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C# Pointer Array for Atmel SAM-BA DLL 2.12
Ran into an interesting problem trying to create a C# pointer array to pass to a vendor DLL that Google did not immediately solve for me. Here’s a quick blog post to hopefully light the way for some...
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Talking RS-232 with Cyclone II FPGA, Part 2
In my previous blog post on RS-232 with the Altera Cyclone II FPGA, I demonstrated how to create a serial echo by simply connecting the Tx wire and the Rx wire together. That’s a great start, but the...
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Communicating with your Cyclone II FPGA over serial port, Part 3: Number...
In my first blog post on communicating with the Altera Cyclone II FPGA, I demonstrated how to create a serial echo by simply connecting the Tx wire and the Rx wire together. Then in my second post I...
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An example of what higher-kinded types could make possible in C#
If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time in Visual Studio cranking away at C# code. You follow the updates to the language with each release, learn the new things that are possible and how it can...
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Detecting arithmetic overflow in C#
Recently I was interfacing with an accelerometer sensor, and the sensor was streaming raw acceleration values. The C# program processing the data seemed to work as I was getting reasonable output (the...
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Wix Burn Bootstrapper – Payload Element Syntax
So I’m going up the learning curve for Wix and its toolset and I figured something out I could not find documented anywhere else so I am documenting it here. I am building an installer for a .NET...
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Higher-kinded fun in Haskell
In my previous post, I showed an example of where the lack of higher-kinded types in .NET (both C# and F#) induces the need for code repetition. In this post I’ll show you how higher-kinded type...
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Fixing Slow Boot on a Triple Boot Mountain Lion Mac
Just a quick help-desk style blog post today. I have a 17″ Macbook Pro set up as a triple boot system with Mountain Lion, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 13.04 Linux. Getting a triple boot Mountain Lion Mac set...
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Text To Speech: Converting Text EBooks into Audiobooks
A side project that I’ve completed recently is a set of Text To Speech (TTS) scripts to generate Audio Books. My work commute is between 1 – 1.5 hrs each day, which has given me the opportunity to...
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Selective Directory Checkout With TortoiseSVN
We primarily are a Subversion shop at Sparx. Sure all the cool kernel kids use Git but we have a slightly different use case. Plus our electrical CAD tool of choice supports Subversion natively. So we...
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If you *must* use .NET System.IO.Ports.SerialPort
As an embedded developer who writes desktop software mostly for configuration of, and data download from, peripheral devices, I use serial data streams a lot. Mostly USB virtual serial posts from...
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Red Pitaya – Getting Started
We recently received a Red Pitaya, a successfully funded kickstarter campaign for open source instrumentation. The Red Pitaya has a Dual core ARM Cortex A9+ FPGA with 4GB of ram, with the circuitry to...
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Home Automation: The Frontier of the “Internet of Things”
Home automation is one of my hobbies that I use to entertain and enlighten myself when my day job is a little tedious (which lately has been quite rare). I think home automation is on the verge...
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Generating Non-Conflicting UIDs for a Multi Node Controller Area Network (CAN)
Controller Area Network (CAN) is a communication protocol that utilizes differential pair communication for reliability and noise reduction, and has a fixed bit arrangement so that each packet can...
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Install Flash Player on Android
A few years ago, my wife and I were upgrading our tablet devices as we try to do every couple of years. While I use my tablet for just about everything, my wife mainly uses hers to watch videos and...
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Building Windows 8.1 Store Apps with Elastic Bamboo
Atlassian’s Elastic Bamboo service is a useful and flexible tool for automating the compilation and testing of source code checkins. It runs builds on pre-configured Amazon EC2 machine images,...
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Zoneminder Network Triggering
I will be surprised if anyone actually reads this but I was surprised by the popularity of my previous Bluetooth posts, so here goes. Home automation is one of my hobbies and I currently use Zoneminder...
View ArticleCapturing Keypress With Windows Message Filter
Recently I ran in to a situation where I had to capture keystrokes at the application level and launch an action based on the keystroke. I tried using the ‘keyPress’ event for the main form, but it...
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Introduction to Lorris Toolbox Analyzer
Lorris Toolbox is an open source application for working with embedded systems and micro-controllers which was developed by Vojtěch Boček in the Czech Republic. This toolbox of tools has a feature...
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Building a Garage Computer From a Beagle Bone
This is one of those projects I’ve wanted to do for a while and finally all the pieces are coming together. I hated the user interface on my home sprinkler system. Despite an engineering degree and a...
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