TechnologyIQ

The most important rule of password use, especially when used for online logins, is to avoid reusing passwords. From there, one’s method of keeping track of multiple passwords can vary considerably. While memorization is an option in theory, in practice a lot of people make use of a password manager like Lastpass or KeePass. For those with increased security concerns, though, you may want to implement a USB password keeper like this one based on an ATtiny. Read USB Password Keeper Runs on Tiny Chip via hack a day An interesting link found among my daily reading

When you're new to programming you might fall prey to some bad programming practices. In today's video I am going to cover the 5 most common bad practices (or antipatterns) that I see with newer developers. Watch Home School: 5 Programming ANTIPATTERNS for Beginners! via Andy Sterkowitz on YouTube Find more books on Bookshop and Help Indie Book Stores!

Google announced a number of new features, tweaks, and additions to Chrome yesterday. In typical Google fashion, some are available for you to play with right now and some you’ll have to wait on. We’ve done the grunt work, and put together a comprehensive guide to unlocking every feature Google talked about yesterday (and what they are). Before we begin, make sure you’re using the latest, stable version of Google Chrome, which should be version 83.0.4103.61 as of this writing. To check, or to update your browser, click on the triple-dot icon in the upper-right corner and click on Help > About Google Chrome. Read How to Get Early Access to Google Chrome's New Safety and Design Updates via Gizmodo An interesting link found among my daily reading

We discuss how the game Myst became the killer game for the CD-Rom drive back in 1993. Watch How Myst Became One of the Best-Selling PC Games of All Time via IGN on YouTube Find more book on my Bookshop store

Read Gmail now supports multiple signatures via Engadget An interesting link found among my daily reading

Have you ever wished that a laser could tell you the weather? If you have, then [tuckershannon] has you covered. He’s created a machine that uses a laser and some UV sensitive paper to draw the temperature and a weather icon! And that’s not all! It’s connected to the internet, so it can also show the time and print out messages. Building on [tuckershannon]’s previous work with glow-in-the-dark drawing, the brains inside this machine is a Raspberry Pi Zero. The laser itself is a 5mw, 405nm laser pointer with the button zip-tied down. Two 28BYJ-48 stepper motors are used to orient the laser, one for the rotation and another for the height angle. Each stepper motor is connected to a motor driver board and then wired directly to the Pi. Read Laser Draws Weather Report via Hackaday An interesting link found among my daily reading

Google on Tuesday announced a planned update to the permissions window for its Docs, Drive, and Sheets apps that is designed to make sharing files less confusing. Now, when you click the share button, the box that pops up has a clear distinction between who the file is being shared with through a searchable directory of your contacts or co-workers and the permissions the link has Read Google is updating the Drive and Docs share window to make it less confusing via The Verge An interesting link found among my daily reading

  The LEGO Technic line is definitely the hacker’s flavor of LEGO. It brings a treasure trove of engineering uses that make axles, gears, pulleys, and motors a thing. The only problem is that it’s the inanimate minifigures having all of the fun. But not if [Matt Denton] has something to say about it. He’s building a huge 3D-printed go-kart with pieces scaled up 8.43 times the size of their LEGO equivalents. That’s large enough for an adult to fit! Read Huge 3D-Printed LEGO Go Kart Makes You the Minifig via hack a day An interesting link found among my daily reading

Follow a game from concept through development. Watch Swords 'n Magic and Stuff - Indie Devlog - Ep. 01 with Michael Kocha via YouTube An interesting link found among my daily reading

Who does not like the rumbling tone of a distorted electric guitar? It is a key part of many important genres of music, especially in blues and rock music genres and is also frequently used in hard rock, metal or the punk music genre. In this project, we will build a basic distortion pedal for guitars using a simple circuit. You can also check out the Arduino Guitar Tuner Circuit if you are looking for more guitar-related projects. Read Build Your Own Guitar Distortion Pedal Circuit via circuitdigest.com An interesting link found among my daily reading

I love collecting and analyzing data.  I also love building electronic gadgets.  A year ago when I discovered the Arduino products, I immediately thought, "I'd like to collect environmental data."  It was a windy day in Portland, OR, so I decided to capture wind data.  I looked at some of the instructables for anemometers and found them quite useful, but needed to make some engineering changes. First, I wanted the device to run self-contained, outdoors, for a week.  Second, I wanted it to be able to record very small gusts of wind, several of the designs here required rather strong winds to get going.  Lastly, I wanted to record the data. Read A Self-Contained Data Logging Anemometer : 11 Steps (with Pictures) via Instructables An interesting link found among my daily reading

Historical Technology Books - 53 in a series - Hawkins electrical guide. Questions, answers & illustrations (1914) by N. (Nehemiah) Hawkins       Download this entire publication from Archive.org in a variety of formats   Find similar books and magazines: Publication date 1 914 Topics   Electrical engineering Find more books on Bookshop and Help Indie Book Stores!

The Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo is pleading with the public to video-chat their garden eels starting on Sunday, because they are forgetting that humans exist. Read FaceTime some eels -- because they are "forgetting about people" via Boing Boing An interesting link found among my daily reading

Read [935] SimpliSafe Alarm Bypassed With a $2 Device From Amazon via An interesting link found among my daily reading

Thingiverse member FFFTech has created a new Raspberry Pi security camera using the official V2 Raspberry Pi Camera Module and a Raspberry Pi Zero W mini PC. The pie security camera is loaded with motionEyeOS a Linux distribution that turns your single-board computer into a video surveillance system. The MotionEyeOS supports the following devices Raspberry Pi (all versions), Banana Pi, Odroid C1/C1+, Odroid C2, Odroid XU4 and Pine A64/A64+. Read Raspberry Pi security camera using MotionEyeOS - Geeky Gadgets via Geeky Gadgets An interesting link found among my daily reading

Graphic designer Rocky Bergen is dedicated to helping us bring our favorite classic computers and game systems (somewhat) to life with this collection of free, downloadable papercraft models that includes the Commodore 64, the Apple II, the Nintendo GameCube, the Atari 520ST and more. He even offers a variety of screen views for many of the models so you can personalize them based on your own fond memories of using them (the Oregon Trail option for the Apple II is really the only way to go, though). Even the stories he tells about each model are endearing. Here’s what he has to say about creating the Amiga 500 model Read Build These Papercraft Models of Classic Computers via Offspring An interesting link found among my daily reading

Adam welcomes a new member to the Tested family: Boston Dynamics' Spot robot! All throughout this year, Adam will be conducting builds and projects with Spot, integrating it into the workshop and taking it on adventures in the field. The first thing to do is test Spot's capabilities at an outdoor training course! Our Year with Spot commences! Watch Adam Savage Tests Boston Dynamics' Spot Robot! via Tested on YouTube Find more book on my Bookshop store

Historical Technology Books - 52 in a series - At the edge of life : an introduction to viruses : a report from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (1980)   Medicine is technology, too, and developing a good base knowledge is just as important as learning the basics of a programming language.       Download this entire publication from Archive.org in a variety of formats   Find similar books and magazines:   Publication date   1980 Topics    Virus diseases ,  Virology

  Buried deep within all UNIX-based operating systems are vestiges of the earliest days of computing, when “hardware” more often than not meant actual mechanical devices with cams and levers and pulleys and grease. But just because UNIX, and by extension Linux, once supported mechanical terminals doesn’t mean that getting a teletype from the 1930s to work with it is easy. Such was the lesson learned by [CuriousMarc] with his recently restored Model 15 Teletype; we covered a similar Model 19 restoration that he tackled. The essential problem is that the five-bit Baudot code that they speak predates the development of ASCII by several decades, making a converter necessary. A task like that is a perfect job for an Arduino — [Marc] put a Mega to work on that — but the interface of the Teletype proved a bit more challenging. Designed to connect two or more units together over phone lines, the high-voltage 60-mA current loop interface required some custom hardware. The testing process

During this week’s Bett trade show in London, Arduino has launched four new STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) kits for students from lower secondary school through the university level. The four products include a motions expansion kit, an engineering kit, an educational starter kit and an internet of things (IoT) starter kit. The CTC GO! Motions Expansion Pack is designed for secondary school students to teach STEAM topics with complex programming concepts. The pack is built for those already accustomed to using STEAM tools and applying that knowledge in the real world. The pack also helps introduce students to motors and transmission mechanisms such as pulleys and gear concepts that help develop logical reasoning, hands-on building skills and problem-solving skills. The IoT Starter Kit is for secondary school and university students to get started with building automated devices using sensors, automation, logging, graphing and analyzing sensor data as well

Historical Technology Books - 51 in a series - A treatise on belts and pulleys. Embracing full explanations of fundamental principles; proper disposition of pulleys; rules, formulas by John Howard Cromwell     Download this entire publication from Archive.org in a variety of formats   Find similar books and magazines:   Publication date   1885 Topics   Belts and belting ,  Pulleys