Here is the DateTime regular expression.  Note that when I new the regular expression object, I set whitespace and casing ignoring.

Named capturing groups allows code like this:

In the end, the utility class allows code like this:

fun!  Download all of the code here.

Have any suggestions about the code?  Any neat C# features I should have used?  Comment below!

(link)

…So screw in that cable!

You can download the project here, but since I know most people just want to get some quick answers, here’s a few code snippets:

This following is a member method of a WPF Window.

The following is an example of a member method of a WPF window that runs itself in a separate thread. 

The project file contains more examples, including handling multithreaded events, how to create custom delegates, getting thread states, and intelligently killing threads when the program shuts down.

First, have a Windows 7 ISO (duh)

Next, download and install Microsoft’s ISO tool here. (That is a direct link, originally found the link here.  If you’re doing this on Windows XP, go to that page and scroll down to “For Windows XP Users” to find two more downloads you will need.)

When you open the program, it will look like this.

Click “Browse”.

Select the ISO file and click “Open”.

Click “Next”

Click “USB device”.

Select the drive you want.  Make sure you don’t have any data on it that you want to keep!  Click “Begin copying” and wait for the process to finish.

Congratulations!  You now have a Windows 7 installation hard drive.  You will still probably have to do some fancy stuff in the BIOS to get the computer to look at the flash drive while the system is starting up.

This isn’t necessary, but I like to put a copy of the original ISO on the flash drive.

(link)

Youch!

I had already spent a bunch of money fixing my Zune the first time, so I wasn’t too eager to spend more money.  Since the original accident Microsoft began offering a repair service for broken glass and screens… for $80.  I opted for a cheaper solution in every sense of the word.  Instead of replacing the front glass, I decided to remove the broken pieces and simply put the Zune in a clear plastic case.  I clicked around Amazon.com and found the a cheap clear case for $3.27.  (As of today, the price is $3.10.)  The whole deal as $6.25 with shipping.

The first step in the repair was to remove the broken pieces from in front of the LCD screen.  I began to take apart the Zune, but then I thought I might be able to pick off the pieces with a small pick—I used the flathead screwdriver that came with my Rapid Repair kit.  The process was oddly reminiscent of pealing a hard-boiled egg.  Note that I was only able to peal away the glass because it was the cheap Rapid Repair stuff.  The glass that comes on Zunes is much stronger and stays in one piece even after it cracks.

After I got all of the pieces off I sprayed a bit of Windex on a paper towel and cleaned  up the remaining dust.  (The blemish at the top of the frame is from when I replaced the glass the first time.)

With the case on my Zune is basically as good as new.  My only concern now is that dust will get up under the cover and I’ll have to clean it out.  Time will tell for that.

As for the case itself, the only problem that it seems to have is that it makes the hold switch inaccessible without something like a toothpick or paperclip.  The case does come with the necessary parts to clip the Zune to a belt, so it might not be a big deal if I decide to do that.

I almost decided to ditch this Zune, an 8GB model, for a larger 16GB model, but I hear a new model, the Zune HD, is coming out later this year.  I’ll be paying close attention to that as well!

This time the problem wasn’t the storage.  Last week I broke my 8GB, second generation Microsoft Zune, but this time I could repair the thing myself!

I reI got the tools and replacement glass from rapidrepair.com.  Everything (including shipping) cost $45.97.  I used RapidRepair’s general disassembly guide and a YouTube video as references for the repair process.

The first step was to remove the silver backing insert.  I wedged the safe open tool into the top to accomplish this.
 

This exposed two Tri-wing screws, which I removed with the Tri-wing.  I found that the bigger (red) Tri-wing screwdriver worked on all of the screws in the Zune.

Now I could remove the back casing, so I used the safe open tool to undo all of the snaps around the edges.

With the back off, I saw three more screws to remove.

The communications board is now only connected by the Zune by a cable.  I didn’t remove the board at this point, doing so would have made the process ahead a bit easier.

The communications board is attached by wide, orange ribbon cable.  You can detach one end by flipping the little black latch that goes along the width of the cable at either connection point.

