TechnologyIQ

MarsEdit 4.5: WordPress Media Syncing via Red Sweater Blog [Shared]

MarsEdit is the software that has kept all  my blogs humming for years now. I recommend it to any Mac user who is blogging via WordPress or Blogger, although it supports other blog engines as well. It is great to be able to edit locally. I have never really liked the WordPress web-based editor and MarsEdit has allowed me to avoid it almost entirely. — Douglas  This update brings long-awaited media syncing functionality for WordPress blogs. After you refresh your blog in MarsEdit 4.5, all th...

2021 Best Arduino Uno Projects via All3DP [Arduino]

One of the most useful tools you can make with an Arduino is a CNC machine! In addition to the Arduino Uno, the most significant items you’ll need to make a CNC router are a few NEMA 17 stepper motors, a Dremel, and some 3D printed parts. While it won’t be able to cut through metal, it has more than enough power for cutting wood and plastic. It’s also capable of engraving PCBs. Strap a pen or a laser diode onto the toolhead and you’ve got a makeshift pen plotter or laser cutter. User TheT...

How to master the Lightroom app for next-level photos on iPhone and Android via TechRadar

Smartphone photography has come a long way, but that doesn't mean your phone doesn't sometimes need a helping hand to reach its full potential. The best photo editing apps can help take your snaps to the next level – and one of our favorites is the Lightroom app.   The native camera apps on iPhone and Android are fantastic, offering a plethora of automated and advanced controls, but they often lack some of the more expert features you’d get with mirrorless cameras and DSLRs. Not to mention...

AI Powered Coffee Maker Knows A Bit Too Much About You via Hackaday

People keep warning that Skynet and the great robot uprising is not that far away, what with all this recent AI and machine-learning malarky getting all the attention lately. But we think going straight for a terminator robot army is not a very smart approach, not least due to a lack of subtlety. We think that it’s a much better bet to take over the world one home appliance at a time, and this AI Powered coffee maker might just well be part of that master plan. PCB stackup with Pi Zero sat...

11 Wonderful Waze Settings Everyone Should Be Using via Lifehacker [Shared]

I was a big user of Waze, at least before the pandemic, and I plan on using it a lot once this is all over. I use it for ETA estimates, routing, route changes due to traffic and closures and more. Here are some tips on tuning it to your preferences. Google’s got the navigation app market locked down tight, owning two of the most popular navigation apps for Android and iPhone. Google Maps has lots of excellent features and is pre-loaded on Android phones sold in most places around the world,...

A $50 CNC via hack a day [Arduino]

In theory, there’s isn’t much to building a CNC machine. Hook a bit to a motor and move the motor around with some lead screws and stepper motors. Easy. But, of course, the devil is in the details. [DAZ] made a nice-looking and inexpensive rig that probably isn’t the most precise CNC in the world, but it looks like it does a good enough job and he claims he spent about $50 on it. The video below shows some of the work it has done, and it doesn’t look bad. This isn’t a rainy afternoon proje...

Convert Any Analog Camera to Digital With This DIY Hack via Fstoppers

The additional steps and costs involved with shooting on film often put many photographers off. What if you could have the best of both worlds and use digital in your older film cameras? Digital and analog cameras have for the most part stayed on opposite sides of the track. There have been several attempts in the past to merge these two worlds but nothing concrete has ever taken off. Enter stage left Befinitiv who recently took it upon himself to build a custom film cartridge for his anal...

How to download everything you've posted on Instagram via Mashable!

Looking for a way to obtain all your Instagram content? There is a quick and easy way to do so. Instagram offers a free "Download Data" function that downloads all the content you've ever posted to Instagram, or any actions you've made on the site such as comments and likes, and sends it all to you via email. Here's how to make use of this simple process to save all your Instagram content. Read How to download everything you've posted on Instagram via Mashable! An interesting link found ...

Upgrade Your Bike With This Awesome Arduino Project via All3DP [Arduino]

The majority of bikes are boring. They have two wheels, some handles, a brake or two, and a seat about as comfortable as a jagged rock. They do not have turn signals, brake lights, or GPS. But what if they could? Enter our hero, young Collin Wentzien. Juicy hero backstory now – after suffering an injury that deprived him of the ability to enjoy his passions of cross country and soccer, Collin was restricted to exercising only with a bike. A grim fate indeed. After using an ordinary, boring...

