Posts on Voltaicforge

Neovim setup for better writing

Sat, 17 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Setting up nvim for writing

I’ve been getting into using nvim a lot of late, and thus wanted to integrate it well into my website workflow.

One fault I’ve seen in my older posts during my redesign was some spelling mistakes and poor grammar. I used to write in other editors and then copy & paste into Grammarly, which was cumbersome. Of course, this meant at times I would either forget or not be bothered to do so.

The other thing I used to find is because of how cumbersome it was to write I ended up not bothering to write.

So the goal of any new setup needed to be an easy as possible workflow for writing and getting the post to GitHub, and build in spell/grammar checking.

Better language with ltex-ls, ltex-extra, and language-tools

As I was already running a language-tools docker instance in my cluster I was keen to utilise it as well, over sending my data out to another website for review. I found ltex-ls a good candidate for integrating spell/grammar checking, so I added it to my Lazyvim config.

After some fiddling with it, I found that I wasn’t able to add Neovim’s default additional dictionary words to it—the docs show its able to load an external file for user added words. However, this isn’t functional in ltex-ls. You can make a workaround by running lua to load the nvim user dictionary words, then pass them into the model. This doesn’t reload unless you restart nvim, which can be a tad annoying as it adding a word doesn’t remove the error until you restart nvim.

Using ltex-extra provides a wrapper to enable some of these functions and adds code actions. I was able to set up my nvim directory as the location for user added words, and it loaded this dictionary at load/new words being added.

So now, a [d or ]d takes me to the next diagnostic, <leader>cd will show me a popup with the diagnostic text, and <leader>ca brings up code actions with proposed fixes or the ability to add words to the dictionary. <leader>sd will bring all document diagnostics in a telescope window.

First to add it in as a requirement for Mason.

~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/lsp.lua

{
  "williamboman/mason.nvim",
  opts = function(_, opts)
    vim.list_extend(opts.ensure_installed, {
      "stylua",
      "selene",
      "luacheck",
      "shellcheck",
      "prettier",
      "shfmt",
      "black",
      "isort",
      "flake8",
+     "ltex-ls",
    })
  end,
},

Then to set it up in nvim-lspconfig ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/lsp.lua

  {
    "neovim/nvim-lspconfig",
    opts = {
      ---@type lspconfig.options
      servers = {
+       ltex = {
+         on_attach = function(client, bufnr)
+           print("Loading ltex from ltex_extra")
+           require("ltex_extra").setup({
+             init_check = true,
+             load_langs = { "en-AU" }, -- table <string> : language for witch dictionaries will be loaded
+             log_level = "error", -- string : "none", "trace", "debug", "info", "warn", "error", "fatal"
+             path = vim.fn.expand("~") .. "/.config/nvim/spell/",
+           })
+         end,
+         settings = {
+           ltex = {
+             completionEnabled = true,
+             statusBarItem = true,
+             languageToolHttpServerUri = "https://language-tools.trux.dev/",
+             checkFrequency = "save",
+             language = "en-AU",
+             additionalRules = {
+               enablePickyRules = true,
+             },
+           },
+         },
+       },
        ansiblels = {},
        bashls = {},
        dockerls = {},
        html = {},
        gopls = {},
        marksman = {},
        pyright = {
          enabled = false,
        },
        vimls = {},
      },
      setup = {},
    },
  },

And once satisfied in the results, disable Lazyvim’s spellcheck, to avoid having two sets of spell checking occurring, especially as Neovim isn’t aware of the user words you are adding via ltex-extra.

~/.config/nvim/lua/config/autocmds.lua

-- Disable spelling
vim.api.nvim_del_augroup_by_name("lazyvim_wrap_spell")

This has given me solid grammar advice direct into neovim. Next steps for this would be to build a more custom docker with specific n-gram data.

Zen mode with zen-mode and twilight

While I have not had a lot of experience with zen mode editors, I do think this could also help me write, as I’m easily distracted. zen-mode hides everything and just gives a reduced width view of just the text you are editing. twilight dims everything on the screen except the current block you are working on, helping you focus on your current text.

~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/misc.lua

{
  "folke/zen-mode.nvim",
  cmd = "ZenMode",
  opts = {
    plugins = {
      gitsigns = true,
      tmux = true,
      kitty = { enabled = false, font = "+2" },
    },
  },
  keys = { { "<leader>z", "<cmd>ZenMode<cr>", desc = "Zen Mode" } },
},

-- twilight
{
  "folke/twilight.nvim",
  dependencies = {
    {
      "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter",
    },
  },
},

Website redesign with Hugo & Cloudflare pages!

Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I wanted to give you a quick update about some changes I’ve made to my website. Previously, my site was built using Jekyll and hosted on GitHub Pages, but I’ve recently migrated it to a new platform: Hugo, powered by Cloudflare Pages. I wanted to take a moment to explain why I made this switch and how it benefits both me and you as a reader.

Reason for the Migration

While Jekyll and GitHub Pages served me well, I was looking for a more streamlined and efficient workflow for managing my site. After exploring various options, I decided to switch to Hugo, a static site generator, combined with Cloudflare Pages for hosting and delivery.

Unfortunately, I found that Jekyll was somewhat slow at times and its site methodology required me to bastardise the template quite a bit, leading to it being somewhat painful to work with at times. I just want to be able to add a new post, save and git push it into the ether, with confidence it would be live shortly thereafter.

Benefits of Hugo and Cloudflare Pages

The move to Hugo and Cloudflare Pages brings several advantages. Firstly, Hugo offers a simpler and faster site building process, allowing me to create and update content more efficiently. Hugo being written in Go makes it quite a lot quicker than Jekyll’s Ruby pipeline (Pity Hugo isnt Rust…)

Cloudflare Pages, on the other hand, offer robust hosting capabilities and improved site delivery. With their global network of servers, my site now loads faster for readers around the world. The combination of Hugo and Cloudflare Pages ensures a seamless browsing experience with minimal downtime. Cloudflare workers are free for small traffic sites, and has a build pipeline that scans this sites github repo, builds it with a worker immedaitly on push and the new site is live quite quickly. I can also see a history of commits if I want to check a commit, and even build branches other main so I can adopt a branch -> push to dev -> check it looks OK -> PR for new post.

CI/CD Workflows and Automation

One of the highlights of this migration is the implementation of strong CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) workflows. I’ve set up automated processes that handle tasks such as building, testing, and deploying my site whenever I make updates. This automation saves me time and ensures that the latest content is always available to you.

Conclusion

In summary, I’ve migrated my website from Jekyll/GitHub Pages to Hugo/Cloudflare Pages, aiming for a more efficient and optimized experience. The transition brings benefits like improved performance, streamlined workflows, and automated deployment. I hope you’ll enjoy the enhanced browsing experience, and I’m excited to continue sharing great content with you on this shiny new platform.

DuckDNS with UDM Pro

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

DuckDNS with Unifi Dream Machine

I recently got a UDM Pro and have just managed to get DuckDNS working.

There are many other suggestions on the internet, for using the webui with ‘dyndns’ and a variety of settings that should work. None did for me as of today, on UDM-Pro software version 1.11.0.

UDM currently uses the software inadyn to provide its ddns capabilities—and it has more providers available that what is exposed in the WebUI. To get it working I edited the inadyn.conf manually via SSH. (Google UDM SSH Setup if you need to setup SSH access to your UDM)

If there is no Dynamic DNS setup in the UDM WebUI it disables the servers, so for now I have created a dummy service in the UDM WebUI

Once SSH’d into the UDM, check what config the file your UDM is running:

# ps aux | grep inadyn
12799 root     /usr/sbin/inadyn -n -s -C -f /run/ddns-eth8-inadyn.conf

In this case, my config file is located at /run/ddns-eth8-inadyn.conf

Edit the file (using VI) and add a duckdns config block: (VI by default doesn’t allow editing, press i to enter ‘interactive’ mode to turn it into a text editor)

provider duckdns.org:2 {
    username         = <YOUR_TOKEN>
    password         = noPasswordForDuckdns
    hostname         = <YOUR_DOMAIN>.duckdns.org
}

Save and close. On VI, ESC will exit interactive mode, then :wq will ‘Write and Quit’

This has successfully got me running with Duck on UDM—but hacky, and won’t be part of a backup

Network UPS with Synology

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Network UPS with synology

Port 3493

On proxmox, install nut-tools

apt install nut

Synology username and password for ups is: Device: ups Username: monuser Password: secret

Find and uncomment line and fill out details

/etc/nut/upsmon.conf

MONITOR ups@192.168.2.253 1 monuser secret slave

/etc/nut/nut.conf

MODE=netclient

Note: Found on the synology in /usr/syno/etc/ups/upsd.user

Ordbot Project added

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Ordbot project

I have written a short post on the build and history of my Ordbot Hadron 3d printer.