Now I had to remove the battery.  I was a bit concerned that the battery flexed a bit when I tried to pry it off, but the Zune still works after my repair, so I can only assume that this was normal.  The battery is afixed to the rest of the Zune with an adhesive.  I used the safe open tool for the task.
 

(at this point the communications board got in the way too much and I removed it.

Removing the battery exposed a final Tri-screw.  (You can see it in the previous picture.)  I’ve been puting all of the screws in a headphone case to keep track of them.

At this point the rapidrepair tutorial became a bit unclear, so I started to poke around to figure out the next step.

Here I pull up the board with the memory chips.  Notice how this piece connects with the navigation controls below it.  (There is are little “docks” on each component that fit together.  This tripped me up the first time, because those to pieces weren’t making contact.  I could only turn on the Zune by plugging it into my computer, and then the Zune would start up, shut down, and restart.)

After a bunch of finagling I got the screen and it’s frame out.  I’m sure there are very specific clips that I had to simply detach with the safe remove tool, but I didn’t find them all the first time.  The inner frame has some week points, so be ginger.

Now I had everything apart, and access to the back side of the glass.

I pushed around the edges of the glass from the back to break the adhesive.  The glass came of fairly easily.

At this point I used Windex and a paper towel to clean up the area on the Zune that the new glass would stick to.

Do you remember that big spool of foam from the first picture?  That was protecting this itty-bitty piece of glass:

I stuck the new glass on no problem.  (This was the easy part!)

Remember how I said that the inner frame had some weak points?  I know that because I broke part of it.  It doesn’t seem to matter much, though.

Now everything goes back together in reverse order.  I got some dust on the LCD screen, so I sprayed a mist of Windex on a paper towel and gently whipped the surface of the screen.  After watching all of the liquid evaporate from the surface of the screen, I put that piece back into place in the Zune.

Make sure to put the memory board back into place before you put in the first screw.  If you put in the screw first, not only will the memory board not secured, but the tiny difference in position will prevent that board from communicating with the navigation controls.  (I made this mistake…)

After all of that effort (which was mostly fun), my Zune was back to normal.

Edit, May 23, 2009:

The Rapid Repair glass broke a few weeks after I installed it.  More on that here.

IE8 has a few features for the transition time between now and when IE7 (and older) usage drops to an insignificant level.  First is Compatibility View.  If the user sees a website that isn’t rendering correctly (for example, my website right now), he can click the “broken page” button in the navigation bar.

Here is the page viewed in Standards Mode.  (I scrolled down to show how the content is pushed down past the sidebar.)

Here is the page viewed in Compatibility View, which is called “quirks mode” behind the scenes.

I would love to know enough about CSS to fix my WordPress theme to render correctly in standards mode, but honestly I have better things to do, and the website renders correctly in Firefox already, so there doesn’t seem to be much point.  Why?  Because I can simply force IE8 to render the website in Compatibility View with a simple tag interested into the page.  What is the tag?

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />

When I add that tag to the proper place in the WordPress theme…

The webpage renders correctly, and the compatibility view button goes away.

Note: the version of IE8 used in this post is the one that was bundled with the Windows 7 Beta.

When the user first opens Windows Media Center, he is greeted with the following screen.  He may pan left and right to get an overview of the software’s features, as I will do through a series of screenshots.

After clicking “Continue” the user is greeted with the following:

The Learn More item apparently brings the user to a simple Media Center application with a few demo and tutorial videos.  Keeping in mind that this stuff is still in beta, it is a unfortunate that in the time between selecting “Learn More” and seeing a list of videos, there is no loading animation or status indicator of any kind.  Hopefully this will be fixed in the final release.

Back to setup.  Selecting “Express” does some things and then brings the user to the Media Center start menu (if that’s what it’s called.).  I was curious to select that, but I wanted to see what “Custom” had to offer.

Media Center did some processing for maybe a minute, which was curious.

Here is the obligatory “may we collect statistics?” choice.  This is one reason why I usually choose “Custom” for things like this, because I like to participate, but I don’t think the epxress option opts me in.

And of course a privacy statement…

w00t!

Now I have more options.  I don’t have a TV tuner any more, so the first option is not applicable to me, and the other two are not really that exciting or necessary for my system.  I was curious about the media libraries option, however, so I selected that.

