IP Cameras

IP Camera Troubleshooting Hell

TLDR: Among the many variables in an IP Camera networking setup, the POE standard required by the cameras is critical. POE.  Three little letters.  A relatively simple concept.  What can go wrong? So many things! The Backstory I have a zoneminder-powered home security setup running that I am very proud

drones

My Top 5 FPV Tips

TLDR: Push the throttle stick up These are my consolidated tips for getting going with flying a drone FPV ( "First Person View", or using a live video feed ). After all the technical kinks are worked out and you're ready to lift off, the following is my

development

The Streetlight Effect

A campfire skit from my childhood has been on my mind recently. It's a simple one and you may have seen or read a version of it yourself: A person is searching for something under a streetlight. A pedestrian approaches and asks, "What are you doing?"

development

StackOverflow's 2018 Survey

Being such an important hub for developers, StackOverflow conducts an annual survey to identify trends in technologies, jobs and behaviors. They just recently announced the 2018 survey results, and there were a few findings that raised my eyebrows. Are Developers Full of $hit? Right out of the gate, some things

electronics

Multimeter Maintenance

Digital multimeters have an internal battey, and it turns out that it can affect the accuracy of your readings. If your DMM is more than a few years old, a fresh battery and quick calibration are easy maintenance tasks. How it Happened to Me I had some lipo cells that

docker

Put That Mess in a Container

Virtual machines are awesome, there is no debate about that. They have also become a lot easier to use - a fact that their increasing populariry reinforces. In this post I'll argue that the tools of virtualization have become so accessible to developers that they provide entirely new,

drones

New 180 build

Once I started flying FPV with my newly build 180 quad I really never went back to flying my tricopters. As a result, I've started to break them down and recycle the components into a new quad. It wanted a backup quad because it can be a bummer

linux

Evernote Desktop Client in Ubuntu with WINE

As I've been using Ubuntu Desktop more and more, I've found good alternatives for almost all of my basic productivity applications. The one that has eluded me for a long time is the Evernote Desktop Client, but I think I've found a solution. ( The

drones

San Felipe Drone Fun

I had been warned about sand, but probably should have been more careful. The problem was, everything in San Felipe is desert or beach.

Evernote: Especially Kick-Ass for Developers

People who know me well know that I'm an evangelist for Evernote. I try to be casual about it by asking, "Do you use a note-taking app?" but I make an effort to sound super-rhetorical. A lot of people will insist that they take notes, or

drones

I Finally Built a Quad

This was my first legit build in several ways. Most notably, it was the first build where I used a pre-fab carbon fiber frame. The durability can't be beat, and that can be important when you're regularly nailing tree trunks. This is also the first quad

The Obligatory 'New Blog' Post

Another blog by a developer

ESP8266

IoT Weather Station: Part I

Building a wifi-enabled weather station with a DHT11 temperature sensor has turned into a great learning experience about power consumption and battery powering IoT devices.

running

Marathon Debrief & Results

First and foremost, I shattered my goal of a sub-4 hour finish with my time of 3:42:12 . I was really pleased. My best guess was that I would come in somewhere between 3:45:00 and 3:55:00.  ( My projection from my last article was 3:39:

running

Chasing the Sub-4 Hour Marathon

I'm going to run another marathon on May 21st.  This will be my third, and it will also be my last.  People seem to think that is a funny thing to say, but I think that I've learned all I'm going to learn. Three

garden

Time lapse photography with gphoto2, avconv and a little bit of bash

For the last two growing seasons, I've experimented with making time lapse videos of my plants sprouting.   It's an easy setup to leave in place for several weeks, and being indoors I can control the lighting. The first few attempts were decent, but there were still

drones

Fly, Crash, Rebuild, Repeat

I tried to do some nice cinematic flying today. I'm not great at this. Basically I'm trying to keep moving forward and make the turns nice and gradual.  I'm also trying to take advantage of the tricopter's natural flight characteristics. I'

photography

Canon EOS 300D resurrection - and gphoto2

Back in college (circa 2004) I bought myself a Canon 300D, which I think was the first of the 'digital rebel' line.  Digital cameras were still relatively expensive back then, in terms of megapixels per dollar spent.  The 300D is only 6.3 megapixels and I remember paying

arduino

Telemetry Project Update

This has been quite a journey already.  More than anything, I'm surprised at how many powerful new tools I've learned about.

arduino

Home Baked Telemetry System

I thought that it would be a realistic challenge to build my own telemetry system, considering that I had already worked with most of the components I wanted to use. As I have become a better pilot and experimented with FPV, I'm starting to understand why having some

drones

Switching to CC3D & OpenPilot

I recently picked up a CC3D because I figured that I had tortured myself enough dealing with Arduinos and MPU6050s.  At this point I feel no shame in buying an off-the-shelf flight controller.  I chose the CC3D because it still runs open source software ( OpenPilot, or alternatives like CleanFlight ), and

drones

Tricopter Buildng Update

Yaw Control Recently I have been having a hard time holding a consistent heading after taking off. The first version of the frame was short lived Yaw is movement along the z-axis, or like turning to the left or the right.   If the craft were a camera, it would be

drones

Tricopter Maiden Flight

It's alive! The scratch, open-source, arduino-powered tricopter has taken to the skies.