It’s currently in pieces awaiting a complete overhaul after 6 years of service, which seemed like a good time to finially get around to putting up some posts on it.

Check it out here

Setup pfSense for TPG NBN

Sun, 13 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Setting up pfSense for TPG NBN

After much frustration, I have finially buggered off the terrible HG659 router that is provided with TPG NBN.

I had significant trouble getting pfSense to connect to the NBN even using the details on their site. PPPoE should be reasonably simple, connect NBN box to pfSense WAN port, set to PPPoE and enter TPG username/password.

Wrong!

After quite some time I found that they use a VLAN setting, and without it being set right it would not connect at all. Its not mentioned in their setting site, conspicuously.

I got mine working once I set the WAN port to be on a VLAN 2.

Create a new VLAN, under Interface -> Assign -> VLANs -> Add. Setup on the WAN Interface (mine is re0) and with a VLAN tag of 2.

Add a PPP configuration under Interface -> Assign -> PPP -> Add. Use Link type PPPoE, Link Interface of the VLAN you set up before. Enter TPG username/password

For WAN port, under Interface -> WAN, ensure we have PPPoE set for IP4 Configuration Type, and again your Username/Password

Then under Interface -> Assign, set the WAN network port to the PPPOE of the VLAN setup above.

You should now have a working NBN setup under pfSense, and that locked down modem can be thrown in the trash where it belongs!

Homebrewing Again

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Homebrewing again

After being inspired by a work colleague, I’ve decided to get back into homebrewing. I have actually done homebrewing for probably a combination of 2 years or so, but stopped due to moving state/house in the past and losing or giving away gear.

After grabbing a bit of a starting kit and building a favorite recipe from memory, a Primrose Milk Stout is fermenting away in the server cupboard.

Unfortunately, its been a pain to get temperature control correct. This means that I think its time to finally build what I always wanted to build: a fermenting fridge.

I’m now eyeing off a legacy BrewPi build, sans the fancy LCD controller and just using a Raspberry PI and a Arduino.

Setting up Dropbox and encryption in Linux

Sat, 25 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Premise

Due to the fact that I now run Linux across my Homelab, Desktop and Laptop, I’ve been looking into keeping everything in sync.

Dropbox is reasonably popular for this on Linux systems (outside of P2P sync), but the issues, of course, is security. My mantra is if you put it on the internet assume that everyone can see it, and you can never remove it.

I wanted to use a Dropbox-style sync for a number of services (backup dotfiles, zim-wiki files, website code, etc). The intention was to be able to start something on the laptop, move to the desktop and be able to pick up where I left off.

Dropbox install.

Installing Dropbox should be easy across most distributions from core repositories.

# Debain
cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd


# Arch
pacaur -S dropbox

Setup script

First, put your password in a file in your home directory, plaintext. We will pass this as an argument to the script, and ensure it has permissions to be read only by your user.

You can modify the file location if you wish.

mkdir ~/.config/certificates/
echo "<password>" > ~/.config/certificates/encfs
chmod 0600 ~/.config/certificates/encfs

Then, create the script. Again, you can change the location.

~/scripts/dropbox.sh

cat ~/.config/certificates/encfs | encfs -S ~/Dropbox/encrypted/ ~/Private/

When called, this calls encfs, and supply the password by outputting the file created earlier into it.

Whilst there are a number of places we could call this upon startup to ensure its loaded upon startup, I chose the lazy option and just had it in my Cinnamon startup apps.

Now, place your files in the ~Private folder. They will be encryped into the ~/Dropbox/encrypted/ folder. Repead on another computer to have shared sync.

Stop Chromium asking for keyring unlock

Sat, 25 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I recently started using (sigh) Chromium over Firefox due to very slow webgl performance (and general overall faster performance)

However, annoyingly it asks for the Gnome keychain to be unlocked upon launch.

A simple fix I found is to simply change the shortcut to

chromium --password-store=basic

This will drop chromium to a basic password store machanism, so it doesn’t use gnome-keyring

Of course, this assumes your not wanting to use the features of chromium to store login details into the OS’s password manager. However, since you should be using a service like KeePass or LastPass to manage passwords securely, this shouldn’t be an issue.

I canged my Cinnamon settings by selecting ‘Open Editor’ in the Menu options in settings, then finding the chromium shortcut. I then added the ‘–password-store=basic’ to the shortcut.

Guide added for Steam Emulation

Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

New guide added for steam emulation

I have added a tutorial for an excelent, tidy setup for running all your retro consoles via Big Picture mode.

Check it out here

SCP upload to Octoprint on Linux

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Uploading automatically to Octoprint via bash & scp

I’ve been using Simplify3d for my 3D printing, and Octoprint. Octoprint has a very nice web interface, and between it and the advancement in slicers, its been great to not have to slice, carry SD card over to the printer, load via the LCD, etc.

However, I’ve always wanted a auto-upload feature. I’ve chosen to do it via setting up ssh keys for logging into the Octoprint server, and using scp to upload the file automatically.

I did get the idea from a post at https://forum.simplify3d.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1924

I’ve setup ssh keys for passwordless entry to my Octoprint server (Google SSH keys for more info, or perhaps check out the Digital ocean FAQ )

Local PC

When ssh-keygen asks for input I entered through it to accept defaults, and no passphrase.

nat@nat-desktop ~ $ ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/nat/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/nat/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/nat/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
<redacted>
The key's randomart image is:
<redacted>

We now have a private key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa and a public key in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

I logged into the remote PC (Octoprint) to copy the public key. I chose to open up the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file in nano and copy it via clipboard, but you could use scp, ftp or any other method.

Remote PC

pi@octopi:~ $ nano .ssh/authorized_keys

<append contents of local ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file>

pi@octopi:~ $ chmod 700 .ssh/authorized_keys

Now we should be OK to login with no password to the Octoprint server

nat@nat-desktop ~ $ ssh pi@192.168.1.9

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Thu Jan 19 11:52:32 2017 from 192.168.1.7
pi@octopi:~ $

Note: You can setup bookmarks for ssh via ssh_config. This enables you to quickly ssh into servers quickly without remembering IP’s or usernames, especially coupled with ssh_keys for password less entry. Check out man ssh_config or Google for more info.

Once that is setup, we can easily scp the file to Octoprint. Setup a bash file with the one liner below.

~/scripts/putpi.sh

scp "$1" pi@192.168.1.9:.octoprint/uploads/

Remember to chmod +x putpi.sh to ensure the file is executable. Also, substitute the IP above for your Octoprint’s IP (or hostname).

We can ensure it works by running it manually.

nat@nat-desktop ~/scripts $ ./putpi.sh ~/Documents/3dPrinting/gcode/nat.gcode
nat.gcode                                       100% 1477KB   5.9MB/s   00:00

And refreshing the file list on the octoprint will make it appear.

Now, to automate the upload from Simplify3D. Select your 3D Printers process settings is selected in the list box to the left and go to the ‘Edit process settings’ tab at the lower left corner of the main screen. Ensure the advanced settings are visible in the box, if not click the ‘Show Advanced’ Button.

Here, select the ‘Scripts’ tab, and in the bottom of the box underneath ‘Post Processing’ and ‘Additional terminal commands for post processing’ enter the command to call your bash script.

~/scripts/putpi.sh [output_filepath]

Then when you save the gcode in Simplify3D, it will call the script and upload the resulting GCode to Octoprint! Just refresh the file, review and print.

Note: You need to actually save the gcode file somewhere on your computer before the post processing (and thus file upload) will occur.

Fixing Intel Hardware decoding on Linux (Ubuntu)

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Fix for lack of hardware decoding on Linux

So I’ve switched to Linux recently (Mint 18). I realised that since I was moving to Steam in-home streaming, I could move my clunky desktop tower out into the living room/server closet and run Linux on my desktop. The only reason I’ve kept Windows running for so long was for gaming needs (and not wanting to fiddle around getting games to work on Linux)

Thankfully, with Steams push into the Linux front and throwing its weight behind the Debian side, gaming in Linux is a thing. But it only supports about ~30% of my library, so my gaming PC needs to stay Windows.

