collection of links to tutorial sites at TutorGig. These sites don't really have their own content, they just index other sites. Speaking of tutorials, have you seen our tutorial site at http://tutor.al-williams.com?Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-823670922002-10-01T10:04:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:28.242-06:00Spam, spamI get a lot of spam! Really. More spam than you can imagine along with a huge volume of actual mail from readers, clients, press releases, and mailing lists. Two things have helped a lot. First, www.spampal.org.uk is a free program and a great idea. It becomes your POP3 server. When you ask for mail, it checks your real POP3 server and then tags the Spam. You can send all your spam to Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-823668052002-10-01T09:57:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:28.113-06:00Farscape Cancelled! Rats! Farscape -- one of the best SciFi shows on TV and certainly one of the most original -- has been cancelled early. There will be a few new episodes, but after that, nothing. Sounds like another brilliant, "Let's cancel Star Trek! No one watches it," studio executive decision. Here's the headquarters for the save FarScape effort.
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-823666582002-10-01T09:54:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.986-06:00Blog is back! Blogger has been unwilling to publish for about two weeks, so I finally bit the bullet and reloaded and recustomized some bits to get it to work.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-816353912002-09-15T12:40:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.845-06:00Goodbye Seiko S7600 I noticed that Seiko is dropping its S7600 TCP/IP stack on a chip. Have a look at what you missed!
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-812332392002-09-06T07:48:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.601-06:00PDF For a long time I've used GhostScript to produce PDF files. It works, but you have to be a techno geek to get it to work. Worse still, if you want features like bookmarks, you have to be a super techno geek. I recently ran across a free tool at http://www.pdf995.com that is pretty clever. This guy has three shell programs that work together and with GhostScript (which is included). The first Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-804492742002-08-19T18:10:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.466-06:00Free Stuff Over time I've written a lot of software that is available free somewhere in our Web multiverse (I have way too many Web sites). I got the bulk of it together on one page.
Have a look at http://www.al-williams.com/free and you can see things from the wildly popular (in its day) PSKGNR to the lonely SCBIND that almost no one uses.
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-795911252002-07-30T07:03:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.362-06:00I think we are back up... I had mentioned the great hosting deals at Cyberwings earlier. Well, they crashed and burned leaving our "non critical" Web sites DOWN. They claim they will come back and I hope they do. Meanwhile, we are moving all of our sites to a single dedicated server which should make all of our sites as reliable as our main site is now.
Want some advice? Just because you have a Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-768524622002-05-22T14:59:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.273-06:00Look what a tough macho hacker I am... If you miss writing assembly language you might enjoy some of these "ultra tiny" programming languages: Wierd Languages and the Random Language Page. Cool in a very geeky sort of way.
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-760473722002-05-01T13:35:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.164-06:00Resistor Color Codes Can't remember that resistor color code? Here's what to do. Call 1-800-555-TELL (free call, but won't accept pay phone calls). When prompted say "Extensions" and then when prompted for which extension, say "82123." A voice will ask you for each color band and will then tell you the value of the resistor. This is something I wrote for my Web Techniques column some time ago. ItAlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-755050132002-04-17T09:17:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:27.054-06:00Star Trek... er, sort of Even if you aren't a die hard Star Trek fan, you ought to get a chuckle out of this site: http://www.angelfire.com/fl/sapringer/STONETREK.html. This guy should be working as a professional animator (and maybe he is, I don't know).
Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-753899492002-04-14T10:53:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:26.974-06:00Morse Code Practice Online at http://www.aa9pw.com/radio/morse.html. You can even take the test. Is it just me, or does it seem like when I do find someone on the air that is going "my" speed, they are so weak or sloppy that I still can't copy them?Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-753730072002-04-13T19:41:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:26.857-06:00PC Tune up Tune up your PC online at http://www.pcpitstop.com/. Pretty slick.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-753423072002-04-12T18:13:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:26.746-06:00Online CAD... Sort of Have a look at this online application for drawing schematics.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-753043032002-04-11T19:00:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:26.652-06:00Amazing Stuff
Two things I've found recently of interest. First, I picked up "lead free soldering iron cleaner/tinner" at Radio Shack (although it looks as though they are discontinuing it). I've seen these made by Kester and you can get them anywhere. This is a little tin of some gray material. When you wipe a hot iron on it, the iron comes away clean and as shiny as a mirror.
The other item Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-751708292002-04-08T13:19:00.000-05:002006-11-09T01:48:26.309-06:00New URL Our pages have moved to www.wd5gnr.com although the old links will transparently take you to the same new page for a very long time still (maybe forever). Getting a domain is not as expensive as it used to be. GoDaddy will register your domain for around $9/year. There is a cheap Web host called CyberWings that seems to cheap to be true. How cheap? Their plans range from $2.10 to $32.50/Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-112556222002-03-29T13:34:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:26.215-06:00Ubicom discontinues the SX18 No joy in Mudville. Ubicom is "upgrading" the SX processor line by discontinuing the 18 pin DIP packaging. Or so I've heard. Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-89459442002-01-22T16:55:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:26.071-06:00Virtual PIC Programming If you've ever wanted to try PIC programming, you can do it all on the Web with no downloads or anything. http://www.feertech.demon.co.uk/. Pretty slick. If you like, you can download it and run it locally, too.Alhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294135.post-89453702002-01-22T16:35:00.000-06:002006-11-09T01:48:25.883-06:00Welcome Well, as if I don't have enough stuff on the Web, I've decided to post an electronics-oriented "blog" to replace the defunct Al's Electronic Workshop program. What can you expect? Who knows? My random thoughts and finds on electronics, microcontrollers, ham radio, the Internet, and who knows what else? I've been blogging for awhile since the magazine I work for (Web Techniques) has a blogAlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010088427865720223noreply@blogger.com