RRP $299 ONLY $249 

Monstrous, eardrum-perforating power and high efficiency in an extremely compact chassis. It has dual MOSFET power supplies and is stable driving 1 or 2 ohm loads. In addition, you get adjustable phase shift, bass boost, variable low pass & subsonic filters and master/slave operation.

* Speaker short, over current, thermal and DC protection
* 4 AWG power terminals

@ 1 ohm mono 14.4V: 1000WRMS
@ 2 ohm mono 14.4V: 600WRMS
@ 4 ohm mono 14.4V: 300WRMS
@ 2 ohm linkable, dual mono 14.4V: 1800WRMS
Signal/noise ratio: >90dB
Input sensitivity: 150mV to 6V
Low pass filter: 30 – 250Hz @ 24dB/octave
Subsonic filter: 10-60Hz @ 24dB/octave
Bass boost: 0 – 12dB @ 45Hz
Phase shift: 0 -180°
Pass thru RCA: No
Dimensions: 306(L) x 178(W) x 58(D)mm

For graphics and gaming, new Asus K53SC notebooks deliver the might of NVIDIA discrete GPUs. The ASUS K53SC Notebook comes with NVIDIA GT 520MX available for dazzling gaming and multimedia output, up to 1GB DDR3 video memory on hand to accelerate visuals.

ASUS K53SC Notebook Features:

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Intel Core i7 2630QM 2.0GHz Quad Core Processor
Intel HM65 Express Chipset
NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX with 1GB DDR3 VRAM
4GB DDR3 1066MHz Memory
750GB 5400rpm Hard Drive (Upgradeable to up to 1TB Hard Drive or up to 480GB SSD)
DVD Supermulti Drive
15.6″ HD LED Colourshine (1366×768)
HDMI, VGA Output
802.11bgn
0.3 Mega Pixel Camera
Keyboard with Numberpad
Battery Life: Upto 4hrs 6 cell
Weight: from 2.6kg

Manufacturer Link: http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Versatile_Performance/K53SC/#overview

The Software Developers at Google are a fun bunch of individuals and have included Easter Eggs in the Google Search Engine. The latest craze prompted by the festive season is the “let it snow” Easter Egg.

1. Open your browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome)
2. If you haven’t already opened to Google then type www.google.com into the Address Bar and press the Enter key.
3. Type let it snow and now press the Enter key
Enjoy as your browser is filled with snow flakes, click on Defrost to clear the snow.

Here are some others that you can have fun with:

Do a barrel roll – Rolls your browser content
askew – Puts a different angle on everything
Google Gravity - Click on I’m Feeling Lucky – See Gravity in action

NOTE: You need a browser that support HTML 5 so it might be time to upgrade if you find this isn’t working.

ENJOY!!!

-Glenn Challen
MicroEd Computers and Internet

In an official statement released by Terry Smart of JB Hi-Fi: “The ‘Free JB Hi-Fi Gift Card’ offer being shared on Facebook is a hoax. Please be aware of this scam, DO NOT ‘like’ or ‘share’ on Facebook or enter any personal details. For more information please visit scamwatch.gov.au”

More details can be found at the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission SCAMWatch site.

The advice to those users who have joined this or similar events is to re-secure your Facebook account before scammers target your account.

Those who know me know I’m am a giant fan of old skool computing. Although I love the speed and capabilities of the latest technology, nothing beats the playability of the games from the 80′s. I still reminisce the days when you’d have 20 cents in your pocket and see the arcade machine at the petrol station or corner store. You’d glance over the title screens and make sure that your High Score was still there at the top and if not then the challenge was on and more coins went back into the machine.

My home PC is littered with Emulators for the Commodore 64, 128, Amiga, MAME etc but I have always found these frustrating to use with the keyboard and even more disastrous with modern style joysticks or games controller. The problem with modern day controller is that they are designed to cater for varying degrees of movement however the old skool games simply required up,down,left,right and fire. Although the keyboard provides you with the simple on/off functionality its just not the same. Always up for a new project I set about working out what would be involved in building my own Arcade Machine. I started looking at building a Jamma based machine (http://www.arcadegamingaustralia.com.au/) with an upright cabinet but although it would be really neat I didn’t think my wife would appreciate it sitting in the Living Room. I really needed something that was portable, that could be setup, enjoyed and then packed away. Mounting the Joystick and buttons in a box was the solution.

