I finally got around to throwing out a little proof of concept with my new toy. I managed to utilize a PowerSwitch Tail to gain control of 120V AC with Arduino…and I did it without electrocuting myself. Not getting electrocuted, FTW. Long story short, the PowerSwitch Tail is a simple switch. 120V AC in, and either 0V AC out or 120V AC out, with the later being the case when a 5V DC signal is introduced to the unit. Here is what it looks like… I used some jumper wires I had sitting around “the lab.” You can feed anything into that sucker; speaker wire would throw the switch. Moving on… Well, it turns out that the Arduino loves to dump 5V signals…like it was made to do so. So, this switch setup is perfect for my microcontroller projects…whatever they may turn out. Anyhow, all you need to do is pick a digital out and ground from the Arduino board, and hooks it up. Hooks it up like this… One of the best things (most handy?) is that the IDE makes pushing code to the unit quick. Plug a USB cable in, crank out some code, and there you go. Good news. It’s MF-ing snippet time!

/* Relay Switch proof o’ concept */ // Assign digital pin 12 for chatting int ledPin = 12; // Define setup method void setup() { // Define pin 12 as output pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); } // Define loop void loop() { digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // Switch on delay(406); // wait digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // Switch off delay(406); // wait }

That is all there is to it…signal for a while, no signal for a while. 406 is a random value, chosen because I like the 406. I plugged one of Katie’s lamps into the switch…which was plugged into my “lab” power strip. Uploaded the code to the controller, and there you have it… Survey says… There it is. I shot a video, but YouTube puked during my upload. Not too upset, seeing as how it was just a video of a DIY strobe lamp. The cool part of this lies in the possibilities to extend upon the concept. Throw a web interface in the mix, and you can have a web-controlled lamp. Replace the lamp with something more useful, and you get the point. EDIT: 1/24 I uploaded the video I snapped to YouTube…here is a hard-link, and I’ll toss the vid in a post shortly. I think I need to enable video embedding, but if you really have a hankering to watch the thing, knock yourself out.

Getting close to having my live wallpaper on the Android Market. I’ve hammered down the image, polished up the cube, tested the app on several emulators, and optimized the rotaion rate. More importantly, I haven’t drop kicked my notebook or tossed my Droid 2 out the door. I’m going to chalk this one up as a… +1 probably the best Android App developer I know of. For the win. I don’t know any other Android app developers, but I’m still giving this a big For the win. Here is a sneak peak of said wallpaper: Not too shabby, huh? I’ll figure out how to sign the cert tomorrow, and see if I can get an account started with Google. Stay tuned, Android folk. I’m going to offer this for free.99, so you all better fire this up on your mobiles and report some bugs. Stay tuned.

I’m one step closer to dropping an app on the Android Market. I’m thinking ’live wallpaper.’ The existing ones on the market are weak sauce, so I might be able to get some downloads. Keyword, “might.” That might be a pipe dream. Anyhow, I’m learning how to render stuff in 3D using OpenGL. I have got the cube down, since it is easy. You’re welcome for that animated gif ^ I’d like to have something (crappy) on the market in a few weeks. Don’t hold your breath, but we’ll see what I can toss together.

Nope. That is not how we park cars. -1 had to drive my pickup to work +1 diameters of my rims exceed those of your tires +1 pickup has 20" rims as well ———————————————— 1 point awarded. Not a bad morning afterall.

Making progress…2D graphics are far easier than I would have expected. Next up: figure out how to animate and add sound. Bonus: figure out why I am dumping hours into sudoku…not a fan. Good exercise, bad game.

I stumbled across this product, that I honestly had no idea existed. It is pretty much an AC switch, that can be ‘switched’ via a 5V signal. Let me see…what do I have that can push 5V? ARDUINO, Y’ALL. My project scope is about to get greatly wider. Stay tuned.

Welp. Guess I can cross ’learn buttons’ off the colloquial list. Turns out you can make buttons by slamming out some xml. Nicely played, Google. Next order of business…figure out how to show these in landscape mode.

Pushing code to the phone, FTW! I managed to throw together a quick Hello World using the Android SDK, configure a FroYo emulator, and drop the code to my Droid 2. Not a bad little Saturday, really. Screen shot from the emulator… Webcam snap of code on phone… So it begins. Stay tuned for snippets.

Did you know that Mariah Carey has a ONE BILLION DOLLAR insurance policy ON HER LEGS? Sorry to do the all-caps shout thing, but that is pretty weird to me. Mimi is not alone here…there are all sorts of celebrities with huge policies on weird things. Today, we are talking insurance. Buckle up. Becks is out there too. David Beckham has a seventy million dollar policy on his legs and feet. Makes you wonder what exactly those soccer players are worth. Have you ever heard of America Ferrera? I sure hadn’t, until I read that she has a ten million dollar policy on her teeth. I’m going to say that one is a little unnecessary. Angelina Jolie? You guessed it…insured body for one billion, cash. I don’t know about the cash thing, but it sure sounded good. Better than The Boss in the 1980s. Speaking of The Boss, Springsteen has a seven million dollar policy on that raspy voice of his. How about that… Where did I read about this, you ask? I stumbled across a site with this info on it while looking for an online insurance quote. Not only did freeinsurancequotes have the car insurance quote I was looking for, but they had an article about the celebrity policies. They also had home insurance and life insurance info. Pretty slick…check it out. In the mean time, I’ll be looking into getting my bloggin’ fingers insured. What do you think they are worth? I’d bet hundreds.

Tech writers are the best. I most certainly don’t read the stuff that hits news aggregates because of informative banter and notable content, I read it for comic value. Well… comic value and insight into human nature. Most notably: laziness

It seems to me that the easiest way to get published is to talk about a i* killer. Replace the wildcard with either “pod”…

…“pad”…

…or “phone”…

…and write a half-assed article about a new product. Guaranteed Google, MSN, Yahoo, Drudge, or whoever else will have that bad boy on the front page.

Protip: Next time you are charged with the task of covering a new Samsung product’s press release, save some time and just go with “End of Apple???” and be done with it. The whole killer angle was spent several years ago…when we nerds were buying Sandisk players, loading Ubuntu on netbooks, and making wild guesses on forums what RIM was going to do with the next generation of BB phones. Oh….the good old days.

FWIW, I’ll put a Droid X up against all three of those products. For the price point, nothing can touch that machine…my Droid 2 included.