To add a context menu action, add open_with_atom.nemo_action to ~/.local/share/nemo/actions.

Back in 2013, I programmed an inexpensive media remote to control XBMC on Ubuntu with the help of a cheap infrared PC remote control. Since then, I’ve messed up that Ubuntu install pretty well, so updating seemed like a good idea.

Stepper motors are a type of brushless DC motor that can be controlled so that they advance a fixed step size. Additionally, they provide a strong holding torque. This can make them useful in applications where you want to rotate the motor precisely without employing encoders. When prototyping, I like to use development boards that can be transferred to a custom PCB easily. This gives me a clear path if I want to move the design from the Protoboard to something more polished.

The local public access station produces a weekly news/entertainment program called The Local Live. The format features a live interview segment where community calls, emails, and tweets are taken on the air. To keep the contact information onscreen throughout the entire segment, I wanted to animate the contact info into a graphics bug. The station uses a Newtek Toaster Tricaster 860. By dedicating a video playback DDR to a DSK channel, we can overlay videos with alpha.

I recently received an Ouya and want to try coding a game for it. While the favorite child for Ouya developments seems to be Unity3D, the Unity IDE cannot be run on Linux. While there are a huge set of frameworks and game engines for developing on Android, I didn’t want to have to do game testing entirely via an Android Virtual Device or by loading onto a phone. Fortunately, libGDX provides a cross platform framework that should let me do most of the testing in on my PC.

I currently have an RCA RCRP05BR 5 Device Cable Replacement Universal Remote (Black), and it works well for controlling an LG TV, Roku XD, and original XBox. My home theater PC (picked up by a friend when Borders went out of business) did not have a built in infrared receiver, so the objective was to find a receiver compatible with the universal remote that would be nicely detected by Ubuntu.

Since the PDF library is not free software, it isn’t included with the distribution of Chromium. To get PDF support in Chromium:

Install checkinstall via:

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

Note: this tutorial is pretty old and should not be trusted.

While it may have been obvious to some, installing the RoboCup Soccer Simulator (RCSS) got caught up on a number of snags. In order to make everyone else’s life easier, this tutorial steps through the installation process for RCSS with some notes and commentary I picked up along the way. While the development server was an Xubuntu virtual machine, this document should be largely applicable to typical Ubuntu installations.