A while ago I got a Nexus S and one reason was that it came with NFC. I am not sure I want to use it for wallet type application but there are other things to do with it. There are a lot of great apps in the Android Market that make use of NFC but the coolest one I found is Touchanote (website; app). This app works in conjunction with Evernote (app) and it basically can "store shortcuts to your notes on NFC tags to be able to access your content when and where you need it with the touch of your mobile phone" (quote from the website). The company also sells NFC tags for the lowest prices I found on the web (outside of wholesale) and they also send you a free tag just to try it out if you send them your idea of how you plan to use it. I have a free tag coming my way soon but I couldn't wait so I bought a couple tags and tried it out.
I have a few possible applications in mind but the one that I ended up doing was a very simple one yet very useful (for me, at least). I created a Shopping list note in Evernote that I can edit from my phone and also on the web interface, used Touchanote to write the link to this note on a tag, put the tag in my wallet and when I get to the store I tap the phone to the wallet (which is still in my pocket) and voilà: the shopping list pops up on my phone. How cool is that?!
Thanks a lot, Touchanote for such a cool and useful app!
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
My first useful project ever - a night light
Following a simple idea like the one on Evil Mad Scientist I was able to build my very first useful electronics project - I know it is really nothing but for me it was a breakthrough. For more explanations about how this works, please visit the link above, they do a great job of explaining it all.
I had around a string of LEDs that work when powered by only 3V so I was able to replace the LED in the diagram with a full string of them; packed tight in a glass bowl they actually look pretty good.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
BAFAB week - mission complete
Actually, double mission complete because I bought books for 2 friends...
I spent the lunch today at a local bookseller's (Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore) and got a bunch of used books - 2 friends from work picked a book each so here it is my BAFAB week deed.
I spent the lunch today at a local bookseller's (Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore) and got a bunch of used books - 2 friends from work picked a book each so here it is my BAFAB week deed.
Monday, January 04, 2010
BAFAB week
I totally forgot about BAFAB week but luckily the counter in the sidebar reminded me about it just in time because it is this week! Need to get on with buying a friend a book...
Geocaching Statistics
Looking at a fellow geocacher's profile earlier today, I noticed he had a lot of stats posted, really cool stuff. Found out he was using CacheStats to generate them. I downloaded it and installed it and gave it a try: all I can say is *awesome*! It is free but you can donate money via PayPal if you like it. And I bet you will, it is the best geocaching stats tool I've seen.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Why did this blog change?
For a while, I tried to have separate blogs for my hobbies: books and ebooks, microcontrollers (Arduino and TI's MSP430 mostly), LEGO Mindstorms and geocaching. I keep these blogs mostly for myself, to have a place where I can come back to if I need to remember the title of a book I liked or some cool microcontroller project and LEGO robot or geocaching tool; if this info helps somebody else as well, it is just an added bonus.
Lack of time to update all these blogs and the fact that all of them boiled down to the same thing: one of my hobbies, made me decide to gather all the posts about these subjects into one blog. I hope this is OK with everybody - each post will be labeled so if you end up reading my posts, you will be able to filter through them easily.
Thanks for reading!
Lack of time to update all these blogs and the fact that all of them boiled down to the same thing: one of my hobbies, made me decide to gather all the posts about these subjects into one blog. I hope this is OK with everybody - each post will be labeled so if you end up reading my posts, you will be able to filter through them easily.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Arduino on a breadboard
I was looking for some info about how to setup a barebones Arduino on a breadboard and found these 2 excellent articles:
at ucHobby: this article was written almost 2 years ago but all the information is still valid
at ITP Physical Computing: a lot of details and step by step instructions.
There is also a forum post in the Arduino forum with more information, including some about programmers.
I hope this will be as helpful to you as it was to me.
There is also a forum post in the Arduino forum with more information, including some about programmers.
I hope this will be as helpful to you as it was to me.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The Ethernet shield is a go!
I kept thinking for a while of buying an Ethernet shield from Lady Ada: it would have been $40 in all ($15 for the shield and $25 for the WIZnet Ethernet module). However, the Wiznet module was back ordered for a while so when I accidentally ran into a similar Ethernet shield on NKC electronics, I didn't hesitate. The decision was easy because this shield comes with the WIZ812MJ module and while normally the shield is $32.99 then it was on sale for $29.99.
