Where does this wire go? » carputer http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w Documenting projects and things I find interesting in my life Tue, 22 Jun 2010 04:09:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 My udev rules to get elmscan ISO and gps BU-353 working nicely together http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/08/04/my-udev-rules-to-get-elmscan-iso-and-gps-bu-353-working-nicely-together/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/08/04/my-udev-rules-to-get-elmscan-iso-and-gps-bu-353-working-nicely-together/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:11:29 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=158 I uploaded my udev rules that I use so that my gps receiver and Elmscan get created with their own devices 100% of the time. It creates /dev/gps0 and /dev/elm0.

Without this either device would be ttyUSB0 and the other ttyUSB1 during initilization.

The link to the file is 50-myrules.rules

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/08/04/my-udev-rules-to-get-elmscan-iso-and-gps-bu-353-working-nicely-together/feed/ 0 Google maps api and traffic http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/07/03/google-maps-api-and-traffic/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/07/03/google-maps-api-and-traffic/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:02:22 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=154 I was playing with the google maps api and created a traffic map. I will incorporate this into my car so I can see where the traffic is around me. I might try to see if I can find a way for it to alert me to upcoming traffic conditions even if I don’t have the traffic screen selected.

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/07/03/google-maps-api-and-traffic/feed/ 0 ICEWM and having 2 python programs start in different desktops solved. http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/27/icewm-and-having-2-python-programs-start-in-different-desktops-solved/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/27/icewm-and-having-2-python-programs-start-in-different-desktops-solved/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 23:08:24 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=125 I’ve been fighting a problem for a while. I use IceWM as my window manager. One feature I like is that I can open a window in a specific desktop. I have desktops named “NAV”, “Music”,”Weather” and I wanted to open a specific program in each one. My problem is that two of the applications are written in python so if I specify python as the application then both applications will start in the same desktop. My work around is to make a symlink to python called musicpython and weatherpython. Doing this and adding #!/usr/bin/musicpython at the beinging of my music program and #!/usr/bin/weatherpython at the beginning of the weather program allowed me to start them in their respective desktops.

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/27/icewm-and-having-2-python-programs-start-in-different-desktops-solved/feed/ 0 Get weather based on GPS location for your carpc http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/23/get-weather-based-on-gps-location-for-your-carpc/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/23/get-weather-based-on-gps-location-for-your-carpc/#comments Sun, 24 May 2009 03:22:21 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=101 I have wireless broadband for my car.   I also have a gps unit.  So I decide to combine the two and get current weather (well not second by second but relativly current.)  I wrote a program for Linux in Python using wxpython and the python-gps libraries.  It basically contacts noaa and requests the weather based on the location retrieved from your gps.

I wrote this for carPCs but I guess you could use it on a laptop while you are traveling.

My program to get weather using gps

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/23/get-weather-based-on-gps-location-for-your-carpc/feed/ 0 mp3car New England meet-up 5/16/2009 http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/17/mp3car-new-england-meet-up-5162009/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/17/mp3car-new-england-meet-up-5162009/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 06:35:18 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=97 It was a fun day today.  My wife and I went to a carpc meeting to meet up with some people from the mp3car.com forums.  The attendance seems to be growing as we had 5 cars and 7 people show up.  Granted one of the people that went was my wife who just smiled and put up with the geeks.

We sat in the parking lot we met up at for an hour or so looking at each others setups and hung out and chatted for about an hour.  We then got in to our vehicles and caravaned over to the park for the BBQ.

ViViper1 supplied pretty much all the food.  We had loads of fun trying to cook it though.  We couldn’t get the charcoals to stay lit.  We had heavy winds which made even lighting a lighter difficult.

After what seemed hours we got the food on the grill and a little while later we were eating dogs and burgers.

We sat around and talked about car computers, cars,  and just stuff in general for about 3 hours and walked back to the cars.

We sat at the cars for a few minutes while people looked at my hybrid just to see what was under the hood.  After that it was a quite ride home as we listened to steaming music on the carpc.

Here are the few photos that I took.

lburton and ViViper1 cooking burgers
lburton and ViViper1 cooking burgers

lburton and ViViper1 cooking burgers

ratio of lighter fluid to coals? About 1/2 can to 15 coals.
ratio of lighter fluid to coals? About 1/2 can to 15 coals.

ratio of lighter fluid to coals? About 1/2 can to 15 coals.

lburton, rogerdugans, Eileen(my wife), and f1vlad
lburton, rogerdugans, Eileen(my wife), and f1vlad

lburton, rogerdugans, Eileen(my wife), and f1vlad

Pictures from rogerdugans

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/17/mp3car-new-england-meet-up-5162009/feed/ 1 People wanted to see my carputer and car so here are some pictures http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/02/people-wanted-to-see-my-carputer-and-car-so-here-are-some-pictures/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/02/people-wanted-to-see-my-carputer-and-car-so-here-are-some-pictures/#comments Sat, 02 May 2009 18:01:44 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=87 I created a page to day with some pictures of my car and carputer set up. My carputer and car pictures.

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/05/02/people-wanted-to-see-my-carputer-and-car-so-here-are-some-pictures/feed/ 0 Everything working now except nghost http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/27/everything-working-now-except-nghost/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/27/everything-working-now-except-nghost/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:23:15 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=71 When I log in as root nghost functions okay execept it doesn’t display my music list.

When I log in as a user, nghost doesn’t seem to want to accept input. When I click on a menu item nghost doesn’t seem to do anything.

If I could get nghost working again I’d be super happy. I may have to recompile it or something. I’m not really sure whats up.

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/27/everything-working-now-except-nghost/feed/ 0 Carpc touchscreen problems fixed! http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/22/carpc-touchscreen-problems-fixed/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/22/carpc-touchscreen-problems-fixed/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:43:53 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=69 It is working flawlessly. The calibration stays even when I power off the unit and power it back on. I used this egalax page to get me an idea of what to do. I did as he did and copied the /usr/share/hal/fdi/50-eGalax.fdi file and put it in /etc/hal/fdi/policy.

I then looked at /etc/evtouch/config for the parameters of my calibration (I had previously successfully calibrated my touchscreen.) I used those values (well just the MINX,MINY,MAXX,MAXY) in the /etc/hal/fdi/policy/50-eGalax.fdi.

This was a tough task to accomplish and I thought I was going to have to settle on having to reboot when I lost power to the screen. I am glad I found that link. I hope others find it useful as well.

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/22/carpc-touchscreen-problems-fixed/feed/ 0 Catastrophe! http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/18/catastrophe/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/18/catastrophe/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:29:09 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=66 Today after the mp3car gathering I dropped by my brothers house to work with him on his arcade cabinet his making. Well, we were waiting for the glue to set up so I took him out to show him the carputer. When I booted up the os said it needed to be checked. Did I want to check it, and that it could be dangerous to check on a mounted system. I figured. What the heck. I’ve done it before. Well, this time was the time it was dangerous. When I rebooted Grub had a fit. The O/S was completely gone (I’m sure if I really wanted to I could have recovered from this.)

Since I wasn’t terribly happy with the ext3 filesystem I used this as an excuse to load the latest ubuntu on the drive with the jfs filesystem.

Everything went flawlessly. Now I just have to start rebuilding the system with the apps I want on it.

]]> http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/18/catastrophe/feed/ 0 Got the touchscreen working on the carputer http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/14/got-the-touchscreen-working-on-the-carputer/ http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/2009/04/14/got-the-touchscreen-working-on-the-carputer/#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:06:47 +0000 Tom http://www.where-does-this-wire-go.com/w/?p=63 I added a line like this to my touchscreen drivers section in xorg.conf

Option “CorePointer”

I’m so happy with this. The system is only inches away from being fully functional.

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