Balisage Reservations?

advises for Montreal in August:
Average August temperature: 21°C / 68°F
August average high: 28°C / 83°F
August average low: 16°C / 60°F
Visitors can expect rain about 9 days out of 31 in August.

I mention that because Tommie Usdin advises it is time to:
Register for Balisage: The Markup Conference at:
Reserve your room at the conference hotel: receive the group rate, you MUST either:
call the hotel at 514-866-6492 (or from Canada or the US: 1-888-535-2808)
or
send email to info@hoteleuropa.com with a copy to
and
specify that you are making a reservation for Balisage 2013. [Penalty if you fail to say Balisage 2013] Rates cannot be changed at check-in/check-out times for people who fail to identify their affiliation at the time of reservation.

Start thinking about what you want to talk about in Balisage Bluff:
Decide what you want to donate to the Silent Auction:
Questions? write to
The weather should be nice but being wet at 16°C / 60°F isn’t much fun. Get a room. - Full Post

Running Python and R inside Emacs

by John D. Cook.
From the post:
Emacs org-mode lets you manage blocks of source code inside a text file. You can execute these blocks and have the output display in your text file. Or you could export the file, say to HTML or PDF, and show the code and/or the results of executing the code.
Here I’ll show some of the most basic possibilities. For much more information, see . And for the use of org-mode in research, see .

Not recent (2012) but looks quite interesting.
Well, you have to already like Emacs!
Follow John’s post for basic usage and if you like it, checkout . - Full Post

Triggers for Apache HBase

by Steven Noels.
Great background story on the development of triggers and indexing updates for Apache HBase by NGDATA (for their product) and that underlies Cloudera .
From the post:
In this most recent edition, we introduced an order of magnitude performance improvement: a cleaner, more efficient, and fault-tolerant code path with no write performance penalty on HBase. In the interest of modularity, we decoupled the trigger and indexing component from Lily, making it into that is now underpinning both Cloudera Search HBase support as well as Lily.
This made sense for us, not just because we believe in HBase and its community but because our customers in Banking, Media, Pharma and Telecom have unqualified expectations for both the scalability and resilience of Lily. Outsourcing some part of that responsibility towards the infrastructure tier is efficient for us. We are very pleased with the collaboration, innovation, and quality that Cloudera has produced by working with us and look forward to a continued relationship that combines joint development in a community oriented way with responsible stewardship of the infrastructure code base we build upon.
Our HBase Triggering and Indexing software can be found on GitHub at:

Do you have any indexing or update side-effect needs for HBase? Tell us your thoughts on this solution. - Full Post

Google+ Tries To Gain Photo Sharing Ground By Making It Easier To Move, Download, And Upload Your Pics

Photo sharing just got a little better on Google+, as the social network has made it easier for users to move, download, and upload their pictures. Google+ engineering manager Jon Emerson wrote today that the new features came from user feedback. Users can more easily move batches of photos between albums, use a new download option to quickly save photos, and upload large sets of photos faster.Source: - Full Post

Long Beach State's Ennis Picked In 2013 NBA Draft

? ? ? ? Source: - Full Post

Need Suggestions for a Galaxy S4 Case

I bought a GS4 over the weekend and would like some suggestions for a case. I'm not someone who is rough on their phones. *knock on wood* I've never severely damaged a phone from dropping it or mishaps. So I would like some suggestions for a case that has a mid grade protection as I don't feel I need something bulky like OB Defender. I've looked into a few and I really like the Spigen Slim Armor, Puregear Dualtek, and Ballistic Aspira. If anyone has any of these cases let me know how you like it. Or what kind of case you are rocking right now.One thing that does factor in for me is if it comes with a a screen protector. I would really like to find one that does as it changes the outlook of the value. I would have gone with the Spigen already but one thing that concerns me is people say it can be quite slippery, which just sounds like an accident waiting to happen. Here are the links to the above cases.http://www.amazon.com/SPIGEN-SGP-Pro... - Full Post