It arrived in a couple of days and it looked great. And now I had to solder it. Like I keep saying, I am a beginner so I had no idea how to do it. Of course I tried soldering before but I was never happy with the results. I looked for tutorials and found a couple great ones, like the soldering basics tutorial on Sparkfun and the one from Lady Ada. Armed with all this knowledge I got some courage and took my Weller SP23LK Marksman 25 Watt Soldering Iron Kit
that I got at amazon.com for about $15 out of its plastic (first time using it!) and started to solder following the guide. And it turned out pretty good, if I may say so.
I gave it a quick try using a piece of software Xtalker posted in the Arduino forum and it works great -- thanks a lot, Xtalker for starting me on this project.
Next step: make a real project out of it!
It arrived in a couple of days and it looked great. And now I had to solder it. Like I keep saying, I am a beginner so I had no idea how to do it. Of course I tried soldering before but I was never happy with the results. I looked for tutorials and found a couple great ones, like the soldering basics tutorial on Sparkfun and the one from Lady Ada. Armed with all this knowledge I got some courage and took my Weller SP23LK Marksman 25 Watt Soldering Iron Kit
that I got at amazon.com for about $15 out of its plastic (first time using it!) and started to solder following the guide. And it turned out pretty good, if I may say so.I gave it a quick try using a piece of software Xtalker posted in the Arduino forum and it works great -- thanks a lot, Xtalker for starting me on this project.
Next step: make a real project out of it!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Got my Seeeduino today!
I got my Arduino Duemilanove a couple months back and I love it! Since I am a beginner and I haven't had much luck using the debugger in AVR Studio (it worked for a few times and then it started crashing all the time), every time I want to try or learn something I use it because I have instant feedback using the serial connection and the built in LED.
Recently I started thinking about a project for which I need to dedicate the Arduino full time. Of course, I could buy another one or just use the Atmega168 by itself in the project. Or I could use one of the "bare board" clones, there are tons of them available (for a comprehensive list of Arduino-compatible hardware, see this awesome post on Jeff's Arduino Blog).
However, a few days ago I was looking at some of my favorite sites and I discovered that NKC electonics has an awesome deal on a Seeeduino: it originally sells for $27.50 at Seeedstudio but NKC has it for $16 + S&H! Excellent deal, it can't get any better. So, I ordered one and it arrived in a couple of days.
As soon as I got it, I started arduino-0014, and tried to load a "Hello World!" sort of app: blink an LED. Nothing happened! Then I noticed the switches on the left of the Seeeduino board and changed the PWR one from EXTernal to USB: the Power LED turned on and a couple other LEDs started to blink. OK, getting somewhere!
After I set the COM port to the correct one, I tried again to upload the app but still nothing happened. I looked at the switches a bit longer and figured the ReSeT one has to be in Auto mode and not in the default Manual mode. Changed this one and tried again: success!
Of course, I could've gotten here a lot faster if I first read the docs for the Seeeduino! :-)
Anyway, it works great and since I paid less than half the price of a new Arduino, I will use the Seeeduino in my next project. Which hopefully I'll post here soon.
Recently I started thinking about a project for which I need to dedicate the Arduino full time. Of course, I could buy another one or just use the Atmega168 by itself in the project. Or I could use one of the "bare board" clones, there are tons of them available (for a comprehensive list of Arduino-compatible hardware, see this awesome post on Jeff's Arduino Blog).
However, a few days ago I was looking at some of my favorite sites and I discovered that NKC electonics has an awesome deal on a Seeeduino: it originally sells for $27.50 at Seeedstudio but NKC has it for $16 + S&H! Excellent deal, it can't get any better. So, I ordered one and it arrived in a couple of days.
As soon as I got it, I started arduino-0014, and tried to load a "Hello World!" sort of app: blink an LED. Nothing happened! Then I noticed the switches on the left of the Seeeduino board and changed the PWR one from EXTernal to USB: the Power LED turned on and a couple other LEDs started to blink. OK, getting somewhere!
After I set the COM port to the correct one, I tried again to upload the app but still nothing happened. I looked at the switches a bit longer and figured the ReSeT one has to be in Auto mode and not in the default Manual mode. Changed this one and tried again: success!
Of course, I could've gotten here a lot faster if I first read the docs for the Seeeduino! :-)
Anyway, it works great and since I paid less than half the price of a new Arduino, I will use the Seeeduino in my next project. Which hopefully I'll post here soon.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
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