|
DMI News |
Previous Entry.. Next Entry.. Updates
November 20, 2002 16:26 I have solved the full duplex sound card problem on linux and shortly I should be making a few changes to reflect it. First off, the streaming audio in the office will come from spaz instead of node5, placing more of the functionality on linux instead of windows. I may also choose to run the office linux sound output through the mixer to use the big speakers instead of the cheapo UN-amplified ones that I'm using now. However, in the past there was some serious distortion when I did this, so it remains to be seen if this will work or not. Also, since I'll have recording working full time, I'll also get the voice recognition working again and implement it in both the office and the living room, now that I have a working linux box in there as well. This gives me two rooms of the house that I will be able to command the lights through voice commands. The front door cam computer will get converted to linux, and I'll otherwise probably just use it as an X station. The den cam may not be supported under linux. If it is, that computer will be upgraded immediately as well. If not, it will probably remain windows for the time being until I can replace the cam with a supported model. The kernel on the lab computer needs to be recompiled to support USB, and then it should be able to handle one of the USB cams, at which point a lab cam will be available. Now that there will be linux boxes all over the house, building cam rotors gets a lot easier. At some point having windows compatibility would be nice, but its not something I want to wast.....er... spend my time on. Speaking of the controlling software, more and more people seem to be downloading and playing with it, and I'm getting more and more questions that would seem to imply that the software is cumbersome, difficult to understand and configure, and difficult to use. And they're probably right, as it has been designed specifically for my use, and hard coded to reflect that. However, since I mean to add multithreaded capability to it, and as I would like to use it on more than one computer for multiple purposes, it would make sense to redesign it so it gets the configuration data and command names from a config file instead of hard coding the names and ports directly into the program. So for those of you who are confused, give it some time, I'll have a better solution available soon. Found a decent schematic for a marquee sign here which gave me a lot of ideas about what I was doing wrong. I plan to resume that project in the near future now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing. I'll need to make a roadtrip to tanner to get some more parts though, and while I'm at it, I can pick up some parts for the phone interface as well. This will allow me to commence, and therefore complete, several of the easier projects. Might be able to get the RC Car working too. :) Had a reporter come over yesterday and interviewed me for an hour. She'll be selling the story to several publications. More details about that when I have them. Installed an extra 128 megs in my new machine. Warcraft III is more smooth now. I'll probably fuss through the rest of the single player game, although I don't see myself playing it online. And at one mission per day, it'll probably take me the rest of the year to finish, which is fine with me. :) Well, that's enough to keep me busy the rest of the week. I'll let everyone know when I have more.
|