After years of running Debian servers at home (and Freenas for years before that) linux feels more comfortable than Windows. So I build a new mini-ITX, Intel i5 PC for desktop use, and moved the tower out into the living room.

Unfortunately, my experience with steam streaming was jelly mouse! A quick check with setting ‘Display Performance information’ in the in home streaming client area revealed it was not using hardware acceleration. It was using ’libavcodec’, which is a software decoder.

Note: Check the ‘Display performance information box’ to enable perfomance info, and press F6 ingame to check. Also, ensure you have ‘Enable Hardware decoding’ checked on the client.

This introduced a bit of lag in the decoding (>50ms) which I could definitely notice.

The fix

After much googling, the problem is that Steam on Ubuntu is bundled with its own libraries for VA-API. Unfortunately, it is bundled with old drivers that no longer work/are broken. The solution is to download the drivers from Ubuntu/your distros repo, remove Steams copy and ln (symlink) them to the host’s updated drivers.

Simply put, drop into terminal and apt the below:

apt install i965-va-driver:i386
apt install libva1:i386
apt install libva-x11-1:i386
apt install libva-glx1:i386

This will install the proper drivers into /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu.

Remove the old drivers from Steams folder (or mv them if you prefer)

rm ~/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libva*

The last step is to symlink these to Steam’s local folder. You can ln -s if you wish, but a kind folk has created a bash script to do it for us!

Grab the gist below (kindly created by Github user Benleov). Alternatively, wget it with the below shell command:

wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/benleov/dc44ca9505a807e7dcc9/raw/673a82ff3d2356d27c9355088f58335bc89ab46b/fix_steam_links && chmod +x fix_steam_links
./fix_steam_links

Warning: Always check out the code that you are downloading code before executing to ensure its not malicious!

Steam Controller - Worthy addition?

Sun, 18 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

What is the Steam Controller?

The steam controller is Valve’s offering into the controller segment. With the launch of their Steam Link and upcoming Steam Box offerings, Valve decided to continue their campaign to bridge the gap between PC games and the living room by designing a controller with PC games in mind.

The Steam Controller boasts 2 trackpads, haptics, by my count 18 buttons, 2 dual-stage analog triggers and an analog joystick. Two of the buttons hide on the bottom of the controller that double as the battery housing - when your fingers wrap around the wings you naturally rest on both of them. One feature that doesn’t make the press almost at all is it does contain a gyro, similar to the Wiimote, the playstation thingy, and a whole raft of other completely failed motion controllers. It’s a pity it isn’t marketed more as they have gotten the gyro completely right and it actually synergizes with the controller - but with how bad most implementations are I don’t blame Valve for not making a song and dance about it.

The main feature is customizability. Playing using Steam’s big picture mode, a raft of configuration options are presented at a click of the steam button (The controller’s home button). From here, you can customise a massive amount about the controller. This means that you can bind any button to anything - keyboard press, controller press, joystick, D-pad, mouse, your cat, whatever. More mind boggling is that there are multiple styles of joystick, D-pad and mouse, with different behaviours.

On top of that, you can customise dead zones, scalings, haptics, sensitivity, and a massive amount more options that I currently don’t even understand. Trackpads can be simple joysticks and mouse, or work as touch menus complete with OSD (I.E. weapon swapping, item hot menu, etc). Oh, also it has mode shifting, to allow buttons to double-duty for those more command intensive games. It would be like holding down CTRL and having all your keys function different - here you can swap the function of every button again. Boggles the mind.

Frankly, it’s intimidating. It needn’t be, however, as for any game a number of user profiles are shared so you don’t need to setup from scratch every game. You can simply load a profile from another user (usually the most popular one) and tweak from there. Sometimes the developer will list an official profile - or perhaps you can just use one of the templates for the game’s genre.

Note it is pairs as well with a Steam Link as a PC. I’ve done a short write up on the Steam Link here.

The controller just works ™ with the Steam Link if you follow the instructions - like I didn’t. It does come with a dongle for using with a PC, but it isn’t required if you pair it with a Steam Link. Read the instructions first, like I didn’t!

But how does it handle?

Getting used to the steam controller

At a glance, the controller most likely won’t look comfortable. And you’d be right! This controller takes time and patience to get used to. It’s not the comfortable 360 controller you’ve bene using for the last forever; Valve has broken the mould to a degree here. The resemblance to the 360 controllers is present in the design, however. They have chosen to follow the 360 in the wing design instead of the stubby things the Playstation controllers have had for some time. It looks big - but put it over the top of a 360 controller and it’s almost dead on the same footprint.

I have small hands and was concerned that I would struggle to reach the buttons - a fear that seemed founded on unboxing but really hasn’t eventuated. I’ve had no issues reaching anything, so if I can manage I expect anyone can.

Overall, it took me under a week to get the hang of it. Due to the fact Valve chose to move the buttons to the lower right and put the touchpad in the upper right, 360 controller aficionados can expect the first few hours to be smashing their thumb into the touchpad in frustration as that were the buttons ‘should’ be.

So I cranked out a few different types of games and gave them a good old go.

Third person

I started out playing some third person games. I played through Shadow over Mordor from scratch, having recently picked up a bundle. It did take some time to get the hang of it and fiddling with the right trackpad settings/sensitivity to find something I liked - but once I had it down I was cutting down uruks like nobody’s business. Right trackpad controls the mouse, left analog stick to move, buttons to make people’s lives miserable. The steam controller did enable me to bind the sprint button to the back bumper, as holding down a button to sprint meant I couldn’t look around at the same time - a problem fixed by a quick rebind.

Additionally, the gyro can be used as a fine aim which was amazing for this game. When aiming an arrow I could use the right trackpad to aim generally then wave the controller around to fine aim. It’s a joy to behold as coupled with the time slowdown it was nothing but constant headshots - probably a little unfair considering the time slowdown mechanic would have been added to give analog stick users a handicap.

Both the game and the controller were ultimately enjoyable, which game me a good opportunity to get the hang of using it for my next game.

I resumed my first round of Dark Souls (yet, I know I’m a little late to the party). I was just finishing off the abyss with no idea was I was about to face - Manus, Father of the Abyss. The next 4 hours of fighting him was an excellent time to become intimate with the exact dynamics of dodge rolling through attacks, and not throwing my shiny new steam controller through the TV. I prevailed in the end with what ended up being easily the most satisfying battle in Dark Souls 1, and justification on the controller. If you can beat Manus with it, you can play any damn game with it.

Platformer

I played both Rouge Legacy and Trine with the controller. I slotted back into Rogue legacy like a glove but using the analogue stick as a d-pad. I did swap over to using the left trackpad as a d-pad by turning off the option to require a click for it to trigger. It was eerie using a trackpad as a d-pad, but amazingly responsive.

Trine was a bit more of an interesting beast, as it has mouse gesture controls and mouse aiming. It was great for this, and after a slight adjustment, I had no issue using the trackpad to draw boxes, aim bow/shield.

First person

I have played some Portal 2 with the steam controller. Only a few hours worth just to give it a shot. I have it setup to use the left analog stick for movement, triggers for both portals, flaps underneath for crouch/jump, and right trackpad for aiming.

It’s a plain joy to use. It’s responsive and easy to look around, but precise enough to be able to hit where you need a portal. Whilst I won’t say it is as good as a keyboard/mouse, it’s certainly going to fit the bill for any slower single player FPS that I might prefer to play on the couch.

For the more serious, again you can use the gyro to fine aim. I haven’t used it for a twitchy game, but I’ve read posts of people swearing it approaches keyboard/mouse levels of control.

This is something I need to explore and report back on.

Third Person… Rocket Exploder Simulator?

Yep, you can even play Kerbal Space Program with it. And it’s actually fantastic. It’s hard to explain how it works, but analog stick works menus or camera, and right trackpad does mouse. It.. works. Building a rocket is not much harder than with keyboard/mouse. Unfortunately, my rockets still tend to suffer RUD’s.

Build quality

The build quality is great. It feels nice and solid, the buttons have a great feel to them. No Xbox 360 D-pad floppiness here!

Just check out the construction of one!

My only real gripe is the way the floppy buttons on the back work - The flaps are part of the battery housing, so when you push in one flap it tends to pull the other flap away toward it, which pulls the other flap away from its respective button. Little awkward, but if you don’t plan on using both buttons at the same time it should be fine.

