devadutta.net

Another feather..

devadutta — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:57:00 +0000

in the cap? But I don’t wear a cap Enough with random clichés and horrible jokes. Time for a dictator type speech.

Ladies and Gents,

I am proud to announce that the Kannada Koota Of Northern California’s website is now under my control. I removed the old ( and very hard to maintain ) bunch of random scripts (website) and replaced it with a modern install of Drupal with a customized theme.

The transition from a static, non-interactive website to an awesome hub of interaction has left most of our members jumping in joy*!

Also, if any of you run a non-profit organization and want to get a website setup for free (I am not buying you hosting), contact me at devadutta@devadutta.net

Thank you,
Yours’ Benevolently,

Devadutta

Screenshot:

* proof:

BoiledBeans Scanner

devadutta — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:23:59 +0000

Ever since I saw the “Annotated Time Graph” on Google Finance, I wanted to use it in one of my projects. Finally, I got a decent scenario to use the visualization.

BoiledBeans scanner plots all questions ever posted on bb based on their difficulty levels. Check it out here

The backend magic is delivered by SQL and php and front end is of course powered by Google Visualization API.

Please tell me how it is!

KapaLa Moksha – Quiz Buzzer

devadutta — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:58:06 +0000

A few months ago, I conducted a Kannada quiz for the Sacramento Kannada Sangha. Since people were fond of buzzer rounds, they requested me to have one. I hate buzzer rounds because it is very hard to arbitrate who hit the buzzer first. To solve this problem, I rigged up a micro-controller based Quiz Buzzer which talks directly to a computer via RS232 and clearly displays which team hit the buzzer first! Since we had a huge screen and a projector set up at the location, the entire audience could see the team number as soon as someone hit the buzzer.

I got some overwhelmingly good response for the buzzer and I decided to make it available for download.

KapaLa Moksha — Quiz Buzzer v0.1

Features

Supports up to 8 teams
Communicates with a computer via RS232
Windows software which displays team number on screen is included
Additional LCD display which shows team number and other debug data

Hardware requirements

PSoC CY3210 PSoCEVAL Kit. I had this kit from a course I had taken in grad school. The PSoC is a very versatile platform and facilitates rapid implementation on hardware, which is exactly what you are looking for when you are trying to rig a project in 3hours.
A computer with a RS232 port
Lots of wires and n* push button switches

*n = number of teams < 8

Thats it!

Downloads and implementation instructions

Get the kit and connect n switches between Port A ( or whichever posrt you choose to make the input) and ground. Should look something like this

Download and burn HEX code availabe in the C source code package under the folder quizBuzzer\output\quizBuzzer.hex onto the PSoC chip. Or you can open quizBuzzer.soc in PSoC Designer(comes with the kit, or you can download it from www.cypress.com )
Connect to a computer with an active RS232 port (NOTE: otherwise, the program will crash) and run this program
Hit reset and press one of the team buttons. You will hear a buzzer sound form the computer and the team number will be displayed! Screenshot below

The thing is really nifty and can make audience very happy!

The Name: KapaLa Moksha in kannada stands for “One tight slap”.

Experiments with Hydrogen

devadutta — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:43:40 +0000

Hydrogen is a free and open source drum machine for multiple platforms. Since I have used Fruity Loops quite expensively, I decided to give Hydrogen a shot and came out with this decent piece of drum loop in about 15mins.

You can listen to it here

The software is quite impressive but far from perfect.

Pros:

Does a decent job.
Free!

Cons:

Very few inbuilt drumkits
Synthesis is limited to drums and does not have other instruments and the output audio quality is not as good as Fruity Loops.

But still, I like it and really appreciate the effort put in by the developers to deliver a free and open source music composing experience!

bash emulation using Mootools

devadutta — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:16:38 +0000

We recently posted our 500th question on Boiledbeans and to celebrate, we conducted a Live Quiz Contest.

I built a neat bash like interface for the quiz using Mootools ( and of course, Javascript and HTML ) and people really liked it!

Take a look at it here!

Screenshot:

I am planning to make the code public in a while. Since the quiz is still alive, I cannot release it immideately.

Happy New Year!

devadutta — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:46:11 +0000

Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year!

I was at my friend’s place yesterday for new year celebrations and we needed a random number generator to play bingo. Instead of writing numbers on chits and picking them up, I hacked together a random number generator using Javascript in about 15 minutes, which looked like this:

I used a simple hash to see that numbers did not repeat and It actually worked pretty well. I was delighted at Javascript’s utility at non geek parties!

Here is the code:



	
		Bingo Baby!
<script type="text/javascript">
var gblHash=new Array();	
function getNewRand()
{
	return (Math.floor(Math.random()*99)+1);
}
function getRand()
{
	var ilm=getNewRand();
	var i=0;
	while(gblHash[ilm]==1)
	{
		i++;
		ilm=getNewRand();
		if(i>=100)
		{
			alert("All numbers done!");
			return;
		}
	}
	gblHash[ilm]=1;
	document.getElementById('randomNumber').innerHTML=ilm;
	document.getElementById('drawnNumbers').innerHTML
		+=(" "+ilm);
}
script>


	-1

And here is a demo

Enjoy 2009!

Site under maintainence

devadutta — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:41:08 +0000

I have started to move the site’s backend to a new version and god! it is as hard as moving out of a house you have stayed in for years. I was hopeful that this process will end smoothly in just one shot, but it looks like all the hacks I have put in is not sufficient.

So, you will be finding glitches here and there, please bear with me. Also, you will realize that some pages have vanished and some look ugly. It is all part of the painful plastic surgery which the backend is going thru.

Please feel free to report any bugs, broken links, horrible spellings etc to devadutta@devadutta.net.

I have mirrored my old site here, in case you want something there.

Movie Goer

devadutta — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:40:26 +0000

Keeping track of all movies I watch has been something that I wanted to do for a long time now.
Finally, I got enough time to get a widget up and running for my blog which does exactly this. I call it quot;Movie Goerquot;.

The back end of this app took a while to complete because of all the ajax I put in

Gallery Update v0.4

devadutta — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:33:05 +0000

I made some significant changes to the Gallery back-end and I am loving the performance boost!
Checkout the Gallery section for the latest version.

Changes in this version

Version 0.4
Gallery album display order changed from quot;Arbitraryquot; to quot;Album creation timequot;
Anti-aliasing support
Bandwidth requirements reduced significantly because of new JIT image delivery technique.

There is a long way to go to reach v1.00 when I will make the code public. Until then, please send in any feedback to devadutta@devadutta.net

Rajyotsava Quiz 2007

devadutta — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 06:21:00 +0000

I happened to get hold of a video of me conducting the KSS Rajyotsava Quiz 2007. Take a look!