Oct '10 20

RC Body painting

by Brin in R/C | Comments Off on RC Body painting

Looking at the different bodies available for the RC trucks, there is some nice stuff out there.

Oct '10 17

Protected: RC Gear

by Brin in R/C | Comments Off on Protected: RC Gear

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Oct '10 05

Medal of Honor (MoH): Initial Impressions

by Brin in Computer, Games | Comments Off on Medal of Honor (MoH): Initial Impressions

Played the MoH Beta today, seems quite good, very CoD like, people running around like headless chooks, Rambo style seems to work well, Run in pray and spray style. Guns seem balanced well, dont have to use a full clip to kill someone. Maps arent huge, and are very tight, no open spaces on the ones i played. Need to change some keys that i’m use to.

  • Change screen res (1920×1080) High detail
  • Change Audio (Surround Sound)
  • Keys – map Interact to “e” and Grenade to “f” and toggle crouch off
  • scrool wheel works in the oposite direction, roll back for pistol, not forward like BC2 (hope i can change that)
Oct '10 02

RC FPV

by Brin in R/C | Comments Off on RC FPV

I’ve been inspired by Wobby’s videos on youtube with FPV on RC Cars and Planes, the OSD flights look interesting too.

Check out Wobby’s Vid on his HD setup, plus these guides on fvpExplorer and fpvPilot. Handy Wiring Diagram for Serial or Parallel batteries.

Sep '10 29

Backporting Ubuntu packages

by Brin in Computer, Linux | Comments Off on Backporting Ubuntu packages

I needed to backport squid to an older version of Ubuntu (Hardy), he’ere the proceedure with pbuilder.

  • sudo apt-get install pbuilder debootstrap devscripts fakeroot po4a
  • sudo apt-get install  build-essential libldap2-dev libdb-dev sharutils dpatch cdbs libsasl2-dev debhelper libcppunit-dev libkrb5-dev comerr-dev
  • (may need to backport debhelper too)
  • sudo pbuilder create –debootstrapopts –variant=buildd
  • dget -x <link_address_to_foo.dsc>
  • cd <package>
  • sudo pdebuild
  • (May need to apt-get some dependancies if it fails, possibly debhelper from backports, or build it too)
  • ls /var/cache/pbuilder/result

Example ~/.pbuilderrc file:
HOOKDIR=”/var/cache/pbuilder/hook.d”
BINDMOUNTS=”/var/cache/pbuilder/result”
COMPONENTS=”main restricted universe multiverse”
OTHERMIRROR=”deb file:/var/cache/pbuilder/result/ /”

  • sudo pbuilder update –override-config
  • (May need to script hooks to update repo)
Sep '10 27

RC Cars

by Brin in R/C | Comments Off on RC Cars

I’ve been looking at buying a RC Monster Truck, i like the Traxxas E-Maxx Brushless, but the HPI Savage Flux also looks good. There are plenty of parts available for the E-Maxx though, and it looks good, has a 2.4ghz radio. So it wins. Some Spare Parts at RC Planet, and also FullForce has bumpers. I would like to get into FPV and Data logging, the Eagle Tree stuff looks good. Great Setup tips on RC-Universe. And this Great EMAXX FAQ.

UPDATE: Bought the E-Maxx Brushless

Sep '10 12

Ubuntu Boot Issues

by Brin in Linux | Comments Off on Ubuntu Boot Issues

After upgrading my Raid1 disks for a larger capacity, I ran into some boot problems, so here’s some notes for next time:

  • Ubuntu Alternate install USB boot is great for booting into a rescue environment.
  • Create a Multiboot USB key with MultiBootISOs
  • Ubuntu’s Single User (Rescue mode) isnt that good, as the system needs to be able to boot to get to it (see below)
  • If you change anything to do with FS uuid or MD uuid: update-grub and grub-install and edit fstab.
  • List UUID’s for each partition / Disk:  ‘ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid ‘
  • Update MDADM:    ‘mdadm –examine –scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf’
  • If booting hangs at mounting partitions from fstab, press ‘s’ to skip or ‘m’ for maintenance (why un-documented?)
  • Kernel Boot Options, to drop to shell add ‘break’ for early exit or ‘break=init’ or ‘break=mount’ and bootdegraded=true for missing drives
  • Grub2 needs to ‘insmod’ the following: ‘raid’, ‘mdraid’, ‘lvm’ then use ‘ls’ to list devices or their partition (uuid) info.
  • To re-install Grub(2) from the installer shell, mount –bind sys,dev,proc to target before the chroot, and make sure var & root & boot is mounted rw?

# mount /dev/md1 /target/         #? installer\Rescue disk should have done this already
mount –bind /dev/ /target/dev/
mount –bind /sys/ /target/sys/
mount –bind /proc/ /target/proc/
chroot /target

grub-install –no-floppy –modules=raid /dev/sda
grub-install –no-floppy –modules=raid /dev/sdb
update-grub

Aug '10 14

Game Engines

by Brin in Computer, Games, Windows | Comments Off on Game Engines

I’ve been looking to create a game for the boys for ages, i’ve looked a GameMaker and a few other, i still like the idea of Pygame, and other extensions. For real gaming, i’m leaning towards a full 3d environment, like Blender Game Engine, Unity3D or UDK.

Each have their strengths, i think Blender would suit me, as i know the UI now, so its just a matter of working out the rigging / animation and game engine physics more. While Unity has all you need for a simple game out of the box, and UDK is the bee’s knees when it comes to a full game engine, with high performance, and great graphics, but its UI is clutered, and is targeted at FPS’s.

Unity doesnt have easy to find tutorials, a few on the main Unity site and some Vid’s plus there are some on Buzz.