jadz

Things have been up in the air for the past 6 months with regards to where would be best for Brittany to live. Now it is just her that will be up in the air (she got a job that involves flying).

Halifax will continue to be home for a while. The things that make Ontario so attractive for Brittany are obviously #1 Family, and #2 a B.Ed. taking 1 year in Ontario and taking 2 years here in Nova Scotia. I suspect that much like Nova Scotia’s old 5 year engineering programs it will eventually move to a 1 year program to stay competitive with the rest of the country.

In other news, my ‘carputer’ has been working really, really well lately. I had been using a 36 inch IDE cable to wire the 2.5″ hard drive running the Carputers OS, and ever since I switched that long IDE cable for a short one the system has been totally stable, surviving easily cranking, and long spans of time with the car shut off.

Also now working on the carputer:

• the USB GPS puck that feeds the car’s co-ords to a modified version of iGuidance mapping/navigation software. iGuidance is modified by iGMod, which makes it more touch screen friendly
• the USB wirless steering wheel controls, allows for next/previous track and GPS/Music selection

Last night I attempted PM Yoga for Beginners. It was my first time trying Yoga and I was suprized at how dificult basic contortion of your body is. Some of the moves I was not able to do because I hurt my knee last month, and other moves I could not do (properly) because I lacked flexibility.

I suggested that Brittany and I try to alternate nights of Yoga and the Gym (classic cardio/weights), so we will try that for a while.

Last night I also had a major breakthrough in my carputer, when I found the receiver to my wireless gamepad that I have embedded into my steering wheel. As a result of car manufactorers dislike for putting lots of wires through the steering column to the steering wheel, the controls on a steering wheel are usually put through a resistive network and then fed through a single wire back to a controling box that decodes the signal. What this boils down to is that each control on the steering wheel has a different resistance, but not individual wires to connect to.

I wanted to use the buttons on the 2004 Cadillac steering wheel I put on my ‘92 STS so I had to build some custom circuit boards to put in the switches that gave me two contacts per swtich. I then connected the contacts from each of the circuit board to a wireless gamepad from Logitech. This allowed me to connect the switches, without any wires to my carputer.

Well up until last night I had not been able to find the receiver for said wireless gamepad. Now I have found the receiver and on the drive to work today I was switching through the songs like nobodies business.

Here are photos of Carputer Rev 1 and then Rev 2

I’ve recently done some work to my Carputer, work that has caused odd behavior in the rest of the electrical systems of the car. I think in moving around my wiring I have grounded something out. As a result the ower door locks do not work if the doors are open. Only if they are closed.

At any rate. I have started to use Media Portal at home and in my car. I am able to record TV shows, dump them onto my removable hard drive, and have them in the car. I can also setup my media shares so that I have the same content in my car as I do at home.

I want to make a C# (pronounced ’sea sharp’) application that will make use of directX input (from a joystick) and voice commands (to allow for heads up menu navigation).

• Text To Speach C#
• DirectX input
• C# Input Example/Tutorial
• XML Settings
• Speach Recog.
• DVD Playback
• Direct Show Media Playback

To do this I need to download the h SDK 5.1.