Nokia's Here Maps service comes to the Asha 501, beta release available now for download

The touchscreen Nokia unveiled back in May will now work with , the company announced on its blog today. The navigation service is already available on Windows Phone 8, Firefox OS, Android and iOS, and its arrival on the Asha platform will boost that operating system's more modest selection of apps. Available now as a beta release, Here Maps for the Asha 501 offers turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic information. It's designed specifically for low-end smartphones without GPS on board, and Nokia's post notes that the current version "is a starting point and we will improve the experience over time." Upcoming changes will likely include improved satellite images, which the company says will soon be updated to a higher quality. Asha 501 users in select countries can nab the Here Maps beta via the source link below. Filed under: , , , Source: , Source: - Full Post

Apple Exploring Earbud Tech That Can Compensate For Specific Fit In Each User's Ear

The USPTO is big on Apple patents this morning, with a new application published around earbud technology. Apple's own earbud designs have been mostly underwhelming, even if the last change for the stock set that comes with iPhones and iPods was an improvement. The new patent application describes tech that could be truly game-changing, however, by adjusting earbud output to match any user's specific ear canal size and shape.Source: - Full Post

Why It?s Important to Watch the Changes in the Chinese Economy

The Chinese economy is showing traits that you should be watching. The country is experiencing an economic slowdown unlike any it has ever seen before.The HSBC Purchasing Managers? Index (PMI) for China has been contracting for two consecutive months. In June, the indicator, which provides an overview of manufacturing in the Chinese economy, registered at 48.2?down from 49.2 in May. (Any reading below 50 on the PMI suggests a contraction in the manufacturing sector.)New business from the global economy to China declined, and companies in China have slashed their workforces.The country?s new export orders in June fell at the fastest rate since March of 2009. (Source: Markit, July 1, 2013.)In 2013, the Chinese economy is expected to grow at a pace slower than its historical growth rate. For example, Barclays PLC expects the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Chinese economy to grow at 7.4% this year. If this turns out to be the case, then this rate of GDP growth would be the slowest since 1990. (Source: Bloomberg, June 13, 2013.)But that?s not all. Other banks, like Morgan Stanley (NYSE/MS), have also lowered their expectations of growth in the Chinese economy as well. Morgan Stanley now expects the GDP of China to grow 7.6% in 2013, down from its original forecast of 8.2%.The Chinese economy was able to show some improvement after the global crisis in 2009. The country?s central bank reacted fast and flooded the financial system with liquidity. But the effects of all those efforts seem to be dissipating.What many don?t realize is that the Chinese economy can actually be considered an indicator of growth for the global economy.Not only is China the second-largest economic hub in the global economy, but China also exports a significant amount of its products to the global economy. If the country experiences a GDP decline, it?s because there isn?t demand in the global economy.An economic slowdown in China can have many consequences throughout the world. One of them is a toll on the growth of smaller nations. Consider this: in the first four months of this year, China consumed 12% of all exports from Thailand. If the economic troubles in China continue, then countries like Thailand?countries that depend on exports to the Chinese economy?will see their own GDPs decline. (Source: The Nation, June 26, 2013.)A similar principle applies to the U.S. economy as well. China is one of our trading partners. If demand in the Chinese economy declines, our exports will be hurt as well?and this will have an impact on our GDP, as U.S.-based companies that depend on exports to China will suffer due to a persisting economic slowdown. Keeping a close eye on the Chinese economy can keep you ahead of the curve when it comes to investing?even in American companies.What He Said:?Recipe for Catastrophe: To me, the accelerated rate at which American consumers are spending, coupled with the drastic decline in the amount of their savings is a recipe for a financial catastrophe.? Michael Lombardi in Profit Confidential, September 7, 2005. Michael started talking about and predicting the financial catastrophe we started experiencing in 2008 long before anyone else.Source: - Full Post

Around the Web?

