Blog
Archive for category: Fun
First Lego League challenges released
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, General Business, Software Development on September 05, 2010
The First Lego League competition season is under way. On Friday, September 3, this year's Lego competition details were released. The First Lego League is an organization started by inventor Dean Kaemen (guy who brought us the "Segway" transportation "thing") a number of years ago. FIRST stands for For Innovation and Research in Science and Technology. My children and their friends on their team just refer to it as "Robotics". It is a lot more than just messing around with the Lego Mindstorm. In addition to programming a robot to navigate a course and solve a number of challenges, they also need to conduct a research project and prepare a five minute presentation.
The entire experience is good training in teamwork, research, engineering, presentation skills and performing under pressure. Oh, and they have a lot of fun doing it all.
Share this post:
Drive your Lego Mindstorm NXT Robot with Android
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, Software Development, Technology, Android, Unlocking Android on September 02, 2010
We have just published a free demonstration application to the Android Market named SenseBot. This application was written as a demonstration for the Unlocking Android Second Edition title soon to be published. The application demonstrates the use of the Bluetooth and Orientation Sensor functionality of the Android platform.
The application connects via Bluetooth to a Lego Mindstorm NXT robot in a "stock" configuration: two motors connected to the B and C ports of the robot.
Once the application is connected to the Robot (which must be named NXT) you simply tilt the phone to drive the robot. Tilt forward, back, left and right. Even though it is arguably not the most attractive or best performing remote control -- it is a bit addictive and fun.
Search the Android market for "Lego Mindstorm" or "SenseBot".
The application requires a minimum level of Android 2.0 as that is when the Bluetooth data functionality was made accessible to third party developers.
MSI Services provides consulting and software development for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and on occassion Palm WebOS.
Share this post:
Antenna got you and your iPhone 4 down?
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, Linux Magazine, Technology, iPhone on June 29, 2010
In this week's Upward Mobility column I address some possible solutions to the problems Mr. Jobs and company are experiencing with the latest iPhone. It really is a shame because on paper, the device rocks. Let's hope they bounce back and sort out these problems.
Photo from iphonesavior.com
Share this post:
A course in reverse engineering
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, Linux Magazine, Software Development, Technology, Android, iPhone on May 05, 2010
The team working on the porting of Android to Apple's iPhone and iPad hardware continue to make progress. For example, they are working on reverse engineering the audio baseband chipset -- not just the chip -- but how it is used within the Apple hardware. Pretty fascinating to watch them pull on a thread and see where it goes. You can read more about it on the Linux on the iPhone blog.
For some more background, you can read my latest contribution to Linux Magazine.
Share this post:
The Chevy Volt - an electrifying experience—now has an Android app!
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, General Business, Technology, Android, Unlocking Android on January 06, 2010
I saw a brief video today about the 2011 Chevy Volt from General Motors. I am not a huge fun of current electric car technology -- though this one caught my attention -- particularly when they showed an Android app running on a Motorola Droid. Check it out here.
You can read more about the Android "remote control" here.
.
Share this post:
Virtual development environment
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, Linux Magazine, Software Development on January 05, 2010
I am now on the other side of a fun exercise in putting together a preferred development environment -- this of course is because my Dell decided that 37 months was long enough with me. Thankfully others in my life have some more stamina for the demands I place on them 
If you're interested in learning more, you can check out this week's Linux Magazine article where I chronicle some of the steps I've taken to wind up here with a MacBook with Windows 7 running in a Virtual Machine.
Share this post:
Tired of lugging your laptop? Me too. Some day, we won’t have to
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, Linux Magazine, Technology, Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, Windows on December 22, 2009
I am presently putting (back) together my day to day computing environment. Fortunately for me, my Dell laptop gave up the ghost just a few weeks outside of its warranty. It really didn't owe me anything -- its taken a beating and many many miles in the past three years, one month and 17 days.. but who's counting? I wish I could just plug my phone into my keyboard and mouse... You guessed it, that is the topic of this week's Linux Magazine Upwardly Mobile column.
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!
Share this post:
Where can I go to find a reel of resistors?
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun, General Business, Technology on November 03, 2009
While I tend to write code during the day (and night) there are times when I wish I had a cool hardware product I had designed and could market. Or just designed for the fun of it -- not everything needs to be "for sale". That thought is often lurking, not too far below the surface of my mind -- so this article from EDN magazine caught my eye. In the article, Andrew Huang discusses his use of off-shore supply chain and manufacturing services for his Chumby product and the challenges he would face if he attempted to build such a product in the United States.
[Photo from the Chumby store. Not endorsing the product -- though it does look pretty cool.]
Share this post:
Airtime Manager - on the lighter side
Posted by: Frank Ableson in Fun on September 07, 2009
One of our clients, Airtime Manager, speciailizes in time-capture sysyetms - mostly for attorneys. I know - do we really need attorneys to capture more time? Well, that is a discussion for another day. For now, check out this YouTube video. It was put together by a young lady - a daughter of the business development manager @ Airtime. Good clean fun. Enjoy.
Share this post:
Recent Blog Posts 
