Ardunno? Getting a fake Arduino Nano to work

An Arduino is a wonderfull thing, and i encourage everyone to support the project by buying one legit one. There are however also some cheap clones for sale on ebay like this one:

It's a NANO DCCduino, and it's pretty much an exact copy of the original Arduino Nano. I bought this online about a year ago for real cheap. I then forgot all about it untill now when my other Arduinos are occupied in other project and i just felt like testing the new servo i got in the mail today.

There were however a real issue with this knockoff. Unlike real Aduinos that show up in device manager as an "Arduino" this clone looked like this, and i was not able to upload my sketches:

Now the reason for this is that these chips dont use the FTDI chip as the regular Arduinos do. They in stead use CH340G for interfacing thru USB. And as such this requires a different driver set.
In one way this is a good thing, considering the recent FTDI anti-pirate trickery.

The CH340G driver is available for download from:
http://www.5v.ru/ch340g.htm

And a mirror for the installer here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6AihF9gdNcnSGtkVFYzM080NUE/view?usp=sharing

Win + PrtScreen

• Win + PrtScreen 

This key combo saves a screenshot to User/Pictures/Screenshots

I didn't even know...

Testing Windows 10 - Virtual desktops

Windows 10 is now out as a tech preview (for free) and im currently running it as my main OS, and have done so now for a couple of weeks. I will post a few things i've noticed as i get the time, first off:

• Virtual desktops (sort off)

If you have used linux you probably know about virtual desktops, or if you have owned a ATI card with hydra vision (back in 2013 or so).
Now they have tried to adopt this into Windows but it's not the way you might know it from linux with totally separate desktops. This is more a way of minimizing/restoring apps in bulk (nothing disapears from the taskbar).

When running linux a few years ago i found this feature neat. But it didn't really improve my workflow, it rather just made my mess less visible and gradually hugging more and more ram in the background. This solution might be better in that regards, as everything stays on the taskbar so nothing is forgotten.

I've not yet been using this feature a whole lot but i like the idea.

Android not liking my certificates

At my local college you need to install and use a certificate for access to the WiFi network. This is a quite common thing, and is really no problem setting up. However when upgrading my phone's OS i ran into an issue with this annoing warning message:

Telling me that the certificate might allow strangers to snoop on my internet activity, while in fact the oposite should be true. Anyways the message is highly annoying, and pops up at every reboot.

Now the solution for this is to simply move this user installed certificate from the "user installed" - folder over to the "system installed" -folder. Since Android doesn't throw this warning for the system certs. This solution requires root.

Using a file manager with root access (I use Root Explorer) go to:
/data/misc/keychain/cacerts-added/

This is where you will find your user certs. Copy it over to this folder:

/system/etc/security/cacerts/

And you will no longer be bothered with this annoyance in the future :)

Visio frustration #1

Visio is a great tool for creating explanatory graphics in a hurry. Like the one below.

But one thing that has been botherin me alot is the constant snapping. Snap to grid and snap to object is fine, but snapping fucked up connectors to the middle of your object tends to fuck me over.
However i still got work done and never bother'd to look up how to turn it off. That is untill today, as i sat there spending more than 20 minutes(!) drawing a network diagram.

I will share that know-how:
1. Right click somewhere on the ribbon where there is free space

2. Customice Quick Access Toolbar...
3. All commands --> Snap and Glue --> Add --> OK

4. Voila! You now have a icon on what i assume is the quick access bar, click it!

5. All your snap and glue can now be disabled

Where's the love Google?

There's no love?

OPC server not functioning? Turn on PUT/GET

I am currently working on a SCADA project consisting of a number of sensors, computers and Siemens PLC's interconnected with regular ethernet in a managed LAN.
Every PLC has some IO connected, some of witch are sensors that we also want to monitor outside of the PLC. The key element to this is the OPC server SIMATIC NET. This server talks to the PLC's, and makes the different tags available to other pc's.

This makes the OPC server really critical for the function of the other parts of the system.
I literally just spent days trying to get this up and running. Every option was set correctly, except this hidden "enable communication" setting on the PLC: