Categories
General

Installing LaserShow Xpress on Windows 10

I thought I’d give LSX a try – it’s pretty cheap and seems like fun laser software. I had some trouble installing it on Windows 10 – kept getting the message “Code execution cannot proceed because msvcp100.dll was not found”. It seems to be a problem with Visual C++ apps, and I found the solution […]

Categories
Annual Review News

Review of 2017

I can hardly believe it but this is now the tenth anniversary of my annual review, and therefore I’ve been blogging for over ten years – how the internet has changed since 2007! Back then it was all about open APIs, personal websites and blogging. Facebook was a tidy and uncluttered alternative to MySpace, the […]

Lightning Catchers

Lightning Catchers is a prototype game where you have to catch laser-projected lightning with a custom built “lightning rod” that is filled with super bright LEDs. When you catch the lightning bolt, your rod explodes with light and sound! First exhibited at Enlighten festival (Bury) we’ve now proved the concept and are ready to upscale […]

Categories
General

Calling all speakers! A hardware button to toggle display mirroring

I’ve been really frustrated that my favourite keyboard shortcut to toggle display mirroring doesn’t work on TouchBar MacBooks so I’ve made a button that can emulate it! Of course since I’ve got this working I’ve discovered there’s a weird work-around to get it working on the TouchBar, but it’s still quite a fun device, and […]

Categories
General

Keyboard shortcut for “Mirror Displays” on Touchbar MacBook

It’s kind of a niche requirement but very important for someone like me who runs presentations with keynote split on two screens to running demos that need to be mirrored. It was always Cmd-F1 on any non-touchbar equipped Mac, but sadly that stopped working on the new Macs, even if you hit the fn key […]

Categories
Annual Review News

Review of 2016

It’s been quite a year, that’s for sure. Politics in both the UK and the US have been increasingly chaotic, and I can’t help leaving this year in a high state of anxiety. It’s certainly had an effect on my productivity and in many ways has left me questioning myself; am I really doing the […]

Stranger Lights Support

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Categories
Electronics

Fading LEDs with PWM on all pins with Pi Zero & Node.js

I’ve been converting my ST4i workshop from Arduino to Node.js/Raspberry Pi and one of limitations is a lack of built-in PWM pins. PWM or Pulse Width Modulation can be used to fade LEDs up and down rather than just turn them on and off. If you’re new to PWM, here’s a full explanation at Sparkfun. […]

Categories
Electronics

Controlling 7 segment LED displays on Raspberry Pi with Node.js

As part of the preparation for my upcoming workshops (last two tickets left!) , I’ve been working on writing Node.js code to drive various bits of hardware that are included in the free kit that comes with the course. So I’ve made my first ever npm package! And it drives cute LED displays running on […]

Categories
Electronics

Upgrading a node module that wraps C code

Today I wanted to get this ultra-thin LED matrix working with Raspberry Pi in NodeJS as part of my work on my new ST4i workshop. The SeeedStudio Ultrathin Red LED matrix. It’s such a nice bright matrix, I really love it, but they’re a little weird to work with. They use the HUB75 protocol which […]