Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Microphone Light

arduinomiclightA few months ago, I bought new wireless microphones for church. They’re simple but they work well. The old ones were dying so it’s nice to have some that work well. The only downside is that the old ones had a nice flip switch on the top so you could tell by feeling the box whether the mic was on or off. These new mics have a button that you press once to turn on and another to turn off. Pastor turns his mic on and off throughout the service and it’s really easy to get mixed around with the on/off state.

After thinking about this for quite a while, I decided I could turn this into a project. There is a light on the mic receiver up in the balcony that goes on when his mic is on. I taped a light sensor on top of that and ran that to one of the analog input pins on an Arduino. If the light is off (meaning his mic is off), the Arduino sends a signal to a relay to let power flow to a light bulb. The bulb is red so if Pastor sees a red light, he knows his mic is off. I’ve only been testing it for a couple Sundays but so far, it works great!

This was the first time that I’ve ordered from AdaFruit.com but I was really impressed. Each product page has lots of examples and documentation to get you going. I also really liked their “Power Tail 2” product. It has all the relay stuff built into a short extension cord so you can skip all of those pieces. It’s way more expensive than doing it yourself, but “it just works.” And obviously I didn’t need an Arduino to do this simple logic, but again, it was easier.

This was a fun project to research and build. I love these Arduino projects, but I don’t have a lot projects on my list that require one.

benmartens September 3, 2015 Projects

Giving Your Best

quality-timeWe have a lot of interactions during the day whether it’s with family, coworkers, cashiers, online people, etc. They all demand some level of civility and good behavior. But over the course of a week, who gets the best you have to offer? I wish I could remember where I first heard this, but whoever said it, it stuck in my mind. Their point was that instead of letting go and giving our spouse (or family, etc) the rest of whatever we have to give that day, we should be giving them our best. We might rationalize it by saying, “My spouse knows me better than anyone else so he/she knows I don’t really mean it when I let me bad mood run wild.” But flip that over… if you have a limited amount of good behavior to dish out, shouldn’t you give it to the people you love the most? Save your best for your spouse.

Of course that’s easier said than done. We usually see our spouse at the end of the day when we’re really tired and fed up with all the other interactions we had during the day. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not a great idea.

I suppose ideally we’d have infinite good behavior to dish out to everyone we see, but even if you are nice to everyone, you can’t reasonably go the extra mile for everyone. Save that extra effort for the ones you love the most! Don’t use that close relationship to dump them with the leftovers of your day.

UPDATE: I wrote this before hearing Pastor’s sermon last Sunday, but it fit this post very well. One key tagline from his sermon was “You’d die for your spouse, but do you live for them?”

benmartens September 2, 2015 Family

Edmonds Marina Beach Park

Tyla and Elijah found Edmonds Marina Beach Park and they were both very excited about it. Elijah particularly loved it because the park features:

  1. Train tracks that run by the park
  2. A nice playground
  3. A beach
  4. Ferries
  5. Fork lifts moving boats around

The fork lifts probably trumped all the rest. They store quite a few boats on racks on land and then forklifts put them in the water. It’s quite a process and Elijah can watch them for a long time without getting bored.

One Saturday a few weeks ago, I went along with them to check out the park. I think it’s going to be a regular spot for us. The park really is beautiful and there are a lot of things for Elijah to enjoy.

edmondsmarina1 edmondsmarina2 edmondsmarina3

benmartens September 1, 2015 Family, Travel

Comcast Bill

comcasticI’ve been a Comcast customer for the last 13 years, and honestly I complain, but for the past few years, the internet and TV connections have been almost rock solid. That’s good. The price increases on the other hand, are not.

In December of 2013, we dropped to a lower TV package and we saved $40/month with no contract*. In the 20 months since then, our price went up 15% for exactly the same service. Give me a break.

I complained about it on Twitter and got a reply from the @ComcastCares service account. I’ve talked to them before without much luck, but this time it was great. They dropped our bill to ~$55/month without changing our service or requiring a contract. That’s awesome! I hate that their business model requires good customers to whine to get lower prices, but whatever.

* Why is no contract important to me? I feel like we’re at the tail end of having any TV package at all. We only record about a dozen series per year and they’re all available online either for free or for purchase. If I didn’t host football parties here, I think I would have already dropped cable TV. But when we have all those people over to watch a game, Comcast is still the most reliable way for me to display it. We can’t get over the air because of all the hills/trees, and the online streaming options aren’t stable enough yet.

benmartens August 31, 2015 Commentary

Software Toolkit

toolsIt’s been a few weeks since I last wiped my computer and started with a fresh install. When I do this, I only install software as I need it, so at this point, if I have something on my machine, it’s because I use it pretty regularly. I thought it might be interesting to share the list as a bit of a recommendation/tip post. I’ll leave out specific apps for my printer, scanner, etc.

