Josh San Diego

2011/03/14

Found some good AVR tutorials

Filed under: Electronics,Tech — Josh @ 15:27

So, given my recent lack of free time (and/or motivation) for writing AVR microcontroller tutorials, I’ve been taking another look at some of the tutorials out there. I’ve recently found a few that covered a lot of the material I had planned to write about, so I think I’ll sort through to find the best of those and then post those in lieu of writing my own.

This will allow me to focus more of my limited free time on creating fun projects, which will hopefully result in some cool posts in the future that may even appeal to those who have no idea what I’m talking about.

2011/02/22

Ugh

Filed under: Electronics,Tech — Josh @ 22:02

So far, the notion of setting deadlines to post content is not working so well. I’ve been sick the past week, so I’m pretty far behind at this point.

2011/02/09

What Free Time?

Filed under: Electronics,Tech — Josh @ 14:19

I seem to have overestimated the amount of free time I have. Rather than rushing to complete the tutorials this week, I think I’ll stretch it out through the end of the month with the goal of adding significant new content each week.

I’m eager to get past this stage and start working on actual projects.

2011/02/01

Next 2 weeks: Microcontroller tutorials

Filed under: Electronics,Tech — Tags: , — Josh @ 11:41

For the next 2 weeks, I plan to create a series of tutorials about programming microcontrollers. The Arduino platform is great for learning and quick prototyping, but it costs at least $20 for a compatible board so it’s not very good for multiple simultaneous projects or permanent fixtures. Atmel’s AVR family of microcontrollers (used by Arduino) cost anywhere from $2-5 standalone, so I’ll be focusing on how to program the microcontroller on its own. There are lots of existing tutorials scattered around out there, so I will probably borrow heavily from other sources and provide links for further reading.

When I’m satisfied with the tutorials I’ve put together, I’ll probably start posting some of my own projects.

My background is in software, so I am by no means an expert in the field of electronics. If you are knowledgeable in this area and see any problems with the content I post, please let me know!

2011/01/17

Status Update

Filed under: Tech — Josh @ 18:01

I’ve got some project ideas lined up, but I’m waiting on several deliveries to arrive before I can begin working on them. I’ll post some detailed project info when everything’s ready to go.

Until then, I’ll probably be updating this site a bit to accommodate the new format and new content.

2010/12/17

Updating for the sake of updating

Filed under: Tech — Josh @ 17:25

I’ve come up with a few good ideas for projects that I’d like to work on and document here, but I haven’t had as much free time as I’d like. By the end of January, I aim to pick a single project and set myself a realistic deadline for finishing it. I aim to document the steps and problem solving that go on during the project, with hopes that at the end something useful will emerge. I’ll start small and work my way up if it feels like a productive format.

2010/08/13

Technicalities

Filed under: General,Tech — Josh @ 13:27

This blog has lacked direction for a while, which is why I frequently forget that it exists. I think some time next month will be the semi-annual page redesign to make myself feel better about the lack of content. However, this time I’d also like to change the direction of the content itself – I’ve been getting into some very interesting (but relatively technical) hobbies lately, so I’m going to present some interesting links, tutorials, and info as well as documenting some of the (usually unfinished) projects that I work on for fun.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Web Development
  • Programming
  • Electronics/Robotics

If your eyes have already glazed over, never fear! I’ll have a separate category for personal updates and witty banter.

2010/04/16

Gmail drag and drop

Filed under: Web Development — Tags: , — Josh @ 16:25

Gmail has been updated to allow you to drag and drop files onto messages to attach them in Firefox 3.6 and Chrome, thanks to the new File API in HTML 5.

The Mozilla Developer Center provides some helpful info on how to do something like this: Using files from web applications.

2009/12/01

Tahiti

Filed under: Vacation — Tags: , , , — Josh @ 23:17

Kelly and I went on a cruise in French Polynesia. It was nice getting away from the cruel San Diego weather. :-) I’ll have to post some pictures later, but we saw a lot of cool things in the water, including some spinner dolphins and a humpback whale that breached(jumped partly out of the water) several times.

2009/11/05

Anniversary cake

Filed under: General,Wedding — Josh @ 12:18

On our first anniversary, Kelly and I celebrated the time-honored tradition of eating the top of our wedding cake. The notion of eating a year-old cake may initially seem disgusting, but actually we were quite surprised at how well-preserved and tasty it was. My mom made the cakes for our wedding, and she took it upon herself to preserve and store the top section of our wedding cake.

In order to store the cake for such a long period of time, she first wrapped the entire cake layer in saran wrap. Top to bottom, and all around, it was well wrapped. Next, it was wrapped in a layer of aluminum foil. It sounds simple enough, but we’ve heard some horror stories from people who just stuck their cake in the freezer without wrapping it, and a year later they take a single bite of frost-bitten ugliness before dropping the rest of it into the trashcan. That’s a shame. I’m glad my mom knew enough about cake embalming to preserve it so we could share memories with each other, our friends, and our families. (it was a hefty chunk of cake!)

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