Migration to self-hosting

Hi, this blog – jcopro.net – is now hosted elsewhere.  I’m not sure how you ended up here, but any new content will be at jcopro.net!

RSI or “how far has my mouse moved?”

RSI (in this context) is a program that will actually measure how far you’ve moved your mouse in a day, week, or however long you’ve been running it.  It will also measure how much you’ve used each button.  Not something you’ve probably wondered about until now.  but, if you’re curious, you can download the program here (it’s free and doesn’t even require installation).

Before use, one needs to program in monitor height and width as well as how far the mouse has to move to traverse the screen in these directions

This program seems

Glade Sense and Spray Teardown

Sense and spray before taken apart

In a recent article, I went over how to use the Glade automatic air freshener for your own purposes – triggering a camera in this case.  Per some of the comments on this site and elsewhere, there is some interest in using the Sense and Spray model to do the same thing.  I was interested myself, so I bought one and took it apart.

The main reason suggested for using the Sense and Spray

More Stop Motion Animation – Crush Stuff!

Here’s another experiment with stop motion animation:

Jason Underwood of Broken Bulb Comedy did most of the acting for this project, although I stepped in for one scene.  The process is explained pretty well in this post (plus there’s some other videos there), but

Trigger Your Camera Using Automatic Air Freshener Parts

Per an earlier post, Glade was nice enough to provide a very hackable set of components in their “automatic spray” air freshener.  Once I had the components in hand, an obvious use was for a remote camera trigger.  After some work in the shop, here are the results:

What you see in the above video is an early feasibility test (there’s a better video later), but I eventually got everything mounted securely and put it on a tripod.

Hacking a Glade Automatic Spray air Freshener

How a Glade Automatic Spray air freshener works. (and you thought it was just a simple cam!)

According to my Youtube statistics, about 90% of my audience is male.  My mom is a big fan of this site, so if you’re not her there’s a good chance that you’re a guy.  Given this, you may not have heard of automatic air fresheners made by Glade, but I assure you they do exist.  The whole principle behind one of these things is that a “normal” spray bottle of air freshener is pushed down at different intervals by some as-of-yet undetermined mechanism.  This device has incredible hacking potential for under $10 and, as a bonus, the included air freshener will be a nice gift for your wife/girlfriend/mom/check-out-girl.

Work Table from a Shipping Pallet

pallet stand with nothing on it (and somewhat unstable as it's missing a bottom support)

I recently bought a miter saw made by Rigid.  Although it wasn’t the cheapest one (or the most expensive), I think the quality of the build was worth it.  I’ve been very happy with it, as in addition to being well built, it includes a laser to help you align where the blade will cut.  The only problem is that with this tool and a mill on my workbench, I had no room to actually work on any projects.  Fortunately, I had saved the pallet than my mill came on – a Grizzly model # G0619, as it just seemed too useful to throw away.  After $4 worth of 2 x 4s and some nails, I had some extra space for my saw.