I love the battery housing. When the housing opens up the batteries slot deep into the wings, using the space efficiently and leaving the rest of the controller thin and allowing space for all the electronics. I’m surprised more controllers aren’t built like this!

Additionally, the battery life is insane. The Duracell’s that came with it ran for over 5 weeks before going flat. This was with heavy, nightly usage. My Xbox 360 controllers hardly lasted 2 weeks on regular batteries.

Closing thoughts.

If you are a PC gamer looking for a customizable controller, look no further. Don’t be put off by the swath of options - if that’s not what you’re into, there’s always a community config that will be perfect (or close) for what you want.

For steam link users - I feel this unlocks the true potential of the device. It can work with any old controller - but this controller really lets you unlock away from your PC with almost any game.

*[RUD]: Rapid Unplanned Disassembly

Multiroom audio with the Raspberry PI

Sun, 24 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Multiroom Audio with the Raspi

I’ve wanted some sort of audio system for years, a set of speakers in multiple rooms you could setup to be controlled via an app that would be able to play my music collection, and radio. In the past I’ve experimented with just having iTunes on a laptop with speakers solely for it, putting speakers on my server and some other options. None have ever hit the ’neat and tidy’ aspect.

Recently I started playing around with the RasPI squeezebox solution piCorePlayer which was a big step in the right direction I was looking for. Surely I could find a cheap set of speakers that would look neat, but have enough space to squeeze (pun intended) a RasPi inside of?

Off to AliExpress I went and found a cheap(ish) little Bluetooth speaker set. It actually had a decent set of features, pity I would not be using most of them.

Above is the finished player (which looks the same as how it comes out of the box). I managed to fit a RasPI 1 inside of it, wired up to the power and aux input jack. The PI connects wirelessly to my wireless network by a Wifi dongle and runs off the Logitec Media Server software. So via an app or internal website I can play music or radio and media server will kick off the RasPI to play, pause, volume, etc.

It’s truly a poor man’s Sonos.

Hacking the speaker

The speaker is a cheap Bluetooth-capable speaker off AliExpress. It’s got more functionality than I wanted but was the only one I liked the look of that could potentially fit a RasPI. I got it Friday night and quickly tore it down.

I found that it indeed did have enough room to hide a RasPI. But only just, and only after the RasPI has undergone some radical weight reduction. I setup a wifi dongle I had lying around to run on the RasPi and verified it worked before proceeding - I already had Logitec Media Player on a virtual machine running on my server.

I then played around and inspected the circuitry to find where I could hijack power from the speaker power. It had a power input which was just a standard micro USB-B connector, so it would be running +5V which I could just tap the RasPI into. I cut one end of the USB to Micro USB-B connector that came with it and soldered it to GND and the closest point I could tap +5V. I suspect it was a regulator to drop to +3V or so - the lithium battery included only had 3.7V in it so one would suspect the logic to be +3V. I tried pulling direct from the battery charge points but it only gave out 4.7V, which the RasPI flat out refused to boot on.

I did accidently blow a resistor to GND during probing for voltage (which a bodge wire quickly fixed, shorting the plugs housing to another GND point on the board).

Then it was on to the drastic reduction - the RasPi would have to havethe RCA plug, line-out, Ethernet and the USB plugs stripped. I either cut or desoldered these as what was easiest (cut off all but the Ethernet and USB, which required adding fresh solder and then sucking it out). The solder on the RasPI melts a LOT hotter than usual, so adding fresh solder was the trick.

After the rapid weight loss, I had to find a way to get the USB wifi adaptor back on it. I threw any concept of the USB spec out the window and directly connected the USB pins to the WIFI dongle with a ribbon cable.

After everything, it looked a little worse for wear but it worked fine. Then I started probing around to figure out how to connect the Pi’s line out direct to the speaker system.

I bodged wires from the aux input jack of the speaker system to the pi - guessing the left and right channel would be the pins connected to the capacitors I could see on the board. The centre pin turned out, as I suspected, to be ground.

I tested it as it was and it worked. The speakers had some bad line noise (as you’d expect from a cheap set) so I turned them right down and the Pi right up. Once I had done that, it was great!

Afterwards, it was merely a case of fitting the PI into the housing and it fit like it was designed to be there. Some hot glue and a zip tie, and it was time for reassembly.

Once reassembled, it looked like it was new out of the box. All it required was a home to be found for it and for it to be plugged in with any old wall plug & USB Micro B cable. Once it’s powered up, the PI boots up into piCorePlayer, connects to the Wifi, and is ready to receive music or radio streams! Just running the Andriod app Squeeze Ctrl allows me to control the Logitec Medis Server, which finds the RasPi and considered it an output device. A tap of the app and we have music control.

All I need to do is order a few more and I have a Sonos-like experience, for a fraction of the price.

Steam Link - The ultimate console?

Sun, 24 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Why Steam Link and what is it?

In short, Valve’s Steam Link is a small box (not much larger the size of a deck of cards) that you can plug into your network and TV and stream games from your PC to your TV, in glorious 1080p @ 60hz. It also takes care of ensuring your controllers talk to your PC, and turns on like a console via turning on your controller. If you ever wanted to play your PC games from the couch with a controller, this is for you. If you have a wired network already it is literally as simple as plug into TV and Ethernet, plug in controller adaptor/pair with Bluetooth, enter PIN on PC running steam, and you are literally playing games from your couch within 5 mins.

If you ever wanted all your emulation in once place, your modern games playing friends side by side with Zelda, Super Mario 3, River Raid, Sonic or perhaps even Goldeneye, you need to get this!

Notice: I have written a guide for neatly setting up emulators to work with Steam Big Picture/Steam Link. Check it out here

I call it the ultimate console. Who doesn’t want all your games in one place - from Atari to the latest releases?

Unfortunately, it appears there’s so much confusion about it - if you read the review articles or forums there it appears there’s confusion about what it is, or who it is for. Unfortunately many of, the reviews for the Steam Link are lukewarm at best for reasons that I don’t feel are valid. Comments such as input lag or artefacts make me think reviewers simply haven’t tried changing a single setting to adjust - and they are simple to fix.

However, I will note that I expect any Wireless connection will introduce input lag (doesn’t matter how fast/good it is, radio waves are slow things compared to the speed of an electron) - if you can’t hardwire a Steam Link I don’t think this is for you.

I used to have an HTPC each for the Projector and the TV, running Plex and Steam for Steam Streaming. It wasn’t particularly polished, and felt clunky, either using a Xbox 360 controller or an IR remote setup.

Recently, I upgraded to a shiny new 70" LG 4K TV. This removed the need for an HTPC for Plex and YouTube. Using the TV’s remote to browse the in-tv apps for Plex and YouTube was amazing, and far superior to anything I could have down with the HTPC.

So, now the HTPC was only doing Steam streaming, it was time to find a solution for retiring the HTPC completely. Enter the Steam Link.

I think there is confusion and trepidation on Valves latest gear. Not everyone seems quite sure what is it.

The Steam link is merely a device to stream your PC’s screen to an HDMI device (i.e. your living room TV). It doest play the games, it merely extends your PC’s reach. But it’s also so much more.

The Steam link is a little black box with a small, unobtrusive steam logo that includes

3 USB2.0 ports
HDMI out
100mbs Ethernet
Power input
Bluetooth 4.0
Wireless AC
Works with Xbox controllers (requires dongle), a ps4 controller (Bluetooth, no dongle), racing wheels, keyboard/mouse (wired and wireless), just about any input.
Comes with various power point adapters for various regions (AU, US and probably EU)

That’s about it. It runs off an ARMv7 with a dedicated h.264 hardware decoding, custom Linux kernel. Technically speaking, it’s comparable to a Raspberry Pi 2. And don’t get scared off by the 100mbs ethernet - if you do the math that is more than capable of 1080p @ 60hz.

But it will stream from your PC at 1080p @ 60hz if your gaming PC is up to the task. Not only that, but with Big Picture it will do this seamlessly with a nice, functional interface, it will manage your controllers (Xbox, PS4, racing wheel, etc), and it works like a console. Hell, it’s so tiny that it is easily hideable behind any TV - my wall mounted TV has no need for a shelf to put a bulky console on.

Note it is best paired with a Steam Controller. I’ve done a short write up on the Steam Link here.

One week with the steam link.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so impressed with a tech purchase. It runs a dream, plays games at 1080p @ 60hz, and as completely unlocked me from being hunched over the PC to game.

