Blog outage update

Between 6am and noon CST yesterday the blog slowed down and eventually stopped working. Scheduled posts, like our call with LeafLabs, will be pushed to next Tuesday. Here’s what we know…

Last weekend we got a ton of traffic from one IP address in China. Our internet service is metered, and they ran up a $50 bill in two days. Laughing Squid, our awesome ISP, did an investigation and blocked the IP for us.

Yesterday there was a direct attack on the WordPress login page that crashed the blog, but not the forum or wiki. A shout out to Frank who did a great job locating the cause and getting us back online.

WordPress plugins were brought online one-by-one. Facebook posts were not restored until today due to some weird crap in the Wordbooker diagnostic log.

It appears no data was compromised, not that we keep anything of value in our databases like credit card details anyways. Our best guess is maybe the phpBB3 spam filter we host got some unwanted attention.

Thanks for reading the blog, and thanks for your patience yesterday. We’re really sorry about the site outage and slow support during the down-time freakout.

Fail whale from Twitter.

IBM Thinkpad T30 Bios password reset with the Bus Pirate

Using the Bus Pirate to read the SVP supervisor power on password off an IBM T30 Thinkpad:

A friend of mine recently came upon an old IBM T30 Thinkpad at an auction for $40.  Bringing it home, he found that there was a power-on supervisor password.  This can’t be reset by removing the battery, as the pswd is stored on an EEPROM on the motherboard….. So it came to me!

I recently purchased a Bus Pirate v3 from Seeedstudio, and decided to give it a quick test run..

Thanks Marcin! Via the contact form.

Remote control mood light

Dmitry Grinberg had a few PIC12F1840 MCUs lying around, and wanted to use them in some type of IR remote control project. He decided to construct a remote control mood light using the PICs in both transmitter and receiver. Four high-brightness LEDs (White, Red, Green, and Blue) are used to combine to form different colors in the receiver unit housed in a jar, along with a 38 kHz IR receiver module. The commands are generated by a PIC (housed in a gutted remote control housing) and transmitted via IR LED.

Dmitry has the code (Hi-TECH C is used to compile it), as well as the ASM files and hex files available on his website.

Thanks Dmitry! Via the contact form.

IBM unveils graphene chip

As detailed in this report, IBM has announced their first graphene integrated circuit. Graphene’s structure of one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice make it one of the thinnest semiconductor materials.

Further development using graphene should open the door to greater practicality of flexible electronics. While this technology is not expected to begin displacing conventional silicon circuits for a few years, when it does it should lead to bendable, transparent circuit boards revolutionizing the integration of embedded systems into common everyday items.

Via IEEE Spectrum.

Open Hardware Summit 2011 – Call for submissions

The Open Hardware Summit (OHS) has announced submissions for the second annual summit:

The Open Hardware Summit (OHS) invites submissions for the second annual summit, to be held on September 15, 2011 in New York City (Venue TBA). The Open Hardware Summit is a venue to present, discuss, and learn about open hardware of all kinds. The summit examines open hardware and its relation to other issues, such as software, design, business, and law. We are seeking submissions for talks, breakout sessions, and demos from individuals and groups working with open hardware and related areas. Submissions are due by June 24, 2011. Notification of accepted proposals will happen by August 1st.

Since the first Open Hardware Summit in 2010, we have seen the open hardware movement continue to flourish. The Open-Source Hardware Definition was announced, the OSHW logo was selected by a popular vote, an open source oil spill cleaning robot got more than $33,000 in crowd funding, Google adopted the open hardware movement’s biggest success story, Arduino, as its platform and our very own keynote speaker, Limor Fried, was featured on the front page of Wired Magazine – to name a few. Needless to say, open hardware is getting BIG.

Via the Adafruit.

Linux Web board in-progress release package

Over the last few weeks we did a massive cleanup and reorganization of our SVN code repository. Most projects now follow a standard directory structure. All our in-progress and stalled project files are now completely open and available to anyone. We also included all the manufacturing resources used to initiate production at Seeed, and the original artwork and diagrams used in the documentation. The final step of the cleanup is to release packages and source archives for each project.

Updated source archive and user packages for the in-progress Linux web board are up.


RobotShop microcontroller Instructables contest


RobotShop has announced a contest for creative microcontroller projects posted on Instructables.

To enter the contest you simply have to create a new photo, video, or step by step Instructable which incorporates a microcontroller and share your code. Whether your project is simple or complex, a video demonstrating it in action is a big plus!