Android on Raspberry Pi 4: How to Make It Work via All3DP [Raspi]

The Android Operating System (OS) is currently the most widely used OS in the world. Launched in 2008, few would’ve thought it would have such a massive impact on our lives. Many of our smartphones and TVs, as well as embedded and IoT devices, run on some form of Android. Android as an OS is primarily aimed at mobile devices. Its free and open-source nature has contributed significantly to its development. Developers have modified the base Android OS and customized it to suit various appli...

Google Calendar will let you record where you’re working to help organize office meetings via The Verge

Google is adding an option to its Calendar service to let you show where you’re working on any given day of the week, the company has announced. The feature will start rolling out from August 30th for users on select Google Workspace plans, and will be accessible via Calendar’s settings menu alongside its existing working hours options, as well as on the weekly calendar view below where it shows each day’s dates. Available work locations include “Office,” “Home,” “Unspecified,” or “Somewher...

This App Identifies Birds by Their Songs via kottke.org [Apps]

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology recently added the ability to identify birds from hearing their birdsong to their Merlin Bird ID app — a “Shazam for bird songs” as Fast Company says. You just start recording with your phone and the app starts telling you the birds it’s hearing. Here’s how it works: Automatic song ID has been a dream for decades, but analyzing sound has always been extremely difficult. The breakthrough came when researchers, including Merlin lead researcher Grant Van Horn, b...

It’s easier than ever to add two-way communication to Arduino devices via Arduino Blog [Arduino]

There’s a brand new device-to-device communication feature now available in the Arduino IoT Cloud. It’s something we’ve been working on for a long time. So we’re excited to see how it’ll add a whole new connected dimension to your Arduino projects. Read It’s easier than ever to add two-way communication to Arduino devices via Arduino Blog An interesting link found among my daily reading

Meet the Duo Behind Online Robotics Education Platform CodeJoy via MAKE: Blog

Kelsey Derringer and Matt Chilbert are co-founders of CodeJoy, producing live, interactive, online shows that give kids live control of their cardboard robots, all from a studio in Pittsburgh. In doing so, they are creating a new, fresh fusion of education and entertainment through an interactive medium.  Make: Tell us about yourself, and why you launched CodeJoy. Kelsey Derringer: I’m an educator who started out as a middle and high school English teacher, not a STEM teacher at all. And ...

This Raspberry Pi Guitar Pedal Uses Machine Learning for Effects via Tom's Hardware [Raspberry Pi]

When the soldering iron gets hot, makers have been known to cook up some sweet music on the Raspberry Pi. In some cases, we mean that literally, like today with Keith Bloemer's NeuralPi project. NeuralPi is a Raspberry Pi-based guitar pedal that uses machine learning to create custom effects. We've always insisted the best Raspberry Pi projects are the ones you can personalize—in this case, you can train the system with existing models or a new one of your own to get the sound you want. R...

These wildfire tracker maps show smoke, hot spots, and air quality by zip code via Fast Company

Now that midsummer is synonymous with out-of-control wildfires, researchers and government agencies are putting out impressive online mapping systems to help people understand their peril. As California, Oregon, Washington, and other states brace for another devastating wildfire season, fire mapping has improved substantially since last year. Here’s where to bookmark... Read These wildfire tracker maps show smoke, hot spots, and air quality by zip code via Fast Company An interesting link...

This machine stacks dominoes automatically via ブログドットテレビ [Arduino]

Arranging dominoes in such a way that they knock each other down in sequence can be a fun pastime, but what if you would like a machine to take care of lining them up for you? As seen in the video below, Lewis of DIY Machines has come up with just such a device featuring 3D-printable parts and an Arduino Uno for control. The project uses a single gearmotor to both move the robot over the floor and actuate the stacking mechanism, creating consistent spacing without the need for additional s...

Raspberry Pi Traffic Light Changes Based on Air Quality via Tom's Hardware [Raspberry Pi]

This Raspberry Pi project looks like a toy but it's actually a useful air quality reporting system. It was created by maker Dmytro Panin who used a toy traffic light alongside a Raspberry Pi 3B+ to create the final design. The best Raspberry Pi projects improve our quality of life and this project is no exception. According to Panin, his area is currently experiencing a season of peat fires which can cause the smog levels of the city to increase dramatically and unexpectedly. This project ...

