Helmet Cam – Swann Goes Shockproof with the Head-Mounted Sportscam

This is another one for those of you who like the outdoors but love your tech. The Swann head-mounted sportscam is shockproof, waterproof, and offers incredible functionality at a bargain price. So if you want to record your most adventurous outdoors adventures this is the puppy for you… unless you want HD.

No, this camera won’t give HD (or anywhere near it) and is limited to 640 X 480. However, the fact that you can cram 5 hours of footage on a little 16GB microSD card is nothing to sneeze at. That’s long enough for a bike ride up and down the mountain. Unfortunately, the rechargeable battery is only good for 2.5 hours so somewhere in there you have to rest for a recharge. Still, 2.5 hours of recording at a whack isn’t bad.

While the camera is intended to be (or at least works best when) head-mounted you’ll find a bunch of other accessories in the box so you can rig up your own customized mounting options if you wish. You can even use the camera outside its protective waterproof housing if you desire.

You wouldn’t expect to pay much for a camera with such low resolution in the days of the HD obsessed and you won’t have to. $99 gets you one of these when they go on sale in the US next month. You can save the rest of your cash to actually plan a vacation during which to use the camera.

Samson’s USB Meteor Mic is Far From Boring

If you take pride in your computing prowess the last thing you want cluttering up your desktop is a boring old generic microphone. But how do you give your workspace a little more style and class without shelling out tons of cash? Consider the new Meteor Mic from Samson. Designed to look like an “old skool” microphone from the glory days of radio and the birth of Television, this mic has that classic stainless steel look and “egg-shape” chassis. But it is a microphone and all that style isn’t worth a dime if it doesn’t perform, right?

You don’t have to worry about that. While the Meteor Mic won’t outdo some high-end mics in the field of fidelity, it will serve reliably and a few modern features. The first of which you’ll notice is the little tripod on which the mic rests. Those legs close up when the mic isn’t in use and make it ultra-portable (they even include a velveteen carry case!)


However, a little more exciting is the 1.8 inch headphone port you’ll find built right into the mic. You can monitor your own recordings in real time and now what they’ll sound like before you ever play them back.

The mic is also driver-free so you don’t have to worry about software compatibility ruining your recordings.

The mic is a little more pricey than a generic one but still within reason at just under $100.

For full specs and info, visit the official Samson Audio website.

RIM to Block Access to Porn on BlackBerry in Indonesia

Research in Motion said Monday it will work with Indonesia's carriers to filter out pornography websites as soon as possible for BlackBerry subscribers.
Internet service providers are required by law to block pornographic content, said Heru Sutadi, commissioner of Badan Regulasi Telekomunikasi Indonesia (BRTI), the telecommunications regulator in the country. If RIM does not block pornographic sites, Indonesia may consider blocking the service, Sutadi said.
Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia's minister of communications and information, had warned of legal action if RIM did not filter pornographic web sites, according to media reports.
RIM said in its statement that it shares Sembiring's sense of urgency on the matter and that it is fully committed to working with Indonesia's carriers to put in place "a prompt, compliant filtering solution for BlackBerry subscribers in Indonesia."
A meeting between RIM and the government is scheduled for Jan. 17. "We hope RIM will be compliant by then," Sutadi said.
The BRTI is also pressing RIM on an earlier demand that RIM should install a server in Jakarta so that domestic communications traffic does not go out of the country, Sutadi said. It also wants access to some of the communications for security reasons.
RIM is already under pressure in India to allow the country's security agencies access to communications on its services. The company has agreed to provide lawful access under certain conditions to traffic in India on the BlackBerry Messenger service, but said that it does not have the technical ability to provide its customers' encryption keys for its corporate service, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Music box versatile using IC M3481

This is a multi-purpose integrated music box that interesting, because an IC package. Is a simple and affordable.

The main function of the circuit is the device of the circuit is IC1. This is a sound generator IC. The Christmas season. Its musical all 8 music. When the power supply LDR1 the exposure will cause voltage drop across R1 is enough to make IC1 work has output to stimulate pin 11 and pin 12 to stimulate pin B of Q1. Q2 and the current expansion drive that will be the speaker. While the circuit work if the switch S1 connected to the unique music tracks and so on, but if S1 is not connected. Circuit will play all the songs. If the switch S2 connected to the cycle When there is no light will stop play immediately. But if the switch S2 is not connected to music and no light will not stop until the song is finished playing. Switch S3 is responsible for selecting music on, press 1 once one moves to music. The VR1 is also a tone control if VR1 is less resistance will be reduced to a lower tone. And the music will slow down play with. The R6, C3 is responsible for smooth sound more R7 forward to control the feedback stability of dc output of the circuit.

