Buddasworld

An Android tablet for £49.99 running ICS/v4.0 !

Wed, 16 May 2012 09:07:59 +0100

An Android tablet for £49.99 running ICS/v4.0 !:

NATPC Primatab 4GB 7” Capacitive Android Tablet PC - Android 4.0 ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) - WIFI

Nearly every review has given this 7” tablet 5/5 on Amazon UK. Seems too good to be true, and perfect to give to the kids rather than a shiny iPad.

Cons: No GPS or Bluetooth. But you can use WiFi hotspot to gain Internet access via your smartphone (iPhone and Android at least) when away from the home/office.

Can alcohol make men smarter? Study suggests yes - HealthPop - CBS News

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:28:16 +0100

Can alcohol make men smarter? Study suggests yes - HealthPop - CBS News

Watou’s Wit Bier 5% 25cl on Flickr.Sunday afternoon in the...

Sun, 13 May 2012 14:18:15 +0100

Watou’s Wit Bier 5% 25cl on Flickr.

Sunday afternoon in the sun with a beer break. Today is Watou’s Wit Bier. tastes like Leffe. #beer

2,500 cars colour coordinated in this 3m wide art installation...

Fri, 04 May 2012 22:10:47 +0100

2,500 cars colour coordinated in this 3m wide art installation piece. I did something similar at home with a lot less cars last year.

I’m not sure if I stumbled in to some weird niche meme...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:03:31 +0100

I’m not sure if I stumbled in to some weird niche meme tonight but this westler video from the game Beat the Beat (UK name) sure has caught some peoples weird imagination on YouTube…

…and they don’t stop…

…until it just gets a little weird.

What I did fail to find was any 10 hour loop video of the repetitive audio track.

“Game Over”, nifty tune. A tonne of retro (console)...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:01:08 +0100

“Game Over”, nifty tune. A tonne of retro (console) game sound effects banged in to a pot over a hard dance beat and mixed up by Technikal & HybridZ.

The perfect answer to that common drunk problem of getting...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:50:14 +0100

The perfect answer to that common drunk problem of getting through your front door at the end of the night.

The BreathalEyes by is an iPhone App that takes photos of a...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:34:00 +0100

The BreathalEyes by is an iPhone App that takes photos of a subject’s eyes and scans for horizontal gaze nystagmus (Called HGN) – a condition of the eye indicated by the involuntary rhythmic oscillating motion of the pupil left and right across the horizontal field of view. Depending on the HGN, a reading is generated to indicate the level of blood alcohol content. To use this device, the iPhone is to be held up to the subject’s eye (either one) by the tester, only a few inches away from the eye. For the test to be as accurate as possible, the subject must look to the far right or far left (depending on which eye is tested) to expose as much of the white portion of the eyeball as possible. The user must frame the subject’s eye within the green box and start the assessment.

A beeping sound will indicate that the reading has been taken and the blood alcohol content will be shown on the screen. When compared to a standard breathalyser, the BreathalEyes is surprisingly accurate and generates results must faster.

Sadly this isn’t a legal way of testing yourself before getting behind the wheel after 5 pints.

How to make crop circles look so last century: beach art aka...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:53:06 +0100

How to make crop circles look so last century: beach art aka sandscaping!

The only use for dead flies - photos!

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:01:53 +0100

The only use for dead flies - photos!:

Belgium-based artist, Nicholas Hendrickx, loves to take macro photography of flies doing everyday things.

What better use of those pesky dead flies you find on the window sill eh?

See more photos

Can’t believe its nearly a year now that I’ve been...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:01:33 +0100

Can’t believe its nearly a year now that I’ve been filling out this baby journal for Jessica. #baby (Taken with instagram)

Tonight’s meal is 100% Easter left overs. (Taken with...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:00:40 +0100

Tonight’s meal is 100% Easter left overs. (Taken with instagram)

Fibaro Home Centre 2 - Hardware first impressions

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 21:05:00 +0100

I’ve just taken delivery of the recently released Fibaro Home Centre 2 home automation controller. There hasn’t been much about the system on-line yet as, from what i’ve read, hardware supply is short since its release at the back end of February 2012.

So for reference i thought i’d document a bit about the kit supplied in the UK by Vesternet.

