The hardware phase is complete…
rov and oml
…
…now I just need to mash together some code and awaken this orange beast.
Project Hardware Wrap
1
…
Author Archives: Joseph Swanson
…
Precision Soldering
I am going to have to wait until my caffeine levels are at some sort of equilibrium before I tackle this series of wire joints…
thin wires are thin
…this is where I stopped. I may be spending more time playing the new Zelda, and less time freezing balls in my lab working on my IOIO project. I’ll get on it.
CIQ Revisited: Root Your Phones
If there hasn’t been enough reason to root your phone and flash a custom ROM in the past, this whole CarrierIQ mess ought to be the death blow to factory junk. It is a rootkit, and it is ridiculous.
ciq
What does this thing do? All of this stuff from Verizon’s website:
Verizon Wireless will use the following categories of information:
Mobile Usage Information:
•
Addresses of websites you visit when using our wireless service. These data strings (or URLs) may include search terms you have used
•
Location of your device (“Location Information”)
•
App and device feature usage
Consumer Information:
•
Information about your use of Verizon products and services (such as data and calling features, device type, and amount
of use)
•
Demographic and interest categories provided to us by other companies, such as gender, age range, sports fan, frequent diner, or pet owner (“Demographics”)
How is this collected? CIQ logs it. In plain text, disregarding https, etc…read this article to be blown away by the degree of privacy infringement.
Moral of the story: root your phone. This garbage is unacceptable.
Carrier IQ Rootkit
I’ll update this thread first thing in the AM, but there is some major unbelievable nonsense going down with Carrier IQ and assumed secure connections. Consider this article a primer until I can dig in more completely…
Conquered it.
Oh? Zelda Twilight Princess? Conquered it.
conquered it.
The hardest part of snapping this pic was avoiding eye contact with Katie, who was on the couch laughing at me. Tradition is tradition.
As I was preparing the shot, I noticed that my phone was picking up the infrared LEDs from the Wii sensor bar…
infrared-y
I had pegged the Wii bar as a passive unit…a la IR receivers only. I guess I was wrong, and now have an urge to rip one apart. But I digress.
This game took me ages to complete…feels good to be done with this one. Not quite as fun as Ocarina, but Twilight was a good time. Rumor has it that the new Zelda for Wii is borderline unreal…look for me to post a ‘conquered it’ picture on this site in 2016.
Project Preview
My new IOIO project is in the ‘bunch of pieces’ state.
alligator-y
It also happens to be in the ‘my effing hardware works’ phase as well..
I’ll keep mum on this for the time being…a bunch of coding and refinement remains to be seen. Stay tuned for this one…
BOC Unboxing
It (still) never rains…
crappy woot crap is bag of crappy
The second woot bag of crap is equally as crappy.
…as much as I like refurbished ethernet routers, I think BOC round two wins. Winning being on an inverted scale, whereas less crappy is awarded more points.
I can chop up USB Guard Dog for its infared sensor, and the small Swanson girl will play with the caped monkey. Win win for the win…
Bluetooth Servo Control Redux
The project is wrapped. I have fully shown servo control via bluetooth, via Android, via IOIO. +3 via
no hands
The easiest way to test this, by far, is to snag the app on the Android Market. Here:
market-y
This does require a newer version of the IOIO bootloader than is currently shipping from units at Sparkfun, but details can be tracked down at this Google Groups area on how to update. It will work standardly, with a USB cable.
From there, you can take a look at my code on GitHub.
pushed
I haven’t included the IOIO libraries, but that will be part of the Eclipse setup if you decide to start hammering out some code. I can provide some guidance if anyone is in need of any.
Take a look. I bumped the SDK minimum again, in order to ensure that this function is intact. If this causes any hardship, I can relax the requirement.
Anyhow, take a look at the app in action in the previous post. Cheers.
Bluetooth Servo Control
Taking it up another notch…servo control via bluetooth
Watch the video to see the Andoid / IOIO / servo in action:
I’ll get app updated on the Android Market and on GitHub this weekend. Happy Friday.
24/7 IT Support
As a dude who makes his living in the software-as-a-solution CRM software world, I appreciate the subtleties of Application Hosting when it is done right. I am in SaaS engineering, or as every “tech” reporter likes to spew, cloud-based services. It is what it is…and often times it is helpful.
One good thing about the whole notion is the upside of not dealing, physically with servers…
servers schmervers
Hosting, IT support, consulting, troubleshooting, guaranteed uptime…the whole thing becomes a mess when you are attempting to serve basic business needs. Serve some pages, offer some interfaces, transact. It all adds complexity by the bucket-load when taken from a concept to an implementation.
There are serious gains to be had with cloud hosting…take that complexity off of your books. To the cloud!!!!
ComputerSupport.com does what its name implies…namely offer computer support. Instead of paying a team to maintain your back-end, you focus on your interface design and workflows, and let them mash out the details. Guaranteed, and supported. Best of both worlds.