swan tron dot com » Gnrl Bckt

Android IP Webcam Demo

Joseph Swanson — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:24:25 +0000

Poking around on the Android Market for an app to control my Foscam IP Webcams, I stumbled across a cool app concept. Long story short, someone wrote some code to serve the live camera feed…effectively turning an android device into an IP cam.

web cam-y

The app is free on the Market…just search for IP Webcam and it will pop up. Here it is in operation, serving from my Droid 2 for viewing on my Linux machine…

This would pair nicely with my IOIO project, provided I can bring it back from the grave. I could mount the phone itself on the payload, giving this sucker on-board video. A second device (Galaxy…) could provide the board control, and I could implement a web view into my app. Might be on to something here…stay tuned.

Invoking the Triforce

Joseph Swanson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:30:33 +0000

The three constituents of the Triforce are Power, Wisdom, and Courage…

the baum

…

3 shards

…I’ve got wisdom and courage on lock, but am hoping the Baum Bat customization lends itself to more power.

Baseball and Zelda, for the wins.

DIY Baseball Trainer

Joseph Swanson — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:56:59 +0000

With men’s league baseball around the corner and a new Baum Bat in my garage, I got antsy to hit some baseballs. Since the sidekick keeps me close to the house on weekends, I had to improvise. Enter, DIY Baseball Trainer…

Step one: Drill hole in baseball

drilling a baseball

*Fun fact…I still haven’t had to charge this lithium ion battery pack, after a whole bunch of baby furniture assembly and random tasks in the *lab. Battery technology is great.

Step two: Attach ball tether

...

*Fun fact… I have been looking for uses for old salvaged power cords. They are everywhere.

Step three: Attach unit to fixed point

play ball

*Fun fact…I had to go nuts with my tree trimmer in order to clear a suitable space to accommodate a baseball swing. I still have a sizable pile of tree that I am working into our garbage cans pre-pickup.

Step four: Get real

booooo

*Fun fact…I thought this would hold up for a while. It turns out ‘a while’ was two swings.

Android Controlled IP Webcam

Joseph Swanson — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:01:52 +0000

New toy alert…

yo dog, I herd you like pictures

The price of IP webcams has dropped to a pretty ridiculous level. My cheap little Foscam can handle audio and has eleven sweet little IR LEDs for nighttime footage…should have taken this route over the Samsung baby monitors, hindsight being what it is.

I configured my router and have this cam connected to my home network wirelessly, so I can access via my router’s URL, the local network, or via free apps on my Droid or Katie’s iPhone. Sort of ridiculous. Full pan and tilt controls and the works.

The further beauty of this IP dude is full hackable controls. In addition to the IR LEDs (eleven indicating a decent amount of juice) on this unit, there is a light meter, speaker, microphone, and two servos. All triggerable with this thing’s API over WiFi. I just need to find some time…this thing is sweet.

Vernal Equinox 2012

Joseph Swanson — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:08:33 +0000

Not-so vernal-y…

shovel-y

Quick Salsa

Joseph Swanson — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:20:20 +0000

Recently, I found myself in a bind at work. I had chips, but no salsa…a true doozy of a predicament!

Being a daft culinary whiz, I improvised a work-around: QUICK SALSA

quick salsa is quick

How to make Quick Salsa:

1) Find a flat (or nearly flat) surface
2) Arrange chips in a single layer upon the flat (or nearly flat) surface
3) Nail those bitches with sriracha
4) Enjoy!

Project Demo

Joseph Swanson — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:19:20 +0000

One step closer…

the olde clamp test

This thing screams with wall wart power. Watch…

Now comes the hard part…choosing a decent battery and mounting the circuit board savely on the chasis. I have found a few good candidates, but they are a little bulky for my application. Still looking…

The UI should be fairly straight forward. Just need a few more garage sessions, and I’ll be good to go.

The cordless Dremel was a super purchase FWIW. One of the best tools I’ve used.

Epic Time Battle

Joseph Swanson — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:58:01 +0000

Here is a little fun-fact. As of a few months ago, there were more cellphones than people in the United States.

Millions more, in fact. The trend is the same for all Western countries, but let’s take a look at the US numbers specifically…roughly 311,000,000 people and 328,000,000 cell phones (per wikipedia…take that for what it is.)

Guess what they all have in common? The ability to tell time. Sorry watchmakers…you are fighting a battle of epic proportions.

Fortunately for the watch guys, they have style on their side…like this good-looking piece:

all black everything

Seiko watches provide a great example, or counterpoint per se, of why watches are still as relevant as ever. A watch of this quality both works great and looks awesome. Win / Win.

Another great thing for the watchmakers’ collective arsenal is the fact that the consumer now has purchasing power on their sides. Online watch shops like BlueDial beat the brick and mortar shops on price… embarrassingly so for the most part. Case in point:

- 202

Free shipping to boot…free two day shipping in fact.

Unless you decide to go with a very fancy cell phone holster…thinking something colored with some bedazzled beads…you are likely to get better style points by going with the watch route. You’ll thank me later.

PDF to Word Converter

Joseph Swanson — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:41:52 +0000

PDF files have all sorts of great implementations. When security is a concern, it is pretty much a standard in the software industry to go with PDF…as much as I love a plain text file, sometimes they just don’t cut it. External facing documentations? Think PDF.

The downside of the standard comes in the conversion factor. Doing business on different levels undoubtedly will end up with different departments using different file types. Standardizing via pdf will end up involving pulling a full gambit of extensions into the desired form. It can get messy.

I recently stumbled across a solution that I am glad to see exists…namely, a pdf to word converter. No joke…it took me by surprise to see that it is easily handled.

+1 quick

Quick-PDF (as the name implies) provides a solution that can do PDF to Word Converter easily. I have struggled in the past to find a way to drop PDFs into .doc files, .rtf files, etc. on Windows machines. Not anymore. They have even worked in a command line mode…which, needless to say, really pleases a *nix guy like me. High quality to boot. I’m a big fan.

I’m glad to report that I will no longer be maintaining my docs in multiple formats. +1 efficient.