Monitoring a Mac CPU

Recently I'm using some very CPU intensive programs on the mac, like Xamarin (Visual Studio), Android Studio and test code.

Sometime, when I'm running a lot of this stuff, the Mac is clearly slowed down and can be useful to know what is going on.
So I did look around for some monitor application, possibly capable to show what is going on on the tray.

I did found many apps but I wanted something small and possible free :)

I did found MenuMeters, a very small and nice app, but unfortunately is not supported since 2014 and thus is not working on the latest releases of Mac OS.
However somebody did write a patch to allow this utility to run also on newer systems (at least for now, it seems Apple is locking down even more the systems to prevent this kind of third party utility to run).

Click here to find the patch for the MenuMeters app.

Drobo - monitoring it

Now that the Drobo unit is on the final place, connected to the server, I did set up a monitor activity of it.

The server, other than handle the backup operations, also monitor that everything is OK, Drobo included.

Repairing a zapper

In the springtime, summer and fall, there is an appliance that works almost 24 hours a day, at least in my garage.
A zapper.
This one, a PestiTech, did work all the last summer and fall.
Really, in Arkansas is not an option to have a zapper to limit the "things" that can fly and bite you !
The garage is the main entry for these pests, so a good zapper is really the first protection.
Now it was time to restore it and ... of course dead !

Why sometime ...

... simple things does not work or just make you crazy losing hours and hours if not days  ?

Who work in the magical world of the software development, especially embedded or firmware, sometime find himself in weird situation, when something incredibly simple and trivial, simply does not work.
Why ?

magclock

Years ago I did a very quick project with a MSP430F2013 capable to generate a signal to drive a magnetic clock like the one below

(the video does not represent the actual clock, just an example).

The code, few lines in C, is in the magclock repo on my github account.

The idea is quite simple.
Three coils are controlled by the MSP430 in a sequence, like the brushless hard disk motors, same principle but much much slower.
Basically the system is designed to move a dented wheel one notch every second.
That wheel then controls the other gears of the clock.

The only thing is to have an accurate timing, so better to use a crystal on the MSP430.
This article give some other information about the MSP430 clock capabilities and settings.

Update firmware of a GXV3000

The GXV3000 is an old phone from Grandstream, not anymore in production and supported, but still available on Ebay at a decent price.
It is possible to even find in Ebay "new" GXV3000, i.e. never used before, like one I bought recently as a replacement for a broken one.
So I had to go back on memory lane in order to update the firmware in it to the last available one (high recommended in order to fix the SPIT problem)
Here what is needed to do the job.

A personal CI system

In this article I'm describing how to set up and configure a basic CI (Continuos Integration) system that can be used for many  things, based on an open source program called Jenkins.

Of course, for my projects to set up a CI  to build them is just little bit overshooting, but surely is interesting and fun.

Freddy the cat - memory

Once in a while I put something not technical related on my blog.
Today is one of these days.

Little bit more than one year ago, our cat, Freddy the cat, left us.

Still missing him.
Recently Ladyada from Adafruit, a shop where sometime I buy electronic stuff, communicated the death of her cat, Mosfet.
I remembered Freddy.

So ... dear Freddy, I'm posting on my blog a small memory of you.