Owner: YourITronics URL:http://www.YourITronics.com Join Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:54:11 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: my personal blog where you will find new stuff about electronics , IT , DIY , gadgets , hi-tech and Debian tutorials.Schematics , pictures , reviews. Site statistics:Click here
The new iPod touch 2007-09-09 12:30:15 When apple introduced the new and revolutionary iPhone a new trend was on the move, people love touch
screens. So the people wondered when Apple is going to apply that technology on iPod
’s. The answer is here now , Apple launched the new iPod touch , it something unique and I’m sure it will catch on really fast , I know I want one ;).The iPod touch has the same screen size as the iPhone but its even thinner. It’s 8mm thin.
It has Wi-fi integrated and the Safari web browser, so you can browse so easy from now on. And if you like videos the iPod touch is for you, you can browse and watch YouTube video’s trough Safari web-browser. Another great feature is the battery life 22 hours audio, 5 hours video playback. All in something this thin. The iPod touch will be available in 2 storage modes 8 or 16 GB. So, 8GB is $299… the price for the 16GB is $399. I’m sure many people will buy this great gadget. I’m still wondering how did they fit all of tho
M2N-E SLI socket Am2 motherboard review 2007-09-09 09:35:44 Ok I made a mistake, but people do make mistakes, now I’m going to tell you why I think you shouldn’t buy this motherboard
. This is a cheap mb, about 85 $, its true there are cases when cheap motherboards turn to be good, this was not the case. The first impression a small box, few accessories (1 x SATA cable, 1 x IDE cable, 1 x FDD and the back panel).After I assembled all together ( the MB , Athlon 64 4400 dual core , 320 gb Western Digital SATA hard disk and 1 x 1 gb DDR2 800 Mhz) I started installing the os , everything ok.
After the firs reboot I noticed the first problem, long boot time it wanted to install the OS from my boot cd, and the first problem appeared; although the bios settings were on Defaults when I tried to boot from cd it said something about “no disk installed” I had to do some research and found out that it was a problem caused by a setting in BIOS so I made the change from HDD acces mode “Auto” to “Large” and finally the Os setup s Read more:review
LAN PARTY UT nF3 250Gb socket 754 motherboard review 2007-09-09 09:26:57 I’m going to write a review
for this motherboard
because in my opinion is the best choice for an AMD socket 754 processor. Although the socket it’s become old and few people are buying it from stores it remains a reliable motherboard. I bought one 4 years ago and I have to tell you it made my life easier , 4 years of continuous usage with 0 problems , 0 bugs. From driver’s support to design is perfect. The UV design made this an interesting experience, the sockets and all the connecting cables are UV sensitive so I placed a UV neon inside the case (the case had window) that made the MB glow really nice.
The mb featured some Ez switches placed directly on the board for Power on and Reset, which is helpful when you are testing new components with the motherboard out of the case; 5 pci slots is more than enough for the home user, I only had an additional network card and a Tv tuner; the 8CH Audio (Dolby 7.1, 8ch supported) sounded really good on my Logitech 5.1 Z-5500.On the
VARIABLE POWER SUPPLY 1.2-30V and 1.5A 2007-09-07 17:14:44 Another simple project that you are gonna need it if you’re starting out in electronics. This was my first workbench power supply and I still use it.It will suit your needs for most of your bench testing and prototype applications. No more batteries and wires stacked together. The output is adjustable from 1.2 volts to about 30 volts.
Maximum current is about 1.5 amps which is also sufficient for most of your projects. It is easy to build and can be pretty cheap if you have some of the required parts.Be sure to put a cooling rib on IC1, at its max 1.5 A current it quickly becomes very hot.Most of the parts are obtainable at your local electronic parts shop.Whatever type transformer you get or purchase, make sure it does not exceed 24VAC. The LM317’s max input voltage is 36V. 24VAC x 1.44pp = 34.56Vdc so right at the maximum edge.
Better to obtain a transformer with a little less voltage and be safe. An 18VAC transformer will still give you about 26VDC and more then a
LED VU meter 2007-09-07 17:08:50 Does your amplifier have a level indicator? I always envied the fancy amps with LED level bar graph that you find on most stereo systems or amplifiers. This is your chance to build your own LED VU meter that you can link to your amp and watch it in action. The application is based on LM3915 chip. This is a monolithic Dot/Bar Display Driver IC made by National Semiconductor. It takes an analog voltage input on pin 5 then drives 10 LED’s providing a logarithmic 3dB/step analog display.