Just as I thought, there is a “DVD movies” option now.  Move on that later…

I’m done, so I selected “I have finished”.

w00t!

And here’s the new start menu.

I’ve already played around with Media Center for a bit, and am really excited about a lot of the new features and improvements.  I’ll be writing most posts about them in the future.

From my previous installation of Windows 7, I discovered that the installer allows the user to start a “complete” install from within a current installation of Windows, unlike the Vista installer, which requires the user to boot from the install disk.  I discovered from this installation that the user still needs to boot from the install disk if he wants to format the drive that the current installation of Windows is on.

Onto the install.  I put the disk in and restarted my computer.  When a message was displayed that said, “Press any key to boot from CD,” I pressed a key.  The setup loaded some files, and then showed the Windows 7 boot screen.

Next I was presented with a screen requesting basic computer information that was necessary to proceed.  The defaults were correct.

The next screen:

After clicking “Install Now” I was presented with the following:

Next I was presented with a EULA.  I checked the “accept” checkbox and clicked next.

Next I was presented with the option to do an upgrade or a complete install.  I wanted to wipe out my current install, so I chose “Custom (advanced)”.

Next I chose the hard drive to which I wanted to install Windows 7, which was the drive labeled “Vista 64”.
 

Fist I wanted to format the drive, so I clicked “Drive options (advanced)”.

After clicking “Format” with the proper drive installed, I received the following message, to which I clicked “OK”.

I had to wait a few seconds for the format to complete.

As a side venture, I wondered what would happen if I tried to install Windows 7 on the Files drive, which is of the GPT partition style, as opposed to MBR.
 

Back on track, I clicked “Next”, and waited for the install to complete.  I consider this the start of the installation.

The “Copying Files” step completed almost instantly.  I assume this is because the installer expands the files directly from the disk for this installation type.
 

At this point the installer must have tweaked the video settings, because the output changed to the native resolution of the display, and the secondary display was no longer a clone of the primary display.  (This is usually something that I have to do manually after a Vista or XP install completes.)
 

I still haven’t had to touch anything.  The install is still running…
 

Here Windows is checking the system performance to evaluate the computer’s Windows Experience Index.  The Vista installer waits until after the user inputs his information to run the tests and shows a little slideshow of Windows features during the test.  Having the test before the user needs to interact with the installer again means that the user doesn’t have to wait through it to get to his desktop.  The Windows 7 evaluation is also much more elegant, with only a small strip of glowing light rather than the slideshow.

Here is where the installation task is complete, and the user is prompted for necessary information.  That makes the total install time 19 minutes on my standards.

I was prompted for a username.  I put in “David”, and the setup chose “David-PC” as the computer’s name.

Next I was prompted for a password.
 

Next I was prompted for my product activation key.  I wanted to put that in later when I could simply copy and paste it in, so I just didn’t put one in and clicked “Next”.  (I unchecked the “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online” checkbox out of habit, because the Vista install requires the user to uncheck a box to click next.  Oops.)
 

Here the user can choose his participation level in Windows Update.
 

Here the user sets the date, time, and time zone.
 

Here the user can connect to a wireless network before he ever logs on to the system.  This is new to the Windows 7 installer.  (I blocked out my network’s SSID.)
 

After I click on the network the item expands to allow me to put in the passkey, which is shown in plain text.
 

Next I can select a profile for the network, which dictates things such as file and printer sharing.
 

Next setup connects to the network.
 

Here setup allows me to set up a new homegroup, which is a new feature of Windows 7 that I need to test out.  The password, which I deleted from the picture, was random numbers and letters.  I am going see if I can set it myself to something that makes sense.

After I click “next” there the system logs me on…

…and prepares my desktop for the first time.

And I’m on.  Windows Update is already doing it’s thing.

So that brings me to the end of the installation.  The whole process up to this point took 28 minutes.

I went on to run Windows Update again and install optional updates, which included a new video driver, which sadly did not work.  I used a new Windows 7 feature that helps troubleshoot problems and discovered that the driver doesn’t support Aero, and when I went into Device Manager the video adapter icon had a waning symbol on it.  I fixed this by using System Restore to restore Windows to before I installed the driver.  I blame ATI, but it’s no biggie.  The drivers, like the operating system, are in beta.

