Lazy Cow Projects

Here is a short demo of my darth vader build indicator.

ServiiMetro allows you to update your Serviio (http://www.serviio.org) dlna settings directly from your windows phone. Now you don't even need to leave your couch to update your settings.

*Please report any issues or feature request by clicking on the send feedback button. *

ServiiMetro makes use of the serviio api and has no affiliation with serviio.org

ServiiMetro includes a lookup to ServiioDb.com for conveniently adding new online resources. ServiiMetro has no affiliation with ServiiDb.com.

Main Features

Easy detection of existing serviio servers

Manage multiple servers 

Service management

Force refresh

Manage online resources

Device management

Transcoding settings

Library settings

Meta-data settings

Presentation settings

Configure remote access

Manage youtube feed subscriptions on serviio directly from youtube. If you use serviio as your DLNA media server then you can watch you favourite youtube video directly from your TV, xbox, playstation or mobile phone.

Requirements

Serviio (http://www.serviio.org/)

Serviio youtube plugin (http://forum.serviio.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3276)

Manage your playlists

Manage from your playlists

Manage other queries and playlists

Add directly from your search query

Add user feeds

Add other playlists

How to setup your serviio connection

click on chrome customize icon > settings > extensions > Serviio options

I'm currently between projects and just playing around. After hearing about code retreat and watching a video by Corey Haines that mentions conways game of live. I decided it was a good way to waste 3 hours.

So anyway, I got it to work.

The source code (C#,WPF) is here  (note: This was using the "get it done" approach and so the code is slightly messy. Only bit that I quite like is the fluent rule system).

new Rule().Live().CellWithFewerThan(2).Neighbours().Dies(), new Rule().Live().CellWithTwoOrThree().Neighbours().Lives(), new Rule().Live().CellWithMoreThan(3).Neighbours().Dies(), new Rule().Dead().CellWithExactly(3).Neighbours().Lives()

I’m a big fan of dimecast video tutorials. One of the tutorials put onto a tool called Tree surgeon. This is a great tool that allows project generation from template. Unfortunately the project seems to have gone dormant.

I’ve used this tool for a long time but stopped using it because it became laborious to update the templates every time. Also the templates did not really provide all the flexibility that I required.

I needed the following

Easy updating of template

Template testing

Templating of other project types

So here is my simple solution. For now it is simply a linqpad file.

https://code.google.com/p/lazycowprojects/source/browse/CloneSolution.linq

How it works

It basically copies a folder and renames all folders and replaces a key word within all the text files. So I have a template project in folder “MainSolutionTemplate”. I can then update and customize this template solution. Once the template is working as required I can just run the linqpad file to create a clone of the project with a different name. It is fast to update the template and simple to clone.

Try it, simply update the following variables to point to the correct input template and output folder. Then run it and enter the new projects name

// the base of the template folder string fromFolder = @"C:\Dev\Templates\"; // the template name string solutionName = @"MainSolutionTemplate"; // the base of the output folder string toFolder = @"C:\Dev\Projects\"; // the new project name string newSolutionName = @"NewProject";

Everyone uses RDP, it is a great tool for fast access to remote desktops. However it can be cumbersome to take control of the whole machine when all you want to do is use one application. With VMWare you can use unity to simulate the application. Turns out RDP can do the same, you just need to hack the rdp files.

So what do you get?

Quick how to?

On Remote Machine:

Change the following registry settings:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\TsAppAllowList. fDisabledAllowList to 1.

On Local Machine:

Create normal RDP connection and save it

Open in saved file in notepad and set the following

Set remoteapplicationmode:i:1

Add the following line RemoteApplicationName:s:Cmd

Add the following line RemoteApplicationProgram:s:C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe

More detailed explanation

On multiple monitors:

One more thing if you have multiple monitors then be sure to also update that setting "use multimon" to 1. This means you can move the remote windows off to your second monitor.

I have been struggling with to get my 2 Xbee2 (XB24-Z7WIT-004) modules to communicate properly with each other for the last few days.

The issue seemed to be that they were communicating but not reliably. I even wrote a little program that gave me the some debugging information

Here is what the little program should do (works over serial)

U = USB Xbee

A = Arduino Xbee  

What is expected

U > Sending 100 bytes in sequence (123456....) with 50 sec intervals

A > Receives 100 bytes in sequence

A > Waits till byte with value 100 is read or 10 seconds passes

A > Returns amount of valid values read

U > Reads value from A and displays it

A > Sending 100 bytes in sequence (123456....) with 50 sec intervals

A > Recieves 100 bytes in squenceA > Displays Values

Unfortunately this is what was happened

U > Sending 100 bytes in sequence (123456....) with 50 sec intervals

A > Receives 8 bytes in sequence

A > Waits till byte with value 100 is read or 10 seconds passes

A >  Returns amount of valid values read (which is 8)U > Reads value from A and displays it

A > Sending 100 bytes in sequence (123456....) with 50 sec intervals

A > Recieves 100 bytes in squenceA > Displays Values

U > Reads the rest of the values from 9 - 100 (i can tell this because I blink a green led every time the arduino reads a expected value)

  Source code for my testing software

 I then talked to some friends and found out that X-CTU has a range tester which really would have done exactly what I needed to test my system. Here is the X-CTU result on my setup

So clearly there was a problem with my setup. It seems the Xbee modules was losing some packets somewhere.

It turns out.. not sure why but it had something to do with the firmware that I selected. I was running 

XB24-B  - Znet 2.5 Coordinator AT 1047

XB24-B  - Znet 2.5 Router/End Device

On the default settings. I tried many variables here but in the end I could not stop packet loss without increasing the delay between packet sending to a point where it was not usable.

In the end I got it working (after TOOO many hours) using the following firmware.

XB24-ZB Zigbee Coordinator AT

XB24-ZB Zigbee Router AT

I tried using just the default settings and only modifying the PANID and the Destination address high/low but that did not work. In the end I got it working by also playing with the DO setting under IO settings by changing it to digital input.

For future reference here are the setup file that you can import with X-CTU. Just be sure to update the destination address.

co-ordinator.pro

I recently when to a hackers space in South Africa called house4hack. Day one I got to play with some ambient lighting project. The source code for this project was found here

Since I am not really a huge fan of processing so I decided to see if I can do better with C# and a Fez Domino

So firstly I wrote a client application that monitors the screen and determines not only average color but also the most distinct color. (Found some cool source code here)

Then I wrote the Fez domino to interface with the serial connection. Unfortunately fez does not create a virtual serial interface that you can connect to but I had some xbee shields and a usb connecter so I could get it working.

Again, unfortunately my Xbees are not working as they are supposed to and in the end I had to re-code it for the arduino. I will post more on this issue later.

Anyway... here is a quick video of it working.

I have the source code available if anyone is interested.

C# Input

.Net Micro Framework Receiver

I have seen some people using a ping pong ball as a LED light shade because some of these LED's are ridiculously bright. Unfortunately, I don't have one lying around.

So the next best/geeky/lazy thing

All you need is a piece of paper. (The thinner the better)

I have been playing with WP7 lately and I was looking at these cool videos (http://www.msdev.com/Directory/SeriesDescription.aspx?CourseId=169) . In one of these videos the presenter suggests using the Tap events rather than the click events as they align closer with the touch screen interface of WP7.

Normally you would add these Tap events as follows

 <Button Content="Gesturific">      <toolkit:GestureService.GestureListener>           <toolkit:GestureListener                DoubleTap="GestureListenerDoubleTap"               Hold="GestureListenerHold"      />      </toolkit:GestureService.GestureListener> </Button>

Example copied from http://www.codebadger.com/blog/post/2010/11/01/WP7-Tip-of-the-Day-Silverlight-Toolkit-Gestures.aspx

So obviously this does work however coming from a WPF background, I would personally prefer to keep my code behind as clean as possible. So I have created a behaviour to allow easy binding of these gestures to commands. Now my xaml looks as follows

<Button    Content="Start"    Behaviour:GestureListenerBehaviours.TapCommand="{Binding StartCommand}" />

I have only implemented the Tap and DoubleTap as those are the only ones that I currently use but more commands can easily be added. 

To add this behaviour. Simply add the following code to you project and it should work

GestureListenerBehaviours.cs

I am not 100% sure that i understand you question. But lets try ...

The class that I have written resizes the GridViewColumn width. If you want to resize the "children" to stretch the then it can be done buy using HorrizontalAlign="stretch" on the children in the CellTemplate

Note for that to work you will need to add the following style. To ensure that the CellTemplate is always taking up its max allotted space

             <Setter Property="ItemContainerStyle">                <Setter.Value>                    <Style TargetType="{x:Type ListViewItem}">                        <Style.Setters>                            <Setter Property="HorizontalContentAlignment" Value="Stretch"/>                            <Setter Property="VerticalContentAlignment" Value="Stretch"/>                                                                               

Saying that , from your second paragraph it sounds like you want to resize the column with based on the actual data. This is already built into wfp. Simply set the Width="Auto" on the GridViewColumn.