Surviving software

TI E2E Community - Re: DM355-270Mhz changing PLL in ublDM355

TI E2E Community - Re: DM355-270Mhz changing PLL in ublDM355

You'd think there would be an end.

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 6:49 PM 0 comments

TI E2E Community - DM355-270Mhz changing PLL in ublDM355

For those of you who wonder about changing a TI DM355 from 216MHz to 270MHz, watch this space.

TI E2E Community - DM355-270Mhz changing PLL in ublDM355

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 1:40 PM 0 comments

Embedded Linux - startup

For those of us working with embedded Linux and have not comitted suicide yet here's a tip for reducing start up times from power on to the command prompt (Userland).

It's going to hurt. It will be painful. Write down everything you do as you do it and do one thing at a time. Test after every change. Do not do 20 changes at a time.

One step that may seem obvious is to use and uncompressed kernel thus saving on the uncompression time. This really did not work for me. While it's true you save a few seconds on this you will lose out on the extra time needed to load the kernel from whatever storage you have. In my case the startup time got longer by 3.5 seconds.

Labels: arm, embedded, linux, reducing, startup time

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 10:45 AM 1 comments

It's been a while

I feel guilty. I haven't shared my knowledge with the wider community out there. These days, I not sure I have anything to contribute. The gap between what I need to know and what I do know seems to get wider each day in spite of what I read. Here's a question. What is the device name for the first serial port on any PC running Linux? 100 quatloos for the winner. Read the question very carefully.

Labels: C, embedded, linux

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 9:00 AM 2 comments

Zune date bug

Oh dear.

year = ORIGINYEAR; /* = 1980 */

while (days > 365)
{
   if (IsLeapYear(year))
   {
       if (days > 366)
       {
           days -= 366;
           year += 1;
       }
   }
   else
   {
       days -= 365;
       year += 1;
   }
}
If the author had written unit tests, this would have been spotted.

Labels: bug, Leap year, Microsoft, Y2K

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 8:48 AM 0 comments

Israeli Linux fan squeezes Windows refund out of Dell • The Register

Israeli Linux fan squeezes Windows refund out of Dell • The Register: "Israeli Linux fan squeezes Windows refund out of Dell"

Great. Israel rocks!

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 10:22 AM 0 comments

Microsoft preps IE 8 for the web-challenged • The Register

Microsoft preps IE 8 for the web-challenged • The Register: "Microsoft preps IE 8 for the web-challenged"

Great. Millions of web sites only function when viewed with IE and no amount of importuning web site owners can change this. No Microsoft, having created the problem will pledge to conform to standards and break it all over again.

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 10:11 AM 0 comments

Nullable

I am new to the concept of nullable types in C#. Most C# developers are in the same boat. OK, I can understand the concept. Consider a database column as boolean. It is possible that the field might neither be true or false as it has never been set.

On the other hand, I notice that WPF checkboxes return a bool? in response to the IsChecked method. Hmmm. I find having to cast a bool? to a bool rather troublemsome.

posted by ExpatEgghead @ 8:28 PM 1 comments