When measuring power, a 3dB increase means that the power input has doubled. As the power doubles, an additional LED will be lit until the maximum is reached. The display can be bar or moving dot depending on the connection of pin 9 to the positive supply. The LED drive current is regulated which eliminates the need for current limiting resistors. The supply voltage can be between 3V to 25V. Full specifications can be downloaded from LM3915 LED VU Meter National Semiconductor site.
Parts Lis
22 Watt Audio Amplifier 2007-09-07 16:47:56 The 22 watt audio amplifier is an easy to build project, very inexpensive. The circuit can be used to boost the signal from a car audio system, home speaker system or as an amplifier for computer speakers. These are just a few practical applications, but it can be adapted to your personal needs. The circuit is compact and uses only about 55 watts; it dissipates roughly 28 watts of heat, so a heatsink is necessary. It operates at 12 Volts at about 5 Amps at full volume. Lower volumes use less current, and therefore produce less heat. The chip should run cool enough to touch with the proper heatsink installed. The parts can be found at any electronics store, making it a great DIY project for beginners.
Parts List:
R1: 39K 1/4 Watt Resistor
C1,C2: 10uf 25V Electrolytic Capacitor
C3: 100uf 25V Electrolytic Capacitor
C4: 47uf 25V Electrolytic Capacitor
C5: 0.1uf 25V Ceramic Capacitor
C6: 2200uf 25V Electrolytic Capacitor
U1: TDA1554 Two Channel Audio
Amp Chip
MISC: Heatsink for U1, Read more:Amplifier
The smallest computer in the world Picotux 2007-09-27 06:07:34 I’ve always liked small computers for their advantages: they are silent, low power consuming, ergonomic and let’s not forget cool and hi-tech. Well, Picotux is the smallest, lowest power consuming, and the coolest computer I ever seen. Some of you may say that this is not a real computer, which is true, the worlds smallest computer run’s on uClinux kernel 2.4.27 and Busybox 1.0.You cant really attach a monitor and a keyboard to it…, it has other applications…where you can use it. It comes with two built in applications webserver and telnet. Picotux the smallest computer in the world is available in two modes:
The first picture is the Picotux 100 module and it is available with 2 MB and 4 MB Flash.
The second picture is the Picotux 112 which is a picotux 100 mounted on a PCB board of 53mm x 48 mm. It is also available with 2 MB and 4 MB Flash and a Power Over Ethernet option (PoE).
It’s powered by an ARM7 CPU at 55 MHz. Two communication interfaces are provi
Samsung SGH-U600 increase battery life 2007-09-26 12:42:02 As you may know the battery
life on Samsung
U600 is not great. There are some things you can do to increase your battery life up to 30% more. Use this only when you don’t user GPRS.
When you slide your phone up, enter this code: *#4777*8665# This will appear on the screen like this: *#4777*—– . Then, a secret menu will appear on your screen. Go to the option GPRS Detach and click it. Next you will have to wait some time, about 3-4 seconds and get the message: GPRS Detach confirm.
Your stand-by time has increased with 20% now!. GPRS detach will also remove the small blue background G on your screen which some people don’t like it. I also advice you to drain the battery completely before charging the first 3 times you charge. There’s no real proof that this will improve your battery life but there are rumors.
Another option is to buy a better battery; the standard battery had only 690mAH while this battery provides 1000mAh so it will increase the
Samsung SGH-U600 tips 2007-09-26 04:25:51 I’m going to show you some tips for Samsung
SGH-U600 which I gathered from the internet.Here is a list of tricks (you probably don’t know this trick’s but they are cool):
Flashlight: When you slide up your phone try pushing the up/down volume button at the side for about 1-2 seconds, this will activate the led light normally used for the camera. Now you can find your key’s
When the mp3 player is minimized, you can control it by using your navigation buttons in the main screen:
Long hold the right navigation button will bring up the next track in your playlist.
Long hold the down navigation button will stop the mp3 player.
Long hold the left navigation button will bring up the previous track in your playlist.
Long hold the center navigation button (the I (internet)) button will pause the track.
Special codes:
*#0228# This code will allow you to check the battery status of your Mobile by pushing down 2 times!
*#1234# This code will allow you to check your firmw
Samsung SGH-U600 Review 2007-09-25 14:52:44 I’ve recently bought the Samsung
U600 and I have to say it “Samsung did it again”. The U600 is the slimmest slide phone ever, measuring an astonishing 10.9mm thickness. It is a new model featuring a 3 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, and a nice music player. The Samsung U600 is the first of the second-generation Ultra phones to hit the market and is the replacement for the very popular Samsung D900 ultra-slim slide phone. At just 10.9 mm it’s even thinner than the D900, making it the slimmest slide phone available.
As well as making it thinner, Samsung have shaved a couple of millimeters off the width of the phone, which is a very good thing, because flat wide phones are not as ergonomic as conventionally-sized phones. And if you thinking about weight the Samsung U600 is 10 g lighter than the D900, making it an extremely lightweight phone. Another important aspect of the u600 is the touch sensitive external buttons (the ones you see when the slide
A list of Debian linux basic commands to help you get started 2007-09-23 19:17:06
A list of common commands is very useful when new to Debian
, to teach you how to handle/manage files and systems.I extracted from Debian’s User Reference Manual the most often used commands :
Commands for reading documentation:
man [section-number] subject
man shows the manual page on the command (use q or ctrl-C to get out of it if it doesn’t terminate at the end of the text)
This command is crucial for helping you learn how to use it and other Linux commands
info [subject]
A lot of Debian Linux documentation is provided in info format. This is similar to a hypertext format, in that you can jump to other sections of the documentation by following links embedded in the text.
help [subject]
Use help for on-line help about bash’s built-in commands. Help by itself prints a list of subjects for which you can ask for help.
Commands for basic file-handling:
If you are gonna use linux as operating system you have to know this commands:
pwd
Show the cur
How to change the MAC address in Linux (Debian) 2007-09-22 13:27:38 Although the physical MAC address is permanent by design and is assigned to your network card by factory several mechanisms allow the modification, or spoofing of the MAC address that is reported by the operating system. This can be useful if you want to keep your privacy or to ensure interoperability. Some internet service providers bind their service to a specific MAC address; if you change your network card or intend to install a router the service won’t work anymore. Changing the MAC address of the new interface will solve the problem.
Under Linux
the MAC address of a network card can be changed by doing the following under a root account.
/etc/init.d/networking stop
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 02:01:02:03:04:08
/etc/init.d/networking start
” 02:01:02:03:04:08” being the new assigned mac.
Under Fedora Core 5, and possibly in other Linux distributions, to disable and restart networking, you must stop and start /etc/init.d/network, instead of /etc/init.d/network Read more:Debian
Build a cool thermometer using Nokia’s 3310 LCD 2007-09-15 08:28:02 I found this project on Kifo’s electronic website and I consider it very accessible to beginners. Although it’s really easy to build, it can be impressive to you and to your friends. Nokia
3310 has a LCD with 84*84 dots, that isn’t that hard to get and can be very useful in DIY (do it yourself) electronics. The LCD supports two modes of operation (normal and inverse); the jumper placed on the back of the device is used for changing modes.Negative temperatures are given a “minus”, the bar shows temperatures normally but with an added minus.
The first thing you need to do is to get yourself a Nokia 3310 and start extracting the LCD. You should be very careful and patient during this process, because as you know the display is just a thin piece of glass that is very sensitive. There is an 8 pin connector on the back of the display, in our case it’s glued to the glass (Nokia 3210 has “rubber” connectors so this one is much easier to use). This is a Phillips P Read more:Build
, thermometer
Another cool robot gadget The Hexapod 2007-09-14 10:38:10 The hexapod is another cool gadget from Active Robots, for those of you who like robots and DIY you should buy this and see how it goes with the assembly of the robot. The Extreme Hexapod 1 Walker Kit really walks using a simplified version of the alternating tripod gait. The robot’s six legs are controlled by three servos to provide full stride, (horizontal motion), and 1″ of leg lift, (vertical motion).
The middle legs use a parallelogram design to make the lifting operation much more efficient. With a payload of more than 12 oz., this robot has no trouble getting around. The robot is supplied with control electronics. A host PC is required to download programs to the robot. Everything you need to get on the move is included in this kit. You can buy this kit for about 350 $ from Active Robots page
Some of the features are:
Precision Laser cut structural components
Autonomous operation once programmed
Sample programs for the Basic Atom ar
Build a timer with LCD using AVR (ATTINY2313) 2007-09-13 11:44:35
This project belongs to Dim and it can be used to time anything you need, the pcb exposure time, the heating time, just anything. You can set the time between 1 and 90 minutes by pressing the up or down switches. The countdown starts by pressing the on/off switch. By pressing this switch again you can interrupt the process at any time you want. After the time elapsed the timer gives an alarm sounding the end of the process and disconnects the load.
By pressing the on/off switch you reset the timer and it’s ready for another lap. The 2X16 LCD display informs you about the remaining time during countdown and other information’s about the operation of the timer. The image shows the timer board with ATTINY2313 running with internal RC but it’s better to run it with external crystal 8MHZ due to better accuracy. The tiny is pin to pin compatible with 90S but you have to program the appropriate fuses for external crystal. You can check the project’s home page Read more:Build
Feel like playing with a robotic arm? 2007-09-11 09:02:01 Active-robots offer you the possibility to play with your own hi-tech robotic arm. The one I like it’s called The Lynx 5 and it can deliver fast, accurate, and repeatable movement. The robot features base rotation, shoulder, elbow and wrist motion, and a functional gripper. It’s made from ultra-tough laser-cut Lexan structural components, black anodized aluminum servo brackets, and custom injection molded components. The arm assembly has ball bearings for improved accuracy. The arm includes five Hitec HS-422 servo motors. One for the base, two for the shoulder, and one each for the elbow and wrist. An HS-81 is included for the gripper. The controlling of the arm is done by RIOS (Robotic arm Interactive Operating System) a Windows 95, 98, XP program. With RIOS, your robot can be taught sequences of motion via the mouse or joystick. The inverse kinematics engine makes positioning the arm effortless. This extremely powerful program uses external digital and analog inputs to af
Tips to increase your wireless signal or wifi signal 2007-10-03 04:10:00 Most of us are not happy with the wireless signal
, this tips should help anyone to increase their signal strength. You should only user this if you really need it. With my wireless router Asus WL-500G I’m very happy with my signal strength it works great on every room in my house, and more I can connect to it with my laptop from a across the street. (my laptop is an Acer with intel wireless).So what I’m trying to say is that I don’t need to do all this thing to my wireless because my signal strength is already strong. If you have problems with your wireless strength, watch these two videos.
Build the USBasp - USB programmer for Atmel AVR controllers 2007-10-02 03:55:18 I just ordered the components for the USB avr programmer. This is an easy to build project that opens new doors to future projects. I’m going to write in future posts and I’m going to show you picture’s at different stages of building. I’m also going to describe the method’s I used in building it.
USBasp is a USB in-circuit programmer for Atmel AVR controllers. It simply consists of an ATMega48 or an ATMega8 and a couple of passive components. The programmer uses a firmware-only USB driver; no special USB controller is needed. It features compatibility with multiple platforms. Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, No special controllers or smd components are needed, Programming speed is up to 5kBytes/sec. For full specs, schematics and different layouts visit USBasp webpage. Read more:Build
Do it Yourself Mp3 player 2007-09-28 17:04:26 These days everyone has an mp3 player
, but how about having an mp3 player that’s built by you from a diy project. This project is not for beginners, you have to know some electronics before you can build this, so if you never build anything at least half as complicated as this you shouldn’t start this project. The mp3 player is named by its author Mictronics, MP3stick. The MP3stick is a simple and small portable MP3 player. A microcontroller Atmel AVR ATmega128 is the heart of the circuit.
