Software Development

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build_status_board

LED Build Monitor Helps Keep An Eye On Your Servers

April 12, 2011 by 7 Comments

In his line of work, Hackaday reader [Pedantite] often has to monitor the build status of several continuous integration servers throughout the day. One afternoon, he got the idea to install a set of stop lights in the office in order to monitor the status of the servers, but filed it away as a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” project.

After some time had passed, he was bitten by the idea bug again and decided he would build a physical device to display the status of his build processes. This time around, he brainstormed on a smaller scale and the result is the “Indictron” you see above.

He built a simple LED board made up of four rows of four LEDs to display the build processes. Different LEDs are lit depending on the project’s current build status as well as the results of the previous build. The board uses an ATmega88, and interfaces with a compiler watchdog application using a virtual USB package made specifically for AVR micro controllers.

The end result is a simple, yet useful status board that “just works”. He does not seem to have code or schematics posted on his site at the moment, but we’re pretty sure he would share them upon request.

If you’re interested in a bit more of [Pedantite’s] work, check out his “Good Times” parental timer we featured last week.

TI’s Grace – A New MCU IDE GUI (DNFTT)

March 21, 2011 by 49 Comments

TI has recently been fighting to gain traction in the market of low-cost microcontroller development platforms with products such as the MSP430 Value Line Launchpad.  In order to meet the needs of a rapidly growing customer base and appeal to a broader market they have recently released Grace beta Graphical Peripheral Configuration Tool. Grace is a plugin for TI’s own Code-Composer Studio (CCS) IDE that allows users to graphically control many aspecst of MSP430 development and is compatible with all MSP430F2xx/G2xx MCUs.

Utilizing a simple “wizard-like” interface, Grace allows users to quickly and efficiently control peripherals such clocks, timers, OpAmps,  ADCs, GPIOs, comparators, and even more advanced features such as serial communications or the configuration of low-level register settings. Once everything is configured as desired, Grace outputs standard C code that can be debugged and handled as if it were hand-written.

Although Code-Composer Studio is not free, there is a 30-day full-featured trial available as well as other (restricted) free licensing options as well. Since CCS is based on the Eclipse open-source  software development framework, perhaps we will see other similar development tools in the near future. Although not an apples-to-apples comparison, we could imagine that such a tool might provide many novice users with a simple and cost-effective alternative to the Arduino IDE.

The questions then becomes: If a later incarnation were to raise the MSP430 line to “Arduino-killer” status, would it be rejoiced as such or would it simply then become a new target for those die-hard microcontroller purists who love to shout “overkill” on the forums at the slightest provocation? Of course we would love to hear your take in the comments below!

Learn To Code At Lifehacker

January 26, 2011 by 26 Comments

[Adam] over at lifehacker is putting together a series on the principles of programming called “Learn to code”. They are using Javascript as a basis to teach the fundamentals that would allow you to get stuff done in any similar language, like actionscript. After you’ve got these basics down, even moving to an object oriented language shouldn’t be too difficult. We absolutely love educational resources and hope they continue this series pretty far. They’ve already released part one and part two. We have supplied the video from each after the break, but there’s more info at the links.

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C Sharp Development 101 – Part 2: Toolbox Controls

October 15, 2010 by 29 Comments
In this tutorial we are going to start finding out more about the toolbox we utilized in the previous tutorial.  The Controls available in the toolbox are quite extensive and allow users to simplify a variety of everyday tasks such as manually creating and instantiating a textbox on a windows form.  At the end of this tutorial you should be comfortable finding Controls in the Visual Studio Toolbox, alter or produce code to link tools together using event handlers and ultimately get a better sense of Visual Studio, it’s layout and how to easily navigate it.

C Sharp Development 101 – Part 1: Hello World

September 30, 2010 by 50 Comments

In this tutorial we are going to get up close with the Visual Studio 2010 environment. We will learn how to make a console application as well as a form to display our hello world applications.  This will give us an opportunity to view 2 types of solutions of the many available in Visual Studio.  We will start making the console application first then progress to the forms application.

First we must  understand the development environment we are going to use.  On the far left side is the toolbox panel.  This panel gives us access to a lot of controls  that can be used by the Windows Forms.  Next is the Solution Explorer that will allow us to navigate the projects and files we are going to create in this Solution.  The Properties panel is directly under my Solution Explorer and will allow us to change properties of controls and of the form we will create later on.  If any of these are not being displayed they can be retrieved from the View menu at the top under Other Windows.  For more information on the Visual Studio IDE visit MSDN and search for the specific questions you are having.

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C Sharp Development 101 – A Tutorial Series

September 3, 2010 by 107 Comments

In this tutorial series we are going to look at C# Development using the Visual Studio 2010 Express editions.  This will take you from the basics of installing Visual Studio 2010 Express, to the Object Oriented Programming style associated with C# and other languages, dabble in some database access (Access & SQL Server Express) and finally, design a project that will pull all of our knowledge together into a final solution.

Top 5 Integrated Development Environments

August 24, 2010 by 185 Comments

So, you want to do some programming but don’t have the budget of a major corporation? This is just the thing for you because all of these development environments are free of charge! Many Integrated Development Environments are marketed towards companies who have money to pay for such expensive environments. Here are the Top 5 Integrated Development Environments that are most widely used and recognized. Some will be used when programming past and future tutorials. The following are listed in no particular order and all make an excellent development environment.

There are alot more IDE’s out there that were not mentioned but should have been.  We have posed the question at Hack A Day Answers “What are your Top 5 IDE’s?” Give us some feedback and we will be back with a revised list from the comments you give us!

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