I'm a 35 year old UIUC Computer Engineer building mobile apps, websites and hardware integrations with an interest in 3D printing, biotechnology and Arduinos.
Light Bulb Temperatures
So I got bored one day and happen to have an infrared thermometer. I thought it would be interesting to know just how much heat comes off light bulbs. Its more than you would think. But keep in mind, this is an IR thermometer being pointed directly at a light source that could throw off extra IR emissions. The numbers might not be the [...]
Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life Review
Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life by Marcus Wohlsen This book is an interesting overview of the DIY BIO movement and a quick ~200 page read. Each chapter is a new topic/interview of some part of the DIY BIO movement and the author does a pretty good job balancing bias by showing the good it can do and the safety [...]
Dual Bay NAS Test Run
If there is one thing to learn from working in IT, it is that technology doesn’t always work the way you plan. I recently upgraded a single drive 2TB Iomega NAS (network attached storage) with a dual bay Buffalo Linkstation NAS because I was concerned about the safety of the data being stored on it. When I first started [...]
Server Virtualization with Proxmox on an Intel Atom
Let’s be honest, no one is going to promote doing this. But I wanted to run a development server in my bedroom — I want something silent and something that run 24/7 without being noticeable on my electric bill. It is only going to be used in development so it doesn’t need too much processing power, just the [...]
Arduino LCD DHT11 Temperature – Humidity Sensor
As a first useful project on Arduino, a DHT11 sensor is a great place to start. The DHT11 is a simple digital temperature/humidity sensor that easily connects to any Arduino. Most sample programs just take the reading and output it to the serial port. This example code will let you connect a LCD screen and track the min and max [...]
Watch out for Splunk 6 Update
To be honest, I’ve been really impressed with splunk until now. So when version 6 came out I thought it would be a home run. But then I installed it. WHAT TO EXPECT Be ready for it to reindex all of your old data, double its hard drive space usage, bring your computer to its knees in performance as it reindexes and it has [...]
Mobile App Fonts
Mobile app fonts are a great way to make any app look more professional. Though using custom fonts can be a licensing nightmare, so what are your native options for fonts? Are there any native fonts that work on both iOS and Android? Short answer, no. Their are system default fonts but the spacing and sizes won’t line up perfectly. [...]