I found I had a need to capture and process still video images from video devices using PHP so I wrote the Framegrab PECL extension. This post introduces the basics of Framegrab.
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DIO is the Direct IO extension for PHP. I recently took over maintaining this extension and have implemented comprehensive stream support for both POSIX and Windows systems. To demonstrate the use of DIO this post will describe a PHP script that sends an SMS using a USB 3G modem.
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A few months ago I had a need to do some serial IO from PHP. After asking around I found out there was a PHP extension for this but it was unmaintained, unowned and out of date. To cut a long story short I ended up as the maintainer of said extension and since them I have been fixing and extending it.
The original DIO API is very basic and POSIX oriented. Serial support is not very configurable and doesn’t work at all on Window platforms. So I have been working on implementing PHP stream extensions that allow you to do raw and serial IO via streams. Anyway its ready for testing by people other than me on POSIX (Linux, OS X etc) and Windows platforms so I’m looking for beta testers.
While I’m announcing appearances I am excited to announce that I am presenting an Arduino workshop at Manchester Geek Girl Afternoon Tea this month at Madlab, Manchester’s Hackspace in the Northern Quarter.
I will be bringing a long several Arduino-a-likes together with a variety of components and CDs of the IDE so that we can get together in groups, code and play.
I am delighted to announce that I have been selected to exhibit at Newcastle Maker Faire. The theme of my display will be crafty geekery.
I am intending to take along items which are a mix of traditional crafts such as knitting and jewellery making combined with tech. For example programmable earrings, a temperature sensing hat and a bag that has a proximity detector and RFID tag so it can detect its owner.
I am also going to show off a couple of my other projects like an ethernet adapter for a BBC microcomputer and a “Mood Wall” (It analyses twitter tweets for the mood of the content displaying patterns and colours which reflect the prevailing mood).
Hopefully I will see you there!
So its a new year and a significant year, 2010, so I’ve decided to start two projects which are somewhat related. My first project is “101 goals in 1001 days”. Basically I am setting myself 101 personal goals to achieve 1001 days i.e. by the end of 27 September 2012. This can be anything from cycling to work, knitting a jumper to carrying out a solo sky dive.
In order to record my achievements or otherwise I have created a new blog at http://www.cyberspice.org.uk/101in1001/. And my (growing) list of goals with links to pages that describe each goal is here.
The first goal is “A photo a day for at least 365 days”. Basically I have set myself the task of taking, and posting to a blog, a photo each day for at least a year. So I’ve created a new blog for that too at http://www.cyberspice.org.uk/oneaday/. Below is my photo for Jan 1, 2010.