MP3 decoding is done by an VLSI VS1011b decoder IC. A MMC/SD card works as memory medium for MP3 files, playlist files and skin files. The player is designed to draw his power from a LiIo/LiPo battery with 3.6V. a charger cicuit, based on MAX1811, is included. All information will be shown on a Nokia color LCD with 128×128 pixel and 256 colors. The player will work in text-only mode and if a skin file is available, also with nice graphic skins. A Read more:Yourself
AVR Basic Computer 2007-10-13 16:15:32
This basic computer its based on avr chip Atmega32. For your understanding this is a basic language programmable chip computer which can run basic programs or scripts with the ability of displaying results on a RGB TV screen. Unfortunately the author’s web page is in German, if you can understand German check the site
Read more:Basic
, Computer
Yahoo introduced the possibility to receive feed’s directly into your mail account 2007-10-11 10:20:04 A few hours ago I noticed a new button in my mail called “All feeds”(I’m using Yahoo
Mail Beta). It comes with some feeds already added which I removed , and I tried to add the feed from this blog http://www.youritronics.com/feed/. All I got was an error message saying:
“There was a problem trying to add ‘ YourITronics ‘ Try to add it later”
I think the idea of having feeds into yahoo mail is great.. I will sure add some feeds into my mail when they get the service running without problems. After seeing this we have to ask ourselves, why did yahoo launched this service? Maybe they are loosing ground to other services that people are using to get they’re feeds or maybe I’m wrong.. Let me know if you have the same problem adding a feed.
Read more:possibility
Game problem with Athlon 64 x2 4400+ 2007-10-11 02:42:20 Before I switched from simple core Athlon
64 to dual core Athlon64 I had no idea of this gaming problem, so I had to do some research to find out that it can be solved with a driver from AMD. This problem appears on some games like NFS Most Wanted or FarCry and is very annoying. Your character or car goes crazy performing moves faster than normal. You cant really play in this mode.
A partial solution to the problem is to set the program compatibility mode to windows 98( right click on game’s exe > properties > compatibility > check “run this program in compatibility mode for:” and select windows 98 ).
This did the job for some time but the problem started to reappear. That’s when I found out about the driver for dual core processors from AMD. After you install this driver the problem is solved definitively. Click the link AMD dual core driver to download the driver.
Are you having problems orientating ? ActiveBelt may be your answer 2007-10-09 02:00:28
You should consider this as an option if you have problems
finding your way. The device is called ActiveBelt and its still a prototype. Since the information given with tactile sense hardly disturbs people’s activities, it is suited for daily use in mobile environment. However, many of existing systems don’t transmit multiple information with tactile sense.
Most of them send only simple signals, such as vibration of cellular phones. ActiveBelt is a novel belt-type wearable tactile display that can transmit multiple directional information. The directions are transmited trough eight vibrating motors. Let’s hope this gadget will help the people that need it. For more information visit ActiveBelt’s website Read more:answer
7 segment big LED display 2007-10-08 06:08:27
Coolcircuit presents us a project, based on the PIC16F876A microcontroller. It uses 14 5mm super bright LED’s on each segment. The result is a 6 inch high 7 segment digit display. The circuit can be cascade-connected to form up to an 8-digit display. You can use it as big 7-segment display, big digital clock, digital timer etc.
For full specs and details go to Coolcircuit’s web page.
Install SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) on Debian 2007-10-04 00:00:00 In this tutorial I’m going to teach you how to install SNMP on Debian
and configure it for local or remote use. Simple
Network ManagementProtocol
is a widely used protocol for monitoring the health and welfare of network equipment, computer equipment and even devices like UPS’s. Net-SNMP is a suite of applications used to implement SNMP v1, SNMP v2c and SNMP v3 using both IPv4 and IPv6. In my case I’m using snmp to monitor the status of my servers, both linux and windows. I use Cacti to graph all this information. (I will cover cacti installation on Debian in a future post).
