Sprinkler Project

digitaleagle Uncategorized 2 Comments

We are planning to put some sprinklers in, and I wanted to try to use my computer as the controller rather than buy one.  But, I need some help.  Please comment if you have any expertise in this area or any tips.

This article is very similar to what I want to do:

Acacia Projects — Sprinkler Controller

First of all, I am not exactly sure how the “24 VAC Plug Pack” comes into play.  I am assuming that the valve needs more power than what the card produces, and the plug pack gives it that boost, but where do you purchase one?  I am assuming that you need one for each station.

I think I found where they were talking about buying the board from: Elexol.com

One of the problems that I might have is that my computer is on the opposite side of the house from where I might want to place the valves.  I thought about using Ethernet to get the signal closer to the valves and place the card nearer to the valves.  This product looked helpful:

Ether I/O 24R

I found a couple of other examples, but they didn’t have quite enough detail for me:

Embedded Linux Router Hacked for Sprinkler Controller

This link does seem to have more detail:

Sprinkler control with embedded…

They mention using the USB Bit Whacker board.  I think I found where I could buy it: SparkFun Electronics.

Skype Problems on Ubuntu 8.10

digitaleagle Uncategorized 2 Comments

I have been having trouble getting Skype to work.  If anyone has any ideas, please post a comment.  I at least have it working, but the microphone is quiet.  Also, at this point, I only get output on the left speaker.

One thing that helped was going into the System > Preferences > Sessions and changing the Skype command from “skype” to “padsp skype”.

Here are some articles that I have looked at and tried:

Installing Office 2007 on Ubuntu

digitaleagle How To, Microsoft Office, Open Office, Uncategorized, Windows, Wine Leave a comment

Here is a little script that I put together that installs Office 2007 for me.

Now, this script makes the following assumptions:

  • I already have a directory created called wine in my home directory.
  • I want Office installed in a separate directory/wineprefix
  • I have the Office CD mounted already at /media/cdrom0
  • I have winetricks in my path (which winetricks = /usr/local/bin/winetricks)

Also, just for information, here is my setup

  • Ubuntu 8.10
  • Wine version 1.1.16
  • I believe I installed Wine with apt-get using the repository at http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt
export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/wine/office2007

mkdir $WINEPREFIX
winetricks msxml3 dotnet20 gdiplus riched20 riched30 vcrun2005sp1 allfonts ie6
winetricks vista
wine /media/cdrom0/setup.exe
winetricks winxp

I hope it helps.

Linux Evaluation

digitaleagle Great Links, Ubuntu, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Just recently, I came across a very interesting evaluation of Ubuntu from a Mac User’s perspective:

Two Days Without Mac OS X Leopard: Ubuntu 8.10 Review

One of the most interesting things is how a supposed Linux newbie can point out applications that I hadn’t heard of even though I have been working with Linux for quite some time.  I don’t if that is a mark against me or if there is something to be said for fresh perspectives.

I noticed the part about Quicksilver, but Gnome-Do was not mentioned until the comments.  Should Gnome-Do be installed by defaults or should the settings have something there that would install it when enabled?

The fonts was interesting, and I went through the tutorial that he mentioned.

Also, the mumbles was interesting.  I am giving that one a try too.

I have noticed issues with the sound, and it is nice to know that I am not the only one having those issues.  I thought maybe it was the hardware on my PC.

My GPS Works!

digitaleagle gpsd, Ubuntu, Uncategorized 1 Comment

I had trouble with my DeLorme GPS a while back.  This new version of Ubuntu (or the kernel) fixes it.

I installed Ubuntu 8.10 just recently and I was able to get my GPS to work.  All I did was install gpsd with apt-get.

Here is the output from dmesg:

[39636.625066] usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[39636.806942] usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[39637.437849] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[39637.437876] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[39637.437912] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[39637.437915] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
[39637.452600] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for DeLorme Earthmate USB
[39637.452622] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for HID->COM RS232 Adapter
[39637.452637] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for Nokia CA-42 V2 Adapter
[39637.452670] cypress 4-2:1.0: DeLorme Earthmate USB converter detected
[39637.454432] usb 4-2: DeLorme Earthmate USB converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[39637.454461] usbcore: registered new interface driver cypress
[39637.454464] cypress_m8: Cypress USB to Serial Driver v1.09
[39637.486314] usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
[39637.487441] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[39637.488536] usbhid: v2.6:USB HID core driver

Partitioning in Ubuntu Installs

digitaleagle Great Links, Install Help, Interesting Articles, Ubuntu, Uncategorized 2 Comments

I just read a good tip about partitioning for Ubuntu.

They suggest using GParted Live to partition the hard drive first.  That sounds great!