How to change Alexa’s voice via The Verge

My wife has been asking for this since we first started using Siri and Alexa. I changed all of our the moment I found out. Say. “Alexa, change your voice” If this doesn’t work, you can use the Alexa app to change it from your smartphone. — Douglas Alexa’s pleasant, feminine voice has filled the homes of millions over the past few years, but now Amazon has finally released a masculine counterpart for it. Amazon is late to this — both Apple and Google have offered different voices, both fe...

A Piece of Paper Might Fix JoyCon Drift via Extremetech

  JoyCon drift has been a problem for the Switch ever since the device launched. While it’s done absolutely nothing to dent the hardware’s meteoric popularity, it’s been an annoyance and an unwanted additional cost for an unknown number of players since the system debuted. The problem is magnified on the Switch Lite because that console can’t swap JoyCons for a new set. Nintendo has faced multiple class-action lawsuits worldwide, though the company has steadfastly refused to fix the proble...

Arduino Powered Painting Robot : 11 Steps (with Pictures) via Instructables [Arduino]

Have you ever wondered if a robot could make mesmerizing paintings and art? In this project I attempt to make that a reality with an Arduino Powered Painting Robot. The objective is for the robot to be able to make paintings on its own and use a reference image as a guide to replicate an artwork. I used the power of CAD and digital fabrication to create a robust chassis onto which I mounted an arm that could dip the paint brush into one of the 7 paint containers and draw on the canvas. The...

What Should Be a Student’s First Programming Language? via The New Stack [Shared]

It’s a question that’s fascinated educators for decades. When students first begin to learn computer science — which programming language should they start with? One person who’s given it a lot of thought is Mark Guzdial, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan who has also conducted his own research in the fields of computer science education. And two different colleagues had recently suggested it didn’t matter which language was taught first to CS students, which got h...

How to Track Satellite Fly-Bys with Raspberry Pi via Tom's Hardware

With SpaceX’s Starlink being made available in my area, I became curious about just how many satellites were overhead at any given time. Fortunately, the US Space Command tracks and makes available data for tracking the live positions of objects in orbit. We can download this data, and use a Raspberry Pi and some speakers to announce when a particular satellite is making an overhead pass. You can also get an SMS message sent to your phone in addition to the audio.  Read How to Track Satell...

German scientists built a high-resolution microscope out of Lego bricks via Ars Technica

German scientists have built a high resolution microscope out of Lego parts and components salvaged from a mobile phone, according to a recent paper published in The Biophysicist. They found that children who undertook the project—including building their microscopes and conducting several at-home experiments—gained enhanced understanding of how microscopy works. It's part of an ongoing "frugal science" trend: using cheap consumer hardware and open-source software to build low-cost scientif...

This DIY domino clock tells the time using three LED-lit tiles via Arduino Blog

After coming across Carbon Design Group’s Domino Wall Clock, which uses electronic magnetic coil motors to reveal white dots, Instructables member “Kothe” decided to create a simplified version of their own. The clock is comprised of three custom dominoes — the first tile for hours, the second and third for minutes. Unlike its inspiration, Kothe’s device uses addressable RGB LEDs as dots that allow for a variety of colors to shine through. Read This DIY domino clock tells the time using t...

The chaos game creates patterns from random dice rolls via Boing Boing

Watch a Barnsley fern and other cool patterns emerge from plotting random dice rolls on paper or onscreen. Mathematician Ben Sparks explains the chaos game with a few variants. If that's your bag, you might also like Rob's post on the related Sierpinsky triangles. Read The chaos game creates patterns from random dice rolls via Boing Boing An interesting link found among my daily reading

Intruder Detection Using Raspberry Pi Pico and thermal camera via Open Electronics

The home security camera does a good job, but it may not work in complete darkness. You also don’t want your gadget to trigger a false alarm if it detects, for example, a cat. In this project we will see how to build a small-scale system that just turns on an LED when it detects a person in light or dark conditions using a Raspberry Pi Pico and a thermal camera. We use Seeed Wio Terminal for the collection of data that is saved on a micro SD card integrated in the Wio terminal. Read Intrud...

FX: a command-line JSON processing tool via Adafruit Industries

  FX is a command-line JSON data file processing tool. It can be installed via npm, brew or downloaded as a standalone binary. It can work in two modes: cli and interactive. fx comes in handy with a curl command. If you have some API which returns JSON and you want to dig into the structure or just see it, pipe JSON into fx. fx has a really neat interactive mode for digging into JSON. Read FX: a command-line JSON processing tool #JSON #JavaScript @antonmedv via Adafruit Industries – Mak...

