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by Chris.Rowland
Sat Feb 25, 2012 9:40 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: There's a little update from Eben on the front page...
Replies: 52
Views: 13872

Re: There's a little update from Eben on the front page...

<t>The difference is that in the case of something such as Olympic tickets there are 10s of millions of people after tickets.<br/> <br/> In this case there are about 100,000 people, that's about 1% of the number of enquiries.  It's the number of enquiries that matter to the server, not the number th...
by Chris.Rowland
Sat Feb 25, 2012 11:33 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: another UK "alternative" to the pi
Replies: 47
Views: 19314

Re: another UK "alternative" to the pi

<t>JamesH, if you want an example where you personally have been rude to a member of this group then your response to mgmt-idiot on the "step by step guide" thread is one.  You indulged in what he quite rightly described as an ad-hominem attack.<br/> <br/> Your response here also comes across as pre...
by Chris.Rowland
Sat Feb 25, 2012 9:32 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Another week gone by...
Replies: 14
Views: 4454

Re: Another week gone by...

What did you do with the body?
by Chris.Rowland
Sat Feb 25, 2012 9:26 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Novice, Expert, Demi God Forums ???
Replies: 20
Views: 4287

Re: Novice, Expert, Demi God Forums ???

<t>Who provides answers? The users with less than 4 posts as well?<br/> <br/> Maybe something similar to the StackExchange model would work.  I'm not a great fan and it only works if a significant number of people are prepared to play the SE game.<br/> <br/> We had one called AstroAnswers for a whil...
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:48 am
Forum: Off topic discussion
Topic: I can buy a raspberryPi?
Replies: 3
Views: 949

Re: I can buy a raspberryPi?

Read the FAQ for information about this.

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:38 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Where could tutorials go?
Replies: 16
Views: 2712

Re: Where could tutorials go?

Compared to Export to Pdf... in LibreOffice 10 minutes of googling plus a load of setting up image files is a lot.

It's the one file containing everything aspect that makes pdf format attractive.

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:52 am
Forum: Staffroom, classroom and projects
Topic: Best first language
Replies: 160
Views: 48407

Re: Best first language

<t>I think that the idea of an unbiased review of the programming languages options is a reall good idea but suggest that something a little more complex than Hello World is used for comparison. It's a little too simple; just a small amount of fixed text output.  A text file can do this.<br/> <br/> ...
by Chris.Rowland
Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:18 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Sucessfully used WINDD to write debian image to SD card
Replies: 20
Views: 4862

Re: Sucessfully used WINDD to write debian image to SD card

<t>I used Win32DiskImager and it seemed to generate the same arrangement of partitions and free space.<br/> <br/> I found it easy to use; select the img file and SD card letter and start.  I didn't need to do anything to the card beforehand but it was a totally new card, unwrapped, plugged into the ...
by Chris.Rowland
Thu Feb 23, 2012 8:47 pm
Forum: Other projects
Topic: I2C bus - anyone planning to use it?
Replies: 30
Views: 20246

Re: I2C bus - anyone planning to use it?

<t>I can imagine hanging all sorts of things on the I2C bus, all manner of sensors and so on.  Not least a RTC chip.<br/> <br/> I think there's a need for an I2C patch board, with the I2C bus, 3V3 to 5V level shifters on the bus and breadboard areas that can take different ICs or breakout boards.<br...
by Chris.Rowland
Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:18 pm
Forum: Off topic discussion
Topic: Alternative Adventure game beginnings
Replies: 26
Views: 4729

Re: Alternative Adventure game beginnings

Wait for someone to come down?

I had a weeks holiday on a narrow boat so consider myself to be an expert
by Chris.Rowland
Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:16 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: step by step guide?
Replies: 91
Views: 15429

Re: step by step guide?

<t>I've been trying to follow Liam's excellent video tutorial.  It took some time to get it going because the official debian FTP site was impossibly slow but I've got to the point of rebooting and running apt-get to get the lxde desktop.<br/> <br/> And the system has gone off doing a lot of install...
by Chris.Rowland
Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:54 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: A question about timing
Replies: 32
Views: 12948

Re: A question about timing

<t>Dan,<br/> <br/> I couldn't get to the interinair site because the system here complained about it being high risk.<br/> <br/> The qkits thing looks like what's needed, I suppose the step rate for each motor can be set in the controller, that's what controls the tracking rate.  It isn't neccessary...
by Chris.Rowland
Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:58 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: A question about timing
Replies: 32
Views: 12948

