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Recovering YouTube Channel Account

I recently tried to login into my Google account that hosts my YouTube channel. I had set the channel up a few years ago, and only used it once, so I had forgotten the e-mail address associated with it. Google however, lets you login using your channel name so that is what I tried to do. The problem was that since I had set up the channel, I also added a gmail address with the same username.

To my surprise, whenever I tried to login into my YouTube channel, it logged me into the gmail account, and that account had no YouTube channel. After some forum posts, a lot of research and trying a lot of things, I finally recovered my YouTube channel. For those in the same boat, there is a way to recover your YouTube channel, but the standard advice is a bit sketchy, and doesn’t really help without an understanding of what is going on. Here is how Google handles accounts:

Google Account Rules

The way Google sets up accounts, you provide a username and an e-mail address. The wrinkle is the fact that gmail accounts are also Google accounts. What is not obvious, is that they … Read the rest

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New Study Shows Eating Cheese Helps Prevent Diabetes

A new study shows that eating 2 slices of cheese a day cuts the average person’s risk of type 2 diabetes by 12 percent. Of course such findings seem to be causing the health authority mentioned in the article to have a cow:

We recommend a healthy balanced diet, rich in fruit and vegetables and low in salt and fat. This study gives us no reason to believe that people should change their dairy intake in an attempt to avoid the condition.

The reason being according to the article:

The findings go against current health guidelines, which advise cutting back on dairy products and other high-fat foods to help prevent the illness.

The current low-fat high-carb diet recommended by health authorities is just nonsense. For example, the study also showed similar reductions in diabetes when subjects ate yoghurt instead of cheese. The facts are that quality whole foods such as cheese and yoghurt are not the health demons they are claimed to be. Rather, these are the very foods that will keep us the most healthy.

It is no mere coincidence that the incidence of diabetes began to skyrocket when fat consumption was demonized. Eating healthy fats are how you … Read the rest

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Choosing PCB Layout Software

When you finish the design and prototyping of your project and you want to make a PCB, you need to use some kind of PCB layout software. While there are a plethora of commercial products, most of them expensive – very expensive, there are relatively few that are low cost or free for the open source designer. This guide will look at the options available and make recommendations based on the author’s knowledge and preferences.

NOTE: There may be some other applications than the ones I have mentioned. Since I use Linux on my PC, I have only looked at the packages than run under Linux. I believe the ones listed run under all three mainstream operating systems, but I am only certain about Linux versions.

Online PCB Software

Some commercial PCB fabricators offer their own free online software. While some of these products may be quite capable, they suffer from one huge drawback – you are locked into their services. If you want to have your PCB made elsewhere, you are out of luck. For that reason I don’t give these programs a second look.

Eagle CAD

screen shot of Eagle CADThe Eagle CAD package offers both schematic and PCB layout programs. It … Read the rest

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Reverse Polarity Protection Circuits

Reverse Polarity Alarm

Many circuits can benefit from protection against accidental reverse polarity.While most can be protected by polarized connectors to the power source, many hobbyist circuits and kits can be powered by jumper wires, thus eliminating this simple type of polarity protection. In these cases, a reverse polarity circuit would be a very useful addition to your circuit.

In this guide, we will explore three simple methods for adding this protection to your projects. This overview will only cover protection circuits on the high (positive) side of the circuit. Each of the protection methods can also be applied to the low (ground) side. The low side versions of these circuits offer the benefit of using NPN & N-channel devices instead of their PNP or P-channel equivalents, the former which are often cheaper, more readily available and sometimes higher performance. However, low side circuits change the voltage level of the ground path which could cause issues for some circuits.

If you wish to study low side approaches, App Note AN636 from Maxim is a good one to consult. I think for most circuits, the high side versions work very well and will prevent any possible problems with a low side approach. Therefore, we … Read the rest

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Secret Arduino Voltmeter – Measure Battery Voltage

A little known feature of Arduinos and many other AVR chips is the ability to measure the internal 1.1 volt reference. This feature can be exploited to improve the accuracy of the Arduino function – analogRead() when using the default analog reference. It can also be used to measure the Vcc supplied to the AVR chip, which provides a means of monitoring battery voltage without using a precious analog pin to do so.

I first learned of this technique from these articles – Making accurate ADC readings on the Arduino, and Secret Voltmeter. In this article, I have incorporated some additional improvements.

Motivation

There are at least two reasons to measure the voltage supplied to our Arduino (Vcc). One is if our project is battery powered, we may want to monitor that voltage to measure battery levels. Also, when battery powered, Vcc is not going to be 5.0 volts, so if we wish to make analog measurements we need to either use the internal voltage reference of 1.1 volts, or an external voltage reference. Why?

A common assumption when using analogRead() is that the analog reference voltage is 5.0 volts, when in reality it may be quite different. … Read the rest

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