Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino

It’s been a while since I took the old Arduino out, blew the dust off it, and yet again attempted to make something.  We’ve had a love/hate relationship, as I’ve sometimes struggled to overcome my knowledge deficits, but more on that later.

I was prompted to revisit the world of Arduino when I was recently delighted and intrigued, to be contacted by Seeed Studio, to feature their Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino on this blog.  I accepted their offer of a free beginner kit in return for this blog post….

Glenregan Loop

Back again, this time to tackle the Glenregan Loop. Having visited the previous week and done the Glinsk Castle Loop I now had the knowledge of which direction to head from the trail head. Once you enter the forest area, look for the display board to the right, which shows a map of the Glenreagan loop in red dots. To the right of this a trail descends past a small picnic area. It is up this trail one must ascend towards the ruins of Glinsk Castle, and along this path you will eventually find the red circular way-markers that will lead you around the loop.
If there were a way-marker at the trail head, it would be most helpful, but alas I couldn’t find one.

The trail is well kept and for the most part well marked, though there were a few occasions where the red marker would have helped, but seemed to have gone missing, so take the downloadable map with you. Also, take snacks as it will take a full 3 hours to complete without breaks. There are several picnic spots along the route for refreshments and enjoying the views, so bring something to snack on and keep your energy up. Parts of the trail follow relatively steep climbs that will definitely stretch your muscles and get your heart rate going, so take your time and enjoy the views.

References:

• Irish Trails – Glinsk Castle Loop
• Irish Trails – Glenregan Loop

Glinsk Castle Loop

Firstly, many thanks to my beautiful wife for the birthday gift of a new pair of hiking boots.  The old pair of Meindls had served their time, and I’d walked the soles off them.  The upgrade to a pair of Bhutans was most welcome.

Time to take them to the hills, so I set off intending to walk the Glenregan Loop, but I found that it was not well marked from the trail-head, so I set off on one of the way-marked loops, hoping I would find my way eventually.

Unfortunately I had set off in the opposite direction and only met the Glenregan loop after already completing 6 km.  As it was getting late in the day I decided not to follow it, but I’ll definitely return to do it, now that I know the lie of the land.

Having done the Glinsk Castle Loop, I can say it’s a definite muscle stretcher.  There are long periods of gentle climbs as you follow forest tracks and trails up the side of the Slieve Blooms, that will stretch your legs and get your heart rate up.  Unfortunately the view from the top were somewhat spoiled by the mist that was falling, but the trail itself was well kept and way-marked and offer good opportunities to to spot squirrels and martins along the way.

References:

• Irish Trails – Glinsk Castle Loop
• Irish Trails – Glenregan Loop

Arduino Altimeter

This is a revisit to the CanSat project to share some tips on how to use a simple MPX4115A pressure sensor as an altimeter.  In a previous post I shared how to set up the sensor to detect ambient pressure, so now that we have that data, how do we estimate our altitude?

When Life Gives you Oranges, Make Arancello

We all started January with good intentions, but while mine included eating more fruit, I may have overestimated my enthusiasm for it.  Yes, I’ve definitely eaten more fruit this month, but I’ve also bought far more than I needed.

So now I’m looking at a fruit bowl full of oranges, and wondering what to do with them…

Testing SD Cards with Linux

While on holiday recently, my wife bought a 32GB micro-SD card, which she intended to use in her tablet.  Since then, it has been giving various errors, so I thought I should take it and verify its quality.

In order to test the card, we’re going to run three tests:

1. Access Speed, to assess the card Speed Class.
2. Drive Size, to assess if the reported size matches the actual size.
3. Data durability. to assess that data written can be read back reliably.

Buttermilk Scones

Breakfast.  The most important meal of the day.  I’ve pretty much settled on a bowl of oatmeal for some time now.  I find it can carry me to lunch much better than other cereals I’ve tried.  Although I tend to like strong flavours (curries, chillies, mustards, spices, etc.), I tend to avoid them at breakfast, so oatmeal’s reputation for being a little boring doesn’t bother me.

Until today.  It’s the weekend, and I want something more interesting for breakfast.  So today, I’ve decided to use up some leftover buttermilk to make some Buttermilk Scones for breakfast.  Nothing beats a hot cup of coffee, and a warm from the oven scone, smothered in melting butter.

Damson Ketchup

It’s barbecue season again, and when I have friends around, they’re sometimes surprised to see that tomato ketchup isn’t on the table.  I’ve nothing against tomato ketchup, I just haven’t been bothered to buy any since I’m sitting on several liters of Damson Ketchup from last year’s damson harvest.

Once they get over their initial reaction of, “Damson what?”, and try it, most are pleasantly surprised by the tangy fruity flavor.  So open your mind to a burger sauce with a difference!

Manage Passwords and Keep Your Sanity

In life, I wear many hats.

I am a Software Engineer, so I know what leaps we have to go through to keep your data safe, when it’s on our servers.  We do our best to keep things simple for you, but we can’t do it all.  As such, having a good password is what we expect of you.  Doing this keeps us, and you safe(er) from data breaches.

But, it would seem you’re not keeping your end of the bargain:

So what makes a good password?  Longer is better.  Multiple types of characters (letters, digits, special characters, etc.) are better. Not based on a dictionary word. So on, and so forth.  What are you left with.  Phrases that are unrecognizable as ‘human’.

I am also a consumer.  Setting different passwords for each account is also recommended, as a breach on one won’t lead to a breach of another.  But who has time to generate (and remember) these complex password for every site one visits?

I feel the pain on both sides of the equation.  Passwords suck!

I am also an open-source advocate (some might even say zealot).  So until the boffins in the lab come up with something better than passwords, I can heartily recommend KeePass Password Safe.  This is a nifty bit of open-source software that will help you manage your passwords.  You can run it pretty much everywhere you can run software.  It saves your passwords to an encrypted file, and helps you generate strong, complex passwords.  When you need to use them, just copy-paste them from the KeePass application to your browser or other application.

Go forth and continue to enjoy your computing experience, but help keep us all safe by using strong passwords.  Using KeePass will help you keep them strong and unique and best of all, maintain your sanity.  Just don’t lose that password file!

American Meat Loaf

Meat loaf was one of the family favorites during my childhood until one day, in our eagerness, we took it from the oven a little too early, and all ended up with food poisoning for the next few days. So by all means, cook it and enjoy it, just give it the time it needs.