Hi. This project never ends. I have been cutting my teeth on some electrical engineering 101, in an effort to push 5V through my IOIO. At this point, I am still not able to report a success. I do have the ‘open drain’ setup working, at a lower voltage than I am intending. My configuration is as follows: The Java snippet that is doing the pin defining is this guy:

DigitalOutput out = ioio.openDigitalOutput(25, DigitalOutput.Spec.Mode.OPEN_DRAIN, true);

The only issue is with my setup…for some reason, my circuit isn’t able to pull to 5V. See the DMM readout v So, back to the drawing board. When the switch is open via my app, the pull up resister should settle Vout to 5V. The other half of the scenario is fully functional, as a closed switch grounds as intended. My next plan of attack involves a more permanent power source, and I have placed my order with SparkFun for a surface mount / wall wart combo that will do the trick. I am hoping that my issue is with the power, but time will (shortly) tell if this is the case. Stay tuned. Getting close on this one…

Google’s Project Glass…very cool. The prototype units are sort of reminiscent of Star Trek, but they serve a unique function. Merging computing and vision is not an easy thing, once the whole ‘rest of the world aside from the text written to screen’ comes in to play. Where will this end up? I have a strong suspicion that the goofy looking units will end up being swept under the rug. The future, my friends, is in the contact lens. The small, not very obtrusive, disposable, can still wear sunglasses, little contact lens. The kicker is the link between contact lenses and high tech stuff that already exists. If vision correction isn’t enough to float your boat, how about Microsoft’s past work to implement a glucose tester into contact lenses. You don’t have to be diabetic to appreciate that. You don’t have to be a Microsoft fanboy to give them credit for a cool project. Swap Microsoft out for Google, who is arguably way more bleeding edge. Add in the fact that the Google Glass project has been declared an early success, and that the contact lens makes more sense down the road. I’m guessing we see Star Trek Glasses, and then shortly behind Star Trek Contacts for sale before too long.

I finally gathered my nerves and opened my TDAmeritrade account after the market closed. Pretty ugly. If the dollar wasn’t jacked, I would be in buy mode. As it stands, I’m staying put. Sure glad I am not a soon-to-be retiree; things could be bleaker. Here’s to a rebound…

Disclaimer: I have two baseball games in which to play tomorrow. Play well, FWIW. I am spending my night watching ‘Ask an Engineer.’ Getting my nerd on (well, FWIW.) Support Lady Ada / Adafruit via purchasing the type of stuff you see on swantron.com…she is one of the good guys. Have a nice weekend…

My skill set is so sufficiently awesome in the design realm, that I can turn this… …into this… …using nothing but MS Paint. I can also put down an entire box of MSG in a Biskit Chicken in a Biskit. But that is for another day. If you, unlike me, are shopping for a web designer, take the following into consideration. Whether you are building a new website or having an older one redesigned, it is likely that you will need the assistance of a web designer. If you spend some time browsing the internet, you will soon discover that there is a significant difference in those websites which have been professionally designed and those that haven’t. Nowadays, if you want your business to get noticed then hiring a reputable web designer is a necessity. So how do you go about choosing one? Firstly you should do your research on potential web designers or web design companies. You will find that Southampton web design agencies may work in a completely different way to a web designer in Dorset. Therefore, it pays to look around and not necessarily just in London. You need to enquire into their previous work and ensure it is similar to the standard you are after for your own site. It is important to remember that your website should not just be a copy of previous work, so look at more than one example to ensure that the designer is capable of catering to individual client needs. You also need to research into whether this work was delivered in a timely manner. It is all well and good receiving an incredible design for a new website, however if it is going to take 3 years, you may need to reconsider. The majority or web designers will have a portfolio and this is a great way to judge their work and their professionalism. Client testimonials are another way in which you can compare designers. Be wary about these testimonials as it is possible to make these up, so it is important to follow them up and actually speak to previous clients to gain further information. For example if you are contemplating a web design Bournemouth agency, you may wish to speak to a range of their clients to gauge an understanding of how they work.

My enjoyable night of programming my IOIO slowly devolved into a digital multimeter-needing mess. Either I am reading the spec sheet incorrectly, or this thing is wonky. I have implemented a pull-up resister, and *should be pushing 5V. In reality, I am seeing 3.8V…something is amiss. Back to the drawing board.

I am one coding session and one EE session away from having a pretty cool project to post. In the meantime, I am making some progress with the IOIO.

Eclipse and I are still having our issues, but the ADK is becoming less Greek to me. The next project should shed some light on what sort of possibilities IOIO presents.

I shot a video of one of my debugging tests. I eventually will be using an ‘open drain’ setup, in order to get 5V output, but am doing some testing at 3.3V. I hooked up an old speaker that I salvaged from a CRT tear-down to my test pins, to verify that my Android App was working.

Stay tuned.

I need either a camera, or a backup Android for dev. I’m shooting for the later. For real though…cash for a used Droid X. Anyone know of a good marketplace to pick a used one up? I’ll entertain offers at joe[at]swantron[dot]com. You know you want an iPhone… Here is the motivation: I had to swing the laptop around to snap a picture of my Monday-Funday effort for this week. I need to snap (shoot maybe?) a video of my IOIO work, but I find myself in want of a micro SD card. Both of my 2GB cards are at the office, and my IOIO Android app is sitting happily on my Droid 2’s memory card. For the loss. Loss like the Droid X’s battery tendencies. Really, get rid of that phone. It is awful…I will be doing you a favor by taking it off of your hands. The screen is too big…hard to fit in your pocket, etc. Cash. I’ll get a vid up tomorrow. Fear not.

I am still horsing around with Google+ on my Droid 2. A few posts back, I lambasted the Instant Upload feature. The whole idea of tossing geo-location-having pictures onto Google’s servers seems awfully odd to me. As this feature is ‘featured’ in Google+’s Android app, I figured I would play around with it some more, in order to gauge its evilness. The jury is still out. It does work as intended. I snapped a few pictures of my fancy breakfast in my cubicle, with the Instant Upload activated, with the Battery Uploads selection… Surely enough, once I plugged my D2 into the charger, it began to sync/upload. Within several seconds I was notified of my complete upload to G+. So, while I am still unsure of the impacts of this feature, I am impressed by its function. Google’s devs hit the ball out on the park with this one, in regards to pure functionality. Especially, as the Android Facebook and Twitter apps are rough at best. Hats off. Expect a full review of G+ in the near future.

Five Volts are so 2010. I’m all over this three and three-tenths Volts stuff. Don’t call it a comeback. I blew the dust off of my IOIO board, and am ready to do some 3.3V stuffs. I have already deduced that my PowerSwitch Tail won’t relay at 3.3V, but will make a switching noise and fire the on-board LED. Lesson learned. I guess I had better get serious with my EE…this is a circuitry step up from the Arduino without a doubt. Expect a project and some code soon. I am going to make something work.