That’s it.  Later I’ll post a video of the boot screen along with other posts about Windows 7.

Clicking “download now” brought me to a page that downloaded a download manager, which is downloading the ISO as I type this.  The speed seems to be pretty good for now… at least it’s the fastest I’ve seen a download go on this Internet connection.

The “Installation Instructions” page is a link to here: https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-installation-instructions.aspx

I’ll try to document more of the beta experience in later blog posts.

Download DVD Cover Art Finder version 1.0.0.0 here

Download DVD Cover Art Finder version 1.0.0.0 Source Code here (open with Visual C# 2008 Express)

This usage tutorial begins with the DVD already properly ripped to the hard drive.  I’ll have to make a tutorial about how to do that later, but for now you could use the tutorial that I used to learn how to do that. (link)

First, download and open DVD Cover Art Finder, duh! (note that I made two minor changes to the program since I did the tutorial.  Can you spot them?)

Next, click “Scan for DVDs”.

Select the folder where you store all of your DVDs and click OK.

Select the DVD of which you want to get cover art.  (notice how the DVDs that lack cover art show up at the top of the list.)

Be patient, and DVD Cover Art Finder will show cover art, which is currently picked from Amazon.com.  If the right cover art doesn’t show up, edit the Title text box and click the “(re)load coverart” button.

Click the cover art that looks right.  This will put the cover art in the image box in the Selected DVD group box and update the Title text box with the title of that DVD.

Edit the title box if necessary.

Click the “Save” button.  This will save the cover art to the DVD’s folder, as well as rename the DVD’s folder to match the title.  Saving also creates a data file to keep track of the information and places that in the DVD’s folder.

Great!  Now the DVD shows up in Media Center with the right title and cover art.

First open the control panel.

Next type “sound” in the search box, and click “Change system sounds”.  (If you have the control panel set to “Classic View” open “Sound” and click on the “Sounds” tab.  Alternatively just click “Control Panel Home” and follow the previous directions.)

A “Sound” window will open with the “Sounds” tab selected.  Uncheck “Play Windows Startup sound”.

Click “OK”.

That’s it… Congratulations!

(Note: This tutorial does not apply to Windows XP.)

So here’s a demo/tutorial:

More information about FRI version 1.4.0.0 is available here.

This isn’t magic!  Windows has the ability to share folders on one computer to anyone on the network.  In this case, it makes the most sense for the computer sharing those folders is the teacher’s computer.  Sharing folders does not imply exposing the entire contents of the computer to the public.  You get to choose what folders you want to share, and who gets to access them.

Like I said earlier in this post, the process must be done at the beginning of every year at my high school, since the school’s IT staff wipes out the computers ever Summer and does upgrades.  That’s the point of this post.  I’m graduating this year, so my animation teacher asked me to make this tutorial for her, and anyone else at my high school to use.  That said, these instructions are also very applicable to teachers elsewhere.  As long as the computers run Windows XP, the instructions should be valid.

These instructions should be very thorough and self explanatory, and it is highly unlikely that someone could misinterpret them to do something to make his computer explode.  Even so, read all the way through the instructions before acting.  If you feel apprehensive then there is likely a tech-savvy guy (or gal!) available who needs to earn some service hours.

This tutorial is broken up into sections.  If all of this is a bit much for you, then each section marks a good place to take a break.

Picking a place on the computer to store all of the files

The first thing you need to do is find a place to store the turn-in and hand-out folders on your computer.  You need to choose a drive that is not likely to be overwritten.  On the computer I used there are three local hard drives.  The first is the C drive, which is where the operating system is kept.  I don’t want to use this one because I know that the administrators clear that drive from time to time for upgrades and such.  It would be acceptable if it were the only hard drive available, but the other ones offer me better choices.  The scratch disk seems OK, but it’s really just for temporary files.  The “Data” drive makes perfect sense!  This should give you some sense of how to evaluate the situation and pick the right  hard drive to store the files on.  There really is no wrong answer, but there sure are better ones.

Next, just for organizational sake, make a folder called “Network Shares”.  This folder will be where the “Turn In” and “Handouts” folders live.  (Note how the location of the folder who’s contents are currently being viewed is shown in the address bar.)

