Nov
01
2011
0

Kiwicon Reminder

I’m off to Kiwicon V this coming weekend.

If you’re interested in computer security and haven’t got a ticket, I suggest you make some very last minute plans to get to Wellington for the 5th and 6th November.

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness |
Nov
28
2010
3

Stag hat with a difference

My brother recently got married and as per the rules of engagement, the lead up to the event included a Stag night.

For my Stag night, I was given a hard hat complete with a flashing LED light and plastic antlers.

I decided I wanted to make something special for my brother. Something minimalistic, but effective.

The result was this…..
(more…)

Written by John Burns in: Electronics,General Randomness,Projects |
Nov
10
2010
0

Downloading routes from a GlobalSat DG-100 with gpsbabel on Linux

This is a GlobalSat DG-100

It’s an amazing piece of Kit, but the software that comes with it is absolutely rubbish.

You can download all of the routes (and delete them from the unit) in one simple command with gpsbabel.

gpsbabel -t -i dg-100,erase -o gpx /dev/ttyUSB0 outputfile2.gpx

You’ll still need to set up the times/distance for recording for the switch positions A,B & C. I have mine set to 1,5 and 10 seconds. Easiest way to set these up is on a windows machine with DG Manager.

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness,Linux Tips,Tips |
Jun
09
2010
0

Combining two images with ImageMagick

To combine two images of the same size with ImageMagick, you simply do the following:

The following will overlay overlay.png on top of output.png

mogrify -draw "image SrcOver 0,0 0,0 'overlay.png'" output.png

While this one will overlay overlay.png on top of input.png and save it as output.png

convert input.png -draw "image SrcOver 0,0 0,0 'overlay.png'" output.png

You can download imagemagick from http://www.imagemagick.org/

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness,PC Tips |
Jun
07
2010
0

Selective colour replacement with imagemagick

Selective colour replacement is easy from the command line with imagemagick.

You can download imagemagick from http://www.imagemagick.org/

The following will replace all red (#FF0000) pixels with blue (#0000FF)

convert sourceimage.png -fill "#FF0000" -opaque "#0000FF" destimage.png

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness,Linux Tips,Mac OS X Tips,PC Tips |
Apr
25
2010
0
Apr
21
2010
0

Bear with me while I change servers

I’ve taken the plunge, and this time I’m not doing it by halves.

I’m moving from my Windows Server 2003 physical co-located server to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) running Linux.

All of the websites have been transferred across, everything else is still to be moved over.

In the meantime, if you find any problems, or anything 404′s, please flick me an email at b@john.geek.nz

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness |
Feb
15
2010
0

Live Renders of Earth

I’ve recently come across the open source software Xplanet, which will render images of the globe with very realistic results.

I render them in 512×256, 1024×512, 2048×1024 and 4096×2048 resolutions. The clouds information is obtained from weather satellites and is typically around three hours old.

I also use monthly map files so that the snow/ice on the planet is more realistic.

Check out my real time renders at http://www.john.geek.nz/earth/.

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness |
Jan
03
2010
0

I was photo bombed

It turns out, back in June I was photobombed while having my photo taken with Rob Brydon…

IXS2_0904[1]

Written by John Burns in: General Randomness |
Nov
12
2009
0

12 November 1969 – Today in Apollo History

Apollo 12 stories from Newspapers on the 12th November 1969.
(more…)

Written by John Burns in: Astronomy,General Randomness |