Re: A question about timing

<t>There's been a number of things like this, such as Mel Bartels scope drive system. This uses the parallel port of a PC to drive two stepper motors, but it has to run under DOS.  This is because Windows will take over the CPU for enough time to give unacceptable jitter in the stepper pulses. I exp...
by Chris.Rowland
Tue Feb 21, 2012 6:18 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: A question about timing
Replies: 32
Views: 12948

Re: A question about timing

<t>It depends on what you mean by very precise timing. Seconds, Milliseconds, Microseconds?<br/> <br/> At the second level connecting it to the internet and using a time server may be good enough; for milliseconds a GPS can provide a pulse per second output that's accurate to the millisecond. For be...
by Chris.Rowland
Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:18 am
Forum: Other projects
Topic: Mini oscilloscope ?
Replies: 11
Views: 12783

Re: Mini oscilloscope ?

<r>There's a number of lo cost scope projects around, mostly based on PICs. This one <URL url="http://www.pdamusician.com/dps.....ew_se.html">http://www.pdamusician.com/dps.....ew_se.html</URL> looks nice. It uses a PC but a version with a Pi GUI could be a nice project.<br/> <br/> No contact or inv...
by Chris.Rowland
Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:32 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Isn't this all too complicated?
Replies: 230
Views: 45280

Re: Isn't this all too complicated?

<t>My point is that giving people a command prompt and letting them get on with it is throwing them in at the deep end.<br/> <br/> The sort of thing people need is some help about the basic things, in this case the syntax of the "for" keyword.<br/> <br/> What was provided was several pages of techni...
by Chris.Rowland
Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:38 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Isn't this all too complicated?
Replies: 230
Views: 45280

Re: Isn't this all too complicated?

<r>This is what you are letting people in for:<br/> <br/> Python 3.2.2 (default, Sep 4 2011, 09:51:08) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32<br/> <br/> Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.<br/> <br/> >>> for i = 1 to 10<br/> <br/> SyntaxError: invalid syntax<br/> <br/> >>>...
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:42 pm
Forum: Off topic discussion
Topic: Food! (was Charcutiers of the worlds unite)
Replies: 101
Views: 16854

Re: Food! (was Charcutiers of the worlds unite)

I thought gerbils lived forever. They just tend to change colour and sometimes sex from time to time.

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:59 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: Root filesystem available to download
Replies: 77
Views: 18404

Re: Root filesystem available to download

Never tried torrents before – at least BitTorrent isn't on a torrent…

Connected…

It's running at about 50kB/s down and about 20kB/s up so I'm already micro contributing

Must get better broadband.

Thanks for posting this.

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:25 am
Forum: Other projects
Topic: IP Phone
Replies: 13
Views: 13722

Re: IP Phone

What's really needed is something that can answer the phone and handle junk mail calls - some sort of simple Eliza style application that will make answers just enough on topic that they keep going...

Fantasy maybe but I can dream...

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:06 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: config.txt
Replies: 172
Views: 83540

Re: config.txt

<t>As I said, too much information. The vast majority of companies would not publish this information - and the FUD that it's caused shows why.<br/> <br/> Is it the RPF who has provided the information?  It's certainly not been done so in any official manual and I think that even if it was putting i...
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:48 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: config.txt
Replies: 172
Views: 83540

Re: config.txt

<t>And it's still not the fault of the company, they have no control over how it's abused.<br/> <br/> Having a feature to protect themselves from guarantee claims when something has been operated outside it's specification doesn't seem unreasonable.<br/> <br/> Maybe there's such a thing as too much ...
by Chris.Rowland
Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:12 am
Forum: General discussion
Topic: config.txt
Replies: 172
Views: 83540

Re: config.txt

If some kid took an axe to your car would you expect the damage to be covered by the guarantee?  Or the Sale of Goods Act?

Of course not.

So why should the RPF be responsible for malicious damage?

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:12 pm
Forum: Off topic discussion
Topic: Release Day Pool (just for fun)
Replies: 122
Views: 18254

Re: Release Day Pool (just for fun)

Perhaps we should have a Pool on how long before the first batch is sold out as well

My guess is a day or two.

Chris
by Chris.Rowland
Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:21 pm
Forum: General discussion
Topic: GPIO Programming Question
Replies: 59
Views: 25938

Re: GPIO Programming Question

Is 3.3V a problem? From what I can see most peripherals use 3.3V now.  My most recent foray into electronics is a PicAxe measuring the compass heading and sending it using a 433Mhz transmitter and it's all working fine with 2 AA batteries.

Chris

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