Creating the Handouts folder

First I’ll show how to set up the handouts folder because it’s the simpler to set up of the two.  The first step if to create a folder called “Handouts”  There’s no computer voodoo in the name; you can pick a different one if you want.

After the folder is made, right-click on it and click “Properties”.

The properties window will open.  Click on the “Sharing” tab.

On the “Sharing” tab, click the “Share this folder” radio button.

Click on the permissions button.

A new window will open. Check the box that corresponds to allowing change for everyone.

This means that if someone has the ability to write or modify files on the physical computer itself then they will have the ability to do the same over the network from another computer.  In the case of the handouts folder that means you can submit files to it from any computer on the network.  This step will later be done for the turn-in folder as well, but the permissions will be broadened so that anyone on the computer can write files to the turn-in folder, and thus will be able to submit files to the turn-in folder from any computer on the network.  If this paragraph does make sense, then don’t worry about it.  I’m just trying to add some reasoning behind all of these steps.

Click OK to close the window.

Now we’re going to set who is allowed to add files to the Handouts folder and who is allowed to read the files.  To do this, click the “Security” tab.

You will be presented with something that looks like the picture below.  You can see how the settings at the bottom of the window correspond to the selected user or group on the top.  We want to make sure that everyone is allowed to view the files in this folder, so we’ll have to change the settings for the (you guessed it) “Everyone” group. It’s not already in the list, so I’m going to add it.  If you already see an item called “Everyone” than you can skip the next few steps, which are for adding that item.

Click “Add…”  (Note that I blurred my name out in the picture.)

A new window will open.  Here is where you can type in user names and groups.  Type “everyone”.

Click “Check Names”.

Note how “everyone” changes to “Everyone“.  click OK.

Now the “Everyone” group is added to the list.  It turns out that the default settings work just fine.  We only want everyone to access files, but not modify.  Note how we don’t want to check “deny” for “write”, because that will deny writing new files to everyone, which includes you!  Users only get the privilege if it is specifically given, so leaving “Allow” unchecked for “Write” is sufficient for preventing students from writing their own files to the handouts folder.  Make sure that the settings for “Everyone” are the same as shown here and click OK.

Click OK to close the Properties window, and you will be brought back to the Explorer window with your newly-created, network-accessible “Handouts” folder.  Notice how now there is a hand superimposed on the folder icon showing that the folder is shared over the network.

Now make sure that you can write files to the handouts folder.  If you can than you’re done!  If you can’t then go back to the “security” tab shown above (right-click on the handouts folder and click properties) and add your username to the list and give yourself writing privileges.  If you still don’t have writing privileges than look at the other user/group settings and look for “deny” boxes that could be preventing you from writing files.  I mention all of this because they are possible things that could go wrong, depending on how the computers were set up originally.  Everything will probably work just fine.

Creating the Turn In Folder

Whew!  Thankfully creating the turn in folder is almost exactly the same as creating the handouts folder.  One only difference is that you need to allow the “Everyone” group to write files.  This will allow the students to add their files to the turn in folder, but not make any modifications (to their files or others).

Do the whole “handout folder” creation process, but obviously name the folder something like “turn in”.  Do everything up until the last few “Click OK”s.  There is one last step you need to do for the turn in folder.  This picture shows the point at which you should stop following the “Handouts folder” directions.

Now simply check the check box that corresponds to “Allow Everyone to Write”. To the computer that is the only difference between a turn-in and handouts folder.

Finally, click “OK” and you will be brought back to the Explorer window with your newly-created “Turn-In” folder.

Making the folders easily accessible to others

Now you have nice, shared folders that anyone can access, that is if they can find them.  My highschool has a few thousand computers on the same network, so finding the teacher’s computer among all the others could be quite difficult.  The best solution for ensuring that the students have easy access to the shared folders is to just create a shortcut to the shares on everyone’s desktop.  This prevents the confusion that could surround having them manually type in the proper network location, which is likely just a bunch of numbers and letters.