The packaging is a sturdy cardboard with a matt printed colour design on the outside. The outer box appears to have taken a couple of knocks at some point in its travels but the dents haven’t penetrated the box internals.

Inside reveals a full colour thank you note which covers the 5 steps to getting started. All seems straight forward enough, just be ready with a screw driver to remove the side panel to connect up the cables!

The aluminium Home Centre 2 box is not wrapped in any protective cover or bagged, which I thought was unusual. The cardboard inlay has been rubbing on the aluminium and left marks which can be removed with a polish.

Accessories in the box include a white ethernet cable for hooking the HC2 box up to your local network, and a power supply.

Fibaro are based in Poland so the boxed power supply has a European plug on it. The UK supplier provided a 2->3 pin adapter, but it is worth noting that the PSU can accept a normal UK cable that uses the same 3 circle connector (not sure what the correct technical term is for it) - see photo below. On a side note I also noticed the power supply is labeled for an LCD monitor.

The main unit hardware has very little on the outside to play with.

What you can see are:

A Z-Wave antenna on the rear very much like a traditional WiFi access point.
On the rear are two aluminium buttons - for power and a dual use button for emergency recovery of the software and to put the box in to “learning mode” when adding a new Z-Wave device.

Unscrewing the side panel reveals a number of recognisable ports. From left to right there’s the power, 2 x USB ports - one containing the recovery boot software on a USB stick, RJ45 Ethernet and stereo audio out (I assume).

What you may notice in the photo above is an aluminium block blanking plate between the power and USB ports. Unscrewing this revealed two additional ports which you should all recognise: SVGA and DVI monitor outputs. As I’ve only got an iMac to hand I can’t quickly plug in and see what the Home Centre 2 is outputting on either of the display connectors.

Upon powering up the device you get a short test array of flashing blue LEDs displayed along the front to indicate the various states of the box.

From right to left the LEDs indicate: power, LAN, Internet connection, Z-Wave, Learn Mode state, Recovery mode, Software update available, Software update in progress.

Once the box has booted and connected to your LAN just three LEDs remain on. As it was the first time it had been powered on the Software update download indicator began blinking.

I felt the supplied set-up instructions left the actual getting connected to the admin control panel a bit vague and un-finished. The instructions talk about assigning a static IP or using your networks DHCP (the usual method). However if the HC2 does get given an IP address via your broadband routers DHCP how will you know how to access the admin control panel?

Luckily visiting the Fibaro support pages provide a quick link to a “HC2 Finder” app for Windows and OSX. The app is quick, simple, well presented, and gave the info needed to get started.

Connecting to the box displayed a really nice control panel design. The software installed on my box was v1.009 and v1.024 was awaiting download.

During the download a timer counts up, and at the end the timer vanishes but no further instructions appear about what to do next. Closing the dialog and refreshing the page showed the new software version was now installed. This may be because my initial system had an early beta of the software installed.

It’s worth noting that the HC2 will not execute any operations or accept connections from controls such as iOS devices whilst an update is being downloaded and installed. The dialog box suggests the Home Centre 2 box will be out of action for approximately 10 minutes.

Personally I think the downloads should be downloaded in the background and await action from the control panel administrator to just install - rather than taking the whole box out of action to do the download.

Well that’s it for the hardware. The control panel software can be seen in action in the official video from Fibaro. I’m off to find out what I can control first in my home!

Best tasting Easter egg ever. Popping candy! (Taken with...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:21:16 +0100

Best tasting Easter egg ever. Popping candy! (Taken with instagram)

Printing Euros down the river (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:24:39 +0100

Printing Euros down the river (Taken with instagram)

Helter Skelter (Taken with Instagram at Prater)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:38:13 +0100

Helter Skelter (Taken with Instagram at Prater)

Big Blue in Wein / Vienna. But can you spot the IBM logo? (Taken...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:17:33 +0100

Big Blue in Wein / Vienna. But can you spot the IBM logo? (Taken with Instagram at IBM Austria)

Photo

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:16:09 +0100

I’m sleeping with the rose petals tonight ;-) (Taken with...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:44:03 +0100

I’m sleeping with the rose petals tonight ;-) (Taken with Instagram at Pakat Suites Hotel)

Freshly baked savory snacks at VBC Nitra (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:17:09 +0100

Freshly baked savory snacks at VBC Nitra (Taken with instagram)