After quite a while of working perfectly well, the mini HDMI2AV module I have (in the picture above, mentioned in this post) started producing an unstable picture, and in the end a completely garbled one. It took some time to nail down this specific component in the foodchain, because there was also an HDMI splitter [...]
I struggled with this a bit, and ended up doing it right by guessing. Even though I should have read the manual to begin with. So the procedure is simple (cited from manual, page 7, “Pairing”): Turn the ignition on. Make sure the Bluetooth feature of your phone is turned on. Start the pairing procedure [...]
On Linux machines, there’s a command saying $ xrandr –verbose which outputs a lot of information about the display, in particular the EDID information obtained from the monitor. Among others, it’s a detailed listing of the video modes that the monitor is willing to accept. These modes are usually the standard VESA graphics modes, but [...]
So I compiled a Linux kernel with 8 threads in parallel on my Linux desktop machine, as I always do. The CPU worked extra hard as usual, but lately its temperature began to rise, ending up at 88°C. It looks like a clock gating mechanism kicked in to save the CPU. But hey, this never [...]
So I bought this $10 mini DV camera on EBay. Since the user’s manual is pretty out of sync with itself and the product (Chinese and English doesn’t match, even by looking at the specification and drawings) I’ve written down some basic howto, in case I need to remember what to do at a later [...]
I know, I know. I have a very old cellular phone. But since I have enough electronic toys, I couldn’t care less about turning my phone into one. And it happens to be a good one. Everything was OK until it failed to start. Or more precisely, it started, and then restarted itself. Like this: [...]
Copying gigabytes of disk can get the system sluggish. On Linux, the solution is so simple. If process 18898 happens to take control of your disk, just go: ionice -c 3 -p 18898 And you have your computer back. “-c 3″ means class 3, which is idle class. In other words, take the disk when [...]
The whole story began when I decided to be kind enough to tell the Xilinx tools (ISE 9.2 in my case) that the Virtex-4 I’m targeting is a grown-up. Stepping 2, to be precise. I added CONFIG STEPPING = “2″; to the UCF file. It must have been one of those moments where I believed [...]
I got it when I was 13. Yes, some of us play with strange toys. I had a lot of fun moments with it, but the truth is that even if it worked, it’s not much of use, now that I’ve betrayed it with a young and colorful one. Mechanically, this old scope is in [...]
Introduction An Israeli website, “Kama Kesef” (כמה כסף in Hebrew, meaning “how much money”) is a neat web calculator telling how much to give as a money present in weddings and other events. When I realized that I’m far from being the only one using it to decide what sum to write down on the [...]