You will need to find the name of the computer that is hosting the shared folders, which is how the computer is identified on the local network.  To do that, right-click on “My Computer”, which is located on the desktop and/or the start menu.  (It is hard to give one definite place where “My Computer” will appear, since the computer administrators who set up the computers cannot agree one standard way to configure the computers.)  At any rate, find My Computer and right-click on it.  In the context menu that comes up, click “Properties”.

or

The System Properties window will open. Click on the “Computer Name” tab.

The “Computer Name” tab gives you all of the information you need.  In this case the computer’s name is “1400D0097613726.fcps.edu”.  Copy the computer’s full name to the clipboard.  (You can select the text with the mouse just as if the text were in a word professing program.)

Now you are going to find the computer on the network.  Open an explorer window.

Type “downhill slashes” into the address bar, and then paste in the full computer name.  In this case I would type in “\\1400D0097613726.fcps.edu”.

Click “Go” or press enter, and you will see your computer’s network shares.

This is good!  If you see both shared folders, then you probably did all of the other previous steps correctly.  If you don’t see both folders then you should go back and see what went wrong.

If you don’t want to do anything else, you can just write down that address on the blackboard and call it done.  Taking the time to create shortcuts to that network location could save a lot of time and headaches down the road, though.

Remember that the slashes go like this: “\\” and not this “//”.  Yes, there is a difference.  (One way works and the other doesn’t!)  Also note that there isn’t any “http” or “www” nonsense.

The next step is to put a shortcut to this network location onto everyone’s desktop.  This is easy to do, but time consuming.  The first thing to do is create a shortcut to the network location.  Click and drag the icon in the address bar to the desktop.  This creates a link to that location and puts it on the desktop.

Now you have a shortcut the the network shares, but it may a weird or nonsensical name.  Rename it to something that makes more sense, like “Class Files”.

Now you have a shortcut to the network shares, but it doesn’t do the class any good for you to have it on your Desktop!  The next step on everyone else’s Desktop.  This can be a bit tricky, though.

There are two folders that feed into what shows up on the Desktop.  One of the folders is specific to what shows up on the desktop for the individual user, and there is another folder for files that appear on everyone’s desktop.  This dual-folder system is why program links can appear on eveyrone’s desktop the first time they log in, but they can still put files on on their desktops and not have them show up when someone else logs in.  You want to put the “Class Files” shortcut in the folder that contributes to everyone’s desktop.  I will refer to this folder as the “all useres desktop folder”.

Open Explorer and go to “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop”

The folder may or may not have anything in it, but whatever files you put in it will show up on everyone’s desktop who logs in to that computer.

Drag the icon in the address bar onto the Desktop to create a link to the “all users desktop folder”. This will save a lot of time later on when locating the “all users desktop folder” on the other computers, since the “all users desktop folder” is in the same location on every computer.

Now you have to shortcuts on your Desktop. Move them to some sort of portable storage device.  I recommend a flash drive, but a diskette, CD, or portable hard drive would work too.

Remove the flash drive from your computer.

Perform the following tasks at every student computer:

1. log in (if a student is already logged in than you may try working from his account, but if you get an “access denied message when doing the following steps, then you will in fact have to log in to your account.)
2. Plug the flash drive (or whatever you used to store the shortcuts) into the computer.
3. Open the flash drive so that you can see those two shortcuts
4. Drag the “Class Files” link into the “Shortcut to Desktop” link.  This will put a copy of the “Class Files” link onto the “all users Desktop”.

That last step is where the final magic happens.  If you were to simply drag the “Class Files” link onto the regular Desktop, then the link would not appear for other users who use that computer.  This way the link shows up for everyone who uses that computer.

That’s it!  You should test to make sure everything works, which would include asking a student to try to create a file in the “handouts” folder from his computer, which he shouldn’t be able to do.  Testing would also include asking a student to create a file in the “turn in” folder, which he should be able to do, and asking him to delete a file that someone else created, which he shouldn’t be able to do.

If you have any questions or need me to clarify a part of the tutorial, feel free to leave a comment below.

My goal was to have a generic robot with a camera on it that all of the club members could write code for.  First the task was to make the robot bounce around in an arena marked off with red tape, then the goal was to make the robot follow a line (curvy, with sharp edges, with dead ends, whatever), then it was to make the robot solve a maze.  It was a lot of fun, and a great learning experience.

