Welcome to the new site!
Both howiem.com and howiem.net redirect here now. The old site is still available at http://howiem.net/index.asp.
Solar power for emergency use
I’ve had lots of questions from friends about how to set up their own emergency solar system, so that if there’s a power cut / apocalypse / etc they’ll still be able to have lights, radios and phones working. So I’ve put up a page with FAQs and a few example solar setups, from around £250. Cheaper if you already have a car battery lying around – the bare bones is really only about £150. It’s all stuff bought from eBay, and it’s a tiny fraction of what most people charge for a solar starter kit. Check out http://www.shopwiki.co.uk/l/Solar-Technology-80W-Solar-Panel-Kit—Starter – even Maplin are trying to charge £600 for a £110 panel plus a £20 charge controller. And there are shops asking for upward of £800, relying on the fact that people don’t understand how simple they are to use.
So, do it yourself! Don’t get ripped off by buying a kit (unless you buy it from me, in which case why not buy two?).
Check out http://howiem.com/solar for more info. Any questions, drop me a line and I’ll add it to the page.
New film: Sentinel X100 promo
Made this last week:
Created in 3 days. 3 long, long days. Martyn did the VO – another sterling job 
Bad kerning: The Mentalist *UPDATED*
As part of my remit to kvetch about bad typography I had to mention the nasty type-it-and-fergeddit attitude by whoever does the titles for The Mentalist. Had to.
But look – we’re now 4 seasons in and someone heard me!
They’ve nudged the W and the A together to stop people driving trucks through. Look, here’s what it used to look like (for 3 whole seasons):
There are a few other kerning-based atrocities throughout the sequence (and Mr Yeoman’s credit is still a little inconsistent), but they fixed the worst one, yay!
Next question – isn’t it about time I was recognised financially for this service?
New animation…
I’ve created an animation for Pete at Hazelnut Films – just like the previous one, the idea is that the film will be sold to a number of SEO companies to use on their sites, with the “Your Logo” bits replaced with theirs.
Using SoX to automate audio creation for 3D Studio Max
Lately I’ve been getting into Maxscript, a way of generating 3D objects and animations by scripting. It allows 3D artists to create complex procedural animations without having to create each object and animation manually…
DIY Atmega programming clip
Picked up one of these IC test clips on eBay for a few quid. It makes a spectacularly convenient programming clip.
Read more…
New project: h’s Lights controller
[Update: 3D render of the board! Woo]
I’ve been putting LED lights up around the house, driven by solar panels. Free light. Yummy. To save precious power, and because they look cool, I like the lights to be automatic – fade up automatically when you enter a room, fade out when it senses you’ve gone. It’s a simple thing to build a circuit to control it all, but it gets a bit tedious building the same circuit over and over again, so I’m getting some PCBs made up.
Read more…