Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:05:08 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/ Unstable's personal website and portfolio. en-gb http://www.unstable.co.uk/images/unstableLogo.jpg http://www.unstable.co.uk/ admin@unstable.co.uk http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26 Over the weekend I was migrating a server, and decided to write an Init script for Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare (Dedicated linux server). It can be found here, in the downloads section.The server binaries are from icculus.org Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:05:08 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=25 A while back I was actively developing my EasyTitle device, which controls a mini disk unit to allow quick editing of titles and table of contents. It is controlled by a PIC16F84 (1K program EEPROM, 68 bytes data RAM, 64 bytes data EEPROM ). To store all the keyboard codes and macros it uses a 24LC64 EEPROM (64k). I was using a PDIP PIC but a SMD EEPROM. The problem I was faced with is populating the 64K eeprom, as I had no means to program a surface mount chip (Only own a home made PIC programmer so wouldn't have been able to program a PDIP eeprom either). After searching the net to find a way of populating an eeprom in stages, or indirectly from the PIC and finding no solutions, I decided to dive in and try it myself. So using a C compiler and various data sheets I finally came up with some source code which allowed me to program the PIC with a chunk of the data I wanted putting into the eeprom. It was tedious but eventually got the job done. I needed to re-program the PIC for every segment of data and increment the buffer count so the PIC knew where to place the data. Not being able to find a similar utility on the web made me think that others might also find this useful, so I am now (finally) posting the code for anyone and everyone to use as they wish. Feedback is greatly appreciated, together with ideas of improvements or additional features (although with it being such a small utility there is little room to implement more). If anyone finds this useful please send me a quick email so I know my work was not in vain.Download can be found here (in the downloads section). Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:34:01 +0100 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=23 After a lot of messing about with the gallery software and updating things I have finally uploaded all of our pictures from the recent Le Mans 2007 biking tour. I have to admit it was one of the best biking holidays we have been on and we are all up for it again next year. My only complaint (Well, two of) was that it was too short and the weather was crap on Sunday. The tour was organised by Gordon from PRIDE motorcycle training. He organises a few trips throughout the year and does it very well. It was a welcomed change not to have to worry about anything and just enjoy the holiday. Thank you Gordon and all that were involved. You can find the gallery pictures here. PRIDE's Website Professional photographer pics of the tour Mon, 28 May 2007 02:50:36 +0100 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=22 No more stripboard for me... I have now 'mastered' the art of creating my own PCB's. Using a standard Laser printer and Ferric Chloride, I have produced my very first home made PCB.The circuit used was from EasyTitle 2, a controller for minidisk players which emulates the remote control and allows you to quickly program all the minidisk titles from either a keyboard or PC Serial port. (Pretty nifty).EasyTitle can be seen in it's entirity hereUsing the supplied PCB layout I have 'seccessfully' (open to debate) created my own PCB board as can be seen in the gallery. Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:39:43 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21 It seems when I moved the database to another server I didnt stop to think about the gallery :) Ooops. All fixed now though. (Still only for members). Sun, 03 Dec 2006 20:38:18 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=20 http://www.rhualltsocial.co.uk I have just finished designing and building a site for friends of mine and their village community. The site allows the community to share information about upcoming events and activities, together with advertising anything that may be happening in the near future. I have placed a small footnote o?n the site which will hopefully bring some more traffic here, and possible even land me a few web design contacts for small companies or individuals (One can hope). If anyone reading this would like a similar site developed and even hosted, drop me a line to the usual address admin[at]unstable.co.uk Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:50:02 +0100 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=19 Sorry peeps, I have now decided to revoke permissions for "Guests" to view the photo gallery. It is still accessable to all Registered users, and registration is free and easy. This is just to help me keep track on who is accessing pictures and such. For those who are registered, there is a new gallery up from the weekend of 18th July 2006. Those who know me should know it's content. Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:46:21 +0100 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=18 We have not long come back from a well deserved break to the Isle of Man, where we saw lots of bikes, lots of racing and not enough women... Pictures can be seen here. Sorry for the very short review, I think the pictures say it all. Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:59:36 +0100 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=17 I have just finished putting the final touches o­n an idea I had earlier today...I am taking a flight to the states this weekend, and want to listen to MP3's o­n my Ipaq for as long as I can during the journey. This made me thing how long my ipaq batter will last when constantly playing MP3's, considering lately it has been dieing o­n me and i have had to restore all my files and settings (Pain in the arse!).Anywhoo... I came up with the idea of having a square 9v batter in some sort of circuit that will power a USB socket, after all these devices o­nly use the 5v rail from a USB socket to charge and power. So I searched the internet a little and found a copule of people had already made such a device (Mainly for ipods, but they all do the same thing). People have been using Zener diodes to create a 5v supply from a 9v battery, or an array of 1.2v (AA, AAA...) batteries. Well seeing as I have been playing with electronics which need a regulated 5v supply lately, I know a little about the 5v regulator L7805. So, I have designed a circuit which uses the 7805 regulator, a capacitor (have lots of Tant caps laying about), and a few diodes for safety (of my ipaq). Put it all together o­n a test board and it all worked :). But the 7805 regulator wastes the extra power by converting it to heat... not much use for me and a bit crappy when relying o­n a small battery. So I decided to add a toggle switch, which I got from an ebay auction of "Various electronic components...". Together with the switch I needed an LED to show if the circuit was powered or not.So after a quick trip to Maplin, I had all the bits needed to create my first practical project. Spent the rest of the night building the circuit and carving out the project box. Granted my Drimmel skills arent anything to boast about, but all in all I think I did a satisfactory job (It's not there for it's looks anyway). The o­nly annoying bit was the USB hole is not very square, and the socket is recessed into the box.Well the glue is now drying, o­nce thats all set I will be giving it a field test to see how well it copes with charging my ipaq, and how long it lasts.I think I wont be taking it to the states with me after all... I'm sure the airport security wont appreciate a little black box with a big red switch, LED and a few electronics being in my hand luggage... I doubt I would have time to explain myself and it just isnt worth the hassle (Those who know me will already know the hassle surrounding this trip to the states!!!).I have, as always, posted some pics in the gallery. Link to them from here.I will try and post circuit diagrams soon but it's pretty obvious where all the components go. Wed, 22 Mar 2006 01:32:32 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16 I have finally finished my implementation of David Tait's classic programmer. It took me a while to plan it out o?nto a stripboard, but with the help of Lochmaster it all eventually took shape. Apart from having destroyed 2 PIC's :( Expencive hobby...I am now looking forward to creating PIC software and making more LED's flash. There is o?ne project which is o?n my mind at the moment and should start to take shape in the next couple of weeks. I have already plotted out the circuit and created the stripboard layout, which will no doubt need refineing.In the mean time here are the pics of my programmer.In the downloads section you will find the stripboard layout for the programmer, together with a copy of the Linux port of Tait's programming software (Including all source code and build scripts).Stripboard layoutProgramming software (linux) Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:35:23 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14 Granted they were bought as kits, but proved to be good experience with soldering and learning how the electronics work in them. The first o­ne I did was a basic thermostat, ranging from 5c to 30c, turning o­n a relay which allows for a 24v 3A power output (Could come in handy for something). The second o­ne is a 35 led (7 x 5) display for a scrolling message. The messages are programmable and it runs off either a 9v battery or power supply. The interesting thing about this kit is it takes a standard PIC microcontroller. So i bought it with the intention of replacing the PIC with o­ne of my own, complete with software to control the LED's in whichever way I feel the need. Unfortunately the company who make the kids declined my request for the source code, so I will be backwards engineering the chip from scratch and the schematic of the electronics. Which leads me o­nto the next project in mind (when I can get all the components). I plan to build my own (Well, schematics off the net) PIC programmer. I am missing o­ne type of resistor which Maplin doesnt ever seem to stock :( So when I get that I will really start to make things flash in all sorts of patterns (Hopefully). Pictures and movies can be found in the usual place. Sun, 05 Mar 2006 21:38:00 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13 I have just uploaded the images for my first electronics projects to the gallery. I also put my first download up, the source code to control the parallel interfaced LED's. Pictures can be found here. Source code is here. Sat, 04 Mar 2006 01:33:33 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12 Well I finally decided to migrate the site o­nto a "proper" host.  So this site is now running o­n higher bandwidth, which should make surfing it for you guys alot less painfull, and allows me to log more extensively. There were a few problems to start with, especially with the Gallery, but all seem to be ironed out now and the whole site should be up and running smoothly.  If anyone experiences any issues please email me and I can look into it.  I plan to upload some more electronics information tomorrow and introduce a new topic dedicated to electronics. I would just like to thank Betablocker from Disturbing The Peace for allowing me to use o­ne of his MySql servers for hosting this site.  