TheKSmith (About That...) http://theksmith.com Hobbies, Life & Random Goodies Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:58:12 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 customized 1/16 Losi Mini-SCT (short course truck) http://theksmith.com/hobbies-interests/customized-116-losi-mini-sct-short-truck/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=customized-116-losi-mini-sct-short-truck http://theksmith.com/hobbies-interests/customized-116-losi-mini-sct-short-truck/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:54:20 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=441 mmm.... stickers!

i did this last year, but haven't updated the blog in a while...

Aimee got me a Losi Mini-SCT R/C truck last year for my birthday. i had been wanting to get back into R/C (i sold all my old nitro and some electric stuff several years ago).

here's the SCT stock after a couple runs:

stock (cat not included from Losi)

i never did a ton with my old R/C bodies, so i thought i'd try to spruce this one up a bit...…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/hobbies-interests/customized-116-losi-mini-sct-short-truck/feed/ 0 installing Linux Mint 12 inside a virtual machine running on Windows 7 64-bit using the free VMware Player (and configuring VMware Tools) http://theksmith.com/technology/linux-mint-12-virtual-machine/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=linux-mint-12-virtual-machine http://theksmith.com/technology/linux-mint-12-virtual-machine/#comments Fri, 23 Dec 2011 06:06:05 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=401

i've been playing with several Linux distros lately, running them as virtual machines with Windows 7 64bit as my host OS. my first attempts at getting the latest Ubuntu (11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot") and then Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" installed and fully working with VMware tools were a little chaotic. so i thought i would document the process for any other VMware/Linux newbies.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/linux-mint-12-virtual-machine/feed/ 5 Death Burro part 6: into the (corporate) wild… http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-6-into-wild/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-burro-part-6-into-wild http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-6-into-wild/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:20:48 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=326 DeathBurro was released as 1.0.0.0 beta yesterday!

beta = coded till the last minute and didn't test

i took donkey into Aimee's work during her department's Christmas lunch. we had a little trouble getting on the network, all were either secured with EAP-TLS or browser login & terms-acceptance pages. there are ways to make this work, and so we'll get it going eventually.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-6-into-wild/feed/ 1 Death Burro part 5: where the hell is donkey? http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-5-where-donkey/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-burro-part-5-where-donkey http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-5-where-donkey/#comments Sun, 20 Nov 2011 23:46:03 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=313 santa's workshop

donkeys cause trouble. they aren't called asses for no reason.

quite a while back donkey started actin real funny like. turning off randomly, locking up the screen, not coming on at all on the first try. eventually, even when he would spring to life, the touchscreen input was upside down (making it nearly impossible to just navigate the options screens to reset him)...…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-5-where-donkey/feed/ 0 Death Burro part 4: them’s tha guts http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-4-thems-tha-guts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-burro-part-4-thems-tha-guts http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-4-thems-tha-guts/#comments Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:00:13 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=304 this post will serve as the hardware manual for Death Burro for those that will own him soon, so they can continue where i leave off on the next version!

here was donkey yesterday, guts masked ready for a final coat of flat black to cover some scratches and what not.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-4-thems-tha-guts/feed/ 0 Death Burro part 3: before giving life… http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-3/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-burro-part-3 http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-3/#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:45:55 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=272 so i promised next time we'd be stuffing the donkey, but i had to take a step back for a last few things. i beat him up pretty bad, but he's wearing makeup to cover the cuts and bruises, so no-one has to know!

i received a request from the lead dev where donkey will end up that he be painted flat black.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-3/feed/ 0 when open-source doesn’t work http://theksmith.com/technology/open-source-work/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=open-source-work http://theksmith.com/technology/open-source-work/#comments Fri, 27 May 2011 14:58:47 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=251 arm gcj no workie workie

i'd like to try and compile a small Java app to native bytecode for a specific ARM-Linux board to see what the performance differences is (versus running through the Java SE interpreter). so far no love.

 

my impression of free open source software...

research this whole cross-compiling idea and Java compilers for a couple days.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/open-source-work/feed/ 0 Death Burro part 2: deconstructing donkey http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-burro-part-2 http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-2/#comments Fri, 27 May 2011 13:35:08 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=230 at first, i approached the donkey from behind....

i already had some LED strips that i was planning to use in the donkey. my thought was that if i put them inside of him, light would pour from all the little welding holes. i figured i could just open him from an existing seam on the bottom, shove everything inside, drill a hole for a power port and be done.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-part-2/feed/ 0 i love the smell of solder in the morning! http://theksmith.com/technology/love-smell-solder-morning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=love-smell-solder-morning http://theksmith.com/technology/love-smell-solder-morning/#comments Fri, 20 May 2011 21:08:05 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=217 Weller FTW

it's been years since i've soldered anything beyond medium gauge wire splices, but with a new project, it was time this week to dust off the trusty 12 watt Weller pencil.

the first thing i did was solder nine 26 AWG stranded leads from a hacked up serial cable to the tiny ass pads on this microcontroller board i have.…

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]]> http://theksmith.com/technology/love-smell-solder-morning/feed/ 0 Death Burro, an embedded programming & hardware interface experiment http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-embedded-programming-hardware-interface-experiment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=death-burro-embedded-programming-hardware-interface-experiment http://theksmith.com/technology/death-burro-embedded-programming-hardware-interface-experiment/#comments Fri, 20 May 2011 18:56:21 +0000 TheKSmith http://theksmith.com/?p=200 i call him Death Burro

"make the donkey light-up when someone breaks the build" - that's how it all started....

 

backstory

so my GF Aimee is a Software QA - at her work they have an internal application named Death Burrito which has a donkey logo (that's it's own story). so i guess this actually started when someone bought one of those little road-side welded metal-art sculptures of a donkey in for the team.…

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