Monitor water quality anywhere in the world with WaterAid via Arduino Blog

WaterAid consists of a measurement unit that senses water pH, turbidity, and temperature, as well as atmospheric temperature and humidity. Data is relayed to the system’s backend via a cellular connection, using an onboard MKR GSM 1400. Collected information from one or more devices is then displayed on a Soracom Lagoon dashboard for water monitoring from anywhere in the world! Not only can a fleet of WaterAids be used to continuously track a river, lake, or any other body of water, but in...

FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web via The Verge

Android and Windows users will finally be able to join FaceTime calls. During its WWDC keynote, Apple announced that FaceTime is going to be available on the web so users can call in from Android devices and Windows PCs. The video calling service was previously only available on iOS and Mac devices. Apple is turning FaceTime into a bit more of a Zoom-like video calling service with this update. FaceTime is also going to allow you to grab a link to a scheduled call so that you can share it ...

Google Workspace Productivity Tools Are Now Free for Everyone via iPhone Hacks

  Google started making all of its services like Docs, Sheet, Chat, and others accessible everywhere. This was limited to only Google Workspace accounts, up until now. Starting today, Google is making its Workspace productivity tools free for everyone with a Google account. The Workspace service makes it easier for you to access other Google services when you’re in another one. For example, say you’re writing a mail, and you’ve to attach a Google Sheet in the mail. What you’ll usually do ...

Neural Networks Emulate Any Guitar Pedal For $120 via Hackaday [Raspi]

It’s a well-established fact that a guitarist’s acumen can be accurately gauged by the size of their pedal board- the more stompboxes, the better the player. Why have one box that can do everything when you can have many that do just a few things? Jokes aside, the idea of replacing an entire pedal collection with a single box is nothing new. Your standard, old-school stompbox is an analog affair, using a combination of filters and amplifiers to achieve a certain sound. Some modern multi-ef...

HackSpace Magazine Issue 43 – Only the Best: Mini Hot Plate Preheater via Adafruit Industries

Sometimes a soldering iron just isn’t the right tool for the job. After you learn to solder through-hole  components, you’ll often find yourself soldering surface mount components. And although you can solder them by hand, a reflow oven or hotplate is much easier and more reliable. They can be big and expensive, but not this little hotplate from Adafruit. I know a few people who have this handy little hotplate, and it works great. It’s perfect for rework, preheating, or even reflowing solde...

Tell time and temperature with sliding numbers via Arduino Blog [Arduino]

While dial clocks are functional and well-understood, for something a bit more uniquely styled, Luuk Esselbrugge has created a 3D-printed timekeeping unit with four rows of sliding numbers. Read Tell time and temperature with sliding numbers via Arduino Blog amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "technologyiq-20"; amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketpla...

Do You Fear the Robots? (CARTOON) via Small Business Trends

Read Do You Fear the Robots? (CARTOON) via Small Business Trends An interesting link found among my daily reading

Algorithm Visualizer

  # Algorithm Visualizer > Algorithm Visualizer is an interactive online platform that visualizes algorithms from code. [](https://github.com/algorithm-visualizer/algorithm-visualizer/graphs/contributors) [](https://github.com/algorithm-visua...

Random Robot Makes Random Art via hack a day [Raspberry Pi]

For the price of a toothbrush and a small motor with an offset weight, a bristlebot is essentially the cheapest robot that can be built. The motor shakes the toothbrush and the bristle pattern allows the robot to move, albeit in a completely random pattern. While this might not seem like a true robot that can interact with its environment in any meaningful way, [scanlime] shows just how versatile this robot – which appears to only move randomly – can actually be used to make art in non-rand...

When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked via JSTOR Daily

The doorbell. The intercom. The elevator. Once upon a time, beginning in the late nineteenth century, pushing the button that activated such devices was a strange new experience. The electric push button, the now mundane-seeming interface between human and machine, was originally a spark for wonder, anxiety, and social transformation. Read When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked via JSTOR Daily An interesting link found among my daily reading

The TMD-1 is a Turing machine demonstrator via Arduino Blog [Arduino]

According to Michael Gardi, although you can find numerous stunning Turing machine implementations on the Internet, their complexity tends to detract from the simplicity of what a Turing machine actually does. In order to easily show how they work, he decided to create a demonstrator with the actual calculations handled by an Arduino Mega. The console, dubbed TMD-1, displays a “tape” state on the top of the device using eight servo-controlled flip tiles that write 1s or 0s, while a series ...

