Last Post using Blogger

Blogger has been great, but after a two year break from running my own site, I have chosen to start back with a custom blog at http://www.burksbrand.com.

Arcade Joystick

This idea has been a long time in the cooker. I've been wanting to put together an Arcade style joystick since my Commodore days. I finally just did it:

I ordered one of these from amazon:

"Easyget Zero Delay Pc Arcade Game Joystick Cabinet DIY Parts Kit for Mame Jamma & Fighting Games Support All Windows Systems - Color Black Kit"

It came today:




The unboxing.


It came in a bunch plastic bags.

Here are the parts fanned out.


A blurry one of me testing the joystick without the buttons on my computer before assembled it.


I found these on thingaverse. I printed them, but one of them snapped. I'm reprinting it with a higher fill density.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:723554

Raspberry Pi Arcade Stick Console



Crude markings for drilling.


The pieces drilled.

A trip to Ace hardware and I was ready to sand, paint, and assemble.

I thought I would test out some paints on the bottom piece which isn't very visible once assembled.

Here is the painted version without assembly.

Mostly assembled. I drilled holes for the joystick but after putting the hardware in I noticed the D-stick bumped one of the edges of the wall. instead I used some wood screws and re-centered stick.

Here we go hooked up. You can see the keyboard underneath. I'm going to add a wrist rest next.

After some advice from my long time friend I stumbled upon the joytokey software to get things working for games which don't support standard joysticks.

http://joytokey.net/en/

The joystick parts from amazon cost me 25 dollars and 10 dollars worth of search history sold to "Bing" for Amazon gift cards.

We had the wood left from a crib to outdoor couch project.

Then I spent about 10 dollars at Ace Hardware.

The risers I 3d printed from a giant orange spool of .175 I ordered for around $13 so I'll go ahead a say about .$.50 worth.

Total out of pocket $35ish. Not bad.

Teamspeak Install/Setup Instructions

For Ubuntu

1. Install PUTTY or SSH utility (optional)
2. Install VirtualBox
3. Download latest server ISO from Ubuntu.
4. Provision the Virtual Machine to match or exceed the recommendations for minimum system specifications
5. Attach the ISO and install
   • use entire disk no LVM
   • install updates automatically
   • standard system utilities
   • OpenSSH (optional)
   • GRUB on boot is fine for dedicated VM
6. Add port forwarding to your NAT
   • map a port for SSH
   • map a UDP port for client port 9987
7. Install Guest Additions
   1. sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
   2. cd /media/cdrom
   3. sudo apt-get -y install gcc make
   4. sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
   5. sudo umount /media/cdrom
   6. sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now
8. update os
   • sudo apt-get update
9. clone vm so you don't need to install ubuntu again
   • setup a different host name for each full clone
   • setup a different port for openSSH so you can boot a few up at once
10. start headless virtualbox instance
    • ssh with PuTTY or another tool
11. install teamspeak-server
    1. Download from http://www.teamspeak.com/downloads
    2. Click the copy link
    3. wget and paste into putty
       

       wget pastedurlhere

    4. decompress the download
       

       tar -xvf somedownload.bz2

    5. start the server
       

       ./ts3server_startscript.sh start

    6. save off that screen that pops up it is important
       • sign in from the TeamSpeak client
       • add the network key from the screen that appeared
    7. set the teamspeak server to startup on server ``` crontab -e @reboot /path/to/decompressedlocation/ts3server_startscript.sh start

Replacing MySQL with MariaDB

Get MariaDB SQL Up and Running

If you read the previous article you will see that we installed the LAMP stack as is. We are going to be removing the MySQL component today and replacing it with MariaDB.

Remove MySQL

1. Start the server in headless mode
   • right click the context menu
   • choose start headless
2. SSH into it
3. See what is installed
   

   dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall > installedFiles.txt

4. Open the file
   

   ...
       mysql-client-5.7                                install
       mysql-client-core-5.7                           install
       mysql-common                                    install
       mysql-server                                    install
       mysql-server-5.7                                install
       mysql-server-core-5.7                           install
       mysql-client-5.7                                install
       mysql-client-core-5.7                           install
       mysql-common                                    install
   ...

5. Remove these with apt-get remove
   • For the lazy and uncaring
     

        sudo apt-get remove  mysql* 
        sudo apt-get autoremove

6. remove /etc/mysql
   • For the trusting and lazy (seriously be careful with any rm commands)
     

         sudo rm -Rf /etc/mysql
         sudo rm -Rf /var/lib/mysql

   • You might find more like:
     • /var/lib/mysql-5.7
     • /var/lib/mysql-files
     • /var/lib/mysql-keyrings

When that doesn't work

sudo service mysql stop  #or mysqld
sudo killall -9 mysql
sudo killall -9 mysqld
sudo apt-get remove --purge mysql-server mysql-client mysql-common
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo deluser mysql
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/mysql
sudo apt-get purge mysql-server-core-5.5
sudo apt-get purge mysql-client-core-5.5
sudo rm -rf /var/log/mysql
sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10853004/removing-mysql-5-5-completely

Install MariaDB

sudo apt-get install --force-reinstall true mariadb-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Grant localhost

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/adding-users.html

Fix the bind address

File:

/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Allow any do not do this in production or on an internet accessible machine:

bind-address:0.0.0.0

VirtualBox

• map a port to connect
• if you want it locked to your host you could put a host IP of 127.0.0.1

Apache on Ubuntu inside of VirtualBox Headless

Ubuntu LAMP Headless

1. Install PUTTY or SSH utility (optional)
2. Install VirtualBox
3. Download latest server ISO from Ubuntu.
4. Provision the Virtual Machine to match or exceed the recommendations for minimum system specifications
5. Attach the ISO and install
   • use entire disk no LVM
   • install updates automatically
   • standard system utilities
   • LAMP server
     1. Set a MySQL password
   • OpenSSH (optional)
   • GRUB on boot is fine for dedicated VM
6. Add port forwarding to your NAT
   • map a port for SSH
   • map a port for Web Traffic
7. Install Guest Additions
   1. sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
   2. cd /media/cdrom
   3. sudo apt-get -y install gcc make
   4. sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
   5. sudo umount /media/cdrom
   6. sudo /sbin/shutdown -r now
8. start headless virtualbox instance
   • ssh with PuTTY or another tool
9. Add Shared Directory for web
   1. create script to automap in /etc/init.d Sample Script:
      

      #!/bin/bash
      sudo mount -t vboxsf PublicWeb /var/www/html
      

   2. Make script executable
      

          sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/mountVBoxDirectories.sh

   3. Update RC to run at start
      

          sudo update-rc.d mountVBoxDirectories.sh defaults

Jekyll with Virtual Box and Network Mount

It appears when you have your files for Jekyll stored on the host machine on VirtualBox the files get cached and you receive a stale copy.

A simple solution is to "touch" the file.

#!/bin/bash

echo "Touching all the things..."

find . -exec touch {} \;

echo "Finished Touching..."

jekyll serve

Synthesizers

After watching:

http://www.idreamofwires.org/

I was sold on the idea of obtaining a synthesizer. I had done a little research and realized it was going to be an expensive hobby. I decided I was going to get the cheapest thing possible:

http://www.thesynthesizersympathizer.com/2015/03/buying-your-first-analog-synthesizer.html

The MicroBrute. I found one for less than retail from an auction site.

I've been watching videos about synthesizers and found a tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBY-AtQwP_M

I'm pretty sure I need to find a EuroRack power module and begin collecting.


Here are some interesting modules I found:

http://www.analoguehaven.com/mfb/seq01/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=273&v=xhNljvO0GCc