Happy Fourth of July! The fireworks countdown begins after these quick clicks: Alicia Silverstone launches breast milk sharing program — PEOPLE.com Fourth of July: Last-minute craft ideas to complete your family’s festivities — Working Mother Researchers find a possible link between IVF and mental disabilities — HuffPost Parents When is the right time to switch […]Source: - Full Post

Filtering n2disk-captured Packets and Replaying them at 10 Gbit using the nBox

The nBox is not just a no-cost web GUI for ntop products, but it’s a totally new experience for dealing with pcap files. n2disk is able to index packets while capturing and then filter captured packets. Once you have filtered your favourite packets (based on a BPF filter and a time span) you can then download them to your PC or reproduce them at line rate (or at any speed you like). Even BPF filters are simplified with the nBox thanks to the ability to drag and drop filtering expressions for error-free filters.
In essence as you will see from the screenshots below, using the nBox you forget the command line, and easily accomplish your tasks with a few mouse clicks.
- Full Post

ntop is back: ntopng 1.0 just released

After 15 years since the introduction of the original ntop, it was time to start over with a new, modern ntop. We called it ntopng, ntop next generation. The goal of this new application are manyfold:
Released under GNU GPL3.
Feature a modern, HTML5 and Ajax-based dynamic web interface (caveat: you need a modern browser to use ntopng).
Small application engine, memory wise and crash proof.
Ability to identify application protocols via , ntop’s open-source DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) framework.
User’s ability to script, extend, and modify ntopng pages coding them in LuaJIT, a small yet lighting fast language.
Characterise HTTP traffic by leveraging on block.si categorisation services. ntopng comes with a licensing key, but you can acquire a private key by contacting .
Use of as data cache, for splitting the ntopng engine from data being saved.
Ability to collect flows (sFlow, NetFlow and IPFIX) using as probe/proxy.
Fast, very fast engine able to scale up to 10 Gbit on commodity PCs when using PF_RING/DNA.
Support of Unix, BSD, MacOSX and Windows (including 7/8).

The ntopng engine is coded in C++ with web pages written in Lua. In the next weeks we will publish some development guidelines for those who will be willing to contribute to this project and make ntopng even better. We are aware that many more features are missing, but they will come later this year as incremental updates. We will publish a roadmap in the coming weeks, and encourage users and companies, to contact us for including ntopng in they products and distributions. The idea is to create an ecosystem where everyone can contribute.
Download links:


 (it installs /usr/local/bin/ntopng)
(demo). Full release available : this is our way to support the project, but you’re free to build it from source at no cost.
Finally let us thank those that made all this possible, and in particular those that in the early ntop days have believed in us, and encouraged to move forward. The list (in alphabetical order) is pretty long, so we apologise in advance if we forgot some of you:
Burton Strauss.
(Paolo Caturegli and Stefano Ciuti), and in particular Prof. Giuseppe Pierazzini who recently past away.
Rocco Carbone.
Stefano Suin ().
.
We hope you will enjoy ntopng. Thank you all. - Full Post

