Archive for category Software
Imagemagick 6 vs. PDF
Posted by Ed in PC Tweakage, Photography & Images, Software on 2018-12-03
Come to find out Xubuntu 18.04 ratcheted the ImageMagick security settings up to a dangerous chattering whine:
convert p???.jpg "Machining D-bit Drills.pdf" convert-im6.q16: not authorized `Machining D-bit Drills.pdf' @ error/constitute.c/WriteImage/1037.
Fortunately, someone who understands this stuff encountered the problem before I did and posted a great description of the solution.
To forestall link rot, the process looks like:
cd /etc/ImageMagick-6/ sudo cp policy.xml policy.xml.base sudo nano policy.xml … change one line … policy domain="coder" rights="read|write" pattern="PDF"
It is completely unclear to me whether ImageMagick (as of ImageMagick 6.9.7-4 Q16 x86_64 20170114 ) requires or merely tolerates the vertical bar in place of commas, nor whether it’s in my best interest to replace "coder" with "*".
In any event, I can once again stuff bitmap images into PDF files.
Sony NP-BX1 Battery Holder: SMT Pogo Pin Contacts
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Machine Shop, Software on 2018-11-29
The original camera battery test fixtures used contact pins conjured from hulking gold-plated connector pins and coil springs:
Canon NB-6L holder – contact pin detail
The Sony HDR-AS30V camera chewed up and spat out a handful of batteries, all tested in the NP-BX1 test fixture:
NP-BX1 Holder – show layout
Nowadays, SMT pogo pins produce a much more compact holder, so I figured I could put all those batteries to good use:
NP-BX1 Holder – SMT pogo pins
That’s the long-suffering astable multivibrator, still soldered to its CR123A holder.
Obviously, the battery holder should grow ears to anchor the 14 AWG copper posts and would look better in black PETG:
NP-BX1 Battery Holder – 1.5mm pins – solid model
The battery lead wires get soldered to the ends of the pogo pins and are recessed into the slot in the end of the fixture. I used clear epoxy to anchor everything in place.
Fits perfectly and works fine!
The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:
Kindle Fire Picture Frame: Copying the Pictures
Posted by Ed in Photography & Images, Software on 2018-11-26
Being a bear of unbearable consistency, I save edited picture files with a description following the original camera-assigned sequence number:
IMG_20181108_190041 - Kindle Fire Picture Frame - Another Test Image.jpg
Yup, spaces and all.
Kindle Fire Picture Frame – Another Test Image
I store my general-interest pix chronologically by year, in subdirectories for interesting categories, so copying all the edited (a.k.a. “interesting”) pictures to the Kindle Fire becomes a one-liner:
cd /mnt/bulkdata/Cameras find 20?? -iname \*\ \*jpg -print0 | xargs -0 cp --parents -t /mnt/part/Pictures
The --parents parameter tells cp to recreate the directory structure holding the picture in the target directory, thereby keeping the pix neatly sorted in their places, rather than creating one heap o’ pictures.
Come to find out I’ve edited slightly over 7 k general-interest pictures in the eighteen years I’ve been using digital cameras, of maybe 27 k total pictures. Call it a 25% hit ratio; obviously I’m not nearly fussy enough.
Then there’s another 16 k project-related pictures, of which 10 k were edited into something useful. With an emphasis on utility, rather than aesthetics, a 60% hit ratio seems OK.
Which works out to half a dozen pictures a day, every day, for eighteen years. I loves me some good digital camera action!
LinuxCNC 2.7 vs. Logitech Joggy Thing
Posted by Ed in Machine Shop, PC Tweakage, Software on 2018-11-22
The old Atom running LinuxCNC for the Sherline finally stopped booting, so I popped the Optiplex 760 off the stack and did a live-USB trial run. The latency / jitter worked out around 25 µs, slightly worse than before, but still Good Enough, and the StepConf utility coerced the motors into working OK.
What didn’t work was the old Eagle-to-HAL code defining the Logitch Gamepad as a Joggy Thing to allow smooth joystick jog control. Well, stuff changes over the course of eight years, but, in this case, the fix turned out to be a one-liner: the probe_parport module isn’t needed nowadays.
With that out of the way, it runs fine:
LinuxCNC – Sherline Mill – Logitech Gamepad
The INI and HAL files defining the Sherline configuration as a GitHub Gist:
Icecast and Ezstream Configuration
Plugging a 64 GB USB stick with directories full of MP3 / OGG files into an always-on Raspberry Pi running Pi-Hole, one can use Icecast to stream them for clients on the LAN, so as to avoid over-the-Intertubes streaming issues.
The only changes in the /etc/icecast2/icecast.xml file cover passwords, the number of source streams, and the hostname. It’s that simple, really.