My living room TV has become the go-to place in the house (I haven’t even wanted to fire up the projector since I got this!). Once I’ve finished watching a show over dinner, I can hit the logo button on the Xbox controller or my Steam controller, turning on the Steam link. Any controller ‘just works’ assuming you have the PC dongle (for a Xbox controller) or a PS4 controller will connect via Bluetooth, no dongle necessary. You can choose to connect a keyboard/mouse as well with no issues, again it ‘just works’

From here, you are presented with a menu of the available PC’s detected on the network you have setup. Adding a PC is as easy as selecting it and entering a PIN code on the PC - only required once to pair. On subsequent boots, all you have to do is select the PC from the menu.

From there, it’s all over to the PC in terms of work - the steam link will request the PC to go into big picture mode and begin streaming the window. From your seat, at the TV it seamlessly transitions to the Big Picture launch intro.

Then it’s just like using Big Picture on your PC. You have a nice interface for the store, your library, etc. Launching a game will drop you directly into the game and big picture will jump to streaming that window without you noticing any transition. It’s just like having a console - but it’s your PC!

This has opened up a realm of games that I’ve wanted to play but didn’t want to hunch over the PC with a controller.

Running emulators on the steam link

Now, if you are like me and you love emulating old games - you’re in for a treat. You can ditch fiddly front ends and use steam to manage your games - and stream them via your Steam Link as if you had your SNES, N64, Playstation, Atari, Sega, whatever plugged in. A GitHub project called Ice can be setup to run through a ROM directory, and manage adding/removing a custom game to your steam list that will launch an emulator of your choice, passing the game as a command and launching the emulator directly into the ROM.

I’ve written a guide here covering how to set this up.

As a result, I have a multitude of my favorite old games in my steam library (complete with artwork, and tagging the game with the console name). From my couch, I can thus filter my game list into the “SNES” category, and see a list of SNES games. Launching one will drop directly into Retroarch with bsnes core with full controller support. Dropping into a emulated game instantly at a button press and getting the intro screen for the console of choice is mind blowing - it’s like having a SNES or N64 plugged into your TV. All this in a package the size of a pack of cards.

So I can go from Shadow of Mordor to Donkey Kong Country to Pitfall, all within 20 seconds of each other using whatever controller I chose.

Why is this better than a console?

I can think of a multitude of reasons

Emulator support - build the ultimate console! Heck, play old DOS games with DOSBox and a Steam controller!
Mod support! You get the modding of PC, with the comfort of couch and controller (or keyboard/mouse if you still choose)
Better graphics - sorry, but a decent PC will plain outperform a console, especially as the console lifecycle drags on.
Massive games library, not bound to one manufacturer
Multi-room support - move from TV to Home Theater to PC. Or connect to different PCs with different steam accounts running.
Customization - especially with a Steam Controller, customise to your hearts content either the game or the control set.
Games are plain cheaper on PC with Steam Sales.

The downsides

MUST be hardwired! I can’t see any solution on wifi that won’t introduce too much input lag
Comes with the inherent possibility of crashes on PC - Steam has bugged out on occasion.
The odd console exclusive game
Requires decent PC (mind you, I’m running MGS:V at 1080p @ 60hz with a Nvidia 670 no problems)

Closing thoughts

If you haven’t already run out and bought 10 Steam Links then I don’t know what’s wrong with you and you require professional help. Assuming you have a wired network and can’t/won’t have your PC directly hooked up to your TV, this is for you.

I have had nothing but perfect streaming experiences, smooth FPS, no artefacts, lag, etc. That said, I have built a robust network, it is wired, and I have given it an optimal network to run on - and it is delivering in spades. If you want to run on Wireless then it’s your funeral - even with AC dual band, you’re going to get input lag. I think it’s a simple fact of the way wireless works.

Also keep in mind that when you stream you are also asking your PC to run the game AND encode the audio/video - this means you need the grunt to run the game at 1080p as well as the stream encoding overhead.

Multiplexing Seven Segment with AVR

Sun, 29 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Multiplexing a dual seven segment display

Following on from driving a seven segment with an ATTiny2313a last post I swapped out the single seven segment for a dual seven segment that I bought from AliExpress. This one was a dual display with a similar set of 10-pin inputs like the last, single one. The pins from A-G+DP are different to the last, but more tellingly instead of two anode pins for the single display, there is now an anode pin for each segment. Power one pin with some of the LEDs pulling to ground and one lights up, power the other and the other one lights up. And if you power both, you get both sides displaying the same thing.

I found a post at (codeandlife.com) that helped me out with the timers & interrupts, which again I’ve found harder to find relevant code for:

Here we need to multiplex. What is that? Well, multiplexing is described as:

Telecommunications. of, relating to, or using equipment permitting the simultaneous transmission of two or more trains of signals or messages over a single channel.

In this case, to drive one seven segment we have already used 7 pins + power. If we added another stand alone display, that would become 14. What about building a clock with 4 digits, do we go and get an MCU with 28 or more pins?

Nope. What we do is setup an array of seven segments (two in this proof-of-concept case) which share a common set of lines to drive each LED. But we split the input lines (in this case anode) to the LEDS so we can drive them independent of each other. This enables us to set the AVR pins to sink current to enable one number, and turn the first part of the display on. After a brief delay, we turn that segment off, change the AVR pins for the second number, and turn on the second part of the display.

I’ve measured this rig at between 5-15mA, depending on what is lit up (with a number 8 being the most)

Warning: Keep in mind as well that an ATTiny2313a is rated to 20mA sourcing of current. Exceed that and you might burn it out!

If we do this very fast (I measured the frequency at around 250mhz) the human eye blends together images and we see both sides lit up simultaneously. This is extremely common and you may be surprised to find where this occurs. If you have a DSLR, try taking very short exposures of LED displays!

Wiring up the breadboard

So I rewired the breadboard up similar to last time, but taking into account the different pins. Also, instead of +5 going to one of the anode pins of the seven segment I wired one anode of the seven segment to PD4 and the other to PD5 of the ATTiny2313 - this time the AVR will drive the anodes.

avr-pin	letter	led-pin
PB7	A	pin 10
PB6	B	pin 9
PB5	C	pin 1
PB4	D	pin 4
PB3	E	pin 3
PB2	F	pin 6
PB1	G	pin 5
—	—	—

Schematic

Info: I couldn’t find a common-anode dual seven segment display on octopart - this is a quad display but imagine its only a dual display.

Warning: The pinouts on this dont match above, again because the part isn’t present. If you follow this, check your part datasheet.

PDF Schematic Download

View on CircuitMaker

Code

With the below code, the display counts from 0-99. Brightness is fine, but can be a problem with more displays. AVR is running interal clock with clockdiv/8 fuse set.

Here we use a timer to increment a counter each second. A second timer runs the multiplexing, with ~500 interrupts per second. Thats almost it!

Info: I have started using bit flipping defines for legible code and easy of use. Might annoy the purists!

/*
 * PoorMansSevenSegment.cpp
 *
 * A bodge program to run a seven segment without a BCD - 7 segment display decoder
 *
 * Created: 15/05/2016 6:50:30 PM
 * Author : Nat
 */

#define F_CPU 1000000UL //CPU speed, set clockdiv/8
#include <avr/io.h>
#include <util/delay.h>
#include <avr/interrupt.h>

// Defines for  easy bit flipping
#define    bit_set(...)        bit_set_(__VA_ARGS__)
#define    bit_set_(x,y)        x |= 1<<y            // set a bit
#define    bit_clear(...)        bit_clear_(__VA_ARGS__)
#define    bit_clear_(x,y)        x &= ~(1<<y)            // clear a bit
#define    bit_test(...)        bit_test_(__VA_ARGS__)
#define    bit_test_(x,y)        (!!(x & (1<<y)))        // test a bit

/*** following macros related to the PORTx - register only !    ***/
/***                                ***/
#define    bit_dir_outp(...)    bit_dir_outp_(__VA_ARGS__)
#define    bit_dir_outp_(x,y)    *(&x-1) |= 1<<y            // access DDRx of PORTx !
#define    bit_dir_inp(...)    bit_dir_inp_(__VA_ARGS__)
#define    bit_dir_inp_(x,y)    *(&x-1) &= ~(1<<y)        // access DDRx of PORTx !
#define    bit_test_in(...)    bit_test_in_(__VA_ARGS__)
#define    bit_test_in_(x,y)    (!!(*(&x-2) & (1<<y)))        // access PINx of PORTx !