Programming languages for aspiring designers

I answered a whole lot of questions on Quora in the last few days, and thought I would share some of them here on the blog over the next little while, since I have been pretty quiet.
The question on this occasion was, what programming languages should an aspiring game designer learn? And the answers tended to be around things like “C++.” But I suggest a different approach to the problem.
Learning new things is hard. Programming calls for a new mindset, if you have never done it before.
Therefore, you should learn whichever one you will stick with. And that means, the one that is easiest for you to learn first. The one that will give you positive feedback quickly.
Don’t jump to C++ because you are “supposed to,” even if you are aiming at working in AAA console. Don’t jump to C# because it’s the current hotness or what Unity uses. Pick the one that you feel like you personally can make progress in.
Any good programmer will learn many languages over the course of their career. Heck, I am not a good programmer, and I have worked with BASIC, C, C++, Python, Lua, modern BASICs like Blitz (three members of that family so far), three homegrown scripting lnaguages, JavaScript, PHP, and Java.
Pick one that is easy and cheap to get started in. It doesn’t need to be powerful, because you don’t know how to use that power yet. Instead, what you want is something that will let you get a picture on screen very quickly. When you are starting out, positive feedback is the hardest thing to come by, because you suck. So you want a language that will make iteration fast and your failures obvious, and your success gratifying to you.
Don’t worry, you may graduate to a language with greater complexity and power. (You may not… designers don’t need to be great programmers. They need to be able to try ideas out).
So high level languages will work best for a beginner. I would try out things like
Gamemaker
Flash
One of the versions of Lua with a simple graphics library. I used to use one for PSP homebrew development that had a simple API like “screen:draw(“picture,jpg”). That is the level of complexity you want.
Same goes for one of the versions of python with a graphics libray.
One of the many BASIC variants aimed at indie game developers: BlitzMax, DarkBasic, whatever. I am currently using , a cross-platform language by the maker of Blitz.
If you have an iPad, a neat Lua variant is – you can code right on the iPad! I’ve used it for a couple of prototypes. There are similar apps for Python, and other languages.
Remember, your first game is going to be on the order of Hangman, Pong, guess the number, not Uncharted. You want a “toy” language, as the pros will derisively call these., because you want to play around.
A lot of your game development heroes started out with MS BASIC. - Full Post

Welcome to the Fort Wars Blog!

Fort Wars is a 2D game of construction and destruction. The aim of the game is to build up your fort, using power and metal resources, while trying to bring down your enemy's. Featuring realistic physics and a variety of building materials, construct your fort to withstand attacks from a range of weapons, including cannon, machine gun, laser beam, tractor beam, sniper, mortar and ballistic missile.Fort Wars is the brain child of programmer Tim Auld, who has been developing the game for the best part of 6 years. Last year I was brought on as Lead Artist to give the visuals an overhaul and we have added Brooke Luder to the team to help develop the HUD. With this blog we will be bringing you updates on the development of the game and create a bit of buzz leading up to it's release for sale. These will include new features as well as new art. We hope that you enjoy keeping up with our progress and look forward to hearing you views and impressions of the game. - Full Post

Resource sharing, team skins, doors and more!

Work continues at a steady pace. Recent additions include:Improvements to team resource sharingTeam skins for materials and joints (blue and red)Unlimited undo in the level editorDrag view around like a 'hand'Nudge keys for ground nodesRetractible armored door materialOther minor improvements and bug fixes Now all team members share the same resource pool, and can select and use any device or material. Of course this means players can step on each others' toes and spend resources unwisely. Communication will be important!A new door material will allow you to protect your valuable weaponry, opening up a port to fire through when you need to. Don't get too cosy though; they are costly and not as strong as regular armor.Armored door material and team skins - Full Post

Gameplay Testing

Last night Nick and I met to discuss outstanding art requirements and direction for the game. We also ran some gameplay testing over the Wifi LAN.Doors have added significant depth to the gameplay, and prevented the instant picking off of weapons that occured previously, which is hard to recover from. You can build your weapons in (relative) safety, before opening to fire.We've identified several balance issues, as well as additions and simplifications to make.The game held up well over several games, with only one instance of the two clients getting out sync, where the game states diverge and players do not see the same things happen. It's one of the biggest challenges with this game. - Full Post

Building Improvements

After fixing some bugs to do with construction, I've added several features to make building both more flexible and sensible.More flexible in that you can change the material of existing struts on the fly. Previously you would have to destroy the strut and recreate it, which leads to a deformed structure as the building sags in the interim. This can be done by the context menu, or by holding Alt while selecting an existing strut.You can also add devices and weapons into your fort and automatically have internal 'rooms' created for them. Struts get pushed into the background to make way for them, so you get a kind of cutaway view. You can then add doors for weapons to shoot out of. I'll be working on a preview of this shortly.Players are now unable to build from struts that have no support. In the past you could build chains of indefinite length in the sky. This changes the way you build because you get more immediate feedback on the structural integrity of your fort and can't easily go off building something that won't stand up. - Full Post