Mucho appreciated matey. Sat, 04 Mar 2006 00:10:03 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11 I've been experimenting lately with electronics, soldering and all that good stuff. Just finished building an interface with my Parallel port, controlling 8 LED's. I wrote a program in Linux which controls a "Knight Rider" display. I'll add the pictures, schematics and source code over the next couple of days. I have a few more projects up my sleve so will keep the site updated with what i'm up to. In the mean time, I have uploaded links to various electronics websites which I have been using to learn all about the basics. Many a night has been spent playing with components and blowing up transistors :( Thu, 02 Mar 2006 23:49:31 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10 Well... It's been an interesting 2 weeks for this site (Not in the way of visitors, i dont think anyone has visited lol). But with the server. It died on me the other week, seems to be down to the memory overheating and the primary hard drive being too old to cope. So, the server has now been moved from the cupboard it was in to beside the kitchen cabinets. And a new hard drive was fitted to replace the dieing one today. all appears to be fine now, but only time will tell. Come back over the next few months as the days get warmer and there will be more entries into the gallery for biking events and holidays. Oh and if you are visiting, please sign up. It only takes a minute and helps my ego :) Sat, 25 Feb 2006 13:43:20 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9 I have just finished compiling and testing a build for Linux. It is currently compiled using jdk v1.5.0, but seems to have no problems working under jre 1.4.2 aswell as 1.5.0.I packaged the build in a single .jar file with a script for running.Download can be found here. Sat, 21 Jan 2006 16:44:26 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8 I have just finished uploading all the pictures from last weekend (6th - 7th January 2006). This was a suprise birthday do which Dave and Euan arranged for me (and them). Lots of friends came down to our gaff and we had a great time. Went Karting and everything. Check out the pics here. Sun, 15 Jan 2006 19:28:33 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7 Im doing a new version of a website for mates band called Kiale Go to: Test Site and let me know what shite and what not. Im new to doing CSS sites so some of the stuff is dodgey as fook. Most of the links dont work to well or link to old versions of pages. Also if anyone knows a good way of doing CSS photo galleries let me know too. Sat, 14 Jan 2006 19:16:44 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6 As promised last night, PastePro is now up o?n SourceForge. The source code is available from the anonymous CVS server. The release build is available from the Files section of SourceForge (Currently o?nly a Windows build).Let me know if you download it and what you think of it. If i have enough interest I will continue development (more so than i am now.).PastePro project pageWindows build download Sat, 14 Jan 2006 16:56:35 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5 It seems I have been neglecting the site lately. I have had a lot to do (mainly drinking lots of beer and eating excessive ammounts of turkey). Well Christmas is over, and so is new year (which also means my birthday has now long gone). Had a great last weekend though. Friends from up north and doon south came to visit and we went go-karting. When Euan gets around to it maybe he can upload the pics for us :P (hint hint). Well as the title to this blog suggests, I will be uploading some files soon (hopefully this weekend). The main file/app that comes to mind is my university dissertation, PastePro. This is a tool which allows you to copy and paste over a network to other computers, irrespective of their operating system. And not only text, it supports images and will soon be able to send files. I do need a bit of support though. If anyone downloads this app and makes good use of it please let me know and tell me what features you would like included in the next realease. If there is active interest in the project I will be finding more time to devote to it. I plan to create seperate sections of the site for each programming project I have on the go. Currently there are two main ones, PastePro and xMote. Watch this space... Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:18:28 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4 I have uploaded pictures to the gallery of our bike trip to germany in June 2005. I will be adding more soon, together with different gallerys. Also i am thinking of setting the picture gallery to members only, all you will need to do is register. I'll save on my delicate bandwidth and stop search engine's ripping all my pics. I'll do that when I have a few more pics up. For now it's free to all, but i would prefer you sign up so i can tell who is visiting (Just for personal pride) Tue, 06 Dec 2005 21:26:44 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3 Gallery is up and running. Slight problem with the theme on it but on the whole it is working great. Obviously there is nothing in there at the moment (Take not of the time this comment was posted... Work in the morning). expect more updates tomorrow, together with a nice suprise for my girlfriend (Hopefully). Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:52:12 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2 The site seems to be coming along nicely, i'm pleased with it. Currently only family and friends who are visiting but hey, can't expect the world (Besides my ISP probably cannot handle any more bandwidth). Mon, 05 Dec 2005 23:12:14 +0000 http://www.unstable.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1 Welcome to my new website. I have finally decided to use the many domains and web space I am paying for to send my own little message out on the internet. This however is just the beginning (I hope). I will be updating this site as much as physically and mentally possible with any new or existing projects I am working on. The aim of this site is it to become a reflection of myself and portfolio of my work / achievements. With a bit of fun somewhere in there. Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:01:56 +0000