For the method described below I’m using apt for installing snmp, so before you start this you should configure apt and add some http or ftp sources into your /etc/apt/sources.list or if you have your installation dvd/cd you can use that. Let’s get started:
We need to install snmpd package using the following command:
apt-get install snmpd
That’s it snmpd is installed, now we
Changing the Ceiling 5w lamp from a car with 5 white LED’s 2007-10-18 08:30:36 I don’t really know if I need it to do this modification on my car… the 5w lamp was ok, but my 5 led circuit its more than ok, so don’t start this project unless you really need it or like it because your ceiling lamp is just fine as it is. Here is the schematic of the circuit, I’m not going to attach the board to because it’s a pretty simple circuit diagram so I didn’t design it with eagle; I did it by hand.
click on pic to enlarge
As you can see its composed of 5 white led’s, 5 resistor’s for current limiting a capacitor for a nice smooth turning off effect and a diode that doesn’t allow current to flow back to the car from the capacitor. The capacitor can be removed if you don’t like the smooth turning off effect or you can adjust its value to obtain the desired effect. I used 6900 uF and I have about 3 seconds of light after I switch off.
From the next picture you can see that I used 3 x 5mm LED’s and 2 x 10mm LED’s, that’s only Read more:Changing
, Ceiling
How to set your date and time in Debian 2007-10-16 01:00:11 It could happen to anyone to have problems with date and time. For example I had a problem a few day’s ago with an older server of mine which has problems with hardware time, it resets everytime I disconnect it from power. Its something to do with the motherboard I changed the battery but that didn’t solved the problem. That’s why sometimes I need to correct its date with the following method:
date –set 2007-10-15
to set yyyy-mm-dd
date –set 16:47:30
to set hh-mm-ss
hwclock –systohc
to sync hardware clock to what we introduced earlier
At least from Debian
version 2.2 onwards, the system automatically saves the system time to hardware clock on shutdown, and sets the system clock from hardware clock when Debian boots up. This is done in the script /etc/init.d/hwclock.sh.
Another thing you might ran into is changing the timezone.
If the timezone is not set or is wrong, log in as superuser and run tzconfig to configure the timezone
Cool Battery Meter 2007-10-15 02:00:31 Keith’s presents us a project easy to build and sometimes useful around the house. I had my moments when I wished I had a battery meter. If you had the same.. maybe now its time to build your own battery meter.
The main piece of the meter is the “meter board” which you can buy from an electronics store.. or you can recover it from an old multimeter. I recommend you use a new one. You will avoid trouble. If you decide to build it go to Keith’s electronics blog for details on construction. Read more:Meter
USB Chocolate MP3 Player (2GB) 2007-10-23 04:53:56 Although this mp3 player is presented with this name “chocolate” it’s not related to Samsung. Chocolate
being such a common word, you can’t really brand it so the guys at usb.brando.com.hk offer for sale this cool mp3 player. It’s fashionable and stylish and it weighs only 12g. It only has 5 buttons (volume up, volume down, play/pause, forward, and backward). The mp3 player also has 4 color leds that blink in a cool way. Being available for only 39$ it’s accessible to anyone who likes it.
Here are some of the features:
Support MP3 and WMA playback
4 Color LED
Tiny & Light
Plug and play
Build-in rechargeable battery
Size: 30 x 43 x 10mm
Weight: 12g
Support Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista, Linux or Mac OS
And here is the Package Contents:
USB Tiny MP3 Player (2GB)
Earphone
USB Charge & Sync cable
Neck Strap
User Manual
Fore full info visit product page Link
High Definition Ear Phones from XtremeMac 2007-10-23 02:07:46 These days its all about high definition, high definition audio systems, high definition video systems, etc. So why not have high definition on your mp3 player? The guys at XtremeMac offer you a product that I’m not entirely sure it is high definition, but certainly it will offer you a great quality. These earphones are fully compatible with ipods, in fact they are mostly for ipods. The package contains :
1 pair of FS1 High Definition
Earphones
2 sets of pliable foam comfort sleeves (Small & Large)
3 sets of flanged comfort sleeves (Small, Medium & Large)
Earwax removal tool
Zippered travel/carrying case
Instruction manual
And the specifications are:
Transducer: 10mm, Future Sonics MG5 Proprietary Miniature Dynamic
Input Sensitivity: +/-112dB @ 30Hz/1mW
Connector: 3.5mm (1/8″) standard stereo mini-plug; 90-degree angle
Noise Isolation: +/-25dB (using foam sleeves)
Impedance: 32 ohms
Frequency Response: 20Hz-20KHz
If this got your atte Read more:Phones
, High Definition
Recommend Site To A Friend
