day 53

Progress is moving along quite nicely now. Motherboard from a dell laptop is being used in place of the acer one. The dell laptop had a shattered screen making it unusable, this was caused by someone rolling onto it while in bed. the graphics card for this laptop is better than the one of the acer meaning that I will be able to do some graphic work while on it. I have yet to find a hard drive to use on it yet so I will not be loading an operating system onto it yet. Though when the time comes I will be using ubuntu 12.01 for the OS. I have recovered a wifi card as well as a bluetooth card to be used within the laptop its self both are compatable as I had them running before the HDD failed within the laptop.

day 52

I began rebuilding a laptop today, an older dell laptop using parts from various other devices. The screen I grabbed from an acer laptop of which had over heated. This laptop had been used for many many hours while being rested on a couch without proper cooling causing the fans to be plugged and unable to remove the heat caused it to heat up to the critical point where the processor overheated. I grabbed the ram from the same device. The motherboard is scrap as it seems the processor melted to it.

day 51

I have managed to create an animation of the gun in motion. I am including a video of the animation currently

day 50

Using a handgun picture as a template I have created a first attempt at a handgun model. this one was a little easier as I have learned about more about how blender works and I hope to make a animation of this gun moving soon.

Day 49

More of the body was worked on currently. I have lowered the polygon count yet again as well as extended the body more making it taller as well as adding arms and legs to the body. This has taken a lot longer than expected. I have worked on this project a total of 18 hours now and it has been very difficult to get to a point where I like it.

day 48

Worked on making person using blender. Working on it using multiple stages. so far I have made a head and shoulders which so far has taken well over 10 hours to work on.  Modeling and remodeling of the heard to get it to this point took lots of maneuvering as well as joining and deleting more of the meshes to lower the polygon count.

Day 47

Computer at work giving connection error with internet connection. Tried diagnosing connection, downloaded third party software to scan connections for errors. None were found after 3 attempts. Debit machine 2 have no connection error as well. Began checking splitter boxes (mass of cables running around the store) turns out splitter from main office to tills was shorting out. Still giving connection to computer. But not to internet. Replaced splitter and connection returned. 

day 46

the use of functions in C++ is great for creating much more complicated programs. using them allows the programmer to split tasks throughout the program and making them able to run one at a time instead of all at once. For example;


#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

void class();
void school();

int main()
{
class();
school();
}
void  class()
{
cout<<"class has begun now!\n";
}
void school()
{
cout<<"school is now over!\n";
}
this allows for the program to split up the processes so that more than one thing can be accomplished with the single program compared to being restricted to one thing and one thing only.
Taking into account that functions still need to be called this allows the user to be able to call them and end them when needed for functionality of the program or the needs of the software.

day 45

using C++ I have discovered that it is possible to create a text file and write to it using a compiled program.

there is a directory of code located in a header file called <fstream> that allows you to be able to do this using lines of code like;
   int main () {
  ofstream myfile;
  myfile.open ("example.txt");
  myfile &lt;&lt; "Writing this to a file.\n";
  myfile.close();
  return 0;
}
when looking at this you can see that the line
 'ofstream myfile' will create the file you wish it to
 'myfile.open ("example.txt");' is creating the text document for you
 'myfile&lt;&lt;"Writing this to a file.\n";' is putting text in the file for you
 'myfile.close()' is closing the file for you

using these you can make a text file as well as write to it, using a program you have made.

day 44

reformat complete on laptop. Current status is partly installed for programs. Compiler installed for computer work as well as a few other key software installs; chrome, malwarebytes antimalware, avast antivirus and a few others. Problem is now gone I can leave my computer alone for any length of time and not worry about it shutting down what I was working on.

day 43

Problem with computer continues. Now interfeering with ability to compile programs or to make 3d models. I have gone to the last resort and am now going to wipe my laptop and resintall ASAP. backing up all programs and other essential items; pictures, videos, documents, downloads, as well as a list of all programs installed on this device.

day 42

ran into computer problems with laptop. Seems to be mouse drivers as my computer keeps selecting and deselecting windows if the mouse is left for more than 2 mins without being moved. Doesnt matter if it is touch, track pad or hardware mouse attached externally. currently have tried uninstalling and reinstalling mouse drivers still not working.

day 41

file recovery on phone to find lost photos. Managed to get 100+ usable pics from the device other than the 23 corrupted ones. Program used was Asus data recovery software. Among other things found were a few videos as well as pics from webpages visited on the device.

day 40

Fan problems in a laptop; noises, vibrating ect... I disassembled the laptop and discovered that the fan had been dead for at least a year now. The computer showed signs of overheating as well as loss of fan movement. After disassembling the laptop I found that the fan was jammed but had been for quite some time and is now unusable and needs to be replaced.