RobotShop is giving a bonus to everyone who enters in the form of a discount code for 50% off a DFRobotShop Rover from RobotShop!

Deadline for submissions is July 3, 2011, and you can check out the details on contest rules and prizes here.

Low power LCD smackdown

Big Mess o’ Wires’ posted a roundup of small, low power LCDs for MCU projects.

Sometimes it seems like there are a million different LCDs you might use with your microcontroller project, and deciding on one can be hard. Once you’re ready to move beyond a basic text display, you’ll find graphic displays have a dizzying number of options for technology, color depth, interface type, driver, and power. Recently I’ve been collecting info on display options for my own projects, and here I’m presenting three options that look promising.

Vinculum ll programming model super-duper secret

From the rumor mill:

I exchanged a set of emails with VNC2 team two or three months ago.  They said that they will NOT GIVE the programmer model of their CPU (internal secret) and that we have to stick the api provided with their compiler and their IDE.

I can’t work or recommand working in such conditions! this is simply not serious! a secret programmer model for a programmable MCU is absurd!

Even more issues with the Vinculum 2. What’s up FTDI? You looked so snazzy dressed up like an Arduino.

Breakout boards release package v1.0

Over the last few weeks we did a massive cleanup and reorganization of our SVN code repository. Most projects now follow a standard directory structure. All our in-progress and stalled project files are now completely open and available to anyone. We also included all the manufacturing resources used to initiate production at Seeed, and the original artwork and diagrams used in the documentation. The final step of the cleanup is to release packages and source archives for each project.

Updated source archive and user packages for the breakout boards are now available.  This package covers MMA7455L, FT2232, and MCP2200.


Get MMA7455L and MCP2200 breakout boards from Seeed Studio for $15 each.

Get the FT2232H breakout board for $27


xQFP protoboard release package

Over the last few weeks we did a massive cleanup and reorganization of our SVN code repository. Most projects now follow a standard directory structure. All our in-progress and stalled project files are now completely open and available to anyone. We also included all the manufacturing resources used to initiate production at Seeed, and the original artwork and diagrams used in the documentation. The final step of the cleanup is to release packages and source archives for each project.

Updated source archive and user packages for the xQFP protoboards are now available.

Available in 0.50mm, 0.65mm, and 0.80mm for $10.


Microcontroller quick start schematics release package v1

Over the last few weeks we did a massive cleanup and reorganization of our SVN code repository. Most projects now follow a standard directory structure. All our in-progress and stalled project files are now completely open and available to anyone. We also included all the manufacturing resources used to initiate production at Seeed, and the original artwork and diagrams used in the documentation. The final step of the cleanup is to release packages and source archives for each project.

Schematics for the chip quick start guides are up.


Adafruit + Instructables make it Tweet challenge

Adafruit announced a Make It Tweet Challenge:

We’re teaming up with Instructables to bring you the Make It Tweet Challenge. Ever wish you had a tweeting coffee pot that would announce via Twitter when a pot was ready? What about a potted plant that twittered when it needed to be watered? This is your chance to make it tweet! How can you win the Adafruit Make It Tweet Challenge? Submit a Photo, Step-by-Step or Video Instructable explaining how you made an object tweet. Create awesome photos, good documentation and clear steps for how your project works. Your creativity and ingenuity may rewarded by winning awesome prizes!

Help with 2600 hacker calendar

Our friends at 2600 Magazine are putting together a hacker calendar for 2012 and they’re asking for everyone’s help. They write:

We’re putting together a special hacker wall calendar, filled with all sorts of awesome pictures of technology compiled by our team of photographers. Old and new tech will be represented, large and small, you name it.

If you know of a particular event or milestone that deserves recognition and is somehow tied to the hacker world, send us its date along with a very brief description of its significance. Look for those obscure, non-obvious points in history that will result in intensive daily calendar-gazing, causing pots to overflow, schoolchildren to miss their buses, and employees to tune out their bosses. It’s the kind of mayhem we live for.

Email calendar@2600.com throughout the month of June so we can begin the compilation process and have this thing ready in plenty of time for 2012.

Nominations open for O’Reilly Open Source Awards


The 7th Annual O’Reilly Open Source Awards will be hosted this July at OSCON 2011 in Portland, Ore. These annual awards recognize individual contributors who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the development of open source software.

The nomination form is open to the entire open source community. The nomination period closes on July 1, 2011.