// pin defines
#define PORT_LED PORTB
#define DDR_LED DDRB
#define PORT_PWR PORTD
#define DDR_PWR DDRD

// define Seven segment output ports for Vcc to Seven Segment
#define LED0    PORTD, 4
#define LED1    PORTD, 5

//binary representations of binary required to light seven segment 0-9
unsigned int pins[] = {0b11111100, 0b01100000, 0b11011010,0b11110010, 0b01100110, 0b10110110, 0b10111110, 0b11100000, 0b11111110, 0b11100110};
volatile int i_timer_seconds = 0;
volatile int i_active_display = 0;

void seven_write(int i_digit) {
    // write to entire LED port - invert due to the fact that in a common anode display LOW = on.
    // to use in a common cathode display, remove inversion.
    PORT_LED =~ pins[i_digit];
}

ISR(TIMER1_COMPA_vect) {
    // increment timer count
    i_timer_seconds++;
}

ISR(TIMER0_OVF_vect) {
    PORT_PWR &= ~(1 << (i_active_display+4));    // turn off LED
        //toggle active display
    i_active_display ^= 1;

    if(i_active_display == 0) {
        seven_write(i_timer_seconds % 10);
    } else {
		seven_write(i_timer_seconds / 10 % 10);
    }

    PORT_PWR |= (1 << (i_active_display+4));    // turn on LED
}

int main(void)
{
    //disable interupts
    cli();

    //Data Direction Register, set all bits high
    DDR_LED = 0xFF;                // enable entire LED port as output

    // set led common anode wires to outputs (PD4/5)
    bit_dir_outp(LED0);
    bit_dir_outp(LED1);

    // init timer 0
    TIMSK |= (1 << TOIE0);  // timer 0 overflow interupt
    TCCR1B |= (1 << WGM12);  // config for CTC mode
    TIMSK |= (1 << OCIE1A);  // CTC interupt
    OCR1A |= 15625;             // prescaler
    sei();
    TCCR0B |= (1 << CS01); //timer 0 at clk/8
    TCCR1B |= (1 << CS11)+(1 << CS10); //timer 1 at clk/64

    while (1) {}
    return 1;
}

Poor man's seven segment LED display with AVR

Sun, 15 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Driving a seven segment display with no BCD to seven segment chip

I have gotten a batch of cheap seven segments from DealExtreme, and it was high time I put them through their paces.

However, I have no BCD to seven segment chips. No matter, I can bodge it up just using 7 pins. So I ran through some code to just drive each segment with a pin from an ATTiny2313a.

I found from the data-sheet for the 7-seg LED that it was a common anode. So that means I had to drive LOW to sink current to light LEDs - and keep HIGH to keep segments off.

Starting off by working out the seven segment display and working out in a table which logic levels for each led; to drive the segments for numbers 0-9. I’m sure it was searchable online, but where’s the fun in that?

Using my new target board to hook up the 2313a to a breadboard - with 330Ω from each LED. I saw from the datasheet for the LED seven segment that it had common anode on pins 3 & 8. Using the pinout below I was able to breadboard connections. It was a simple case of matching up PB0-PB7 to match up with the led segments from the datasheet, via the letters.

I hooked up PB0 through PB7 to the seven segment display, using the pinouts above to correlate to the pinouts I drew out. I did get tripped up on the direction here - thinking that PB0 was the highest bit in the register! Of course, it isn’t!

So I ended up with:

avr-pin	letter	led-pin
PB7	A	pin 7
PB6	B	pin 6
PB5	C	pin 4
PB4	D	pin 2
PB3	E	pin 1
PB2	F	pin 9
PB1	G	pin 10
—	—	—

Info: Pin 0 is not connected! When I added the binary to the code I added a trailing 0 to the binary to bump it up to 8-bit.

Schematic

PDF Schematic Download

View on CircuitMaker

Code

/*
 * PoorMansSevenSegment.cpp
 *
 * A bodge program to run a seven segment without a BCD - 7 segment display decoder
 *
 * Created: 15/05/2016 6:50:30 PM
 * Author : Nat
 */

#define F_CPU 8000000UL //CPU speed, remove clockdiv/8
#include <avr/io.h>
#include <util/delay.h>

int main(void)
{
    //binary representations of binary required to light seven segment 0-9
    int pins[] = {0b11111100, 0b01100000, 0b11011010,0b11110010, 0b01100110, 0b10110110, 0b10111110, 0b11100000, 0b11111110, 0b11100110};
    int count = 0;

    DDRB=255; //Data Direction Register, set all bits high

    while (1)
    {
        for(count=0; count<10; count++) {
            //change output of entire portb register to above hex (inverted, as its common anode and LED on requires sinking current.
            PORTB=~pins[count];
            _delay_ms(1000);
        }
    }
    return 1;
}

End result

Error with device 0x000102 whilst programming AVR

Sat, 14 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Device is read correctly the first time but fails to be read on subsequent reads

I’m building an AVR target board for a few different flavours of AVR to make my life easier.

I had some real fun trying to read the data-sheet pins back to front whilst soldering down the sockets, and had to have more than one go at getting the ATMega328P socket wired up correctly.

I was using Atmel Studio 7 to read the device ID of various AVR chips I had on my board. When suddenly it would work on the initial read after power up - but subsequent reads would fail with the device ID being returned reading 0x000102

Reset line short to ground stopping reset line returning to high post-programming

I had introduced a short on the reset line to ground when fixing my wiring. This was causing the reset pin to be low regardless of what the programmer did.

This makes sense - the initial read works OK as the reset line is LOW. But the AVR chip never leaves programming mode until reset returns to HIGH. This is the reason we add pullups to the reset line.

With the reset pullup being forced LOW all the time, the AVR never leaves programming mode, and a second programming attempt fails as the AVR is not reset back to the start of its programming phase.

Responsive Images in Jekyll

Tue, 10 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Responsive images, the Jekyll way

One of the first things I did in my exploration of Jekyll was to go away from using GitHub to generate the site. The first limitation that frustrated me was the inability to use plugins. Currently, I only use one plugin that I couldn’t use on GitHub - which relates to responsive images.

I shoot most of my pictures that I’m using for the site on my DSLR - which means I’m getting large pictures. I export from Lightroom via a preset I have setup. However, the process of resizing images for the web is an additional step in publishing a post. I want to be able to toss the image into a folder, type out some text in Notepad++, and upload the site without worrying about image size, resizing, srcset, etc.

Without plugins, this means that all the images you have on your site are going to be resized in the browser - which is a big detractor for page load speed and general usability of the site.

So I set out to find a plugin that would do responsive images (via srcset or picture tags) as well as automatically resizing the images, so I didn’t have to worry about anything except the parent image.

Jekyll-picture-tags

After a bit of searching, I found three candidates for creating responsive images.

I found Jekyll-srset broken as of May 2016, and it did not generate multiple images. I couldn’t get Jekyll-responsive-images to run properly either.

Jekyll-picture-tags works a treat after some setup. Unfortunately, it has poor error messages (generic Ruby messages) and was tough to debug.

After installing into my gemfile, I ended up on the following addition to _config.yml

picture:
  source: "images"
  output: "images/resize"
  markup: "picture"
  presets:
    default:
      ppi: [1, 1.5, 2.0]
      source_medium:
        media: "(min-width: 40em)"
        width: "600"
      source_default:
        width: "600"

Info: Ensure your indentation is correct if copying a config - misalignment’s will give you a dreaded generic error message Liquid Exception: undefined method [] for nil:NilClass in _drafts/JekyllAnchors.md/#excerpt

Warning: Also ensure your base-url in _config.yml is set to an empty string "" (base-url: ""). Without this, the images won’t be found or load correctly, even if it generates correctly.

After much fiddling and debugging, I had it working. I decided to add it to my shortcuts in Notepad++ using FingerText. I came up with the following code, which also allowed me to have an alt and title text in the tag.

FingerText enables me Notepad++ users to write blocks of text with a single keyword (amongst other uses). So now when I type respimage with a tab immediately after, the below code will be automatically inserted and the text between $[![ and ]!] will be selected upon each tab to allow me to enter the relevant details. Entering an Image Filename (from my /assets/images/ folder) and an Image title defines the image, and the Preset name will tell Jekyll-picture-tag which config branch to run - which dictates the which sets of images to include.