The Fog of War

There have been some very exciting changes happening. One of which is 'The Fog of War'. In traditional isometric strategy games this is done with a greying out of the map where it is not in your line of sight. I.e. you can't see what's happening there.While that would be possible in Fort Wars, it would be somewhat expensive to calculate, and not be very interesting. Most of the weapons need a line of sight to hit the target, and since the forts aren't mobile there is no existing way to discover what your enemy is doing like you could by sending troops in.Instead there happens to be a very natural way of hiding important features from the enemy: obscure the 'cutaway' view of enemy forts. Now you can build weapons and devices without the enemy knowing exactly what's there. That is until you take some damage - which punches holes in the exterior cladding!I've also introduced a 'neutral' team, which does nothing ordinarily. Once you join your fort with theirs, it becomes yours to control and extend! This allows for some interesting map design.Once we added that feature, it became obvious that the existing real-time building system needed adjustment to make bridging a gap more difficult. Previously, new joints would be fixed in place until they were supported sufficiently. The fixing gave support to the structure. Now the new joints are fixed relative to the existing structure, not the world. So there's no artificial support. The physics parameters have also been adjusted, and when sufficient rotation occurs at the joint the structure detaches. This neatly cleans up dangling structures which get in the way.Fog of WarClaiming neutral team resources - Full Post

AI Fort Construction

Previously the AI could only replace individual struts, devices and weapons that it was given in the original map. This meant that for there to be any meaningful battle with the AI the starting fort had to be well armed and have an already developed economy. This is not good for practicing development of economy and fort building.So I've just added the ability to record the construction of a fort to lua script. The game selects one of these scripts randomly for each team for the AI to follow. It will start at the beginning and retry each step until it has the resources to succeed and continue, stopping when it reaches the end. If it discovers missing joints, it will start a thread which tranverses the previous steps, re-executing any instruction involving that joint. There are a few other technicalities, but that's the guts of it. It has meant we have a more or less fully functional AI in a very short time. Sometimes the AI gets stuck, or it builds something poorly, causing some structure to collapse; more time will have to be spent ironing out these fine details.We are looking forward to the development of a single player campaign featuring the new functionality. - Full Post

Reworking the CNC

The control PC for my CNC died a few weeks ago and I've picked up a dual core atom processor and PCIE Parallel Port card that does the job nicely.    It's *really* nice not to have to play boot lotto (will it boot or not) every time I wanted to use the CNC.
On the down side, the new power supply wouldn't fit in my old case so I've opted to make a wall mount to house the PC.  A similar case will be made to house the CNC power supply and electronics.
The case is almost done and a little rough in places as I'm only just learning my jigsaw-foo and have used mostly recycled materials from other/older projects.    In this case some 40mm aluminium extrusion and corner fixings from my old work bench and 3mm aluminium checkerplate bought for the project.

All in all I'm happy with the results.   I'll use some 50mm aluminium angle I have to mount it to the wall above the CNC to it's out of the way.  
I haven't drilled the holes for the power/reset and LED's yet... - Full Post

My first double sided PCB... lessons learned

I spent a fair while making my first attempt at a double sided PCB today for my extruder controller using my own design.   It's been an interesting process as I've usually stuck to single sided or multi board designs for simplicity -- but along with the move to SMD components comes the desire for 'small' boards.


I'm actually reasonably happy with the result and I think it shows what can be achieved when milling boards on a CNC.  The traces above vary from 0.8mm down to 0.4mm where absolutely essential in part to see how the traces turn out when the CNC is setup carefully.    There are very few milling errors on the above boards, quiet a few design issues - but the milled boards look good (IMHO).
It's worth mentioning - I never actually expected to 'use' these boards, in part as I don't currently have any of the thin PCB usually used for double sided boards, and I always intended to use this 'print' to evaluate and fine tune the design.    The drill bit's I've ordered have also 'gone missing' in the post, so a lot of the holes above are way out of spec.
I'm glad I took this step prior to having the a board manufactured... - Full Post

Generator Sensor Revisited... A prize winning project!!!

