Friday fun: Underwriters Laboratories Turkey Fryer Demonstration

It's "Deep Fry Your Turkey" season, but instead of showing the usual video of someone torching their backyard I thought I would post this video from safetyathome. While it's not funny, it is informative:



I hope you had fun, and safe Thanksgiving ~ Jim

Friday fun: What will your people do when the network does down?

Progress on the Arduino is null at the moment, and I really couldn't find anything for tonight's post. Then I came across this add from Cisco that does a pretty good job of explaining why network uptime important:



Have fun, and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 Accelerometers

It was back in 1982 that I started working in the field of electronics. My first job in this field involved the testing of accelerometers for use in both military applications such as missiles, and for commercial applications such as oil exploration. I find it very interesting that as I am just starting to work with the Arduino that I come across this video from makemagazine on how to add an accelerometer to your Arduino project.



The accelerometer used in this project is the Memsic 2125 (.pdf) from Parallax, and it costs around $30.00 US which is pretty reasonable. As is discussed in the video accelerometers can be used in a wide range of projects, and given the cost I think some where down the road I will be picking up at least one.

By the way, here is the Arduino tutorial for the Memsic 2124 accelerometer: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AccelerometerMemsic2125

Well, that is it for now. Have fun, and have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Arduino 101 - The Button

My Arduino microcontroller board arrived late this week, so I didn't get a much of a chance to play with it. This next Arduino 101 video from makemagazine adds a proto-board and a button. It's a long video, so hang in there:



You can find out even more information this Arduino project at: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/02/howto_tuesday_arduino_101_the_button.html

Have a great weekend ~ Jim