Slices of Ron - the blog

It’s cute and it’s Arduino – meet the Mini

Ron — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:47:53 +0000

Meet the Arduino Mini R05 which is now available in the Maker Shed. Not only is it petite and highly functional it is cute as well. A great Arduino for small installations and when you need to fit a bunch in a small space. One thing to keep in mind is it lacks USB for programming so you need a FTDI breakout. Keep Making!

More Arduino News: Arduino Due board and software live

Ron — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:43:27 +0000

The Arduino team just announced the Arduino Due board and software are live. You can check the details on their site. The Due board is the first to use a 32-bit ARM processor, as two USB connectors, and 54 digital I/O pins. Quite a bit of power for not much money!

Great video introduction to Arduino

Ron — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:49:24 +0000

As you know I’m a big fan of Arduino and Making in general and have posted one of my own projects on this site. Massimo Banzi recently did a Ted Talk and it is now posted online. This is a great introduction to what Arduino and Making is all about and also covers the open source hardware movement. I highly recommend you give it a view if you have any interest at all in either subject. Click here to view the talk.

Project Update to Arduino Garage Monitor

Ron — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:48:11 +0000

Last year I published a blog about a Arduino project I created to monitor my garage door and send an alarm to my iPhone if it was left open for a period of time. At that time I installed the project in my Garage and used a WiFly shield to connect to the network. I also ran Python on a Mac Mini in the house that was always on – it was the Mini that would send the actual alert to Prowl.

Over time the project didn’t prove as reliable as I desired. First off, the WiFly shield would often lose the connection to my router, even though only a few feet away, and could not reconnect without a reboot. The other problem was apparently due to the temperature in the garage – in the worst part of winter and summer it failed quite often (requiring a reboot).

I’ve since switched to the new Arduino Ethernet shield, moved the project into the laundry room, and sold the Mini. Since I no longer have a computer running 24×7 I spent a very frustrating few days trying to get the Python scripts that ran perfectly fine on my Mini to do anything at all on my web hosting provider (GoDaddy). After finally getting them working on GoDaddy the end result has proven much more stable and it is still a project I rely on to keep my home safe.

Sign this. Now. End Piracy, Not Liberty

Ron — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:17:27 +0000

End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google.

Good intro to Arduino and Projects

Ron — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:41:03 +0000

If you’ve heard about Arduino and want to know more about the system and get an idea of some of the projects you can implement this Lifehacker article would be a great place to start. Just keep in mind the projects listed are a tiny slice of what’s possible. Really the only limit is your imagination.

How to Start Making Your Own Electronics with Arduino and Other People’s Code.

Zite (iPad News App)

Ron — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:05:47 +0000

Time for my second iPad app recommendation. Flipboard seems to get all the love yet, while I do use it, I find myself looking at Zite much more often. While Flipboard is source oriented, Zite manages personalization using topics. This generally works well and provides a more diverse mix of stories than Flipboard. Zite takes personalization another step further by allowing you to give a thumbs up or down to a story to help guide which ones it presents to you in the future. You can also indicate a preference for certain sources as you page through stories.

Navigation is easy and the usual methods of sharing stories present. I like it’s Twitter integration better than some apps because it uses what you’ve configured in Twitter on the iPad. I have a couple of Twitter accounts and Zite lets me pick which one to post to on each share.

Echofon (Twitter Client)

Ron — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:51:08 +0000

Now that I’ve been living with my iPad 2 for a few weeks I’ve settled on some favorite apps. The first I’ll mention is the Echofon twitter client. I’m using the lite version on all my devices (Mac, iPhone and iPad – they also have a Windows version). The Lite version has ads but they’re not intrusive (to me…). One of the best features is Echofon syncs read status across all the platforms. So if I read a tweet on my iPad and then open up Echofon on my Mac I won’t see some huge number of unread tweets. And it will scroll to the point in the timeline with the unseen tweets. I use a couple of Twitter accounts and Echofon handles that just fine on all the platforms.

Smoking Hot: AT&T 4G LTE Hotspot (Elevate)

Ron — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:03:59 +0000

Last month I decided to get a Mifi/Mobile hotspot device and went with the AT&T Elevate. It’s a 4G LTE device (or at least claims to deliver LTE speed). I’ve played with it for a few weeks and have noticed everything seems snappier when I’m on the Elevate when compared to Wifi on my home Uverse network. So I ran a series of tests with the Speedtest app and the two screenshots are representative of the results. Pretty impressive…

This first screenshot shows typical results with an iPad connected to my home Wifi. Respectable download speed (I’m on a fairly cheap rate plan) but as always Uverse upload speed totally sucks.

Below is the result using my iPad connected to the Elevate. Damn impressive as it is 40% faster for downloading and more than 3x faster for uploads. Note for these tests the Elevate was showing a single bar of signal strength.

So if I really need to do something in a hurry I’ll be sure I’ve connected to my Elevate. The service plan includes 5GB in the base fee. Fairly generous but certainly means I can’t use the Elevate full time.

RC Car + Arduino + iPad on Vimeo

Ron — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:05:19 +0000

This is a very cool Arduino-based project. An awesome setup allowing you to remotely control a RC car from an iPad (with video). Check it out!

via RC Car + Arduino + iPad on Vimeo.