Given a directory of files, generate a file-per-line playlist:
find /mnt/music/goodmusic/ -name \*mp3 | sort > /mnt/music/goodmusic/playlist.m3u
Then set up a corresponding Ezstream XML file, perhaps imaginatively named goodmusic.xml:
<ezstream>
<url>http://localhost:8000/goodmusic</url>
<sourcepassword>make-up-your-own</sourcepassword>
<format>MP3</format>
<filename>/mnt/music/goodmusic/playlist.m3u</filename>
<shuffle>1</shuffle>
<stream_once>0</stream_once>
<svrinfoname>Good Music</svrinfoname>
<svrinfourl>pihole.local</svrinfourl>
<svrinfogenre>Good Music Streaming 24x7</svrinfogenre>
<svrinfodescription>Techno Dub</svrinfodescription>
<svrinfobitrate>128</svrinfobitrate>
<svrinfochannels>2</svrinfochannels>
<svrinfosamplerate>44100</svrinfosamplerate>
<svrinfopublic>1</svrinfopublic>
</ezstream>
Fire off the source stream in /etc/rc.local:
ezstream -c /home/pi/Icecast/goodmusic.xml &
The ampersand tells Bash to fire-and-forget the process, so it runs all the time. One could, I suppose, put it in crontab to start after each boot or puzzle out the corresponding systemd incantation, but …
Add the station to your streaming media player:
'KEY_KP5' : ['Good Music',False,['mplayer','-playlist','http://192.168.1.2:8000/goodmusic.m3u']],
And then It Just Works™.
Xubuntu Startup Delay vs. xsetwacom
Posted by Ed in PC Tweakage, Software on 2018-11-20
Over the years, various xsetwacom incantations have confined the tablet stylus to the left-hand landscape monitor on my desk. Updating to Xubuntu 18.04 once again changed the monitors names (from HEAD-0 back to DP-1), but xsetwacom stopped working.
My startup.sh script runs from Xubuntu’s “Application Autostart” list, so X is already running and xsetwacom should do the right thing. Alas, even with $XAUTHORITY and $DISPLAY set correctly (automagically by X), xsetwacom still didn’t corral the cursor.
Some rummaging around the Intertubes suggested a delay would allow X to get up to speed and, indeed, sleeping for two seconds solved the problem:
logger "startup.sh - copying Xauthority values" whoami > /tmp/who cp /home/ed/.Xauthority /tmp/Xauthority.txt echo $XAUTHORITY > /tmp/XAUTHORITY.txt cp $XAUTHORITY /tmp/xauth.cp echo $DISPLAY > /tmp/DISPLAY.txt # xsetwacom needs an additional delay after $XAUTHORITY and $DISPLAY become correct logger "startup.sh - waiting aimlessly" sleep 2s logger "startup.sh - doing wacom setup" xsetwacom --verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6x8 Pen stylus" MapToOutput "DP-1" xsetwacom --verbose set "Wacom Graphire3 6x8 Pen eraser" MapToOutput "DP-1"
Sheesh & similar remarks.
The complete Bash script as a GitHub Gist:
The cruft in there reminds me of previous fixes / workarounds / haxx, so it’s not entirely wasted space.
Kindle Fire Picture Frame: Side Block
Posted by Ed in Electronics Workbench, Machine Shop, Software on 2018-11-19
A steel frame that Came With The House™ emerged from a hidden corner and, instants before tossing it in the recycle heap, I realized it had excellent upcycling potential:
Kindle Fire Picture Frame – Test Run
Stipulated: I need better pictures for not-so-techie audiences.
Anyhow, my long-disused Kindle Fire fits perfectly into the welded-on clips, with just enough room for a right-angle USB cable, and Photo Frame Slideshow Premium does exactly what’s necessary to show pictures from internal storage with no network connection.
All I needed was a small block holding the Kindle against the far side of the frame:
Kindle Frame – side blocks
A strip of double-stick carpet tape holds the block onto the frame. To extract the Kindle, should the need arise, slide it upward to clear the bottom clips, rotate it rearward, and out it comes.
Getting a good block required three tries, because the basement has cooled off enough to trigger Marlin’s Thermal Runaway protection for the M2’s platform heater. A test fit after the first failure showed the long leg was 1 mm too wide and, after the second failure, I reduced the fan threshold to 15 s and the minimum layer time to 5 s, producing the third block without incident.
The platform heater runs at 40 V and I considered bumping it to 43 V for a 15% power boost, but it has no trouble keeping up when the fan isn’t blowing chilly basement air across its surface.
The OpenSCAD source code, such as it is, doesn’t deserve its own GitHub Gist:
// Block to hold Kindle in a picture frame mount
// Ed Nisley - KE4ZNU
// November 2018
Protrusion = 0.1;
difference() {
cube([18,44,10]);
translate([-Protrusion,-Protrusion,-Protrusion])
cube([18-4 + Protrusion,44-10 + Protrusion,10 + 2*Protrusion]);
}
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