Day 38

I was given a desktop fro a chain smokers house. The tower was covered in Tar (yes this is another from the same house). This caused complications for them stemming from an overheating problem. The heatsink for the laptop was coated in tar making the CPU fan useless and the tower fan was clogged. I managed to recover the HDD from the tower and recover all the data that i could though the motherboard was overheated and useless. I only hope now that I will be able to replace at least a partial amount of the computer systems for them so that they dont have no tower anymore

Day 37

Calling functions from a main function is quite simple take this example code; void main() { calling() } void calling() { cout<<("Hello world"); } this calls the 'calling' function trough the main function making it more simple to make more complex programs. This is a factor as you are able to send data from the other functions for example; void calling(int x); void main() { cout<

Day 36

Beginning with a derivitive of C used for Arduino. It is compatible with computers as well as it is able to be used with Java. I have notice that it uses 'loop()' as a run instead of a 'main()' which means that either it is replacing the main with loop of it uses a the entire program as the main directory and uses the loop for a running the program continunisly. the main directory is used in all c based programming languages including C, C+, C++, C#, and more of them are included in that. The main directory is used to call all the other functions in the program.

day 35

I have found a tool that has found the corrupt memory module. I had to buy a USB CD drive as mine does not contain on that I could use for CD booting the software. I used hirens boot CD memory diagnostic tools to identify the corrupt memory. At the same time I replaced a fan in a HP pavillion g6 series laptop which had shorted out during the boot phase.

day 34

Blogger acting up again this post was supposed to be displayed a month ago. Currently I have been fixing my laptop. I am having an error with a single memory unit that has become corrupt making it a little harder to do most processes on this computer. the current problem becomes in the fact that I dont know which module is corrupt making Identify it exponentially more challenging. I have tools that will fix the module when I can find a tool that will properly identify which part of the memory component is corrupt.

day 33

I was brought a laptop which had an error being able to access the internet. The wifi drivers were installed correctly and it had access to wifi though it could not load a web page. I tried multiple things, disabling drivers and reinstalling them, rebooting the computer, I even tried ethernet on the laptop and yet nothing worked. I tried a virus scan just so that I covered all the basis and there was a backdoor opened that allowed someone to disable web browsing on the computer ton allow them access to slave it to another purpose. I removed all traces of the virus and cleaned the computer of anything that could have installed.

Video

day 29

here is about a 7 days of previous work that I have completed located within this drop box link. I lost the posts on them as I had written up a text file to go with each explaining what I coded them in so that other people could understand but they were corrupted and are unusable now.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4jexdqe7tsw8tal/1kTDOMEill

day 28

I have begin trying to make a program that would be able to take input from the microcontroller and be able  interface it so that it is able to take the information and use it in a program through my computer. As of recently I have been able to take input from the computer and send it to the mictocontroller and make i do things based on that through sending an ascii character to the device through a text based serial commuication. Though recently I have been working making an GUI for the computer so that I would be able to send the information through to the device and be able to read the information that is sent back. The program is written in Java script and is pretty straight forward to understand as well as use.

import processing.serial.*;
//gives Serial commands

Serial myPort;
//create Serial port



void setup()
{
  String portName = Serial.list()[0];
  myPort = new Serial(this,portName, 9600);
  //Searches on 9600 bod for serial
}

void draw()
{
   if(keyPressed)
   {
   if(key=='b' || key=='B')
   {
     fill(0);
     //0 means black
     myPort.write(98);
     //98 is B lowercase
     delay (5);
   }
   if(key=='g'||key=='G')
   {
     fill(0);
     myPort.write(103);
     delay(5);
   }
   }
      else
   {
     fill (255);
   
     //255 means White
   }
   rect(25,25,50,50);
}

day 27

this was working on repairing a laptop that was brought in to me from a friend. What had happened was a file had changed the root directory and infected the main files. What I had to do was backdoor it using hirens boot CD and extract the files that they needed from the computer to a secure drive then scan them for any trace of the virus. I then wiped the laptop several times via boot nuker then reinstalled windows 7 onto the laptop its self.

Day 26

Today I stumbled into a problem with using C for the mictocotroller. The code is supposed to loop through an stop at a specific point. I have tried to use if and else statements on their own though it didnt work very well.
if (x == "test")
{
     digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
}
else
{
    digitalWrite(led, LOW);
}
the solution was to create it as a counter, using x++ as the solution to it.

x++;
if (x %% 2)
{
     digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
}
else
{
    digitalWrite(led, LOW);
}

day 25

I was working with 7 and 10 segment LED displays for my arduino, 7 segments are for making numbers any number from 0-9 with a single one and any number from 00-99 with two of them. They are controlled actually quite complexly. I found out that the ones that I have are actually reversed compared to others. MOST of them have common negative and then you just send a signal to the others to make it able to light up but this one had a common negative meaning that IF I wanted to make it work I had to hook power to the common positive and then control output through the microcontroller which it isnt meant to normally do. There is then the 10 segment display which is very simple it has 10 LED's in a row and I can control which light up, when they do it and for how long. Making it very good for displaying power levels.

day 24

I went down to a store in langley called SMI electronics which has MANY different electronic supplies, cables, computers, switches, you name it and they have it. Making it the goto place for getting stuff for my arduino kit. The main thing that I bought was a new breadboard that was 6 times the size of my old one as it was getting way to small to make the things that I was wanting to. I bought a few switches and a few other things.

Day 23

I have recently begun working with my Arduino microcontroller kit and been figuring out how it all works. I made the simple blinking LED sketch and did that did that for a while then moved onto more advanced things like making it blink at different speeds and making the LED blink at different brightnesses which is actually more challenging than it looks.