A while back I started working on an embedded hardware system monitor. I'm after a box that measures supply voltage ( single phase 115VAC), current (AC), temperature and humidity as a health indicator for real-time data systems.

I have my eye on Sensiron SH series sensors and an ATMEGA processor on an Arduino board and development system (it just makes it easy and it works on Macs which makes my life simpler..

Autoconfiscating is a term used in the GNU Autoconf (http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/) world to refer to moving an existing project into the Autotools world. We have been talking about this for some time (a couple of years at least) and I've tried to slog my way through understanding this enough to make it work on my own but hadn't made it very far.

Pete Perron reported from the shipyard today that the electronics rack of the Healy's old SeaBeam 2112 multibeam mapping sonar was lifted off the ship yesterday, December 17, 2009. The end of an era.

I've (finally) started posting pictures from the removal of the Healy's multibeam bottom mapping sonar (a SeaBeam 2112) and the installation of a much newer Kongsberg EM122. The photo album is at http://new.ilab.ldeo.columbia.edu/image/tid/1

I started version control w/ SCS quite a while ago (late 80s), then switched to RCS which I used for years, then to CVS which we've used for a number of projects including MB-System and the MB Cookbook. We are in the process of switching to Subversion.

I've got a helpful gui interface to Subversion on my Mac (10.5.8 - I haven't upgraded yet): I installed Subversion (1.6.1:)
Read about it at: SVN Binaries at Collabnet (Note: 1.6.4 is now available - 2009-10-16)

or grab the (1.6.1) dmg from:

I'm back and digging out from being on the Healy in the Arctic for a couple of cruises (months.)

Back from HLY09TB Seattle to Kodiak. One night of very rough ride due to weather made a mess - got me a skinned knee - fortunately no one was seriously injured.

Kim gave me a K2 for my birthday. Posting from it while exploring its capabilities. One chracter at a time screen refreshes ar kinda slow.

Finally got a draft version of the manual for the 2007 edition out. It can be found at:http://vent.ldeo.columbia.edu/project/bgm3-interface

Why do we always find it so difficult to get the documentation done?

A couple of updates 2009-09-30:

• I purchased a Logic usb-interfaced analyzer from Salae (see below) early in the summer and have been very happy using it on one of my Toughbooks (windows) and I am thrilled that there is a working (alpha) version currently under test for Mac OSX and Linux.


• This summer I bought a Tektronix MSO2014 mixed signal oscilloscope (MSO) which I'm very happy with. Four analog channels at 100MHz plus 16 bits of digital w/ color screen USB (host and target)and Ethernet. It's amazing how far MSOs have come since I bought the HP54622!