My Generator Sensor actually one the November project showcase over at Freetronics, I'm rather stoked to be honest.The project entry:
The comp:     (note.  Jon is considering running it again.)
One minor modification was to add a Freetronics Sound Sensor/Module to the system to monitor sound pressure.   The system has now been installed and is working well.   Just goes to show how the availability of off the shelf components simplifies simple solutions like this :)

Time for a little plug - I really like the collection of sensors etc over at freetronics alongside the fact I can buy a number of them at the local Jaycar a whole 2 streets from home.   Take a look, I recommend them. - Full Post

Mega328 APRS TNC

Now that I've finally upgraded my amateur licence I now have access to data modes, so time to play with APRS.  I ultimately want to be able to track the car and addsome weather monitoring etc. A little research into using an Arduino for APRS found a number of projects, but unfortunately none of them are currently available and none of them meet my specific requirements.
I've also looked at a number of commercial offerings such as the tinytrack boards, but I'm afraid I find the price a little prohibitive given I can make my own.  So this project is literally creating a small, inexpensive, arduino based TNC for APRS that can run standalone with a GPS module for operation in the car.
A little research brought me to some extremely informative sites, most notably  who has done some awesome work.  This then lead to the  site which provides both a simple circuit diagram and coding example for the ATMega328P - and as I have a dozen or so in my component collection it's the perfect option.
Early testing on a breadboard found that the circuit needed a speaker level input to successfully decode the AFSK signal, no biggie there.


I grabbed the sample code, added in some upstream changes (in their repository) and managed to get the TNC working with a number of APRS serial clients including  and Xastir for sending and receiving APRS data.  So far it has decoded every message I've been able to hear and sent packets are decoded correctly, so it's working nicely.
The next stage was a more stable prototype, here using an .   A minor code change and using the RX port for a GPS module has the board tracking its location and sending valid APRS messages.   In this instance I'm using an  I bought for another project and it's working nicely.   Any serial GPS should work... - Full Post

TS-850SAT stage 1 repair _almost_ done

nearly done on the CAR board.   Unfortunately the traces were in pretty bad condition under one of the cap's with the copper disintegrating during light cleaning.
As the cap is used as a smoothing capacitor I've replaced it with a through hole version using teflon coated wire to connect the traces.  It's far messier than I want, but the PCB's in pretty bad shape due to corrosion in this section of the board.
I've lacquered over all the exposed copper and replaced the 10uF cap's with appropriate values.   Unfortunately I'm missing the 47uF cap needed to complete the job and test the board... - Full Post

DE0-nano

I've been working through a number of tutorials for the DE0-nano board, starting with coding some simple verilog implementations to blink LED's according to button presses etc.  All fairly unexciting stuff.
 I've also worked through the NIOS tutorials included with the board.  These tutorials were mostly straight forward, the only real stumbling ground is the application started the 'jtagd' daemon as the user when it didn't have access to the actual device.  My quick fix was to simply relaunch jtagd as root, a better solution would be to update the udev configuration would make more sense as it will persist across reboots and fix it once and for all.
The NIOSII installation is simple and only uses a small part of the FPGA leaving lots of space for other functionality.  Unfortunately the web download only includes a limited licence which would mean leaving the device tethered to the PC, useful for learning, not something I'm going likely to use for my own projects.   These tutorials do take you through adding an external device (GPIO Pins/LEDS) to the avalon bus and connecting to these via 'C' code running on the soft processor.  Cool, but cost prohibitive.
Moving on from this I've started looking closer at OpenRISC, so started with this tutorial:
It's nice to say it _mostly_ worked as outlined.  There is a speed issue in the console once Linux has booted but that's being extremely picky and is easily fixed.
After several hours of hacking away and trying to understand how everything fits together the following was a *very* nice thing to see:Linux version way(s)
-- dmmu: 64 entries, 1 way(s)
-- immu: 64 entries, 1 way(s)
-- additional features:
-- debug unit
-- PIC
-- timer
setup_memory: Memory: 0x0-0x2000000
Reserved - 0x01ffdb44-0x000024bc
Setting up paging and PTEs.
map_ram: Memory: 0x0-0x2000000
On node 0 totalpages: 4096
free_area_init_nodeer c0002000
itlb_miss_handler c0002108
OpenRISC Linux -- http://openrisc.net
pcpu-alloc: s0 r0 d32768 u32768 alloc=1*32768
pcpu-alloc: [0] 0
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping off. Total pages: 4080
uilt 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping off. Total pages: 4080
Ke: 128 (order: -4, 512 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 1, 16384 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 0, 8192 bytes)
Memory: 28672k/32768k available (2054k kernel code, 4096k reserved, 299k data, 1416k init, 0k highmem)
mem_init_done ... - Full Post

