The first test assembly of my 512 RGB LED coffee table
The 512 RGB LED coffee table after its first test assembly
After being busy for almost one year with constructing my RGB LED coffee table it has finally happened: The almost complete table assembled in its full beauty! Wow! Pretty impressive to see everything together working for the first time. Okay, some hardware isn't fully done yet, the software is in an early prototype stage and still some bugs have to be fixed until I'll move to table from my shop to the living room. Nevertheless I'd like to share this moment and the current state of my project with you.
A closer look at the RGB LED coffee table internals
8x8 RGB LED arrays closeup
Since my last post about the audio system installation of my 512 RGB LED Coffee Table project I've spent my time finalizing the table internals needed to operate the eight LED arrays inside the coffee table. This includes the power supply, the micro controllers used to operate the basic table functions, the Mini-ITX PC that generates and distributes the to be shown images to the eight LED arrays as well as the needed wiring between the individual components and the front panels used to operate the table.
Things you shouldn’t do #3: Cut 19-inch amplifiers and subwoofer crossovers in half
The coffee tables sound system in the original and installed state
Quite some time has passed by since my last blog post about my 512 RGB LED Coffee Table project so that it's about time to give you a brief update what has happened the last ~8 weeks. Mid of September my carpenter was done with constructing the coffee table so that I could finally start to integrate all the electronic components and the needed wiring into it. Thanks again to especially Gunnar Schwinn from http://www.massivholz-moebel-schreinerei.de/ which did a great job in bringing my ideas to life and giving valuable feedback. As soon as the coffee table arrived at my place I focused on the sound system since the installation of it is rather a standalone task beside the installation of the RGB LEDs.
Howto upgrade PHP on CentOS 5.x
CentOS 5.x comes with PHP in version 5.1.6 which is pretty old those days. There are already quite some web applications that have dropped PHP 5.1.x support which makes it impossible to install them on a CentOS 5.x installation. With the release of CentOS 5.6 additional packages called php53, php53-common, php53-ldap, etc. have been released which could replace the 5.1.6 default version of PHP if you don't have other RPM packages that depend on the original php packages. Since the php and the new php53 packages do install their resources into the same directories you can't install both of them in parallel. Instead of faking empty php packages to be able to install all php53 packages without conflicts and missing dependencies I decided to go for a third party PHP installation provided by AtomiCorp.
Soldering 512 RGB Leds: Pure fun… Not!
Eight 8x8 RGB LED arrays each driven by a Rainbowduino Controller
Finally! After hours spend with fitting LEDs into reflectors, preparing cables, cutting shrink tubing pieces and soldering everything together to 8x8 LED arrays: It is done! And I'll never ever do it again this way. 
As I already stated in my first blog post about my 512 RGB LED Coffee Table project I was a bit too optimistic in the planing phase regarding the wiring effort needed to get all LEDs working.
Howto waste your spare time: Build a 512 RGB LED coffee table
512 RGB LED Coffee Table
"Wait.. What?! Are you serious?" "Yes, I am!" "Why do you want to do that?!" That's actually a very interesting question - and it's the usual response I do get if I explain what it's about those weird pictures I post on Facebook about prototyping loudspeakers or drilling 2,560 holes into plywood boards. Also people don't quite understand why I've spent hours and hours with constructing a 3D model of a coffee table. This is a first attempt trying to explain myself why I'm spending my free time for this project since more than 6 months now.
Things you shouldn’t do #2: Hack around maven-shade-plugin limitations
The maven-shade-plugin is a handy plugin which allows you to collect all of your project dependencies - incl. transitive dependencies - and put everything together into a single, shaded jar file. I use this plugin to deliver a Java application as a single jar file containing all needed resources to simplify the application launch descriptor. But sometimes you have more than one Maven project that you want to deliver as a single jar file. And sometimes you even have a parent Maven project that contains a list of dependencies and for each of them you want to create a single jar file. This kind of project setup might lead you to the idea to call the maven-shade-plugin (multiple times) directly from command line to create your jar files which will end up with the follow error message: "You have invoked the goal directly from the command line. This is not supported. Please add the goal to the default lifecycle via an element in your POM and use "mvn package" to have it run.". If you still want to use the plugin and if you're not afraid of bloody hacks than continue reading - otherwise you have to accept this limitation since it's there for a good reason
Howto install cx-oracle on CentOS 5.x
Some Python scripts that I've written have to communicate with an Oracle Database. To be able to do so you have to install a Python module that implements the needed Oracle bindings against the Python Database API. Usually those modules aren't part of recent Linux distributions due to license restrictions. Since I haven't really found some easy and straight forward howto or tutorial how to install the cx-oracle Python extension module on CentOS 5.x I decided to write my own little tutorial.
Offtopic #1: The Useless Machine
Do you sometimes have the feeling that whenever you go one step forward someone pushes you immediately back to your starting position? Someone who is so persistent that whatever you do you have no chance to get any further? A desperate battle where only one person will be the loser: You! You fell me? Yes? So than say Hello to the Useless Machine which incorporates all of this in a little black plastic box.
maven-duplicate-finder-plugin: find duplicate classes in maven artefacts
Lately I was looking for a Maven plugin to solve the problem that I want a certain Maven build to fail as soon as new duplicate classes have been introduced by other developers / third party dependencies while knowing that I already have some duplicate classes that I can't get rid of right now. Basically a duplicate classes detector with the possibility to define an exclude list - that's where the maven-duplicatefinder-plugin of Ning Inc. will give you a helping hand.