I recently saw this picture on Facebook – amazing 3D printing results from the Creality Ender 3 using the Ultimaker Cura slicer with the “Creawesome Mod”:

This photo shows a “regular” Cura 4.0 print on the left and a Creawesome one on the right. Image courtesy of Thirl Thompson from the Creality Ender-3 3d printer user group on Facebook. Awesome indeed. Naturally I’d like to see the same results from my prints, but there were no Linux instructions yet, so I set out to figure out how to do this.Continue reading

With all new Apple i-devices moving to the lightning connector, I’ve found my alarm clock with it’s 30-pin dock connector has reverted to it’s 20th century radio-only state of use. I suppose I could use an adapter, but it seems like a great way to break something (by adding a longer lever).

Then I remembered I have a 6th generation iPod nano sitting in a drawer. You know, the one that looks like this:

Image courtesy PC Mag

But with older iPods that exist outside of the “App” and jailbreak realm, there a beast to contend with: iTunes. Continue reading

I was given a Raspberry Pi for my birthday last week, and I’ve already got it up and running, doing what I intended it to do: be an audio sink for iPhone and my laptop – which has terrible speakers.

I knew it would be a PulseAudio sink for my laptop. There’s also neat piece of software called shairport that will act as an AirPlay sink – and people are using it on Raspberry Pi’s.

By default, the common Linux Distribution “Raspbian” for this tiny computer uses ALSA for sound. This is fine for basic stuff, but I was reminded that when two things ever try to play sound at the same time, contention issues arise. It reminded me of a earlier day in Linux history, before the advent of PulseAudio and the magic it imparts.
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tl;dr? Like the Boy Scouts: Be Prepared

be_preparedThe Nerdery’s Overnight Website Challenge is coming up again. I will be participating for my 5th year. I’ve had some good years and some bad. I’ve used software that I love and software that I’ve hated. I’ve been on teams that were finalists, one that won the event, and others that weren’t close to the podium but had a great time.

By now, I think most of the webchallenge web pros are seasoned veterans, but none-the-less I’d like to share some of my pro tips – if only for self-documentation. You should first take care of yourself before, during, and after the event. But when it comes to your team, the short story is: Be Prepared. The long story? Do as much as you can ahead of time, not the day of the event.

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From touring Miller & Budweiser breweries, I noticed both sites have caves – which have steady year-round temperatures. I assume the caves were used to lager, which means “storage” in German.  Lager yeasts, unlike ale yeast which ferment at room temperature, do their primary fermentation in the mid-50 degree range.  During secondary fermentation the temperature is dropped steadily to slowly deactivate the yeasts.  Back in the day, the barrels could be moved deeper into the cave day-by-day to slowly lower the temperature from the mid-50s down to almost freezing (35°F).

Yogurt Maker?

I had an idea to automate this process using an Arduino, especially after reading Chris Reilly’s Arduino yogurt maker from Make Magazine volume 25.  Everything I’ve done here was based on that, so I’ll assume you’ve read it.

Lagering is essentially the same process except instead of using a heat source (crock-pot), we use a cooler (refrigerator).  Getting the refrigerator to maintain temps above 40°F can be tricky, so normally an external temperature regulator is used.  But this requires me going out to the fridge every day to lower the temperature by one degree.  So why not automate it?  Laziness FTW!
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