A lot of people have been having a hard time integrating bootstrap 5 in Rails 6 and since we have figured out a way to easily integrate the two we decided to put out this tutorial. If you prefer the video tutorial: We are going to show step by step using a newly created app, if you have an existing application you are trying to integrate into, the information below should still work just fine. We are also going to use MySQL as the default database so if you are using something else, then specify that connector instead. Step 1...
Continue reading...Changing the world ... one line of code at a time
Migrating from Paperclip to Active Storage
We have a client’s site that we are currently updating from Ruby 2.5.0 / Rails 5.0.1 using the Paperclip gem version 5.0. We looked at a number of ways to make the migration to a current state: Ruby 3.0.1p64 / Rails 6.1.4.1 and using active storage and spend over a full day fumbling through tutorials and various directions offered on different sites… nothing worked right. It seems the problem is that 1) most of the examples and tutorials are for very specific configurations that don’t easily extrapolate to what we needed, and 2) the rest were outdated or dependent upon...
Continue reading...Roland PNC-1410 Running from MacBook Pro
While at a Ham Radio / Hobby Electronics show in Buffalo, MN, we saw a vendor there with a 24″ vinyl cutter doing custom signage for ham radio operators. We thought this could be a worthy investment to bring in some money while we display and discuss our multi rotors and other small electronics / arduino products. We were lucky enough to find an old Roland PNC-1410 (serial/parallel) vinyl cutter with a 36″ cutting area on craigslist for better than a decent price so we scooped it up! Now keep in mind we knew NOTHING about vinyl cutting so we...
Continue reading...Simon Geocache Prototype
Using the Arduino we have combined a number of scavenged things from around the lab to build a geocache that will only unlock after playing (and winning) a good ‘ole fashioned game of Simon. Here’s a video of the completed project: Below are some notes and pictures of the process. [print_gllr id=604 columns=3] This was a fun project and we are looking into getting an actual body for this made and we can run up a few PCB’s for them and have a professional looking commercially available one to offer. If you have interest in this let us know. This...
Continue reading...Arduino and Seeed Quad Band GPRS Shield Review and Tutorial with Examples
We have a couple ideas for some remotely located arduino projects that we want to control and or receive data from on a internet connected server so we decided to check out the Seeed GPRS Shield. We actually ordered this shield through Amazon.com (for the same price) just so we could get the free 2 day shipping with our Amazon Prime account so we can’t comment on the shipping times from Seeed. While waiting for the arrival, we went to T-Mobile and picked up a SIM card for the device and had them put it on the $2/day unlimited plan...
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