Now it looks as though there’s been some more interest in our first project – A LED matrix display! – Again, we had lots of fun deciding what features it would have.
To display a message, you used a five finger keypad, or connect it via a serial interface to a PC and use a proper keyboard.
There were various fonts and styles to use, and picture graphics, as well as different ways to display the message. Built into an EPROM were various fixed messages.
This could be built at the time for less than £100, which seemed quite cheap, but of course you had to solder in 448 LED’s by hand as well as all the other components!
It seems that Julian and I have had a brief resurgeance of interest in one of our projects we did for ‘Everyday With Practical Electronics’ back in 1994.
The ‘EPE’ Fruit Machine was very popular at the time and Julian and I enjoyed writing software for all the ‘features’ the machine had, as well as designing the look and feel of it as well.
The machine accepted only 5p coins (as it was the smallest coin, there was no need for a ‘reject’ coin machanism), and had a jackpot of £1, which was paid out using a coin stack and slider arrangement.
The software was available only from the authors (us), in the form of a pre-programmed PIC Microcontroller chip.
However, we have recently given away the software code for others to use and play with!
I thought I’d promote my book again as I’ve restarted trading the Foreign Exchange markets after moving house and as I make a little income from it, I thought you would like to too!
It is a collection of a lot of my own experiences as a trader and simply sums the individual experiences in snapshots of ‘Do I do this or Don’t I do this’ when placing trades.
Some of the sections in the book are obvious, some not, but as I always say, are you doing them? (or not doing them).
If you were to follow even a few of the ideas in this book, It would improve your results no end. A lot of amateur traders make very basic mistakes and you just need to focus a little bit more on those mistakes – this is what this book will do for you.
There, that’s it, I’ll stop going on about it now!
click the link or the picture above to see more: FOREX dos and donts
Well, it happens to all of us at some point in our lives – we have to store stuff away in one of those very popular companies who provide storage units.
Now then, how many of those things you have stored have been there for a year or more? – The simple conclusion here is – YOU DON’T NEED THEM! – get rid of them and also save yourself a wad of cash in the process, even more cash if you decide to sell the items on auction sites such as eBay.
As an outside, I give anything I own two years – If it hasn’t seen the light of day, it goes!
The other question you may ask yourself is ‘Is it easily replaceable?’ – In this modern consumerist world, a lot of our ‘stuff’ can so easily be replaced at low cost, so why store old versions of it at cost?
I’ve just booked my tickets to go to this years World Internet Summit in London – This is a not to be missed event that spans four days at a hotel near Heathrow in London – www.heathrow.parkinn.co.uk
I went last year and was bowled over with the sheer amount of useful information to set you up as an internet marketer, or to get you selling on the internet.
Everything from Facebook stuff to You Tube, Social networking on a grand scale, ebay, ClickBank all the top names.
Many speakers talked in depth about just about everything – you will not get bored!
This year however, I’ve noticed that they are asking for a refundable $100 registration fee – I suppose this is to prevent wasted seats from those who apply and then don’t turn up.
Still, it’s well worth the free attendance. See you there!
They say that writing articles and submitting them to as many of the article directory search engines, will get you lots of exposure. Because each article directory will also have your website links and a ‘bio’ of you.
They ideally need to be 300 to 700 words and contain lots of content, but no obvious sales promotion. You may get away with including links for enhancing your article, but beware! – It does put readers off! – aim for 400 or so words
Don’t forget to try to give the reader what they want and don’t make it too heavy reading. An article should be light, humerous and informative, the latter being the most important.
