Chrome Tips

Two chrome tips for you:

1. The Type 55 0.5mm tip for my new favourite tool-in-the-box - an Antex XS 25 watt soldering iron! Ahem, while not exactly chrome, it does go shiny when tinned! I've only ever used my old workhorse cheap-and-cheerful 50 watt iron before now, which as far as I was concerned was as good as it got. So I was dubious when I was given this little gem to try. Imagine my surprise when I saw the difference that this iron/tip combination makes. I must say I'm absolutely astounded. It manages to pump much more heat into a joint than my supposedly more powerful iron that joints form instantly and cleanly. I'll never use another iron again ...

2. If you're having trouble downloading updates to the ever-so-likeable Google Chrome browser due to proxy issues or similar, then try this. Locate the event viewer for your Windoes system. This is usually in the Administrative Tools section of your control panel. There may well be an entry from the update manager which looks like this (click for a full resolution image):



You will see the URL to which the update service is attempting a connection. Cut and paste this into your favourite browser's address bar. In my case the download hoops are presented and I can duly jump through them, ending up with a newly polished chrome tool. Matron!

Double entendre added then

Say Hello to uFat2

There has been a flurry of activity recently and a number of uFat users have been in touch, which is nice! In response to this I think it's about time that I posted my latest updates. The code is thoroughly commented and should answer most questions.

Most notably I have broken the dependency on a particular device library. Now you can use any code capable of reading 512byte sectors from any FAT formatted device.

Since a number of you dear readers asked about traversing FAT directories I've abstracted this requirement into a core feature. By providing a function callback you can now process FAT directory entries to your heart's desire!

It's still a lightweight library but there may be new ideas here for some beginner programmers. I don't think there's anything that should scare anyone though. Concepts such as pointers to functions and PROGMEM data storage are used throughout, but you should be able to use this as it stands without this knowledge. The example sketch should cover the most obvious use cases of printing a listing of files and updating a file on the card.

I developed this under the latest IDE at time of writing which is Arduino-0012. As usual, I'm happy to help with any problems or queries you might have.

Here's the goods: SMB_LIBRARIES and for pudding: The demo sketch

The code is now hosted on Google Code. You can download it here

Refer to the header files for usage, tips, and perhaps a LOL or two. If you're lucky ;)

Written, admired and duly