In life and embedded systems timing is everything. Give [Frank's] web-based timer calculator a try. Set your system clock resolution (in hertz making sure you account for any system clock divider), select your timer resolution and prescaler, then calculate based on desired ticks, overflows, or real time. He’s built this with the AVR chips in mind but it should be handy for any family of microcontrollers.
Of course none of this is rocket science, but if you’re trying to use one timer for two differently synchronized events this can save you a lot of trial and error time.

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Projects involving Conway’s Game of Life and utilizing a Nokia 3310 screen are quite popular with electronics hobbyists. [Droky] put these two together and went one step further by adding capacitive sensors to control the Game of Life. His work is a great example of how to use the Atmel QTouch capacitive sensor (QT100a datasheet). This chip does the heavy lifting that we’ve seen in other touch sensitive solutions. It operates from 2V-5.5V, requires only three capacitors and a resistor, has a one pin active high output, and sells for around $1 in low quantities. One thing [Droky] overlooked…

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[casafear1] has put out this video detailing how to build the “ground-breaker”, a zombie escaping from the grave. It is a simple frame for the arms and shoulders, with a couple pneumatic pistons to make it jerk as though it were pulling itself from the grave. He goes into a decent amount of detail explaining the physical construction, offering several tips to prolong the life of this prop. Unfortunately, he doesn’t enlighten us as to his control scheme. Is it manually controlled? Is it automated? Does it get activated by passers by or is it always going?
Last year,…

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Michael Jacksonlost the will to live in recent years, a former close confidante said on Friday, as scores of fans camped out to be the first to see the singer’s final appearance in the “This is It” movie.Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, unveiled lengthy conversations he taped with Jackson during their 1999-2001 friendship, and said the “Thriller” singer suffered deep emotional pain.”He lost the will to live,” Boteach said. “I think he was just going through the motions of life toward the end.”Boteach also said that Jackson, who had plastic surgery several times,…

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Apple on Thursday updated its Web site with a new section on how its products are impacting the environment.Apple has made public information in several categories including Life Cycle Impact, Product Usage Impact, andProduct Environmental Reports. The company also created a section dedicated to its own environmental updates.Taking a look at the power management section will give you an idea of how extensive the information is that Apple provided. According to Apple, Mac OS X even regulates the processor in between keystrokes, saving power.”Designing green products includes considering the environmental impact of the materials used to make them,” reads Apple’s…

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If you’ve been hearing all the buzz about blogging and want toknow what it is and how to get started, this article is for you.Here we will discuss what blogging is, what blog software you’llneed, and what you can do with it.What’s a blog?A weblog ‘ blog for short ‘ is a type of website. Blogs areunique from other static website in that they are usuallyupdated often. The main page of the site usually contains themost recent post or posts of the author or authors of thewebsite. Also, blogs often also allow readers to post theircomments directly to the site.All…

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Producer: Arsala Qureishi and Sabrina LouisWriter: Arsala QureishiCast: Raji James, Sofia Hayat, Chook Sibtain, Salman QureishiDirector of Photography: W.B RaoEditor: Asif SheikhMusic: Ismail Darbar The movie is about romance, mystery, mockery and changes. There is a man called Yash. He is a writer and a teacher. Yash teaches the people how to live. He has a firm belief in his teachings until the day he bumps into a woman named Padma, who cannot be changed by any kind of teachings.She has no morals. Very secretly she reveals her true self to Yash. The saga revolves around the endless romance and…

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Earlier this month Tweetdeck announced that they would begin integrating the full Facebook stream into their widely used desktop application. The new version of the application has now gone live and you can view your entire news feed and then implement filters which limit the content to status updates, wall posts, photos, videos, and custom groups of friends. That means your Facebook feed will now sit right next to your Twitter feed … talk about content overload!

Rather than having to log in to Facebook to find out what’s going on with your friends you can quickly filter through TweetDeck…

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