Author Archives: dwatts

BeagleBoard XM and Ubuntu 11.04 – The Big Dog Still Has a Burr in its Paw

As I wrote back in December, I switched from running Ubuntu 10.10 to Angstrom on my Beagleboard XM because I was unhappy with Ubuntu’s speed.  Some of Ubuntu’s code isn’t ready for the XM’s 1 gigahertz processor, so the processor … Continue reading

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Netduino Meets World

[Updated August 6: Added a couple of tips to the section on using minicom to configure the XBee.] [Updated August 7: Added "Windows Weirdness" section with workarounds for problems with pySerial on Windows] Note: This article is an installment in … Continue reading

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A Nimbits Gadget: Programmer’s Show And Tell

Updated June 4: I’ve corrected a couple of things, as marked in blue. Updated Dec 3: I made a small code change to fix the autoscale feature, as marked in green below. In my last post, I gave a user’s … Continue reading

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A Nimbits Gadget: Minding the Data Store

Updated June 4: I’ve corrected a couple of things, as marked in blue. Also, developers might be interested in my follow-up blog entry A Nimbits Gadget: Programmer’s Show And Tell Updated Dec 3/11: I fixed a broken feature: autoscaling of … Continue reading

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Netduino: A Little Help From Its Friends

Note: This article is an installment in a series about building a plant light controller (and beyond) on the Netduino microcontroller platform.  For previous articles in the series, click here. If you’ve made the switch to programming with .Net Micro … Continue reading

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Tweet-A-Watt: Beyond the Twitter, Part Deux

This article continues my earlier post about web-based services for monitoring your electricity usage using Tweet-A-Watt. Last time I focused on Pachube – today I’ll explain the process of connecting a Tweet-A-Watt to Nimbits. Nimbits Overview Nimbits has a lot … Continue reading

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Tweet-A-Watt: Beyond the Twitter

As I’ve written before, I really like the idea behind Adafruit’s Tweet-A-Watt project, which uses a modified Kill-A-Watt box and an Xbee transmitter to create an inexpensive home energy monitor. I’ve been running one 24/7 for over a year, and … Continue reading

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Netduino: Ordering Off the Menu

The source code for this article can be downloaded here: LightControllerWithMenu.zip. This is the 5th in a series of projects for the Netduino and Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Bundle. The first four articles in the series were: Netduino Enters the … Continue reading

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Netduino: Here Comes The Night

This is the 4th in a series of projects for the Netduino and Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Bundle. The first three articles in the series were: Netduino Enters the Grove Netduino: Time and Weather Netduino: Let There Be Light As … Continue reading

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Netduino: Let There Be Light

This is the 3rd in a series of projects for the Netduino and Seeed Studio’s Grove Starter Bundle. This installment is intended to create a plant light that automatically switches on and off at a pre-set time of the day … Continue reading

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