I miss the option that Fedora has where you can delete all the Linux partitions and have it automatically create the new partitions.  I don’t remember the options for sure, but I think you can only delete all the partitions or shrink the existing partitions.  If I am reinstalling, I want it to leave my Windows partition alone and delete the Linux ones.  Another great option would be to manually pick the partitions to delete and use the freed space to automatically create the partitions.  Finally, another option that would be nice is to choose how much it shrinks the existing partitions.

PDF to Document Conversion

digitaleagle Great Links, Open Office, PDF, Uncategorized 2 Comments

I have been looking for a way to convert a PDF to either a Word Document or an Open Office document.  Basically, I have some instructions for installing software delivered as a PDF with the software from the vendor.  I would like to be able to convert that document to something I can edit and add my notes to it as I install.  Currently, I just handwrite the notes on the printed copy of the instructions.  If I could convert it to Word or Open Office, the end result would be searchable and I could add screenshots.

I found a great link that will convert documents online:

http://www.convertpdftoword.net/

This worked for a small document, but my instructions document did not work.  I am assuming that it is because it was too large.

I found a plugin that says it can import PDFs for Open Office 3.0.  I haven’t tried it yet.  I will try to do that and report back.

A while back, I found that importing PDFs was on the ToDo list.

NavIt

digitaleagle gpsd, How To, Install Help, NavIt, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I was having trouble downloading the maps for RoadNav, and I didn’t notice a lot of progress or change on the problem.  So, I checked for alternatives, and I found this.  I tried the first on the list: NavIt.

Installing

I didn’t find NavIt in the Ubuntu repository, and so, I had to install manually.  The Wiki has a getting started section with instructions for installing on Linux.

First, I had to install the dependencies so that I could compile it.  I installed the list from the dependencies section.

sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config automake libglib2.0-dev libtiff-dev libtool libxmu-dev libfribidi-dev gettext zlib1g-dev gpsd gpsd-clients libgps-dev libgtk2.0-dev freeglut3-dev glutg3-dev libcegui-mk2-dev libdevil-dev libglc-dev libpcre3-dev libmng-dev libfreeimage-dev

Next, I ran the configure and make.  Instead of installing, I just ran it from the directory where I compiled it.

Configuring

At this point, I had it working as long as I ran it from the directory where the program exists.  But, it didn’t have any maps for my area.  Next, I had to tackle configuring with the XML file.

First, I created a hidden directory and copied the xml file to it:

$ mkdir ~/.navit
$ cp /home/skp/bin/navit-0.1.0/navit/navit.xml  /home/skp/.navit/

Next, I opened the xml file with Gvim (my favorite text editor).  “Gvim ~/.navit/navit.xml”.  You could use any text editor to open it.

The first change I made was to change the default position.  I got my default coordinates from here as suggested in the Wiki.  I found that these coordinates got me close, but not quite the address I had requested.  So, I checked them with Google maps.  If you notice, the URL on the “Link” link in the upper right corner has the coordinates of the map you request.

I tried to run it at this point from my home directory, but it would not work.  It was looking in other directories, and so, I took the easy route and just keep running it from the source directory.  It still read my xml file from my home directory.

Next, I had to setup the maps.  I followed these directions.  I used the maps from CloudMade, which has maps of the United States.  I downloaded the *.navit.bin.zip files and extracted them to ~/.navit/.  For example, I downloaded the Florida map: florida.navit.bin.zip to ~/.navit/florida.navit.bin.  Finally, I added this to the XML file:

<mapset enabled=”yes”>
<map type=”binfile” enabled=”yes” data=”/home/skp/.navit/florida.navit.bin” />
</mapset>

Now, when I started it up, I saw a map with where I wanted it to start!

Creating a Shortcut

The last thing  I did was create a shortcut in my application menu.  This was pretty easy.

The first step was to create a simple shell script to launch the program.  This was necessary because the program has to run from the source folder.  Here is what my script looked like:

#!/bin/sh

cd ~/bin/navit-0.1.0/navit
./navit

Note: change the cd path to the location where you downloaded and compiled the program.

Then, make the script executable with:

chmod +x navit.sh

To add the menu, I used the Menus application by right clicking on the Applications menu and choosing “Edit Menus”.  I clicked on the Accessories menu and clicked the New Item button.  Here are the options that I chose:

  • Type: Application
  • Name: NavIt
  • Command: /home/skp/bin/navit.sh
  • Comment: <blank>

Note: change the Command path to the script that you created to launch the program.

For the icon, I clicked on the little spring icon on the left to choose a different icon.  For the path, I chose: /home/skp/bin/navit-0.1.0/navit/xpm/desktop_icons/128×128.

To troubleshoot, you may want to change the Type from Application to Application in Terminal because the terminal window will show you the output messages from the program.