How to change a DoFollow Blog

From the first to make this blog, I've wanted to make Dofollow Blog,but I do not know how to change his script templates into Dofollow.Only yesterday when I Blogwalking here, I found my way and postback on this blog let friends who want to change it so DofollowBlogs can be helped with this article.

How to change the Blog Being Dofollow is a little script by modifying the template Bookmarks
following way:


1). Login to the dashboard ==> Edit HTML ==> (Check) "Expand Widget Templates"

2). Find the HTML code:



3). Change to:



4). Then last do not forget to click on the (Save), to save the changes.


As for wordpress like this way:

1. go into the wp-include

2). locate the file "comment-template.php"

3). search code

$ return = " $ author "

4). Change becomes

$ return = " $ author ";

This trick specific to Wordpress.org blog that is uploaded to Webhosting.

Battery-Charging Indicator For Mains Adaptor

Although you may well be the proud owner of the very latest NiCd battery charger, you may still come across the odd 'incompatible' battery, for example, one having a rare voltage or requiring a much higher charging current than can be supplied by your off-the-shelf charger. In these cases, many of you will resort to an adjustable mains adaptor (say, a 500-mA type) because that is probably the cheapest way of providing the direct voltage required to charge the battery. Not fast and not very efficient, this 'rustic' charging system works, although subject to the following restrictions:

Circuit diagram:

Battery-Charging Indicator Circuit Diagram
You should have some idea of the charging current. In case you use an adaptor which is adjustable but of the unregulated, low output current type, you can adjust the current by adjusting the output voltage.
You have to know if the current actually flows through the battery. A current-detecting indicator is therefore much to be preferred over a voltage indicator.
To prevent you from forgetting all about the charging cycle, the indicator should be visible from wherever you pass by frequently. Using the circuit shown here, the LED lights when the baseemitter potential of the transistor exceeds about 0.2 V. Using a resistor of 1 ? as suggested this happens at a current of about 200 mA, or about 40 mA if R1 is changed to 4.7?. The voltage drop caused by this indicator can never exceed the base-emitter voltage (UBE) of the transistor, or about 0.7V. Even if the current through R1 continues to increase beyond the level at which UBE = 0.7 V, the base of the transistor will 'absorb' the excess current. The TO-220 style BU406 transistor suggested here is capable of accepting base currents up to 4A. Using this charging indicator you have overcome the restrictions 2 and 3 mentioned above.

USB Power Injector For External Hard Drives

A portable USB hard drive is a great way to back up data but what if your USB ports are unable to supply enough "juice" to power the drive? A modified version of the Silicon Chip Usb Power Injector is the answer. For some time now, the author has used a portable USB hard drive to back up data at work. As with most such drives, it is powered directly from the USB port, so it doesn’t require an external plug pack supply.

In fact, the device is powered from two USB ports, since one port is incapable of supplying sufficient current. That’s done using a special USB cable that’s supplied with the drive. It has two connectors fitted to one end, forming what is basically a "Y" configuration (see photo). One connector is wired for both power and data while the other connector has just the power supply connections. In use, the two connectors are plugged into adjacent USB ports, so that power for the drive is simultaneously sourced from both ports.

An external USB hard drive is usually powered by plugging two connectors at one end of a special USB cable into adjacent USB ports on the computer. This allows power to be sourced from both ports. According to the USB specification, USB ports are rated to supply up to 500mA at 5V DC, so two connected in parallel should be quite capable of powering a portable USB hard drive – at least in theory.

Unfortunately, in my case, it didn’t quite work out that way. Although the USB drive worked fine with several work computers, it was a "no-go" on my home machine. Instead, when it was plugged into the front-panel USB ports, the drive repeatedly emitted a distinctive chirping sound as it unsuccessfully tried to spin up. During this process, Windows XP did recognise that a device had been plugged in but that’s as far as it went – it couldn’t identify the device and certainly didn’t recognize the drive.

Plugging the drive into the rear-panel ports gave exactly the same result. The problem wasn’t just confined to this particular drive either. A newly-acquired Maxtor OneTouch4 Mini drive also failed to power up correctly on my home computer, despite working perfectly on several work computers.

