Pinning files on LibreOffice taskbar and other apps in Windows 10 - an alternative to recent files

I was searching a way to show the recent files in LibreOffice by right clicking on the pinned app on the taskbar but it appears it can't be done in Windows 10. But, there is a better way - pinning the most used documents.

Pinning files on LibreOffice taskbar in Windows 10

To pin your favorite files on LibreOffice (or any other apps like folders in Explorer) first pin the application on the Windows taskbar by dragging the icon from the desktop to the taskbar.

Click to enlarge

Then to pin a file, drag the file from Windows explorer to the desired app on the taskbar.

From now on you can just right click on the taskbar app and select which file do you want to open.

Building a Digital Clock with RGB Lamp & Spherical Shelf DIY

Here is how to build a simple digital wall clock encased in a spherical shelf that could make a nice gift for someone.

The clock is based on an ATmega328PB microcontroller that is using a 32.768 kHz crystal for time keeping. It also has 6 RGB leds that act as a night lamp or simply for aesthetic purposes.

Playing music and tones using a piezo buzzer - library for AVR microcontrollers using timer interrupt | ATmega328P, ATmega88

This is a library for playing chiptunes music using PWM and a piezo buzzer. Tones with different frequencies and timeouts can also be produced. The library uses a timer interrupt so the functions are non-blocking meaning that while a song or tone is generated the CPU can do other things. Timer 1 is used for PWM and another 8 bit selectable timer (0 or 2) is used to trigger the interrupt every 1ms. When a note ends the code inside the interrupt will calculate the PWM frequency of timer 1 based on the next note.

Optionally a led can be made to blink with the music rhythm.

The piezo buzzer must be connected to pins OCR1A and OCR1B which are set to have opposite polarity - when one pin is high the other one is low, then the polarity is reversed. This way you can make the buzzer louder with a lower voltage because the buzzer will see 10V even if the microcontroller outputs 5V.

Types of buzzers

Before going any further I should clarify regarding the types of buzzers for those who are not familiar with them.

There are passive buzzers and active buzzers.

Colorspace conversion between RGB and HSL library code for AVR microcontrollers | ATmega328P

I had a project where I needed to crossfade RGB colors and I thought why not using the HSL color space instead of the RGB color space because with the HSL the code looks neater and the Hue (color), Saturation and Lightness can easily be modified to create all kinds of light effects.

Converting HSL to RGB

HSLtoRGB(hue, saturation, lightness, rgb[])

How to control RGB leds | RGB fader library for AVR ATmega328P

RGB leds are fun and because they can be used in many projects I have decided to make a library to easily crossfade the colors of one or multiple RGB leds.

To see this library used in a real project, check out this video Digital Clock With RGB Night Lamp & Spherical Shelf.

Crossfading an RGB led in the RGB colorspace

Multi-channel software PWM library for AVR microcontrollers | ATmega328P

What you do when you run out of PWM pins on hardware? You make software PWM of course. This library is based on "AVR136: Low-Jitter Multi-Channel Software PWM" application note. It supports up to 10 PWM channels (more can be added) and it's suitable for led dimming, DC motor control and RGB led controller.

Since this method is already explained in the AVR136 app note I won't go in to too many details. So the basic principles behind software PWM are this. A timer interrupt is set to trigger every 256 system clocks. For 8 bit timers the interrupt is on overflow and for 16 bit timers is on compare match. A 16 bit timer has the advantage that the base frequency can be modified. On every interrupt a variable "softcount" is incremented from 0 to 255 and each time is compared against each PWM channel. At the beginning of the cycle the pins are set high and when "softcount" equals to a channel's set value then the specific pin is set low. On 8MHz CPU the ISR takes between 4 and 10us to execute the code depending on how many channels and on how many ports there are. The size of the "softcount" variable dictates the PWM resolution and it is set to 8 bits. 

Binary Code Modulation (BCM) aka Bit Angle Modulation (BAM) library for fading leds | ATmega328P

Binary Code Modulation (BCM) it's an amazing method for led dimming and was invented by Artistic Licence. It's like PWM but not really. The main advantage over PWM is the low CPU usage regardless of how many leds it controls.

This library provides a fast implementation of Binary Code Modulation useful for controlling RGB leds and dimming multiple leds for creating animations like led cubes and includes an array for logarithmic brightness. A complete cycle takes 8 timer interrupts and each interrupt takes only 4us on a 8MHz CPU. The leds can be on different ports.

How Binary Code Modulation (BCM) works and how it differs from PWM

To dim a led with PMW is simple. If you want the led to be half as bright you turn the led on for 50% of the cycle and 50% for the other half. Or 20% on and 80% off for an even dimmer led.

 

Bit Angle Modulation uses the weight of each bit in a binary number. For example in one byte there are 8 bits with numbers from 0 to 7. Bit 0 is called the Least Significant Bit (LSB) and it's weight is 1. Next bit 1 has a weight of 2, bit 2 has a weight of 4, then 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128. Bit 7 is called the Most Significant Bit (MSB) because it has the highest weight - 128.