
2016


A Simon Game Clone for the Raspberry Pi
Let’s recreate the Simon game of the 1980s using a Raspberry Pi and Sonic Pi!

Creating Music with Sonic Pi on a Raspberry Pi
After watching Scott Fradkin live-code Sonic Pi for an hour at a conference, it inspired me to make a little music of my own.

Create a Raspberry Pi Virtual Machine (VM) in VirtualBox
I was flipping through The MagPi back-issues and came across an article about setting up a virtual Raspberry Pi environment. It got me thinking… I’ve been playing around a lot on the Pi itself, but it’d be nice to experiment with code even when I don’t have access to a physical Pi.

Flash an LED on Your Raspberry Pi When You Get New Email
Let’s learn how to flash an LED on the Raspberry Pi when someone sends us a new email.

Building a Morse Code Transmitter on a Raspberry Pi (version 2)
I created a morse code generator before based on entering a string at the console. Now I extended it to generate a message by clicking a button.

Using PullUp and PullDown Resistors on the Raspberry Pi
When you start out creating circuits with the Raspberry Pi and its GPIO pins, there’s an unexpected but important concept to understand, called “floating”. To adjust for it, you need to understand how to use pullup and pulldown resistors.

Building a Morse Code Transmitter on a Raspberry Pi
Making the Pi blink an LED a few times is thrilling, but what about building something.. more? Let’s build a morse code transmitter!

Hello World for the Raspberry Pi - Making an LED Blink
I unboxed my Raspberry Pi a few weeks ago and started learning Python. Let’s code the “Hello World” of the Pi, and make an LED blink.

Building the model 4-stroke combustion engine from Smithsonian
Last summer, I found this “Smithsonian Motor-Works” set at a garage sale. Once built, it models a 4-stroke internal combustion engine. I’d shelved it for a rainy day and rediscovered it last weekend while cleaning the basement. Time for a little father/son bonding!
2015

HacktoberFest and my first OSS contributions
I made my first OSS contributions during HacktoberFest, gaining experience (and swag!) with the help of DigitalOcean and GitHub. :)

Implicit vs Explicit Conversion in C#
We use implicit and explicit conversion in C# all the time, without even realizing it. Let’s learn more about them and look at examples of each.

Obsolete Attribute on a Class is Ignored When an Interface is Involved
The Obsolete attribute on a class is ignored when an interface is involved. It caught me by surprise, but makes sense. Let’s see why.

An Extension Method to Pass a Column Name to SqlDataReader.GetFieldValue
Let’s combine the SqlDataReader’s GetFieldValue and GetOrdinal methods into an extension method that lets us pass a column name and get back a specific type.
2014

Passing Data Between Forms in WinForms
Passing data between two Forms is very common in WinForms. There’s a couple ways to do it, and one’s better than the other. Let’s take a look.

Filtering a ListView in WPF Using a TextBox and CollectionViewSource
In WPF, a ListView allows for quite a bit of flexibility. Let’s take a look at filtering a ListView, using input being typed into a TextBox.
2013

Installing Windows 3.1 in VMware Player
While looking for a copy of Windows 98 on MSDN to install some old software (compatibility mode under Windows 7 didn’t work), I came across Windows 3.11. Installing it was a little tricky though…

Installing DOS 6.22 in VMware Player
While looking for a copy of Windows 98 on MSDN to install some old software (compatibility mode under Windows 7 didn’t work), I came across Windows 3.11. I just had to try installing it! But first, DOS 6.22…