Developers unattended – Build your own Sith Lord

For the last couple of years I received a giveaway from Icoya each Christmas since I had to integrate a digital signature solution from this supplier. Well,  I wasn’t too excited about last year’s gift (a wrist pad and a flashing bouncing ball). This year they sent a conference speaker which much more attracted my attention.

Since my laptop still covers all features this speaker supplies, I set up the installation below, together with Steffen.

Ingredients:

• The icoya USB conference speaker
• A Darth Vader helmet purchased years ago.
• An “I-am-your-father” audio sample.
• A simple cardboard box.
• A USB panic button
• A Linux operating PC and some perl script magic

Steps

• Connect both USB panic button and the conference speaker to the computer
• Mount the conference speaker on the cardboard box

• Put the Darth Vader helmet on the speaker
• Run the following script (Thanks again to Steffen)

#!//usr/bin/perl

use Device::USB::PanicButton;
my $pbutton = Device::USB::PanicButton->new();
if(!$pbutton || $pbutton->error()) {
    printf(STDERR "FATAL: ". $pbutton->error() ."\n");
    exit(-1);
}
while(1) {
    my $result = $pbutton->pressed();
    if($result == 1) {
        printf("PANIC ; )\n");
	`mplayer /home/somebody/my_darth_vader_i_am_your_father_sample.mp3 -ao oss:/dev/dsp1`;
    } elsif($result < 0) {         printf(STDERR "WARN: ". $pbutton->error() ."\n");
    }
}

Push Panic Button and have fun!

Wish you a funny new year, people out there!