Monthly Archives: December 2011

Crash course: Embedded programming with Arduino

Please enjoy my fast and furious introduction to the wonderful Arduino embedded platform and electronics hackery: Crash course: Embedded programming with Arduino.

Demand for embedded programming is growing like crazy, so anyone looking for some job security might consider becoming an ace embedded programmer. It helps to have some programming experience, but even raw beginners can get started inexpensively and learn on their own. One of the friendliest introductions to embedded coding is Arduino. Arduino is a popular open embedded hardware and software platform with hundreds of howtos and projects to try out. Today we review the basics of both electronics and Arduino coding in a fun holiday project, Singing Holiday Snowman.

I’m going to take my old plastic snowman (figure 1) and outfit him to sing holiday songs whenever anyone approaches within a few feet, and to blink some festive red and green LEDs. (Half the fun of Arduino is blinky lights.) You, of course, may use any object you want

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Managing Services on Linux with systemd

New article at Linux.com by me: Managing Services on Linux with systemd . You’ve read all about systemd, the new Linux init daemon. You know what it does, and why. Now it’s time to dig in and learn how to make it sit up and beg — or at least start, stop, and get information on services.

Starting and Stopping Services

My earlier piece, “Here We Go Again, Another Linux Init: Intro to systemd” discusses the concepts behind systemd and what it is supposed to do. Now it’s time to learn how to use it to control services on our systems. systemd is backwards-compatible with sysvinit and Upstart, so you can try it out by installing it on any Linux that uses sysvinit or Upstart without a lot of extra work. Arch Linux, Debian, and OpenSUSE all include systemd in their software repositories.

Nmap Network Probing Cheatsheet

New article by me at Olex Wazi: Nmap Network Probing Cheatsheet– Nmap is a powerful utility for scanning your network and discovering all kinds of information about who is on it and what they’re doing. You can discover used and unused IP addresses, hostnames, services, and operating systems, and their versions – information that can help you monitor who is on your network, and lead you to unsafe or unauthorized servers.