The revised USB Power Injector is essentially a switch and a 5V regulator. The Vbus supply from USB socket CON1 turns on transistor Q1 which then turns on power Mosfet Q2. This then feeds a 6V DC regulated supply from an external plug pack to regulator REG1 which in turn supplies 5V to USB socket CON2.

White LED Lamp

Nowadays you can buy white LEDs, which emit quite a bit of light. They are so bright that you shouldn’t look directly at them. They are still expensive, but that is bound to change. You can make a very good solid-state pocket torch using a few of these white LEDs. The simplest approach is naturally to use a separate series resistor for each LED, which has an operating voltage of around 3.5 V at 20 mA. Depending on the value of the supply voltage, quite a bit of power will be lost in the resistors. The converter shown here generates a voltage that is high enough to allow ten LEDs to be connected in series. In addition, this converter supplies a constant current instead of a constant voltage.

A resistor in series with the LEDs produces a voltage drop that depends on the current through the LEDs. This voltage is compared inside the IC to a 1.25-V reference value, and the current is held constant at 18.4 mA (1.25 V ÷ 68 Ω). The IC used here is one of a series of National Semiconductor ‘simple switchers’. The value of the inductor is not critical; it can vary by plus or minus 50 percent. The black Newport coil, 220 µH at 3.5 A (1422435), is a good choice. Almost any type of Schottky diode can also be used, as long as it can handle at least 1A at 50V. The zener diodes are not actually necessary, but they are added to protect the IC. If the LED chain is opened during experiments, the voltage can rise to a value that the IC will not appreciate.

Resistors:
R1 = 1kΩ2
R2 = 68Ω
Capacitors:
C1 = 100µF 16V radial
C2 = 680nF
C3 = 100µF 63V radial
Inductors:
L1 = 200µH 1A
Semiconductors:
D1 = Schottky diode type PBYR745 or equivalent
D2-D5 = zener diode 10V, 0.4W
D6-D15 = white LED

Mains Powered White LED Lamp

Did it ever occur to you that an array of white LEDs can be used as a small lamp for the living room? If not, read on. LED lamps are available ready-made, look exactly the same as standard halogen lamps and can be fitted in a standard 230-V light fitting. We opened one, and as expected, a capacitor has been used to drop the voltage from 230 V to the voltage suitable for the LEDs. This method is cheaper and smaller compared to using a transformer. The lamp uses only 1 watt and therefore also gives off less light than, say, a 20 W halogen lamp. The light is also somewhat bluer. The circuit operates in the following manner: C1 behaves as a voltage dropping ‘resistor’ and ensures that the current is not too high (about 12 mA).

The bridge rectifier turns the AC voltage into a DC voltage. LEDs can only operate from a DC voltage. They will even fail when the negative voltage is greater then 5 V. The electrolytic capacitor has a double function: it ensures that there is sufficient voltage to light the LEDs when the mains voltage is less than the forward voltage of the LEDs and it takes care of the inrush current peak that occurs when the mains is switched on. This current pulse could otherwise damage the LEDs. Then there is the 560-ohm resistor, it ensures that the current through the LED is more constant and therefore the light output is more uniform.

There is a voltage drop of 6.7 V across the 560-Ω resistor, that is, 12 mA flows through the LEDs. This is a safe value. The total voltage drop across the LEDs is therefore 15 LEDs times 3 V or about 45 V. The voltage across the electrolytic capacitor is a little more than 52V. To understand how C1 functions, we can calculate the impedance (that is, resistance to AC voltage) as follows: 1/(2π·f·C), or: 1/ (2·3.14·50·220·10-9)= 14k4. When we multiply this with 12 mA, we get a voltage drop across the capacitor of 173 V. This works quite well, since the 173-V capacitor voltage plus the 52-V LED voltage equals 225 V. Close enough to the mains voltage, which is officially 230 V.

Moreover, the latter calculation is not very accurate because the mains voltage is in practice not quite sinusoidal. Furthermore, the mains voltage from which 50-V DC has been removed is far from sinusoidal. Finally, if you need lots of white LEDs then it is worth considering buying one of these lamps and smashing the bulb with a hammer (with a cloth or bag around the bulb to prevent flying glass!) and salvaging the LEDs from it. This can be much cheaper than buying individual LEDs…

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM