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Okay, today we are going try to build a computer controlled Christmas Lights in 5 minutes.
I’ve been rolling around the neighborhood this late November and some people already have
their Christmas lights decorated.

Well I’ve seen many “static” Christmas lights that always stay on. Today, I will show you how
you can customize your Christmas lights by using a PLC,
a Programmable Logic Controller.

You can also check out our wiki version of on our new FREE DIY wiki too.

UPDATE: Wow, Christmas light controllers CAN BE expensive, check out these prices for these controllers…

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Here’s a look back at some of our cool and idiotic DIYs. Maybe you can digg up some ideas for the winter holidays:

OR you can goto this link to view in pictures:

(Come to think of it, we could probably hack some of our DIYs together and make a Nintendo Wii wireless controller)

• Garrett’s DIY - Upcoming Boe-Bot Hacks - Remote Controlled Insect
• Garrett’s DIY - Home Automation Project - Part One: Real-Time Clock and Calendar
• DIY - Use the golf POV for your next Ad, here’s a Nike Swoosh
• Zedomax DIY118 - HOWTO Make a Golf Club POV training aid!
• Garrett’s DIY #1 - Persistence of Vision Device
• Zedomax DIY117 - HOWTO Make a Digital Drawing Board with an old joystick in 5 minutes!
• Zedomax DIY 116- Halloween HOWTO make a talking pumpkin basket!
• Halloween Pitchfork Program Update - Flaming Trident
• DIY Circuit - Wireless Microphone transmits to FM frequency
• Zedomax DIY 115- HOWTO establish serial connection with PCs bluetooth 2.0 with ACODE-300
• Zedomax DIY 114- Halloween HOWTO make a Pitchfork LED!
• Zedomax DIY 113 - Build a bluetooth controlled Holloween Hovercraft party light!
• Zedomax DIY 112 - Zedomax Hovercraft version 2 - Asteroid!
• Zedomax DIY - Hoverboard tried??
• DIY - Make User Interface in 5 Minutes!
• DIY - Make a Ethernet Temperature Monitor
• DIY - Build a digital thermometer in 1 minute!
• DIY - Make an alarm system in 3 minutes! (Part II - Add a motion sensor)
• DIY - Make a wall clock from scratch!
• DIY - Make a computer controlled party light in 90 seconds!
• DIY - Make a touch screen sprinkler system for your lawn and garden
• DIY - Make a G-Meter for your car in 1 minute!
• Make a Touch screen Slotmachine and Blackjack in your car
• Add a NEMA17 Stepper Motor to ur App
• Add a Bar-code Scanner to ur App
• Digital Compass using CMPS03
• G Meter for your car
• Wireless Graphic LCD

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Interesting video on how pavers are made.

Pavement in American English refers to the durable surface for an area intended to sustain traffic, which can be either vehicular traffic or foot traffic. The most common modern paving methods are asphalt and concrete. In the past, brick was extensively used, as was metalling. Today, permeable paving methods are beginning to be used more for low-impact roadways and walkways.

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Getting back to some serious side of technology, we will randomly dive into nanotechnology.

What is nanotechnology?

Here’s a good Google video on nanotechnology explaining what it is:

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to regulate a large class of consumer items made with microscopic “nanoparticles” of silver, part of a new but increasingly widespread technology that may pose unanticipated environmental risks, a government official said yesterday.

The decision — which will affect the marketing of high-tech odor-destroying shoe liners, food-storage containers, air fresheners, washing machines and a wide range of other products that contain tiny bacteria-killing particles of silver — marks a significant reversal in federal policy. It also creates an unexpected regulatory hurdle for the burgeoning field of nanotechnology, which involves the creation of materials just a few ten-thousandths the diameter of a human hair.

Basically nanotechnology is a technology that kills bacteria with its particles of silver. It has been used in shoes, food-storage container, etc…etc…
The EPA will try to regulate the technology by testing and making sure that the nanosilver is safe as its disposed into our environment and does not kill the good germs too.

