There seem to be a problem when using software serial between the Arduino and the Micro Serial Servo Controller caused by a flicker in the output pin.

When booting the arduino will set the digital io pins to HIGH however when you do the following in your program %u201CpinMode(tx,OUTPUT);%u201D to switch the pin mode to output, the pin value will drop to LOW and then when you put it back to HIGH (the normal idle serial level) using %u201CdigitalWrite(tx, HIGH);%u201D the Micro Serial Servo Controller thinks you are attempting to send a serial command and will go into error state.

The proper way to initialize your pin is to activate the internal pull up resistor and then switch the mode to output with the following commands:

digitalWrite(tx, HIGH); //Activate the pull up resistor
pinMode(tx,OUTPUT); //Change pin mode to output

This removes the small flicker that the Micro Serial Servo Controller doesn%u2019t like. This has been tested and works properly using the Mini SSC and the Pololu modes with a software serial at 9600 baud.

From: Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller Problem/Bug with the Arduino | nCode's Blog

Arduino Diecimila / Burning the Bootloader without AVR-Writer

This is why I messed with installing XP in a VM (which I'm posting from now! Woot!)

Update to previous post, it seemed to work okay to install XP, although it installed as a standard install rather than a restore install. It wanted an activation key, and wouldn't accept the one from the sticker on the side of the box. Had to call the happy little automated microsoft lady and jump through a hoop or two. Now it's working though. Very cool.

Now to see if USB actually works. Later on (maybe tomorrow) I'll try hooking up the Rovio to see if it spots it alright. If that works I'll try the arduino sometime.

Okay, I'm finally trying out this virtualization thing. I downloaded VirtualBox and am presently running the WinXP restore disc to see if it'll work. So far it looks like it's doing okay. I wasn't sure how well this would go since it's not a "true" XP install disc.

Some notes to myself, I edited /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh and un-commented the Magic /proc/bus/usb/* parts (since I'm using Ubuntu Hardy) (from here)

Gotta figure out how to turn on USB, since the whole point is playing with Arduino under windows.

As far as a good part of the rest of the world...we don't think you elected a messiah. We're just glad you didn't elect the 3rd incarnation of the fucking antichrist.

From: Slashdot | Barack Obama Wins US Presidency

My Rovio headlight mod article is up at RoboCommunity!

WowWee Rovio Hack: Head-Mounted LED Lights: RoboCommunity

YouTube - WowWee Rovio -- navigation demo -- Rovio goes to The Chair

I release the first version of the Rovio console client today.

Trying to install Subversion in Hardy. Some stupid fucking package is broken somewhere, so I kept getting all sorts of "blah is needed but not going to be installed" errors. Finally goes back to libpq5, whatever the hell that is (something about postgresql), which depends on libldap2 which is borked and uninstallable. Fun shit.

Finally I found a libpq5 (and -dev) that will install here. Download the two .debs and dpkg -i them. Then apt-get install subversion worked just fine.

Stupid shit.

Here's a big shocker: not everything is a web app! No really. There are problems operating systems solved decades ago that Chrome is just now gettng around to fixing, just because some people want their apps to be on the web. You can have distributed apps and ubiquitous data *without* HTML/CSS/ECMA/Ajax/Flash. Back when computers were so expensive no one could afford their own, everything was distributed. Now that computers are cheap enough that everyone has two or three, the industry is wondering how to distribute stuff.

From: Brandybuck on Slashdot Mozilla's Thought On Google's Chrome