As another ex-MLE'er, I'm hardly surprised that the lab closed and I haven't shed any tears for it. I honestly hope that a more commercially-focused lab finds a home in Ireland but hopefully not in Dublin (yes, that's right folks, there's more to Ireland than Dublin!).
Blender, that wonderful open-source 3D rendering/modelling application, has a bunch of tutorial videos which are distributed using BitTorrent (to ease the load on their servers). Unfortunately, because of the negative publicity around P2P software, our administrators have blocked BitTorrent traffic and I have to use the mirror site to download them.
Many of the RGB leds require particular levels of voltage etc to make them work (I'm vague here 'cos I'm a software guy) - it is not like connecting a standard red LED in a circuit. Also, getting the colours to mix properly whilst still getting the brightness takes some effort. I heard Apple spent a while trying to get the glowing logo on their notebooks to light evenly (and that's just white light!)
Secondly, producing particular RGB colours from these LEDs is extremely difficult as you have to map from the RGB space to the colour space produced by the leds (which is nothing so linear and simple as the three RGB integer values). Unfortunately, this is what I need to do:-(
Oh, and regards the Ambient Orbs - they rely on a wireless network which it states is available across "95% of the US". Homemade alternatives with a simple serial interface (to which we can attach modems, micros or PCs) would be very useful for the rest of the world. I think Ambient Devices has missed a huge opportunity by relying on their own infrastructure (servers, the wireless network etc) instead of providing simple interfaces upon which we could all have built the cool applications mentioned in this thread (oh, yeah and they're too expensive!).
Sounds like a great open source project. Good luck and let us know how you progress,
Extremely upgradable as you could add up to 9 slices turning a small desktop into a towering monstrosity. Each slice contained a 1x5.25" drive bay, 1x3.5 is memory serves me. Still have my old one sitting at home.
Hey, their cases are actually pretty good. I'm building a home entertainment center so obviously noise, heat, space and aesthetics are on my list of priorities.
Why are micro-ATX desktop cases so hard to find? Finding a good-looking one is harded than dodo shooting.
What do people think about a micro-tower case on it's side? Don't much like the thought of the DVD drive running on it's side (noise?) or the harddisk (reliability).
Reckon I'm going with an Enlight EN7180 though I'm not completely happy with it (power supply is too weak and I can't replace it with a quiet ATX one).
Slashdot Mirror
err... try reading the article first. WiFi is included.
As another ex-MLE'er, I'm hardly surprised that the lab closed and I haven't shed any tears for it. I honestly hope that a more commercially-focused lab finds a home in Ireland but hopefully not in Dublin (yes, that's right folks, there's more to Ireland than Dublin!).
I won't waffle any more here as I've rambled on enough about it on my blog.
Blender, that wonderful open-source 3D rendering/modelling application, has a bunch of tutorial videos which are distributed using BitTorrent (to ease the load on their servers). Unfortunately, because of the negative publicity around P2P software, our administrators have blocked BitTorrent traffic and I have to use the mirror site to download them.
this is the reason it was pulled:6 8414
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=3
Apparently, there were some GPL violations in the code but it doesn't sound like a permanent problem
there are some problems.
:-(
Many of the RGB leds require particular levels of voltage etc to make them work (I'm vague here 'cos I'm a software guy) - it is not like connecting a standard red LED in a circuit. Also, getting the colours to mix properly whilst still getting the brightness takes some effort. I heard Apple spent a while trying to get the glowing logo on their notebooks to light evenly (and that's just white light!)
Secondly, producing particular RGB colours from these LEDs is extremely difficult as you have to map from the RGB space to the colour space produced by the leds (which is nothing so linear and simple as the three RGB integer values). Unfortunately, this is what I need to do
Oh, and regards the Ambient Orbs - they rely on a wireless network which it states is available across "95% of the US". Homemade alternatives with a simple serial interface (to which we can attach modems, micros or PCs) would be very useful for the rest of the world. I think Ambient Devices has missed a huge opportunity by relying on their own infrastructure (servers, the wireless network etc) instead of providing simple interfaces upon which we could all have built the cool applications mentioned in this thread (oh, yeah and they're too expensive!).
Sounds like a great open source project. Good luck and let us know how you progress,
-- Jamie
Extremely upgradable as you could add up to 9 slices turning a small desktop into a towering monstrosity. Each slice contained a 1x5.25" drive bay, 1x3.5 is memory serves me. Still have my old one sitting at home.
Hey, their cases are actually pretty good. I'm building a home entertainment center so obviously noise, heat, space and aesthetics are on my list of priorities.
Why are micro-ATX desktop cases so hard to find? Finding a good-looking one is harded than dodo shooting.
What do people think about a micro-tower case on it's side? Don't much like the thought of the DVD drive running on it's side (noise?) or the harddisk (reliability).
Reckon I'm going with an Enlight EN7180 though I'm not completely happy with it (power supply is too weak and I can't replace it with a quiet ATX one).