@Engineer

If you buy(specifically for the LED?) a keyboard, and wire it to your computer(generally speaking) and run the shell script lines you gave, it will look nice BUT -

..you'll have to check manually for email and then start the script by hand if you want so blink it when mail arrives!!!



(that is, unless you have at least some kind of python script do the dirty work of checking your POP/IMAP server at intervals)

Last edited by AlphaCentauri (2009-06-21 1:31:41 am)

Thanks to your(justblair)s generous donation of parts for building a USB LED notifier device, I've spent part of last night with assembling a prototype of DaveH.'s "avr-usb-rgb-led cube notifier".

Looks nice since very small, works like a charm. Now I need to install some C environment for WindowsXP (MinGW perhaps? DaveH.?) to be able to compile the executable for that platform too...

But first I'll add hardware support for that USB notifier to my dBird scripts (ATM I'm considering ditching the whole picaxe/serial port concept in favor of the attiny/USB concept - or maybe I should keep compatibility for my old hardware? I don't know, has anyone got a picaxe notifier circuit running, besides me? Probably not so I'll go with using the USB version only from now on... let me know if this is not wanted)

btw anyone good at making a .DEB package from all this? (volunteers needed)

I'm not sure how easy a windows version would be, I think  reasonably simple. Dave_H certainly has produced a windows version of the usb module required.  It is almost exactly the same as the linux version except it is called with set-led.exe instead of set-led.

As I understand it python scripts will run on a windows environment, so a port should be entirely possible.  Alpha can perhaps answer this one better...

ok now I've become familiar with flashing the ATtiny, I've etched a small PCB and assembled another notifier - and I've found a very funny light diffuser this time!

Since I took some pictures (and generally think everyone likes seeing pictures) I want to share them here.

First, ghetto-rigged exposure setup (picture frame with glass holding raw PCB coated with light-sensitive lamination, covered by negative printed on clear foil.


Here's the light diffuser I've found - a microscopically small lava lamp with glitter stuff inside, floating in water!! 


And finally, same thing, different lighting conditions (as can be seen, it looks much better in the dark):

Hi blair, glad to hear you like my dBird notifier scripts!

For running it in the background, I'd recommend either making a link on your desktop or inside the gnoMenu (I made one in "applications/internet", and also I assigned it that nice parrot icon found in the subfolder "....../LEDnotifier/icons"), and maybe adding it to the list found in the gnoMenu under system/settings/startup(?), so that it autostarts on boot.
When launched by clicking the icon inside the menu (or if autostarted on start-up), the scripts will stay in background, and only thing noticed is the parrot tray icon if started, all console output isn't shown anymore.
(or if you just want to re-start it manually you could press alt-f2 and then enter the script executable incl full path name and the script will be executed in background instead of console - unless you enable the checkbox for running it in a console window, that is)

Last edited by AlphaCentauri (2009-06-28 12:23:38 pm)

btw blair if you send me your adress I'll send you a few  PCBs (and some 0805 resisitors, diodes and an attiny45 in SOIC package too), just drop me a mail.

I read a comment on this mod on a french blog,

Gives some good ideas, the ubiquity translation reads

Quite frankly I love this idea. In fact I am sure we can apply it to a max of application. Alert Gps radar vocabulary Error in Open Office Timer over time for the connection site drole Alert Explosion of dipper score games ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Anyway, there is no limit to my mind Top GREAT cool from french

I am sure that some of these are possible.

Hm, when I wrote thhe python stuff I decided to make it open source to give others a possibility of using my work for their own projects, for free. I just wanted my name to be assigned with my work - nothing uncommon.

Also before I decided to write about all that notifier stuff here at eeeuser.com I also submitted my notifier project to hackaday.com hoping they would maybe write a short follow-up on it - but they didn't respond to me at all. I wrote again, no reply. I thought maybe they have enough mail notifiers already, nothing to worry about.

When I saw that Hackaday.com reported about an "AVR USB RGB LED" notifier, I was happy and thought "wow, maybe your work will indeed be of value to someone, now that the notifier is featured on hackaday" but only until I went to their site to see the follow-up..

When I took a look, I realized quickly that all information regarding my efforts I put into this project had been ignored, all reference to my work simply  left out, this in sharp contrast to justBlairs report on his website justbalir.co.uk.

When I moaned about me not getting the credit I deserve on Hackaday,  my comment got "moderated" away so I commented again, all without harsh wording, just gave my point, I wrote an email to Hackaday.com staff begging to simply include just a link to my work, in some form - and my initial complaining comment did indeed appear again, along with a mention of my name somewhere along the lines -  but now ppl there now making jokes about my wish to get some credit. As if I would demand something totally uncomprehensible.

Thats not the reason for me to give away hours of work of my mind for free.

I don't think I'll publish any similar projects any more, in the future.

Getting credit for your work is the bare minimum of reward that can be expected for sharing, and refusing to give person this due credit is even worse than distributing pirate copies of copyright-protected, not openly licensensed aka non-free mind work, and people (not realizing the effort a programmer MIGHT have put into his project) are not worth enjoying open source software.

I would be ok with no comments and justblair getting all the flowers, but being even offended for claiming "I want you to acknowledge that this at least partly originated on my desk"? I really don't know if thats the motivation that'll keep me reporting any hacks when/if I should make something in the future.

Which is sad  - but be honest, woud YOU still feel like sharing if you were in my situation?

Last edited by AlphaCentauri (2009-07-07 11:23:28 am)

Yes I saw they changed the description to include a link to some page of mine - now its just the reactions of people commenting that annoy me, slightly.
BTW blair, on your site people start asking questions about "your" scripts. Hmpf.
OK I'm done,

Last edited by AlphaCentauri (2009-07-07 3:08:52 pm)

You overreacted?  Nah....

Well perhaps a little, but I totally understand.  Reading the user comments at hackaday, so do a lot of the people commenting. 

I am very pleased that you got the mention that your hard work and talent deserves.  Especially as your site tells at least as much again of the story as my article could cover.

I fully anticipate that we will see a few more versions of this being built.  I hope that your enthusiasm has been restored?

Last edited by justblair (2009-07-08 3:54:11 pm)

Yeah and Liliputing Slashdot and del.icio.us too, as well as several french, english and japanese blogs...
(but all say that blair was the inventor of this)

EDIT Technorati, flickr, facebook, twitter, even make magazine online too....

Last edited by AlphaCentauri (2009-07-12 7:00:07 am)