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Category Archives: Programs

Wavetable Synthesis

One of my favorite classes in college was a micro-controller course where we had to build an alarm-clock radio.  For extra credit, I wrote a very simple “music” module to allow students to write songs to use as alarms (instead of a boring tone or siren.)  At the time I wondered if there was a way to play real midis or multiple frequencies at once to make more advanced songs.  Sadly, I was a busy student and didn’t have time to look into it.

Now, far too late for class, I’ve come across a project using wavetable synthesis which would have been an excellent jump point for me to implement a more advanced music module.  I’ll have to play around with this concept and see if I can’t slip a new module to my old professor.

 

 
 

Rainmeter Skin

I finally decided to start using Rainmeter to monitor my system resources. I had previously used some
(admittedly very good) windows 7 widgets you can find here, but I’ve always liked the way Rainmeter looked better. When I tried to use it in the past I was turned off by the initial learning curve, specifically in customizing the ‘skins’. For example, I have a 6 core CPU but the Enigma theme only supported monitoring of 2. Today I finally decided to bite the bullet and learn some of the odd meta language used to customize Rainmeter skins and managed to create a 6 CPU system monitor solution:

 

This uses 2 skins…the original system skin supporting 2 CPUs and an additional ‘System2’ skin I created which adds CPUs 3-6. For those who might want to use it, I’ve uploaded the 2 files needed here. They’ll both need to be renamed as ‘.ini’ as I can’t upload ini files. The first will need to go in “…/Rainmeter/Skins/Enigma/Sidebar/System2” (a new folder) as System.ini

System.ini in Enigma/Sidebar/System2

The second will need to go in “…/Rainmeter/Skins/Enigma/Resources/Styles/Enigma Dark” (or you can make a similar new file in light) as SidebarSystem2.inc

SidebarSystem2.inc in Enigma/Resources/Styles/Enigma Dark

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2012 in Customizing, DIY, Programs, Software

 

Interfacing uC with Windows apps over USB

Many microcontrollers have integrated USB meaning you have the ability to hook them up to a PC and interface with them. This is something I’ve had to do before which took me more effort than I would have liked. Here is a great little example page on how to go about doing it a better way.

 

Big XBMC Update

XBMC is a vital tool in my home media setup. Anyone wanting to build a home theater PC (HTPC) that will really WOW people needs to look into XBMC.  I’ll likely post more about my personal setup on the wiki at some point in the future, but here‘s some info about the newly beta released XBMC 11.0 with a great deal of enhancements.

 
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Posted by on December 28, 2011 in HTPC, PC, Programs, Software