One look at the robot shows that I definitely care about software way more than hardware.

 

It may not look like much, but surely you know that personality is more important than appearance, and besides this little guy has spunk.  If I were to continue this project, though, the next step would be to make him less fat.

Here’s the maze.  In theory the robot can solve any maze of this style.  (Yes, the end of the maze is a mouse pad. )

Here is the robot solving the maze.  Keep in mind that the robot can be placed in any part of the maze with the end anywhere else in the maze.�

I found by experimentation that the longest time it can take the robot to solve this maze, given any start and any end, is 1 minute and 54 seconds.

If there’s one bit of advice that I think new Botball members need to know, it’s to be patient.  The first version of my maze-solving code was really just code that made the robot follow lines.  A later version would only solve a maze if it never encountered a dead end, and there’s always the version of the code that makes the robot flail about sporadically.  So be patient, and don’t try to tackle the whole project at once.  Get little pieces to work, and use that to build off of.  I in no way assert to be the authority on robotics, but I have learned a thing or two.

Oh, also precise names.  Don’t go calling methods “dog” or “cat”.

Download the code here.

Here I made a video explaining in general terms how the robot stays on track when following a wall:

So you may want the code to mess around with, and if you do then you’re in luck!  Not only is there a link to download the code at the bottom of this post, but I also recorded two videos of me explaining it, or attempting to anyway.   Warning: It may be a little boring!

In this video I explain the defines, whose values you can change to make the robot behave differently:

In this video I explain how the rest of the code works:

(Note:  I found an error in the deadEndInSight method.  I fixed it incorrectly on video, but it should be right in the download below.)

Here’s what he says:

You need to make yourself some ringtones before you actually get to the point of uploading songs to your phone because anything over 30seconds you can’t set as a ring tone. I use Wave Pad but any other program similar to it (cool edit pro, etc) will do just fine. Here’s the link for Wave Pad:

http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/masters.html just click “download wave pad,” it should be free. If not, find it on another site where it is.

You can use any song that you want up to 30 seconds long and you can also choose the part of the song you want. Here are the steps on how to do that if you’re uncertain:

After you obviously install the program and have it up and running, you want to open a song of your choice. You can scope out the part of the song you want by listening to it. Once you’ve got it figured out, you can highlight the part you’re going to use. Down in the right hand corner, it will tell you the Sel Length by the seconds. Make sure that does not go over 30.

Once you’ve got the part of the song highlighted, right click on it and click, “copy.” Up in the left hand corner of the Wave Pad, you want to click, “New File.” Once that opens, take your mouse over top of newly opened wave file, right click anywhere inside the box and click, “paste.” This is how I save it — I close it out and it asks me if I want to save as “untitled.” I click yes and a box will pop up where you can name it whatever you want and you can also save it to whatever kind of file you want it to be (wav, mp3, etc.) I save mine as mp3, for some reason when I used a .wav file it wouldn’t work. I only tried once so I could have just did something wrong while uploading it to my phone.

Alright after you’re finished making the ringtone(s) you want, the first thing you need to do is make sure you have a usb cable that hooks into your phone and your computer. If you do, then follow this link to a download:

http://rsddownload.motorola.com/download/Motorola_Software_Update.exe

After downloading that, you then need to download p2kcommander which can be found here:

http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Developer-Tools/File-Manager/P2kCommander-38120.shtml

p2kcommander files HAVE to be extracted! I put the extracted files on my desktop for easy access!

Both programs you want to install and run. Make sure when you’re ready to connect your phone you have them BOTH running.

Once the MSU (Motorola Software Update) starts running it’s going to ask “repair motorola software update,’ or “remove motorola software update,” just leave it on repair and hit, “finish.” Make sure when it finishes and comes to the “close,” option that the “Launch Motorola Software,” is clicked. Once it recognizes your phone LEAVE IT UP AND RUNNING then p2k commander should recongnize your phone as well.

Using p2k commander:

Either the right or left hand corner (which ever you prefer) click the drop down box and select P2K Mobile Phone — If it connects, you will be able to open your phone up and see everything inside of it.

Now to the fun part — the first thing you see once your phone connects with P2K is going to be the “a” folder. Open that up. In that folder you’re going to have to delete a file (don’t worry it regenerates itself once you reboot your phone, meaning that everytime you go through the process of putting ringtones on your phone, it will have to be deleted every time). The file you’re going to delete is named “MyToneDB.db.” Make sure to only highlight that file by clicking it once and then click delete on the p2kcommander, a simple hitting of the delete key on your keyboard doesn’t do it for some reason. Once you’ve done that you’re ready to hit the ringtone section of your phone!

To get to the ringtones you want to go to “motorola, shared,” then to “ringtone.” Once there you should be able to see ringtones that you may have already purchased as well as the stock ringtones that came with the phone. By my prefrence I deleted the more bigger stock ringtones (after listening to them to make sure I didn’t want them or they weren’t used for anything specific such as voicemail, recieved text message etc) but you don’t have to.

On the side that you didn’t use to get into your phone — you want to find where you saved the ringtones you made to. Once you’ve got both the ringtone section of your phone open on one side and the place where you saved your newly made ringtones on your computer on the other side, you’re ready to start putting them on your phone.

You can upload more than one ringtone to your phone at a time but I suggest, just for now do it one at a time. Highlight the ringtone you made for your phone simply by clicking once on it and then hit the, “copy,” option located at the bottom of the p2k commander. Once the p2k mobile side refreshes itself and your ringtone is showing in your phones ringtone section — keep your phone hooked into the computer. Go to your ringtones using your phone to see if the one you put on is there and make sure it plays.

If it does, congratulations! You have just uploaded your very own FREE ringtone!!! =) If you made more than just one, go ahead and upload them now. Make sure you check to see if they work! When you’re finished uploading all the songs you want/can, go ahead and unhook your phone and enjoy!

You can also do your photos the same way but I’m not 100% sure on that. I had to figure that out for myself and I’m still unsure of how to explain it, although it’s very similar and I don’t believe you have to delete the MyToneDB.db to do it– so hopefully after all that I just explained to you and you upload a couple of ringtones yourself — you will be able to figure out how to work the rest of it on your own!

Edit, March 14, 2008:

Sendherastar updates:

i forgot to mention that after you put your ringtones on, reboot your phone manually by just turning it off and back on. occasionally the ringtones will reset themselves (not sure why) and the quick fix is just to reboot your phone and reset whatever ringtone you want as your default. sorry to trash up your website with so many posts!! but if you use it in a blog, please note that on there!

Thanks!

Edit, March 28, 2008:

Izzyd has this to say:

Can I make a suggestion on the guide for transferring ring tones. It should be updated to state something to the effect of that process is for use with the VZW .01.19.07 firmware. Reason I say this is on the older firmwares the tones do not go into that folder the write up is specific to that firmware only, however it still works the same way jus ta different folder is all. On the older firmwares they go into the /motorola/shared/audio folder. Oh and as for pics using p2kcomannder on any firmware they can be placed in the /motorola/shared/pictures folder and no file needs to be delete to get them to show up either. On a side note on ringtones as mentioned in the guide the *.wav file does not work because ring tones need to either be mp3, qcp, or mid files.

…I think that beeper is annoying.

Luckily, it’s relatively easy to take that sucker out!  Here I’ll show the steps I took to remove the beeper in my Dynex DX-800U.

First, I unplugged everything from the unit, turned it off, and flipped it over.

Poor guy.  I told him that it would only hurt for a little bit.

Next I removed the screw that kept the battery cover closed, and then removed the cover.

The next thing I did was find a screw driver that was long and thin enough to fit in those long, narrow screw holes.  Once I did that I removed the remaining five screws and pulled off the bottom half of the case.

Ah, there’s the culprit!

I was going to wait until the next day and get a soldering iron to melt the two contacts on the other side of the board so that I could just slide the beeper right out…

…and that probably would have worked, but I got impatient.  Instead I decided to just attack the beeper and render it mute.

Putting the cover back on was a bit tricky, but after I worked out how the power cables to the battery folded it went smoothly enough.  To test my handwork I plugged a light into the UPS and unplugged then unplugged a light from the wall and… silence.  Happy day!