How to send a UDP packet in Python

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Recently, I ran across a problem where I wanted to automate the testing of a microcontroller for which I was unable to modify the locked down embedded software. Moreover, the microcontroller could only communicate over an Ethernet network using TCP/IP and UDP. Sending either a TCP or UDP packet onto a network is a very easy thing to do using Python, but takes a little bit of knowledge about networking for it to make sense. In this tutorial I am going to give the most bare-bones and simplest possible way to send a packet of data over a network using UDP.

  1. Sending a UDP Packet
  2. Handling Basic Exceptions

Setting Default Properties for the MathJax Module for Drupal

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This is going to be a quick tutorial on how to set default properties and options for the MathJax Module for Drupal. I recently switched my Math (LaTeX) rendering module to MathJax, and I was having a hard time finding information on configuring the default setting with which the math equations would load.

  1. Finding the File with the Default Settings
  2. Where to Find MathJax Options
  3. Clearing Drupal's Cache

Configuring Thunderbird 3 to Play Nice with GMail

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This tutorial is going to explain how to configure Thunderbird 3 to work the best with GMail. In Thunderbird 3, the account creating wizard makes it easy to connect to GMail, but there are a lot of different settings that need to be adjusted to make the program work even better. This tutorial will explain how to adjust all the settings so that Thunderbird will works as smooth and properly as possible with GMail.

Adding Spice Models to LTspice

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Finally... a new tutorial. Who could have ever guessed that life in the real world would be so busy (note the sarcasm!)? This tutorial is going to cover adding custom Spice models into your LTspice simulations and library. While it is very easy once you know how to do it, there are a couple pitfalls that nearly caused me to go crazy and rip my hair out in the past. Hopefully this will save you some time and stress, and possibly a hole in your monitor. Now let's get started!

  1. Finding and Downloading the Spice Model
  2. Adding the Spice Model to your LTspice Library
  3. Using the Spice Model in a Circuit
  4. Conclusion and tl;dr (too long;didn't read)

How to clean up and remove menu items from the Grub menu in Ubuntu 10.04

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I like Ubuntu, but one thing that has always annoyed me about it was that it adds a lot of different Grub menu items that I never use. This isn't the end of the world, but I like to have my menus nice and neat, and this menu is not nice and neat at all.

photograph of the Grub menu polluted with unused menu items

The only thing I currently use Grub for is to choose if I want to boot into Windows, Ubuntu, or any other operating system I might have installed at the time. This tutorial will show you how to remove the old versions of the Linux kernel, the recovery mode options, and remove the memory test (memtest86+) options.

  1. Removing the memory test (memtest86+)
  2. Removing the old Linux kernels
  3. Removing the recovery mode options
  4. Changing the default timeout duration, default Grub option, and Grub resolution

How to Install Additional Octave Packages in openSUSE

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In openSUSE it's easy to install Octave. All you have to do is add the Pacman repository, search for Octave, and mark it for installation. For some, people the base version of Octave is enough for what they need to do, but sometimes additional packages are necessary for more specialized tasks. For example, I need the signals package do do things like finding correlations or designing filters. Unfortunately, in openSUSE adding the packages is a little bit trickier than installing the program itself. This tutorial will show you how to install additional packages. It assues that you already have Octave installed. At the time of writing I am using openSuse 11.2 and Octave 3.2.4.

  1. Install Additional Linux Packages
  2. Download Octave Packages
  3. Install Octave Packages

HP 50g Variables and Folders Tutorial

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This is a basic tutorial on managing variables and folders on the HP 50g calculator. Deleting variables is easy once you know what to, but it gives people trouble at the start when learning how to use this calculator. Using folders effectively is important because it helps with organizing variables and lets you have more than one sets of variables or constants saved for different types of problems or classes. The file browser is useful for navigating folders but also good for helping you delete large amounts of variables quickly.

  1. Creating and Using Variables
  2. Deleting Variables
  3. Creating Folders
  4. Accessing Variables and Organizing Folders

Simon Says... "Wake Up!"

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This alarm clock was made for a project in ECE362 at Purdue University, taught by Professor Meyer. The assignment was called a mini-project and our team of three had a little over a week to complete it. The guidelines of the project were very lenient and were to basically to create anything we wanted using the Freescale HS9S12C32 microcontroller, while utilizing at least 4 the following modules: analog to digital (ATD), pulse width modulation (PWM), timing (TIM), serial peripheral interface (SPI), and SCI (UART).

  1. Project Description
  2. Clock Portion Overview
  3. Puzzle Portion Overview
  4. Video
  5. What We Learned
  6. What We Would Do Differently
  7. Conclusion
  8. Pictures

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