How to stop Amazon Echo from asking you to buy stuff via CNBC

In a thread on Reddit over the weekend, some Amazon Echo owners complained about unwanted commercial messages from Alexa. Sometimes if you ask Alexa a question, like the time, it’ll follow up with asking if you want recommendations for things to buy. Here’s how to stop Alexa from doing that. Read How to stop Amazon Echo from asking you to buy stuff via CNBC An interesting link found among my daily reading

How Binary Search Makes Computers Much, Much Faster via Tom Scott on YouTube [Video]

Sinclair BASIC For Today via Hackaday

If you are of a certain age, your first exposure to computer programming was probably BASIC. For a few years, there were few cheaper ways to program in BASIC than the Sinclair ZX series of computers. If you long for those days, you might find the 1980-something variant of BASIC a little limiting. Or you could use SpecBasic from [Paul Dunn]. SpecBasic is apparently reasonably compatible with the Spectrum, but lets you use your better hardware. For example, instead of a 256×192 8-color scree...

SeedGerm Raspberry Pi-based platform for automated seed imaging via Geeky Gadgets [Raspberry Pi]

A new article published to the official Raspberry Pi blog this week reveals more details about SeedGerm, a Raspberry Pi powered platform designed for automated seed imaging. The new platform has been created by researchers at the John Innes Centre for plant and microbial science. Offering a machine learning driven image analysis platform to acquire a range of seed germination image collections for different crop species . Read SeedGerm Raspberry Pi-based platform for automated seed imaging...

This website has 17,000 3D scans of famous sculptures and cultural artifacts -- Scan The World, The Open Source Museum via Boing Boing

This website has 17,000 3D scans of famous sculptures and cultural artifacts -- Scan The World, The Open Source Museum via Boing Boing Scan the World has thousands of high-resolution scans of statues, sculptures, and other 3D museum pieces saved in the STL format. You can upload them to 3D modeling apps or print them on a 3D printer. Read This website has 17,000 3D scans of famous sculptures and cultural artifacts -- Scan The World, The Open Source Museum via Boing Boing amzn_assoc_placem...

Scanner Captures View-Master Discs as Glorious 3D Videos via hack a day

The toys of the past may have been cheesy, but you can’t deny the creativity needed to build something engaging without any electronics. One stalwart toy from this category is View-Master, the little stereoscopic slide viewer that brought the world to life in seven vibrant scenes. And digitizing these miniature works of art is the purpose of this neat View-Master reel scanner project. Read Scanner Captures View-Master Discs as Glorious 3D Videos via hack a day An interesting link found am...

Two-Part, Four-Wire Air Quality Meter Shows How It’s Done via hack a day [Arduino]

The Bosch BME680 is a super-capable environmental sensor, and [Random Nerd Tutorials] has married it to the ESP32 to create an air quality meter that serves as a great tutorial on not just getting the sensor up and running, but also in setting up a simple (and optional) web server to deliver the readings. It’s a great project that steps through everything from beginning to end, including how to install the necessary libraries and how to program the ESP32, so it’s the perfect weekend project...

Clubhouse is no longer an iOS exclusive via Input

Read Clubhouse is no longer an iOS exclusive via Input An interesting link found among my daily reading

Clubhouse comes to Android after more than a year of iOS exclusivity via The Verge

Read Clubhouse comes to Android after more than a year of iOS exclusivity via The Verge An interesting link found among my daily reading

How To Trace An Image To Vector with Illustrator | Color and Monotone via Design Made Simple on YouTube

In this tutorial I’ll be demonstrating how to trace and image to vector with Illustrator, both in color and in monotone. For this lesson I’ll be using the Image Trace feature in Adobe Illustrator, which allows us to make auto tracings of images as opposed to manually tracing them with something like the Pen Tool. Read How To Trace An Image To Vector with Illustrator | Color and Monotone via Design Made Simple on YouTube amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_search_bar = "true"; amz...

Hedy: A programming language you can learn gradually via Adafruit Industries

Hedy is a new programming language with some new features: The nice thing about Hedy is that Hedy is gradual. That means that you do not have to learn all rules at once. The first few levels do not have that many rules, so you can get used to programming comfortably. In every level they add new rules, increasing the number of commands that you know. Commands are instructions for a computer. Hedy is meant for all kids that want to learn programming! You do need to be able to read English wi...