While using wordpress for blogging, you may have to add externel links. For example if you need a link to your flickr page, you cannot add it from the wordpress menu. I think adding external links in K2 theme of wordpress is a little bit different.

In some of the forums they will ask you to edit header.php in themes/k2/ . Or some may ask you to add an plugin. But I don’t love adding plugins too much. And I think adding external links in K2 theme of wordpress is not very hard.

STEPS

1. Just edit the file themes/k2/app/includes/display.php
2. Find <ul class=”menu”>
3. Just below that add the line <li><ahref=”http://www.example.com”>EXAMPLE</a></li>
4. Save it and referesh your page. _

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Do you see the new link as the first ? Just try to add the same line in other places and have your links placed as you wish….

_HAPPY BLOGGING

_

Program an AVR microcontroller in GNU/Linux is a tutorial for programing the AVR ATMega microcontroller.

The tutorial here is written for ATMega8 microcontroller. But still you can program an ATMega series microcontroller using this method.

READ THE TUTORIAL

http://jeffrey.co.in/wiki/doku.php/program_atmega_micro_controllers_in_gnu_linux

This page is a wiki. If you find any missing portions, please edit the wiki if you can… Every content, even the circuit diagram is drawn using FREE SOFTWARE

After a single day work of writing this tutorial, I just googled about my tutorial. The funniest thing I found was that a tutorial similar to mine is in The Linux Documentation Project. One day work full of waste ! I could have just googled it before writting this tutorial… Also he is a student of Pramode Sir.

See this TLDP link..

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/Avr-Microcontrollers-in-Linux-Howto/

This is just a small description about the Embedded Design With GNU/Linux seminar that I had attended. Its not a complete report !

Free Software Cell, Government Engineering College, Barton Hill, Thiruvananthapuram had Organised a One Day National Seminar on “Embedded Design With GNU/Linux” On March 21, 2009, Saturday at the College Auditorium in association with Visiting Faculty Scheme, Directorate of Technical Education , Govt. of Kerala and Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment.

I was there to attend the event.  I and Sreeraj reached the Trivandrum  railway station at 3.oo AM. We waited Pramode Sir for his arrival. After refreshing we had a breakfast.  Almost at 9.15 Am we reached the college.

The inauguration was almost at 9.30 AM. There was welcome speech from students and also from the Principal of the college.

At 10 AM we had the Keynote Address  ‘Free Software for Science and Technology’ by  Dr. V.Sasikumar . It was a nice session about Free Software, its importance and also a short introduction on Creative Commons.  It was ended at 10.30 AM.

Next session was by Mr. Shakthi Kannan on ‘Badam Halwa of Embedded Systems’.  It was a nice session and was interactive.  He gave a very good description about the important topics in Embedded Systems.

There was one more session by  Shakthi  on ‘Electronics Design Automation Using GNU/Linux’. It was mainly about the Free Software EDA tools. He showed some electronics designs which was done using Free Software.

After the first session by Shakthi, I had shown him one of my GNUdino board design which was done using Free Software. In the middle of the second session Shakthi invited me to the stage to give a small description about the GNUdino board design. I gave a small description to the audience about GNUdino board and also ARDUINO. This session was ended at 1.00 PM.

The afternoon session was ‘How to Hack an ARM Microcontroller Using GNU/Linux’ by Pramode Sir. He showed the some of his STM32 Primer experiments which is documented here. It was also a nice session. Pramode Sir was afraid whether all will be sleeping because it was such a topic and also because everyone will be in a good sleepy mood after having a good Biriyani. But he showed his skills by giving sticker who answered his questions. All we eagerly listening his talk. There were also some question about the compilation.

The second afternoon session was ‘Java In Action- With Lego MindStorm NXT – Robot’ by Mr. David John. This session was about programming the Lego MindStorm NXT – Robot. It was also a nice and interactive session. At the end he showed a line following robot using Lego MindStorm NXT – Robot .

All the session had an end at 4.30 PM. There was award distribution to the speakers. Also participation certificate to the students who attended the talk.We left from Trivandrum at 11 PM.

It is nice if there is more such talks conducted.  Anyway thanks to Free Software Cell, Govt. Engg. College, Thiruvananthapuram..

I am back with the revised version of GNUdino-AVR.  This is actually one of the projects in FOSSTRONICS .  Also you can understand more about GNUdino-AVR from my previous blog post.

http://jeffrey.co.in/blog/2009/03/gnudino-arduino-design-using-geda/

The last version that I had designed contains several errors.  But first I didn’t realize those mistakes.  But after posting to gEDA-User mailing list I got some suggestions.  These were some of the reply for the mail that I had received from gEDA-User mailing list when I had asked for error check.

My mail

http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Mar-2009/msg00307.html

Reply mails

http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Mar-2009/msg00311.html

http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Mar-2009/msg00312.html

Special thanks to gEDA-User mailing list members for pointing out the errors.

This version has a few of improvements.

1)  Components are on Component side (Last time by mistake I had placed them on the solder side).

2)  Polygons (There was no polygons in the last version).

3)  Numbering of components were removed  (Last time all resistors were ‘R1’ )

This is the source file GNUdino-AVR-0.2.pcb

This time also I have posted for a error check to the gEDA-User mailing list.

If you can please check the file GNUdino-AVR-0.2.pcb for errors. Also comment out those errors. It would be a great thanks if you can do that…

These are the files that I have used for tracing from the Eagle layout. The tracing process had been explained in the previous blog post. You don’t have to check these files for errors. These files have been placed for educational purpose i.e those who want to learn PCB track tracing in PCB.

ard-0.2.pcb

120_90-0.2.ppm

For latest versions of GNUdino which are designed from me can be found from  http://jeffrey.co.in/gnudino/

Arduino is one of the coolest board to start learning microcontroller programming. You can get a whole lot of documents from the internet. It’s an Open Hardware project. So that you are free to distribute it, copy it, modify it…. like a free software. Open hardware is a latest trend in the electronics field.

One of the problems of Arduino was that, it’s designs were done using a proprietry software named Eagle. Although free version of eagle is available from the net, it is not a free software. Also the free version of eagle has a limitation that we cannot design large boards.

So I thought of redesigning the Arduino Single-Sided Serial Board (version 3) board using free software gEDA (GNU Electronic Design and Automation) tool. These are the design files of the board.

GNUdino-AVR-0.1.pcb

These files are released under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License 2.5.  You can use this file anywhere you want same as like the arduino license. Please give me proper credits while using this file and also give a link back to my page http://jeffrey.co.in/

I have designed this board by tracing the pcb layout of arduino which was designed using eagle. A small tutorial of tracing pcb’s by DJ Delorie is shown here.

Similar to the tutorial above, I am giving the files which I had first used for designing purpose.

125_90.ppm

ard.pcb

Place these two files in a folder. Now in the terminal run the command

pcb –bg-image 125_90.ppm ard.pcb

You can see the pcb tracks over the arduino pcb design which was done using eagle. The pcb tracks were drawn on the component side. While loading the file, PCB will be showing the component side. So you will be seeing the tracks not sitting on the background image. To switch to the solder side press the “TAB” button. Now you will see the track alligned.

Please check the files for any mistakes. If there is any, please comment it.

If you have any comments please do it…