Cutting the back to fit the shape, nailing it onto the wood, etc, all went OK (but not perfect, as I did not realize that the space is so tight in some corners,; it was almost impossible to screw in the wall supports!). I guess it took about 2 hours to put all the wall supports in place on the violin shelf. Actually this is a very good lesson for future wood working projects: whenever a space is smaller than 15cm, make sure you fit supports before putting everything together, otherwise not even a small screwdriver can fit inside.

So after all was said and done, here’s the result:

There’s only one thing to do, covering some – if not all compartments with glass. I’ve been asked by the “glass cutting” company to come up with exact dimensions and, for glass that has 135 degrees angles, to come up with a mock up and they would cut it. But this is for another round …

Part 1: http://hex.ro/blog/index.php/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf/

Part 2: http://hex.ro/blog/index.php/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf-part-2/

Here’s a sneak preview

Looks almost perfect! Now the fun stops … and work has to begin. Connecting everything together, finish up here and there. And I haven’t yet thought of the glass that has to cover it. Oh well, more updates to come soon.

Part 1 of the project: http://hex.ro/blog/index.php/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf/

Part 3 of the project: http://hex.ro/blog/index.php/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf-part-3/

I have the AC unit mounted in the middle of the wall – and the tubes that run out of it have a weird bend somewhere along the way (click images to get a larger view):

I was looking at it a few days ago, and realized that the shape of the tubes look like a side of a violin / guitar. Since the guitar is not that long, I decided to go with a violin. Here’s the initial drawing I did:

I took a photo of a violin, displayed it, and then, with a math paper layed on top of the LCD – I draw some angles that match the violin

This was starting to look perfect. I fired up Google Sketch Pad – and came up with this drawing:

This very nice render really got me going. I needed to build it for real!
Here’s how it may look in the end (a ‘skillful’ combination of Gimp and MS Paint ):

Now since everything looks sweet – off I was to the plywood shop where I got the wood cut and some nice sides for visual contrast. I have choose Wenge color (all my furniture looks similar):

The bad thing is that the guys didn’t want to also cut the angles (22.5 degrees and 45 degrees) as they don’t want their master wood cutting device decalibrated . Oh well… still, I bought the plywood – and I have to really find somebody to to cut the angles properly! As you can see below, my hand cutting mastery is not impressive:

Anyway, please check back soon for an update I found an angle wood cutter device, but costs around 250euros and I’m not willing to pay that much just to own it. Still looking for a shop where to get it done. Meanwhile, I’ve also bought some decor for the upcoming shelf:

What do you think ?

Updates are available:

Part 2: http://hex.ro/blog/index.php/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf-part-2/

Part 3:  http://hex.ro/blog/index.php/violin-shaped-plywood-shelf-part-3/

Here are SuperPI results for 2M digits (power settings = high performance; nothing else running in the background but HW Monitor):

The CPU temperature never went above 45C:

I am happy with the purchase (got a discount at El Corte Ingles, ended up paying only 335 euros). I’ve fiddled for a few days with a standard Atom netbook: Packard Bell dot ZG6; it was nice, however, no Adobe Flash for HD movies (it did work but 1 frame/sec).

The price I payed puts this laptop into the netbooks range of Atom @ 1.6Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb hard drive, Intel 945 on 1024×600 – but is much responsive with 3Gb RAM, 250Gb hard drive and Intel 4500 MHD on 1366×768.

Not to mention the CPU which is now able to run Adobe Flash movies in 720p in the browser.

I also like the design: on all other laptops I saw, I had to remember -more or less- the location of USB ports or at least I had to look every time on the side of the laptop. On this model there are symbols drawn on the top part of the laptop, just above the ports themselves. Never miss the slot again!

Windows Experience Index is 2.8 (CPU is the limiting factor here – click to enlarge):

The HDMI output is a bonus. I feel a bit bad with a single core CPU, but on the other han, if it does the single job better than 2 core CPU (Atom) [I'm referring to Flash Player of 720p videos on Youtube], then it’s OK. I’m coming from E8500, Q9000 so I can’t have too many words about this one – it doesn’t heat up and does the stuff I need it to do.

Last, hdtach (ran in compatibility mode) results:

PS: Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit.

One drawback I’ve noted so far: The Caps Lock key doesn’t turn on any light indicator.

Which of these three buttons will take you to the main menu ?