There are speculations that nanosilver could kill HIV and AIDS too.
More site with nanotechnology info:

zyvex

national nanotechnology initiative

nanotech-now

nanotechnology.com

Any comments appreciated in helping understand nanotechnology better.

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More PS3 bashing continue as if people were either trying to promote it or
the opposite. Anyways, it seems someone is smashing another PS3 somewhere
else in the world.
If you have better PS3 smashings, you know where to send them to.

You better checkout wii smashings too if you haven’t already…

We’ll be the first to admit that the whole “smash this object” craze is getting a tad out of hand, but the latest rendition of demolishing a perfectly functional PlayStation 3 is just revolting. While we’ve witnessed Nintendo’s Wii being cautiously dissected and publicly mangled, a couple of mountain men (and their canine companions) decided to take their newly purchased 60GB PS3 to the woodshed. After rambling about and capturing their mountaineer lifestyle in perfect fashion, they decide to crush the box with a large chunk of timber, only to make matters worse by busting out the ole hacksaw. Further abuse was bestowed care of a gas-powered chainsaw, and for the finale, it was set ablaze to cheers of evil laughter. While the motive here is certainly clear, and the tools used to inflict punishment are indeed respectable, you’d think someone willing to trash $600 (not to mention to probable near-death experience trying to acquire one) would actually show the PS3 within the box. But alas, no “real” proof is ever shown, so be sure to peep the YouTube vid after the break and chuckle at this glaring oversight.

via

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You gotta check out CMUcam if you haven’t yet. It can be controlled via a serial communications
to processors such as PIC, CUBLOC, Basic Stamp, Make Controller, and etc…

It’s a camera that was designed by Carnegie Mellon and has been around for awhile so it might be
a good solution to go with instead of starting all over from scratch.

The website explains as follows:

CMUcam is a new low-cost, low-power sensor for mobile robots. You can use CMUcam vision system to do many different kinds of on-board, real-time vision processing. Because CMUcam uses a serial port, it can be directly interfaced to other low-power processors such as PIC chips.

At 17 frames per second, CMUcam can do the following:

• track the position and size of a colorful or bright object
• measure the RGB or YUV statistics of an image region
• automatically acquire and track the first object it sees
• physically track using a directly connected servo
• dump a complete image over the serial port
• dump a bitmap showing the shape of the tracked object

Using CMUcam, it is easy to make a robot head that swivels around to track an object. You can also build a wheeled robot that chases a ball around, or even chases you around. In the Gallery, you can see pictures and videos of some of the robots we and others have built with CMUcam.

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Well, online videos ARE eating up TV time. At least, I’ve stopped watching TV personally about 2 months ago.
Personally, TV is so whacked with commercials and I don’t want to end up
as another biased TV couch-potato. Well, I didn’t understand this concept
that TV is bad for you when my high school English teacher told me over 10
years ago, but now I do.

Anyways, it is great that now you can simply type
some words and get the show you want on youtube, google, revver, spikedhumor,
revver, metacafe, msn, yahoo, and so many other sites that are popping up everyday.

You can check out javimoya, which allows you to save movies from youtube, google, and alike
to your PC or ipod.

A new survey conducted for the BBC suggests that the phenomenal rise in popularity of online video is eroding the amount of time people spend watching tradition TV. Of 2,070 people surveyed by ICM, 43% of those who watch online video on a PC or mobile device at least once a week say they watch less TV as a result. However, only 9% of the population currently watch online video regularly.

via techdigest

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Cool little LED control using PWM of PIC.

If you want to play around with some LEDs, why not hook them up to some brains (a PIC chip) and have some fun. Pete provides all the details you will need to create your own Serial Controlled RGB LED PWM Driver. The provided firmware will run on the following PIC chips: 12F629, 12F675 and 12F683.

via

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Cool video on interview with Digg CEO Jay Adelson, interesting that 70% of digg users
use Firefox. Yes, switch to firefox and stop Windows monopoly.
Getting back to the news, Digg supposedly gets about 20 million unique users in a month.
Anyway, interesting how the internet is really changing the world these days.

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