The Parts

I was quite surprised to find that I could purchase Arcade Machine parts online quite cheaply so rather than build by own joystick body from scratch I was able to purchase an extremely robust joystick body for only $12.50AUD. http://www.ozstick.com.au/prod_joy.html

I immediately made my purchase of the Joystick body along with illuminated Arcade style buttons / micro-switches.

My next challenge was how to connect this to the PC in the simplest and cheapest way possible. Although I could build a custom board or modify a joystick controller it dawned on me that it should be simple enough to hack a keyboard and simply assign the micro-switches to key strokes.

I pulled apart the cheapest USB keyboard I could find and started to work out the switching mechanism. Using a multimeter I was able to trace the two points that intersect for any given keystroke. I decided that mapping the arrow and enter keys would be suitable for my left,right,up,down and fire requirements. This solution worked out even better than anticipated. I now had a very small and cheap controller for my project that allowed me to map any keys that I wanted including keys/buttons for Credits and Start. My little controller also is seen by the PC as a keyboard so I didn’t require any drivers and I could also grab 5 volts from the USB interface for lights.

Putting it all together

My online order arrived by the following day (Thank you OzStick). All the parts were extremely simple to work with and assemble. As luck would have it I had a black set of shelves that I had broken up that were destined for the dump that I had saved. I mounted the Joystick body and buttons onto one of the boards from the shelving.

Next I simply wired the micro-switches for the axis and buttons to the pin combinations that gave me the keys I needed. The moment of truth came; I plugged the USB cord into the PC and Windows 7 recognised the interface as a keyboard. I opened notepad and was able to move the cursor left, right, up and down and the fire button resulted in an Enter key press so testing was complete. 

The Arcade style buttons also come complete with LED lights and upon further inspection the LED lights even had a voltage limiting resistor so I soldered the LED lights to the 5V rail on the interface board and now my bunch of wires and switches was looking like a real Arcade machine.

I might be skilled with computers but unfortunately my skills with wood work leave a lot to be desired. I went about building a box to house my joystick and after many failed attempts, lots of swearing and several frustrating hours my Arcade Joystick was complete and ready for software.

The Software

Because we now had an interface that delivers left,right,up,down,Enter,5,1 we could use any software that allows us to map the keyboard. I played around a little with the NES emulator initially but MAME was the answer and gave me all the old favourites Galaga, Frogger etc. http://www.emulator-zone.com/

Once MAME was loaded I created icons for my favourites. The beauty of mapping the Joystick to the arrow keys was that I could now navigate my icons in Windows 7 using the joystick and use the fire button to launch the game.

The Final Product

I mapped the Yellow button at the front of my Arcade Joystick to key 5 for Credits, the Green button to key 1 for Player 1 Start and my project was complete and I could start playing the old classics.

Although the kids were initially puzzled by my addiction to the primitive graphics and sound it has now become a winner in our household and a great form of entertainment at parties and BBQs. It doesn’t take long before somebody brags of a High Score and then everybody is hell bent on beating it. The whole project only came to about $50 and provides hours of fun.

-Glenn Challen
MicroEd Computers and Internet

The video speaks for itself.

We hope you like the new look and feel. We thought it was time for a new look and the new design makes it easier to maintain.

We have also made the site easier to navigate by splitting the content into News, Articles, Specials and Products. Please feel free to browse through the pages and pages of interesting content.

We hope you enjoy visiting on a regular basis and are always interested in your feedback.

MicroEd Web Services will continue to update this website and its design, as the new system grows.

This is my first Arduino POV project. POV – Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_vision

Put simply; it’s a programmable sign. You can have it display any message or picture you set. We are basically flashing the 5 LED lights in sequence while a motor turns the lights around. Because the arm is moving at speed you are seeing the lights 20 times per a second in differing sequences tricking the eye into seeing it as a banner.