1. ‘Menu’ button
2. ‘Back’ button
3. ‘Home’ button

In case you did not know the answer, the correct alternative is nr. 3. ‘Home’ button always takes you to the phone’s desktop. The ‘Menu’ button only brings back the application menu – which usually is named ‘Options’ or ‘Settings’ etc. The ‘Back’ button – oh well – this depends on context.

That’s why I love Nokia …

As I’m beginner, I’ve looked something easy to reproduce – gradients (I still need to learn to mix colors properly).

The source image is taken from here: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1414/695463642_f359c200a2.jpg

But I didn’t use edge detects, or paper underneath. I don’t think I got anything right, but I don’t care. Moving all along …

As years went by, I passed to Perl, Java, PHP, etc .. , *nix administration, j2me, JNI, eeetc and now – I’m working only on J2EE, only here and there maintaining some forums / blogs in PHP.

What I dislike about J2EE is that just a simple form on web needs >20Mb of jars and libraries just to get it going. This seems a huge amount of code (zipped!) just there – as compare to, you know, 48kb games on Z80 that were keeping you hours in front of the TV.

But I just realized in fact the beauty of it. How ?

I am experienced in interacting with legacy databases, Oracle / Informix. I know how to tackle complex systems (or at least I believe I know – but as “Tao of programming” puts it, only Tao is perfect). So I am pretty much drawn on investigating alternatives to monster DBs, and lately I’ve been trying to investigate NoSQL movement. I said that maybe if I can convert and existing open source application (using MySQL / Postgres) to NoSQL (I’ve chose Redis – seemed the most friendlier to me), in the past few days I investigated what source code to modify.

So far I checked SMF (Simplemachines’s php forum), WordPress (php blogger) and JForum (j2ee forum). What I found disturbing is that the code is littered with SQL code. Everywhere SQL code! Search the code for “select *” and tens of files contain it!

Not to mention that is seems impossible to work with two data sources at the same time (I planned to move only small bits to NoSQL and, as i was building up intuition, to move on the bigger tables, like the posts table or the users table).

It is disappointing … compared to the monster applications based on J2EE, with legacy databases, huge set of business rules and so on … wow, those applications have one thing in common. No matter how many SQLs you want to have, it’s everything into one place. ONE place. Only a couple of files contain everything that is needed… I need to change a query, I go into the mapping files and I do it. As simple as that.

So ibatis (for legacy databases) and ibator are a powerful combination.

I think I will continue to study NoSQL for these open source projects, even if I will end up with a mess of code. It seems to be messy anyway.

I see everybody mentioning the ‘Cloud’, how easy is to deploy everything, how easy is to maintain, or how easy is to have all your documents in one location, available from everywhere, backed up, etc.

On the other hand, I know that people are very individualistic. Given the chance, they move out of the campuses and buy a house. Given the chance, they will stop going to the Post Office to make phone calls by installing one at home. People need control over the stuff they use do every day. Of course, there are exceptions, people have to go to Hospital when they have problems, but still keep a small pharmacy in house, just in case.

Your online space (either public or not) is rented to you (get access if paying) and is not private property.

Hence, if I apply the same independence metaphor to the ‘Cloud’, I believe that given advancements in storage hardware (fast, reliable, cheap) coupled with high speed LAN and WAN networks – everybody will start to use their own hosted small clouds, in house, and not shared with thousands.

Right now the ‘Cloud’ solves some problems that you face when dealing with day to day issues:

• hardware is difficult to maintain and is costly both due to time and money (paperwork / approvals / money / contracts).
• software is not easy to maintain (bugs, security vulnerabilities, administrators, trained personnel)
• spam is hard to fight against

Thus, I applaud the monster feat that the ‘Cloud’ companies created / manage. However, I feel that given the right circumstances people will choose to have their online profile as a private property than shared in the ‘Cloud’. This didn’t happen for electricity (still far more cheaper to buy electricity than to operate your own generator). But related to hardware, people already did the switch from mainframes to personal computers once.

The cycle starts again.

Here’s the first result:

Hehe.

But I cheated a bit

a) Edge detect in GIMP.
b) Print on A4.
c) Put the A4 page underneath the painting paper.
d) Paint!

Is fun, it fills like being a child again …

Iata originalul (multumesc dl. Escu – fotografie facuta in Gradina Botanica)

Aleea Botanistilor

Asa ca imi manifestai si eu frustrarea singuratatii:

Aleea Botanistelor

Heheeee…