I haven’t posted in while, so I thought now would be a good time to inform you of what I’m doing. Most of the time I’ve either been working on the History Project or spending my time outside or spending it with Jess.
The history Project is almost complete. All the group has to do is write a letter to Mr. Brown outlining, more specifically, what we’re doing down at the waterfront. The presentation has been completed. Now we just have to figure out how we are going to teach it to the first and third period classes. We are either going to teach it ourselves to the classes or send it to the teachers of the classes. Finely the clues and questions, that will be on the cards, are completed and will be laminated sometime this week or next. So there’s an update on the history Project.

For the last four days the weather has been outstanding, but the weather’s about to get worse. Late tomorrow afternoon we are expected to get rain all the way through till Sunday morning.

W.J. Fricker’s annual Variety Night is coming up. This year I’m in charge of all the technical equipment, including sound and lighting. I’m hoping to get Dillon in to do the sound because he has done it three years in a row. I’ll be in charge of all lighting. The tech crew at Fricker are to say, clumsy and the teachers don’t want all the new equipment broken. If you would like tickets, feel free to e-mail me at blake@blakemiller.org. The date for the performance is May 4, 2006.

So thats what I’ve been up to for the last few weeks and will be doing for the next couple.

Click on picture for bigger picture. In this tutorial, I will be showing how to make a LED flasher whenever a MSN conversation is open. The program that will be used is called MSN Com Port Flash. Click here to get it. To make the LED com cable, we will need the following:

1. 1.5 volt LED
2. a com port table (female to female)
3. Electrical Tape (any tipe of tape will do)
4. MSN Com Port Flash Program

Befor you Start:

Install the MSN Com Port Flash program befor you start. You may have to download this file and paste it into you C:\windows\system\ after you install the program.
Step 1:

First lets figure out where the LED is going to be on the com port cable. We will be using pins 3 & 4.

Step 2:

On your LED, one of the wires should be longer than the other. Put the longer wire into pin 3 and the shorter one into pin 4.

Step 4:

Wrap some tape around the end of the plug and make sure the LED stays in place.

Step 5:

Now, plug the other end of the cable into the computers com port. IF YOU SEE SPARKS OR YOUR COMPUTER SHUTS DOWN INSTANTLY UNPLUG THE LED AND START THE COMPUTER! Go over the wiring again before plugging in back in. If nothing happens, then continue on to the next step.

Step 6:

Now we are going to run a test program. Go to Start–>All Programs–>MSN Com Port Flash then open Test COM Port Pin Output. Click on the button to tern on and off the LED. Should look like this: (When it’s on)

Step 7:

Now close the test program. Next go to Start–>All Programs–>MSN Com Port Flash then open MSN Com Port Flash. Change the flash rate and what not to your desired settings. I also recommend putting it on the side of your monitor or top I used clear tape to tape up to myn. Thats it, all done. If there is any problems please contact me at blake@blakemiller.org

Thanks to SmashD for the great program!

Well I havn’t posted in a while. I havn’t been busy just enjoying the nice weather and lots of school work.

Our History class does a tutorial type of setup. Every one is in a group with a max number of people of 4. I have presented once already and got a 80% on the overall presentation but I’m doing a second on with 4 people for bonus marks. We are doing the topic of, The History of North Bay. We have three day to teach the topic and mark all the work that students do. We are planing a field trip, for about 100 students, down to the Water Front. We are doing a scavenger hunt from the Chief Commanda 2 to Le Park. We are going to have 20 stations for 20 groups. Each group will start of at a diffrent station. Each station will have a question about North Bay’s History and a corisponding letter. People will then write down there answers on a peice of paper and write down the corrisponding letter. At the end, students will have 20 letters to figure out what the letters spell. Then at lunch they will all hand in there sheets with the answer, then we will mark them while students are having lunch. After that we will then head back to school for period five.

So there is our plan. The teacher and principal have already aproved of it, now we just have to get it all ready.