{% capture imagesrc %}$[![Image_Filename]!]{% endcapture %}
{% capture imagetitle %}$[![Image_Title]!]{% endcapture %}
<a href="/assets/images/{{ imagesrc }}">{% picture $[![Preset_name]!] {{ imagesrc }} alt="{{ imagetitle }}" title="{{ imagetitle }}" %}</a>
{: .text-center}

Warning: Jekyll-picture-tag also hates spaces in picture filenames. Not that you should have spaces in filenames anyway, but that’s another thing I stumbled on.

I now have images that (should) be responsive for mobile and desktop, and I don’t have to do the resizing myself.

First AVR LED blinky

Thu, 05 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Testing out new AVR Gear

Well, I’ve received the new programmers I ordered. Amongst them was the Atmel ICE, which I have chosen to be the first thing I would test.

I’ve been meaning to get fully into MCU development, but I have to say that the Arduino craze didn’t really grab me. A sketch? Shield? Buy pre-assembled gear and push it together, copy and paste code?

Pass. I prefer to code, learning and assembling circuitry myself and learning code from examples.

I’m actually struggling a bit to find decent tutorials for MCU programming (I can’t be looking in the right places). However, it wasn’t too hard to figure out the pinout of the Atmel-ICE and compare to the pinout of the ATtiny 2313A using the data-sheets. I build a miniature shield that plugged in over the top of the MCU and had a neat little 6-pin plugin header (I may cover it in another post).

Info: The Atmel-ICE data-sheet nicely doesn’t include the direction of the tab in the user guide. The pinout on the user guide doesn’t include the tab on the 6-pin connector. I have added it to the data-sheet image below - the tabbed connector is on the side of MISO, SCK and RESET (for SPI programming)

So after plugging in the programmer I confirmed all was well in Atmel Studio 7. Tools -> Device programming gets you to the device programming screen, and selecting Atmel-ICE tool and your chosen device (in my case I had the ATTiny 2313A, so I selected ATtiny2313a from the device selection). The interface is ISP and you can click Apply.

Once this has been selected, you should be able to click on Read for the device signature. If it reads an address and target voltage, you have succeeded.

I proceeded to load up a blinky led program to confirm all was well, and well, all was well.

Out of curiosity, I was interested to know the maximum frequency this would have out of the box on the output pins with no _delay_ms(), with its default 1Mhz clock cycle (8Mhz internal oscillator with the CKDIV8 fuse clocking it down to 1MHz)

Whilst I did leave it with two I/O operations per cycle, I did come up with a frequency of 103khz.

Nexus 6P Pocket Dial woes

Tue, 03 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Nexus 6P keeps pocket dialing

I love my Nexus 6P. It’s a fantastic android phone and easily the best phone I’ve ever owned (despite the almost excellent experience with my Samsung Galaxy S4). The Nexus 6P is perfect for someone who wants a non-bloated OS/ROM but also still excellent hardware.

Also, the phone is encouraging me to be social. Like, calling my friends from my pocket whilst there at work. Sorry, Crossy.

I’ve been scratching my head and finally found out the root settings that were causing the pocket dialing.

Fixing pocket dialing

Finally figured out the pocket dialing settings that were causing me the woes. Many people complain about ambient display waking up the phone in your pocket, and then from there the phone getting random touches from your leg and thus pocket dialing.

In my case, that wasn’t actually the whole story. My issue was actually the Tap to wake being set to on. This setting wakes the device if it detects a double-tap on the screen whilst it’s off. So yeah, pocket dial city - I don’t remember my S4 being this touchy-feely on the screen.

Ensure both are off and you should be fine.

Unfortunately, Ambient Display has been pretty poor on Andriod so far. It should be quite good - but I’ve found it difficult to use effectively. It is quite difficult to move it enough if it’s just sitting on your desk to activate ambient. I’t seemed to display every time you didn’t care about it - and none of the times it did.

Time (and patches) will tell if this feature is built into anything as good as Moto Display.

Docking a PuTTY window into Notepad++

Sun, 01 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Challenge of developing in Jekyll via remote Linux server

During development of this site, I came across too many limitations with using Jekyll on Windows. You can use Jekyll in Windows with PortableJekyll, but I found the Windows environment still limited Jekyll. Mainly ImageMagick for using responsive images, which isn’t worth the hassle of setting up on Windows. I decided it was easier to spool up a Debian VM on my virtual server to install Gem/Ruby/Jekyll on. This lets me keep the website code on my NAS (allowing for easy cloud backup), code on Windows, and run Jekyll on Linux.

However, swapping back and forward between a terminal and the website code to site build was annoying, so I decided to see if I could ‘dock’ a PuTTY terminal into Notepad++

Adding a Putty Terminal into Notepad++

I’ve been using Notepad++ to develop in Windows for quite some time now. It’s a fantastic little program for us Windows people. A docked PuTTY window would greatly improve my workflow.

To do the same as I have above, it’s actually pretty simple.

Download:

Plink - PuTTY command line
~~Ansicon~~ - (Git repo defunct) Ansi escape sequence converter (to convert Linux CLI escape codes to Windows CLI, else the terminal doesn’t work well)
nppconsole - Notepad++ console plugin.
Warning: I had to use the older 11.53 ansicon version under Windows 10 x64, the later versions crashed frequently.

The do the following

Extract NPPConsole to your Notepad++ plugins directory (Program Files x86/Notepad++/Plugins)
Restart Notepad++ if it’s running
Unzip and copy plink and ansicon to a folder of your choosing (I put them both in the Notepad++ folder as it’s where the CLI defaults to, and I’m lazy)
Open a CLI at the Notepad++ folder and run ansicon.exe plink.exe -ssh user@location -pw yourpasword, replacing the relevant parts with your user/server IP/password.
All going well, you can now replicate that command in Notepad++. Open Notepad++, select Plugins -> NppConsole (should be there if you restarted and copied the dll correctly). Run the command and you are set!

If you have a saved profile in PuTTy you can replace the command with ansicon plink -ssh SESSION_NAME , replacing SESSION_NAME with your sessions name from the PuTTY dialogue. This works with key authentication as well, which I much prefer to use. This also saves you the risk of keeping a plaintext password in a potentially insecure location.

Info: You can use the plugin Nppexec as well instead of NppConsole - but I prefer Nppconsole for this.

You now have a working CLI in Notepad++ that can call an SSH session. I wrote a few batch scripts, so I just have to run site-dev in Windows to jump to my Linux VM that contains Jekyll, then ./site-dev to run a bash script to call up Jekyll in dev mode. Already having made a site-push bash to push the site to Amazon AWS, so I don’t need to leave Notepad++ to do any development work.

I couldn’t get Ctrl-C to work with either NppConsole or NppExec, both terminate the command without sending SIGTERM or similar to the PuTTY. Let me know if you figure out a way around this, as it means it’s difficult to gracefully terminate Jekyll. Workaround below.

Workaround for no Ctrl-C to exit Jekyll

My workaround for this has become to have a PuTTY terminal open just for stopping Jekyll. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Just write a bash script to kill ruby as follows:

pgrep ruby | xargs kill

Warning: This will kill all ruby threads! Note this if you often have other ruby threads often running

I saved it as site-kill. My workflow is site-dev for the development of this site (with dev flags for config, etc.), site-push to rebuild the site from scratch and push to AWS. The new site-kill kills off any ruby threads.

Bonus - Markdown highlighting in Notepad++

The default colours finally made me crack during writing this post. Too much white! The language highlighting file I had for Markdown didn’t play ball with custom styles.

I found a language highlighting file for Markdown on GitHub that had a file for the Zenburn colour scheme. This is what you can see in the screenshots above. So much better!

W.E.P 853d clone soldering station

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Time for an upgrade, from cheap solder pen to cheap solder station.

After living with an old non-temperature controlled soldering iron for years I decided it was time to upgrade. I had been using a Goot PX232 for a long time, and before that some Jaycar $15 iron that was only just passable as a soldering iron.

Now, despite the fact I should be getting a decent brand, I decided to try a cheap eBay clone. I found a ‘W.E.P 853D Soldering Station/Hot Air Gun/DC Power supply’ on eBay, within Australia. Few days later I have it in my grubby hands.

I’ve been perfectly happy with the operation. I’ve had it now for a few months with no issues.

