I hope you don’t mind, but I went ahead and stepped it up a few notches. My newest project brings my end-goal a few steps closer. I now have the pieces in place to put together an actual robotic implementation with the IOIO…since things have officially reached the cool stage, I decided to drop this as a stand-alone project. Complete with pics, a vid, and an app. IOIOSeek: What I have here are two slider bar controlled servos, an analog input-read solar panel, and some LEDs toggled via a button. The control is via the IOIO / Android. The pictures, however nice, don’t really tell the story. Take a look at the video to see this thing in action: As the video alludes to, I am going to run with this concept. The automation (robotics) lies in the analog reading with respect to the servo positions. I plan to ‘scan’ the panel…that is the piece that is missing. Once I can implement that mess, I will have a tracking system. Implementations will fall out of that. As with the last few projects, I have dumped the app on the Android Market for general perusal. The app’s description provides the details of the pin configuration, which is straight forward. I have two PWM outputs, a pure 3.3V digital toggle, and a pin configured for analog input. That is that. I will push my code to GitHub as well eventually, and provide a link therein. I still need to polish my generic servo code, since my latency was borderline awful in retrospect. Look for that in the near future as well. As always, drop any questions to joe[at]swantron[dot]com. Feel free to share your IOIO projects with me…

What is the term? Form follows function? Not sure; I’m not a classically trained sink designer. I can tell you what I look for in Undermount Sinks… they should vaguely resemble robot eyes: Amazing. Katie and I rent. We cook a lot, and intend to buy or build before too long…mix that up and it is no stretch to think that we are into sinks. Mr. Direct sinks are great, functional, and have the added bonus of being cool to boot. When we make a move, suffice to say we will have an Undermount Sink like the bad guy pictured above. Cool looking, big, and easy to clean…the price is actually lower than the boring guys from Lowe’s and Home Depot as well…pretty much a done deal.

disclaimer > I am not clarivoyant < / disclaimer > I’ll make a bold prediction. **You are reading this post on a web-connected device!**Cunning, righf? I will do you all a favor and cut to the point. We all have access to the internet, nearly always. Why not put that to use for difficult problems, in general? Like stock control. Pretend, if it helps, that the stock management software is the robotic overlord, and your staff constitutes the minions… The take away in my whole rambling post lies in a centralized control system for hard goods. A system such as OrderWise allows you to handle arguably the most fundamental business need, inventory, in a convenient digital manner. When you have the same system in place for inventory, order processing, web integration, etc., you will know what your snagging points are. Manage your physical goods, intelligently. That just might be part of business 101. I would have zero idea…I studied math. Anyhow, hit that link and take a look. Computers really pay for themselves in managed applications like inventory…I do know that much for a fact.

Fun fact: math guys find math stuffs in non-math stuffs Fun tip: don’t study number theory Fun tip bonus aside: If you think of numbers as things instead of numbers, they will take on funny little characteristics. Fun anecdote: I was taking a look at a sweet site about Mind health, and noticed they had an awesome number on the page… I have no idea whether or not Cognifit was trying to slap that particular number on their site on purpose, but it is a good math number. Do explain…okay. 353 is both prime, and a palindrome. Remember “Madam, I’m Adam.” from school? Take that, make it a number, and moreover make it a number that is only divisible by one and itself… you have a crazy little thing like 353. How do I pick that up? Mental fitness. How does one pick that up? Practice. Plain and simple. Your brain works much the same way that any other of your body systems work. Want big swollen biceps? Grab some dumbbells, do some curls. Want a big, awesome brain? Grab some mental dumbbells, do some brain curls. Curls get the girls…be them brain or biceps. Joking aside, it is proven that you must keep your memory and problem solving skills working in order to fend off getting old, slow, sluggish, etc. That link above is of some serious value…fun brain fitness activities are the best type. Stay sharp, readers. Holler with any palindromic primes…I’m on the hunt.

So, every once in a while, my home WiFi connection will drop an error bomb on me. It always seems to be at a horribly inopportune moment; I am trying to do some actual work at home, and all of a sudden my wireless router is showing itself to be frozen. I will admit wholly: I find ethernet cables to be creepy reminders of horrible computing times past. Long story short, when my WiFi decides to dump out, I find myself digging through the ghetto tupperware containers in the garage, in search of a physical cable with which to connect. Hard lines are for the birds. It is easy to take wireless tech for granted. Between 3G/4G and WiFi, we can be connected pretty much wherever. The mobile companies bear the burden of maintaining the cellular connections…what about the WiFi? A single access point can be troublesome…what about multiple WiFi points? It doesn’t take much to create a messy situation. Put yourself in the shoes of an IT manager for a second. Say you have a few hundred users, and a dozen access points. Chances are pretty good that all of your WiFi routers are not the same version…chances are also good that you are tasked to juggle multiple companies’ routers. Easier said than done. Take my word as truth…you need a management system. More particularly, you need something like Tanaza Cloud WiFi Management SaaS. I work in the SaaS game…this is a solution for which you are better off buying software for. Your lack of headaches will signal the significance of said purchase. Take my word or take a look at that link. If it saves someone a wasted weekend on the phone with Netgear, I’ll consider this post a success.

It kills me a little bit inside every time I boot into Windows at work. Just a little bit. It seems like Microsoft is following Canonical’s lead, by introducing an Ubuntu-like hover bar deal to the taskbar in Windows 7. I won’t bother myself with figuring out who is doing the aping…we’ll just leave it at that. Anyhow, the first real impressive feature I have found with Windows 7 is seamless handling of multiple monitors. Getting triple monitors was *nearly plug and play. A few resolution tweaks and a reordering was all it took. For what it is worth, that monitor placement is strategic. Suffice to say my view is much, much better now. (shutters)

Code…check Components…check Once I sew this all together, I’ll have a good one to post. Shooting for Sunday evening…

So, good news and bad news in regards to my IOIO servo controller project. Good: I have published my code to GitHub. See… Bad: Ytai, the creator of IOIO itself, let me know that my code is in need of an overhaul. Big time. I am experiencing too much lag…losing a ton of time in the writing phase of my app. Expect an overhaul of said code, in preparation for my next project. I have seen some activity on both of my apps on the Android Market. I feel some moral obligation to fix both apps, cite some versions, etc. This one could take some time, but should result in a pretty sweet project. On a strange note, Ytai has a sample app that handles the analog input that I need for my next effort. I should be able to stand up a project before too long…pretty pumped. Anyhow, check that code if you are bored. Really bored. I will update when I get some decent code committed…until then…

I just doubled my Android Market presence with one fell swoop. IOIO project number two is in the books: IOIO Servo Controller. This project is a one-off of the PowerSwitch Tail relay project I have out in the wild. I took the button out of the mix and implemented a slider bar…removed the relay and am now driving a hobby servo. Displayed is the relative level (zero to one) of the slider, the slider itself, and a shameless plug. The onboard LED also fires with a brightness relative to the slider position…which I implemented in the coding and sort of left in there. The basic concept was to get the PWM output configured correctly, in order to control the servo positioning…the slider function is pretty much just the stock slider from the Android Development docs, widened a bit for the sake of video capture. The rest was just mashing around the code I had out there…not too bad. Check the thing in action: This project is available for download in app form on the Android Market. Right next to my other guy…search for IOIO. I will toss the code on my GitHub account as well. Fun project…I may branch and see If I can do anything cool with a few servos. We’ll see. Shoot any comments to joe(at)swantron(dot)com. I can help with any setup issues, if they may arise. Good luck…