  • 7-Zip
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
  • Adobo Photoshop Lightroom 3.6
  • Adobe Premiere Elements 12
  • Foxit Reader
  • Google Chrome
  • HandBrake
  • LastPass
  • Microsoft Azure SDK v2.7
  • Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013
  • Microsoft Power Query for Excel
  • Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
  • MySQL Workbench
  • Notepad++
  • Python 2.7.6
  • SketchUp 2015
  • VLC media player
benmartens August 28, 2015 Geek

Windows 10 Photo Viewer

WindowsPhotoViewerI’m not a fan of the new photo viewer in Windows 10. Specifically I have troubles rapidly flipping through a bunch of files in a folder and I’ve seen some stuff online showing it’s poor rendering capabilities. The old Windows photo viewer was simple and perfect. Why change?

The good news is that you can get it back, but it requires a few registry edits. I’m not going to explain how that works. Ask a geek in your life to help you out if you don’t know. It’s not generally something you should ever do. That being said, here are your instructions: http://www.tenforums.com/software-apps/8550-unable-replace-photos-app-photo-viewer-default-10240-a-2.html?s=30e1f367ee6f758b05431dc82f25b765

Once that’s done, right click on a JPG and choose Open With. Select the old Windows Photo Viewer and check the box to always open with that app.

benmartens August 27, 2015 Geek

Meat Week – Hot Dogs

meatweekhotdogsElijah had hot dogs at the church VBS picnic and ever since then, he has been asking us to make hot dogs. So I swung by the butcher and picked up some all beef hotdogs. There’s not much to say about grilling hot dogs, but Elijah was happy.

This also brought our “grill week” to a conclusion. For 28 days, we only cooked dinner using the grill. It was a delicious month!

benmartens August 26, 2015 Food

New National Wilderness In Idaho

sawtoothnationalrecreationYou may have seen the news about Obama recently creating a new wilderness area in Idaho. Since I’m not a rancher in the area who would rather use the land for something else, I’m happy to see more land set aside. Coming from the eastern half of the US, it still amazes me how much of the Pacific Northwest is federal (or state) protected land. It sure creates a nice recreational area!

I try to avoid getting too political, but as we run up to a new presidential election, I think this is a good time to point out one silly point of this story. You’ve heard all the stories and read all the headlines. Who is responsible for making this area a protected wilderness? Most people would probably say Obama. And sure, he was the final guy to sign the bill, but what about all of the senators and representatives that voted for this. What about Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho who spent the last 15 years trying to get this to happen? And what about the nameless people down at the city and county level who have been fighting for this too. As I’ve said before, our president’s name gets attached to lots of stuff (both good and bad), but they are rarely to credit or blame for any of it. When you vote in November, you’re voting for the head of our public relations team. So don’t get too excited or too bent out of shape about who wins or loses. Focus that energy around your local city government which really has an impact on your life.

benmartens August 25, 2015 Commentary

Meat Week – Chicken Breasts

meatweekchickenWhen I think of chicken breasts on the grill, I think of dried out meat. After reading a couple articles this summer, our chicken breasts are tasting delicious of the grill. Here are a couple things that are part of my grilling plan:

  • Thin out the chicken breasts. Put them in a bag and pound them to a constant thickness. This makes it possible to grill the whole piece evenly.
  • Marinate! Give it a full 24 hours. If you’re using skinless chicken, don’t put any lemon in the marinade because it will “cook” the outer part of the chicken. You can find plenty of marinade recipes online but I usually just throw stuff in a bag and it’s a little different every time. I usually do something like olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano and minced garlic.
  • Get the grill hot! I put it on the grill at about 500-550 degrees. If you flip it over and it sticks to the grill, you needed to let it wait longer before you flipped it. Your goal is to cook the chicken as quickly as possible (within reason) so that it doesn’t dry out.
benmartens August 24, 2015 Food

Meat Week – Ribs

meatweekribsI’ve only made ribs once in my life and it was one of those prepackaged deals from Safeway. We cooked it in the oven. This time I picked up loin back ribs from the butcher and did them on the grill. Doing them on a gas grill is pretty much the same as doing them in the oven but it worked ok. This meal was probably the dud from the meat week menu. The ribs weren’t terrible but I cooked them too long and they weren’t super awesome. Here’s the recipe/instructions that I used: http://www.food.com/recipe/foolproof-baby-back-ribs-88204

benmartens August 21, 2015 Food