The soldering iron has tips that fit over the cartridge, it heats up quite nicely. It comes with a large variety of tips (conical, chisel, wedge) and sizes. The iron holder is pretty lousy and the tip will hit the rear of the case and lean against it. I’ve continued to use my old iron holder due to this. Its such a relief to be using decent bits now after struggling along with conical for so long.

The iron heats up to 300° C within 47 seconds, so on that side it’s not so great, unfortunately.

The hot-air gun comes with a few tips to have wider/smaller airflow.

The power supply I only used a little, but it was accurate to its displayed measurements. I haven’t had much experience at measuring power supply ripple so will skip that for now, but I can’t say I’ve noticed or seen much ripple on my oscilloscope.

Teardown

Finally, that’s out of the way. I had to have a look see inside - would it be complete cheap Shenzhen market garbage? Or would it be somewhat passable. More importantly, was it a Yihua station with a different name like I suspected?

Presentation was quite nice. My preference is the black and gold to the gaudy blue and yellow others have. Buttons have a nice tactile feel to them and knobs are firmly stuck on and feel OK considering. LCD is clear and bright.

I won’t profess to be any good at a teardown, but the transformer seemed OK, earthed down to chassis with decent connectors. Power transistor is well secured (housed on the rear of the chassis). I know people have concerns about cheap Chinese equipment such as this being a fire hazard - but I didn’t see anything that concerned me. I’ve seen worse build quality from gear built in better countries and companies that was worse.

PCB in the middle of the board hosts some TRIACS, bridge rectifier, MMOC3041 optocouplers, and various passives. Caps are no name (Jwco) garbage, but at least the TRIACS have heat sinks. A single LM723 voltage regular sits on the board. Soldering seemed perfectly fine, looks wave soldered (or at least reflowed)

The control panel has two S3F94C4EZZ MCU’s and two LED display drivers (TM1620 & TM1628). Can’t determine the manufacture for the MCU’s, I get either a Samsung or Zilog part - I’ll leave you to guess which I think is the more likely manufacturer. Not much else happening there, soldering continues to look fine. I can’t see any post-production fixes or anything untoward dodgy - if I had been given the photos to look at without knowing where it came from it would look visually OK to me.

Wait a minute here - the control PCB has a silk-screen designator of ‘YH852DV5A’. Clearly the same control board as the Yihua model. After some googling I found an EEVBlog post regarding the Yihua which showed a photo with an identical control board, but what to me looked like a significantly worse power board.

Meanwhile, whilst I wait to see if Shenzhen lets me down again I will continue to enjoy my nifty little soldering station.

LCD Haul

Fri, 22 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Workplace preps to throw out 300+ phone units

We’ve upgraded our phone system for the entire business at work. When I piled the old Ericsson desk phone into the box they had set up to return the old phones the thought hit me - there’s a lot of speakers in the 300 odd phones that are being thrown out. Wait, forget that - I bet this LCD is generic.

So I took a few home and tore them down - and what do you know, but the LCD is a HD44780 based. I politely informed the IT dept they no longer needed an external contractor the throw them out, I would take them, thank you.

I wanted to ensure I could get it working before grabbing them all. While I am yet to receive the MCU programming kits I’ve ordered, so I found an old Arduino Mega I had lying around from the 3D printer build. Whilst this should have been a simple check, Murphy, of course, got me - the ribbon cable pin pitch width was just too small for me to solder on my own ribbon cable to break out onto a breadboard. I had a few goes but the two sizes of ribbon cable I had on hand were the right width and bending the pins to neatly marry up with the solder pads just wasn’t working for me.

Getting a salvaged 10 pin HD447800 LCD working

My solution to break it out was to slice up the individual wires from one of the actual ribbon cables from the phone and solder it to a 12 pin header. The challenge here was that most HD4480’s are 16-pin - and this puppy had a 12 pin input. I did notice that 2 pins weren’t apparently connected by a quick scan of the PCB, and assuming it was actually a 10 pin LCD some googling revealed the following pinout.

1: Gnd
2: VCC (5v)
3: Contrast (10k pot)
4: RS
5: R/W
6: E
7: DB4
8: DB5
9: DB6
10: DB7

And the header of the Arduino Liquidcrystal library includes where to connect the pins of the Arduino to the LCD.

 * LCD RS pin to digital pin 12
 * LCD Enable pin to digital pin 11
 * LCD D4 pin to digital pin 5
 * LCD D5 pin to digital pin 4
 * LCD D6 pin to digital pin 3
 * LCD D7 pin to digital pin 2
 * LCD R/W pin to ground
 * 10K resistor:
 * ends to +5V and ground
 * wiper to LCD VO pin (pin 3)

From there it’s easy enough to connect the dots. So no backlight, but a perfectly working 2x20 LCD.

New Site

Sat, 09 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

New Site hits the Internet

Finally found the inspiration to build a nice personal site. I’ve been toying with Wordpress for some time, but it’s quite bloated for a nice basic site. And then there’s the security hassles, addons, database setup, theme setup, etc. It’s so far beyond what I want to be doing for a personal site it’s not funny.

I’ve wanted to be getting posts back online about projects and tinkering I’m always doing, so that will be the aim for this site. I’ve also been looking for some time for a better layout to be able to post about projects. The default blogging layout to be inadequate for something project like, or anything that is posted about over time. Making a visitor have to browse multiple posts to piece together the history of one project really doesn’t work.

With what I’m crafting here, I will be able to have static pages for projects that can be appended to over time to add up to one larger page per project. Most likely with blog posts for updates or miscellaneous stuff that fits on the site. I’ll also be planning to write up some mini-guides for things I’ve come across in my hobby projects.

I’ve gone with an AWS approach, along with using Jekyll. This gives me a simpler way of posting and updating a site without the big CMS overhead, and after skipping over static site generators as being probably more effort than their worth, I went back to check out Jekyll, then using Jekyll with S3 and AWS. And that was the end of that search.

I thoroughly enjoy the ease of use of Markdown for writing HTML and if you haven’t checked it out and have some basic HTML background, definitely check it out.

Now its time go get cracking writing up all the projects past and present and getting the site filled out.

Posts on Voltaicforge

Neovim setup for better writing

Setting up nvim for writing

Better language with ltex-ls, ltex-extra, and language-tools

Zen mode with zen-mode and twilight

Website redesign with Hugo & Cloudflare pages!

Introduction

Reason for the Migration

Benefits of Hugo and Cloudflare Pages

CI/CD Workflows and Automation

Conclusion

DuckDNS with UDM Pro

DuckDNS with Unifi Dream Machine

Network UPS with Synology

Network UPS with synology

/etc/nut/upsmon.conf

/etc/nut/nut.conf

Ordbot Project added

Ordbot project

Setup pfSense for TPG NBN

Setting up pfSense for TPG NBN

Homebrewing Again

Homebrewing again

Setting up Dropbox and encryption in Linux

Premise

Dropbox install.

Setup script

Stop Chromium asking for keyring unlock

Removing keychain login from Chormium

Guide added for Steam Emulation

New guide added for steam emulation

SCP upload to Octoprint on Linux

Uploading automatically to Octoprint via bash & scp

Local PC

Remote PC

~/scripts/putpi.sh

Fixing Intel Hardware decoding on Linux (Ubuntu)

Fix for lack of hardware decoding on Linux

The fix

Steam Controller - Worthy addition?

What is the Steam Controller?

Getting used to the steam controller

Third person

Platformer

First person

Third Person… Rocket Exploder Simulator?

Build quality

Closing thoughts.

Multiroom audio with the Raspberry PI

Multiroom Audio with the Raspi

Hacking the speaker

Steam Link - The ultimate console?

Why Steam Link and what is it?

One week with the steam link.

Running emulators on the steam link

Why is this better than a console?

Closing thoughts

Multiplexing Seven Segment with AVR

Multiplexing a dual seven segment display

Wiring up the breadboard

Schematic

Code

Poor man's seven segment LED display with AVR

Driving a seven segment display with no BCD to seven segment chip

Schematic

Code

End result

Error with device 0x000102 whilst programming AVR

Device is read correctly the first time but fails to be read on subsequent reads

Reset line short to ground stopping reset line returning to high post-programming

Responsive Images in Jekyll

Responsive images, the Jekyll way

Jekyll-picture-tags

First AVR LED blinky

Testing out new AVR Gear

Nexus 6P Pocket Dial woes

Nexus 6P keeps pocket dialing

Fixing pocket dialing

Docking a PuTTY window into Notepad++

Challenge of developing in Jekyll via remote Linux server