Projects
This page include many of the projects I have attemped. Some Successful some not so successful!
I have tried to include as much information and detail as possible so you can try these out for yourself.
What you should learn from this page is that you should never bring your Windows based steam driven Laptop into my house, (Well it may as well be steam driven if it's running Windows) as you will leave with it having a partitioned hard drive and running Kubuntu or Apple OSX!
Cisco CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Assosiate Exam
I am currently studying for my CCNA qualification from home. To do this you have to have Thery and Practical experiance. This involves buying and putting together my own Cisco Lab.
The photo on the right was my first experiances of Cisco when I played with a Switch on my Work Experiance.
I have purchased my own lab and a 15U rack mount in which I have put together and built my own CCNA lab with some capabilities for CCNP, the next exam more advanced than CCNA.
My Kit consists of...
- Two 2950 Switches 12 Port and a 24 Port
- 3 2601 Routers with WIC Compatability
- 4 2501 Routers - 2 Serial ports and one AUI port each.
- 1 2500 Frame Relay - 4 Serial Ports and oen Token Ring
- 4 AUI to RJ45 Transducers
- 4 Serial WIC Cards
- 3 ISDN WIC Cards
- 15U Rack Mount
- 6 Serial - Serial Cables
- 5 Console Rollover Cables
I am gradually working threw the Cisco Certified Network Assoisate by Todd Lammle and making course notes on each chapter and completing the questions.
Below are my course notes for each chapter. I will add them as I complete them....
Home Network
My home network is something I have been tweaking over the years, it is a system which matches professionality and complexity with useablity.
The network allows us to file share, print share and screen share between the computers on the network. I have recently upgraded to a Wireless N Apple Airport Router which allows extremely fast sharing.
I use a Apple Mac Mini with 2tb of Harddrive space to store all of our Media, Films and Music on. This can then be accessed from all the other macs and computers on the network.
I use software built into OSX (The Apple operating system) to control the sharing of the Files and Remote Desktop from Apple to control the screen sharing. iTunes is then sharing out all of the music and Plex Media Center to stream out movies to the other machines.
This network consists of the Apple Airport Router, an Edimax Modem, 2 Gigabit switches, 1 Cisco switch and a lot of Cat5e Cable!
The network has many devices attached to it.... 
- Macbook Pro 15" Unibody
- Macbook Pro 15"
- Macbook 13"
- Mac Mini Media Centre
- Mac Pro
- Kubuntu Desktop
- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 3G
- iPod Touch
- Playstation 3
- 2 Linux Servers
- Laser Printer
- Ink Jet Printer
Wiimote Whiteboard
This project was more of a money saving project. I had wanted a Interactive whiteboard since i was 10 when my school got one. But could never afford one then at £1,500
This was my project to try and build a cheap alternative to the interactive whiteboard.
This was an extremely successeful project and saved me £1,480!
It involved using a Wiimote and pairing it via bluetooth to a computer. It is then possible to use custom built software to control it. The computer software then uses calibration techniqes to position the infared pen to the position on the screen. The infared pen is custom built using a high power IR LED and a small push button. When the push button is pressed the infared LED sends turns on and the Wiimote picks this up. The software then plots the cordinates onto an X Y axis and this is calibrated to the screen.
The plans can be found here....
-
- Infrared Pen
- WiiMote Positioning
- Computer Software
Windows
Mac
HDMI over Cat5e
Having a Plasma downstairs and a Projector upstairs and only one ps3 I found my self keep lugging the ps3 up and down the stairs depending on where I wanted to play it. This project allowed me to keep the ps3 downstairs and access it from both the plasma and the projector without moving it.
I looked into running one long 20metre HDMI cable from downstairs to upstairs, but after looking into it and adding up the figures I found that this was going to cost way to much and wouldnt give me the results I wanted in terms of image quality.
I then looked into running 2 lots of Cat5e cables from downstairs to upstairs. As I had recently brought 305m of it this worked out cheap for me. After running the cable I searched around for a HDMI over Cat5e Converter. I found one on ebay for £15.
After installing all of this and plugging it in, I then found out that my projector does not support HDMI through DVI intput! Even though it said it did in the instructions. Doh!!!!
So I was back to square one!.....
My next move was to try and and send component Video over the Cat 5e Cable. But this quickly failed as I found out that I had extreme ghosting on the cable as its method of shielding fails over this distance. Worth a try though!
So I eventually bought a roll of 100m of Coaxial Cable (or was it Dad?) and run 3 lots of this! Expensive plugs on each end and a seperate Audio cable to the amp upstairs. This is now working well.
I think if my projector supported HDMI via DVi that the HDMI over cat5e method would have worked well and been a success. More research next time!!!!RGB Colour Changing Lights
This was a cool project!!
I wanted to add some interesting light design to my bedroom. There was several ways of doing this.
I first of all looked at the Philips Living Colour Light, Which is a giant ball which emits a bright LED which can be changed to any colour you wish via a remote.
The next thing i looked at was Decking lights, which seemed a cool and cheap method of achieving what I wanted. Small simple lights which can be built into the ceiling and activated by a switch.
However I then saw some lights which I really liked and were an ultimate gadget! 
These were GU10 Lights with a Single RGB LED built into them which can be changed to any colour brightness and mode via the remote. You can change the fading speed flashing speed and brightness, all from a small remote.
This was the option I went for and once they arrived I fitted them into ceiling GU10 mounts and turned them on!
I am really impressed with these and so is everyone else that comes into my room. There like a bigger version of the Phillips living colour as its pretty much the same thing but built into the ceiling.
Plasma Pen Controller
This is similar to the Wiimote Whiteboard but instead of controlling a whiteboard and computer it is possible to control the plasma tv image with the pen. With the mac mini plugged into it you can touch the plasma screen and control the macmini with the pen.
This uses the same technology as the whiteboard, using a wiimote and the IR pen.
With the wiimote hidden in the room looking at the tv and the wiimote connected via bluetooth to the mac mini it picks up where the pen is in relation to the image on the tv.
This is more of a gimick than a practical and useable idea. Its good fun to play with drawing all over a 42" plasma but has no real useage.
Media Center
I have over the last couple of years been building up our Music and Movies library. But this content is only as clever and powerful as the media centre its self.
As I use a Mac Mini as the main media server, I have lots of flexibility. I wanted a system which allowed us to play and watch movies and music through the plasma and Onkyo Amp, but also to share this media out over the network.I also wanted it easy to use for rest of the family. This is one thing which the Apple does well, as it is completely controlable via the remote.
I use various bits of software to achieve what I want. One piece is Plex Media Centre, which gives us the ability to watch movies through the plasma, but also built into Plex is a Media Server which can share the movies over the network to other machines running plex, and even the PS3. I am currently running the Boxee Beta to compare it to Plex. To play music I use iTunes which is part of the iLife package within Apple. This allows us to play music through the Onkyo Amp but also share it out to other computers running itunes.
This is all controllable via screen sharing or the remote so there doesnt need to be a mouse or keybaord plugged into the macmini. It can be controlled via any other Mac on the network.
Apple Fish Tank
This is my next project I want to try out.....
Once I have completed this project I will right up about it and let you know how it went!