Displaying the Message "MICROED"

Aim of the Project

Put simply, its a programmable sign. You can have it display any message or picture you set. We are basically flashing the 5 LED lights in sequence while a motor turns the lights around. Because the arm is moving at speed you are seeing the lights 20 times per a second in differing sequences tricking the eye into seeing it as a banner.

Parts List

1 x Arduino Compatible Processor (I used a KitTen from freetronics only $26.95 AUD http://www.freetronics.com/products/kitten)
5 x SMD LEDs or 5 x LED
5 x 1K Resistor
1 x 8 pin 90-degree locking header

Battery, LEDs and Arduino Mounted on the propeller ready for testing

1 x 40 pin terminal strip
1 x 9v Battery Clip
1 x 2.1mm dc power line female connector
Connecting Wire (I used an old IDE Cable)
2 x Small PCB Board
1 x Ruler or suitable board for arm
1 x Small DC Motor (used Tape Player motor)
1 x 9v Battery
1 x dead 9v Battery for counterweight
Suitable Base (old CDROM)

Tools

Soldering Iron
Hot Glue Gun (my best friend)

Technical Background Required

Some basic understanding of electronics and Programming can be handy but not necessary.

Assembly

Take an old IDE cable and split off 6 wires.

Mount your LED’s on one of the small PCB boards. If you use SMD tape then you can simply cut the strip up and stick them on the board.

Solder a piece of cable across the negative side of all the LED’s and then the other connecting leads for the positive sides of the LEDs.

Solder the other end of the cable to the 90 degree locking header.

Now take the other PCB board and solder the 90 degree header on one end of the PCB and the terminal strip to the other end of the PCB board.

Solder the Terminal Strip to the other side and other end of the board.
Solder the individual resistors.

Solder your 9V battery clip to the DC power line connector.

The Base and Arm

Hot Glue a suitable DC motor to the CDROM unit (or any suitable heavy base).

Hot glue your battery, Arduino board and LED’s to your ruler/arm.

Hot Glue the arm to your DC Motor.

You may need to counterweight one side of the ruler/arm to prevent vibration; an old 9v battery is suitable. To check you have counterweighted the arm correctly turn the project on its side and the arm should balance out parallel to base. If one side falls then you need to adjust your counterweight.

Testing

Connect your LEDs to your Arduino using your newly created LED interface board, Plug the interface board in so that the terminal strip connects from pin 2 on the interface board.

Use the LED_Test code to test that the LED’s are firing correctly. LED_Test.pde

The LED_Test program simply cycles through each inpidual LED so that you can check that everything is working correctly.

Displaying a Message

If the above test has been successful then you are ready to display your first message.

Try loading the POV_Banners.pde sketch into your Arduino.

I made use of the character generator by DanielJA (nice simple concept)

Improvements to be made…

The addition of a hall sensor would allow me to steady the text and control the scrolling and prevent it scrolling backwards but unfortunately that is going to have to wait for another rainy weekend.

Many of these infections disguise themselves as genuine AntiVirus programs such as Microsoft Security Centre which in some cases makes it very difficult for the user to identify.

The ultimate goal of these attacks are to do you out of money. Many people unknowingly provide their Credit Credit details only to find that this doesn’t remove the infection and in some cases makes it worse and they are then coaxed into upgrading to the “Pro” version which costs even more.

AntiVirus companies are working frantically to protect people from this infection but there are so many variants are being released that they are typically one step behind the attackers.

Fake AnitVirus 2011

Our advice is:

• Make sure you are protected by a paid and well known AntiVirus subscription such as ESET or Trend
• Surf Smart – stick to well-known sites
• Don’t click on advertising links or anything that looks gimmicky
• If you see an AntiVirus alert that appears to be fake then simply click on the X in the top right hand corner of the browser. Don’t respond to any of the prompts on the screen
• If you appear to be infected then seek professional advice

Further reading:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/lizamoon-continues-to-plague-sites-62208229.htm
http://community.websense.com/blogs/securitylabs/archive/2011/03/31/update-on-lizamoon-mass-injection.aspx?loc=interstitialskip