robotgeek » code

USB Booting for Bios Update

robotgeek — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:36:22 +0000

I bought some extra RAM for my machine (it has 4GB of RAM now). However, the computer would not recognize the extra RAM. So, off I went to my motherboard manufacturer’s site and looked up possible BIOS updates.

And then, the question is…how do you update your bios without a floppy disk. I did not have cd-rw’s at hand, so I had to get it working with a usb flash drive.

After lot of research, I found a

HP Drive Key Booting Utility
A bootable cdrom image from bootdisk.com

Installed the utility, and picked the bootable image (.img format). And I was off to the races….

I wish I had run into this page earlier.

Stats

robotgeek — Fri, 12 May 2006 20:06:32 +0000

You might or might not know that I work on EasyUbuntu.

Anyways, we released a beta on April 25th. Since then, we have about 3237 downloads in April, and 4580 downloads in May! A total of 7817 (and counting) downloads in 17 days!

Makes you feel nice, doesn’t it

BTW, this beta of EasyUbuntu supports Breezy/Dapper, Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu and X86/PowerPC/Amd64 architectures. Go on, download away!

Python Code Example

robotgeek — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 19:50:42 +0000

I wrote a piece of python code. It’s a generalised summation function, it sums up arbitrary functions (simple ones alteast!), for an arbitrary number of summations. Inspired by Nikhil’s lisp code, and a “Can I do this in Python attitude!”

Here it is:

def list_inc(list_begin,list_end,list_cur):
	if list_cur ==[ ]:
		return list_cur
	if list_cur[-1] < list_end[-1]:
		list_cur[-1] = list_cur[-1] + 1
		return list_cur
	list_cur= list_inc(list_begin[:-1],list_end[:-1],list_cur[:-1])
	list_cur.append(list_begin[-1])
	return list_cur

def summation(function,list_begin,list_end):
	sum = 0
	list_cur = list_begin
	while (list_cur != list_end):
		sum = sum + apply (function,list_cur)
		list_cur =  list_inc (list_begin,list_end,list_cur)
	sum = sum + apply (function,list_end)
	return sum

 #Arbitrary function, ranges
print summation(lambda x,y,z:x*y*z,[1,1,1],[2,3,5])

Btw, I think I might have to read up on how to format the code properly while using wordpress. I did use the < "code"> thing, but it's not very impressive. A < "pre"> tag might be good.

Labview Programming

robotgeek — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 14:06:48 +0000

I spend a lot of time on programming in Labview nowadays. It’s a very interesting programming language. Very simple to use, and lot of documentation.

How does it look?? Here goes…

I am currently trying to get a Data Acquisition system which acquires data from 12 strain-gages to work nicely with Labview. Looks like I am going to have to read up on serial communication.

This will be my first foray into Labview drivers, and low-level stuff in Labview. Previously, I have worked on motion control and image processing in Labview, but they were mostly high-level stuff. Looks like I’m gonna have to read up.