Natural Orange

Recently purchased a new MacBook Pro (w/Retina) after coming into some extra money (*cough* tax refund, thanks uncle sam). Want to get back into iOS app development (did some in College) and was thinking about making an app with home automation in mind. Here is a layout of some of the idea I had.

• IPCamera
  • Live View (mjpeg or mp4)
    • Save pictures to Camera Roll
    • Save pictures online(maybe…?)
  • Gallery of Captured Images
    • Camera Uploads pictures when motion is sensed, online gallery manages the pictures.
    • Save pictures to Camera Roll
  • Admin
    • Check Wifi Status (Signal Strength)
    • Reboot
    • Change some settings…(maybe)
• Traffic Light
  • Control Light
  • Check Status
  • Program Alarm Clock Features (Pending Traffic Light Upgrade)
  • Change Settings (Pending Traffic Light Upgrade)
• Wemo (Belkin iPhone Outlet Control Device)
  • Control Device Remotely
  • Program Device Remotely
• Sensors
  • I’ve been wanting to add at least a temp/humidity sensor in my room. More useful in summer to remote control air conditioning.
  • Possibly add a Light Sensor to see if I’ve left the lights on in my room.
• Room Security
  • More for fun that actually needing security.
  • Add a magnetic lock and motion sensor to room. (and/or a push-to-leave button)
  • Could Integrate with Traffic Light or the Crosswalk Light I’ve recently acquired.
  • RFID/Keypad outside room.
• API/Proxy
  • Will need to add some sort of proxy to make these functions available outside of apt network.

After moving into my new apartment in Brooklyn I’ve finally got back to this project. Some code updates and rewrites have significantly improved the firmware and I’m still looking to add more features.

Pictures and code uploads coming soon!

About a year and half a go I acquired a discarded Traffic light. It was in pretty rough shape, but all the parts were in working order. Having done some experimenting with Arduino I thought this would be a fun project. It took a few months to get it cleaned up and spray painted.

I originally ordered two solid-state relays with the hopes of making it sound reactive, it worked decently but I really liked the idea of making it networked device with remote control. So I ordered an Ethernet Pro and an extra relay (for the top light).

After a night of Arduino coding, HTML, and CSS I got it patched together and working.

Pictures coming soon.

Being bored earlier this evening and having my Garmin Nuvi 200w sitting on my desk I tried to see if I could implement one of the most sought after features on this lower-end model, a QWERTY keyboard.  I managed to somewhat get this to work, the main problem being that the Keyboard layout on the GPS can’t fit the number of characters across thats on a traditional GPS. So it’s kinda offset.

Doing it is actually quite easily. Plug you nuvi into your computer with a USB cable.  Go to whatever drive the “Garmin Nuvi” is and go into the “Text” folder.  Save a backup of the “British_English.gtt” file to your computer. Then open the “British_English.gtt” in a text editor (make sure to open the one on the GPS not the one you saved as a backup.

Replace:
<upperkbrd>ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ</upperkbrd>
<lowerkbrd>abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz</lowerkbrd>

With:
<upperkbrd>QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM</upperkbrd
<lowerkbrd>qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm</lowerkbrd>

And Save the file.  Then simply Unplug it, and switch the keyboard language to “British American”.

You can always press the “Mode” button at the bottom of the keyboard to switch back to “American English” in case you find the QWERTY(ish) mode to be annoying.

Note: This probably voids your warranty, I wouldn’t suggest doing this unless you feel that you are competent at text files. Even then I am not responsible if you mess it up somehow.

I’ve been able to fix the issues with the Twitterizer framework that provides the backend for interaction with Twitter on my “TwitterCon” application.

Since then, I’ve done some cleanup to the code to make it a bit more optimized.  I’ve also added the ability to update Twitter by using a Command Line Parameter (twittercon -update=”Hello Mom, I’m Sending this from the command line ” ).

I still have quite a bit of work to do, I would like to restructure some of the options.  Have the ability to enter a password when the app starts instead of keeping it saved in a text file.  Or have the ability to login from the app and save your settings from there.

I may possibly rename “TwitterCon” to “TwitterTerm” and use a “TwitterCon” or “TwitterCmd” to be a parameter only based application…  The idea being that it could be used in batch files to alert when you something is done or run on a schedule.

Those are just some of my ideas… Let me know what you think: me {at} naturalorange {dot} net

In about 20 minutes I turned an old TDK powersupply, from an old Apple Computer we discarded at work, in to a useful bench power supply for other projects.

Top 5

1. Pandora – a bit buggy, but its aweasome to listen to on the way to/from work.
2. Trism – fun, aweasome, well designed game.  Haven’t found any problems with it.
3. Twitteriffic – works, designed well, upload pictures.
4. Twinkle – buggy, crashes, upload pictures, location.
5. PhoneSaber – what can I say?

Others

• iMaze – mazes are too easy, hard to navigate
• Bank of America – just a webbrowser to the poorly designed mobile website (designed more for regular cell phones)
• Tap Tap Revenge – looks/works better but you no longer have the option to play with music from your library, only play a few songs that you download from them.
• Facebook – works good, basic access to all the facebook stuff, update status, view friend info and pictures.
• Bubble Wrap – fun to play with
• AOL Radio – similar to pandora but you don’t get to customize it as much. Uses location to find local stations on AOL Radio.

What I Want

• Share 3G/Edge connection with my laptop via WiFi
• Updating Music/Podcast/Contacts/Calender through my local WiFi to my computer. (Apple TV does this and the “Remote” application already connects to your library.)
• Whenever I try to reply to a really long message in Mail.app, the keyboard gets laggy.
• Copy Paste would be nice…

I send HP an email, since my AC Adapter (for my laptop) is on the fritz.  Haven’t had any issues yet, but its hisses and crackles, its very scary.  Anyway, HP is supposed to send me a replacement since its still under warranty.

“…it looks like basically every Geforce 8600M and 8400M chip is affected…”  according to engadget.  My laptop has an 8600M.  And I’ve actually had some cooling issues with it.  Which is why I bought a $40 laptop cooler so that I can actually play TF2 or COD4 without burning a whole through my desk.

I also checked the HP Warranty page, and I guess I’m not covered… just fantastic.