Bearfruit

(as a follow-up to “How data affects wifi range”)

It’s also important to realize that if a country consumes more media on the Internet than it produces, the electrons will get shifted from the creating country to the consuming country.

Because electrons have a negative charge this will leave the creating country with a positive charge and the consuming country with a negative charge. In effect, “polarizing the nations.” This was actually discussed in ancient biblical prophecy and is a sign that the battle of Armageddon and the end of the world is near.

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 11:53 AM, David McLaughlin wrote:
> I’ve had much better luck with range by placing the router as high as
> possible within the house.

That’s because the newer wifi signals are actually slightly heavier than air so they fall down gradually after they’re broadcast. Kind of like the branches of a willow tree.

It’s that time where people make their predictions. I’ll chip in my 2 cents worth regarding technology changes in the future. The last decade, I think, can be described as the decade of the web. The next, in a word, will be mobile.

A little over one year ago I received a Logitech V220 cordless notebook mouse as a gift. It’s small, high resolution and amazingly, it works for nearly six months on a single AA battery (I put a high quality battery in it). The first time the battery died I was so impressed. I put the new battery in and started working. Coincidentally I’d recently upgraded to Hardy Heron Alpha 2 or 3. I was noticed some erratic behavior where holding the mouse button down produced multiple mouse clicks. You didn’t notice it unless you were clicking and dragging, for example using the selection tool in a graphics program or highlighting a paragraph of text.

I assumed it was something related to Hardy Heron and discussed the problems with a few people. It was really a head scratcher so someone suggested I test the mouse with a different computer so we could rule it out as the culprit. Remarkably, the problem followed the mouse to the other computer. I was stunned. I opened the mouse and looked inside to see if it was a worn button. Everything looked OK. I called Logitech and they gave me instructions to return the mouse and they would send me a new one. The new one was fine and I was happy and promptly forgot the problem.

The PC world to this point has been severs, desktop computers and portable notebooks. This will remain true for a little while longer, but soon (as soon as 18 months) this will change for good.

In Bill Gate’s book, “The Road Ahead” he makes the statement, “People need to communicate and be entertained, they don’t need to compute.” This quote has stuck with me for years because of its simplicity, because of its accuracy and because it goes against what many of us computer lovers feel.

Think about common computer tasks - communicate via email, look up maps or directions on the web, share photos and videos, buy stuff, get information, play games. Now which of these tasks are hard to do with an iPhone or other portable device? Typing out a long email or having a lengthy chat can be arduous on such a small device but its getting easier.

Now think about what device you’d rather have for doing the above kinds of things… a 6 - 9lb (2.5 - 4kg) notebook or would you rather having a 1lb or less device that you can slip into your pocket and also use as a cell phone? (read more for some fascinating quotes)

I firmly believe that mobile devices are the future and many people will forgo a regular PC because their mobile hand-held thingy does everything they need. Embedded Linux is one of the major platforms enabling such devices, but how is a person supposed to experiment with it when the slick development boards are so expensive or, for most of us, literally impossible to legally get into our hands?

I asked David Mandala, who is the project manager of the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded team and a good old fashioned tinkerer, for a suggested platform. It was an IRC conversation so I can’t be certain of his attitude, but I’m pretty confident he was excited to tell me about the tool he likes to play with - the Tin Can Tools Hammer - an Arm9 based embedded Linux development board that is the same size as a 40pin dip. Just drop it into your breadboard and away you go! Or better yet, pick up the Nail Board kit (see the same page linked above) which includes the hammer board and adds a built in jtag, usb ports and serial interface and only increases the board size and cost a little bit.

When plugged into your PC it will be detected as a USB ethernet card and you can ssh right into your new embedded linux computer. Because the nail board has onboard jtag you don’t have to worry about bricking your device (corrupting the firmware rendering the device unbootable until reflashed) so in theory you should have full reign to fiddle with the settings. It can be powered right from the USB port so no external power is needed! And my favourite part is that all of the connections are 0.1” spaced headers so it will work on a breadboard and its no problem to solder on.

It’s still about twice the cost of the AVR32 based NGW100 which goes for $80 - $90. Like the hammer, the ngw100 allows you to solder on the board making it hacker friendly. It can also appear as a usb ethernet, mass storage or HID device. Unlike the hammer it has two ethernet ports, an SD card slot, an onboard serial connection but does not have a USB host port. It’s also quite a bit bigger (but still quite small).

The real problem with the ngw100 though is that it’s a new platform (AVR32). Arm9 is so popular and so mature, it’s hard to resist. Intel’s atom platform has a lot of muscle behind it so I have no doubt it will get a foothold in the market (and I’d love a $150 eval board!) but is there room for avr32? Jury is out. I’m going to save up my money for the hammer + nail board.

OK, that subject line makes this sound more cool that it really is. The process was pretty simple. A little python script is attached that you can run locally. I’ll probably remake this in Javascript using a cool image based font that looks like the display on the speak and spell, but for now I just wanted to post this before I forgot about it. (I almost recycled it while cleaning off my desktop!)

I’m getting excited to see embedded Linux showing up in so many places. The reason I think it’s cool is because very often it can be hacked to do something far cooler than the original intent. By hack, I mean disassembled, modified or improved in some unexpected way.

The Kindle is an expensive e-book reader that has an innovative screen and form factor. It also has a cellular data connection so that you can download books and apparently surf some websites. I did not realize that it is based on Linux.

Javascript is cool and things we only dreamed of 8 years ago are now common. However, the trends are leaning towards writing tremendous amounts of application code for web sites and web applications that run client-side in the web-browser. Sites are using more and more animation and effects. Now [people are contemplating][0] how to do cpu intensive computations in web browsers.

I recently went to Best Buy to buy a video camera but instead got an MP3/Video player. I took a chance and didn’t do any research before I bought it. It said it supported Ogg and it played videos. It was “plays for sure” compatible. I really just bought it as an oversized thumbdrive and I had a $100 gift card. However, I love it. Its the Insignia 4GB Video Mp3 player. As far as I can tell, you can only get it at Best Buy. But it has a very bright screen, it has excellent controls, and so far, it plays all my music except the stuff I bought at the iTunes store.