DE0-nano and Bitcoin

While hunting for example projects on the DE0-nano I found that a number of industrious people had put together an implementation of the Open-Source-FPGA-Bitcoin-Miner project for the DE0-nano.  I couldn't resist for the simple geek value alone ;)

It's hardly a power house miner grinding away at 6.6MH/s, not with the ASIC's that are being released at the moment provide  >5GH/s.   At 6.6MH/s it may pay for itself in approximately 12 or so years.  Of course I could speed it up by cooling the chip and increasing the speed, but I don't want to burn it out... - Full Post

Portable Power Project

A little project has come up as I'm planning a 4 week camping trip where access to mains power will be limited at best.   If nothing else this makes for another interesting project... - Full Post

Radio Access Control

A simple little project that came up.
My radio club (WARS/Waverly Amateur Radio Society) has a radio in the 'shack' that can be remotely accessed by club members which is a really cool solution.   The software used for this remote access is Ham Radio Deluxe (http://www.ham-radio-deluxe.com/) which is a nice bit of software even though it is a windows package ;)
What is missing is a reasonable front end to manage access to this system.  I have no doubt the developers will add that capability at some stage, in the meantime I'm developing a 'simple' access control mechanism.   This solution will also fit my needs at home where I also want to be able to power my own radio down and to trigger an antenna tuner to do its thing... - Full Post

radio access control part 2

Minor update.
The development is proceeding nicely and I'll hopefully have a basic UI up and running this weekend.   Having to learn LUA has added a little overhead to the process, but its a necessary activity at this stage.
I did try and print a case at the Sydney Hackerspace, but ran out of time after printing a bomber model from thingiverse for my son.   I'll have another go at this in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime I ordered one of the boxes from Shapeways, and I like how it's turned out.  A little pricey and I wouldn't want to do the design mockups and tests without a printer at home though.I received the case I ordered from shapeways using the case design by Kean on thingiverse.  I'm happy with the result, although it is an expensive option if I had to design and prototype several versions.
Now if I could only find a small enough USB key to fit inside the box!

The box design files can be found here: 
The earlier project reference here:  - Full Post

OpenMarkets

One Day One Job is ! Help us help more student find their dream jobs.

The group buying craze really got its start here in Chicago with , so it’s not surprising to see a new take on the model come from a local upstart. How can you make the most of the Groupon model without being one of the the thousands of copycats? You can focus on collective corporate purchasing. That’s what OpenMarkets is doing. They’re an Evanston, IL based company that has created “a network of healthcare providers joined together to create cost-savings for capital equipment.” It may not be nearly as fun as $20 for $40 of Thai food, but it has the potential to significantly impact the healthcare market.
Open Doors at OpenMarkets
If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll remember that I mentioned how watching news on venture capital investment can help you find jobs before they even exist. Here’s a . Get it now? Investors see potential in a company like OpenMarkets because there is so much attention focused on trying to reduce healthcare costs. OpenMarkets offers a way to do that while making everyone happy (even the equipment manufacturers because they sell more, even if their margins are reduced a bit). The best way to get a deeper understanding of how OpenMarkets is offering savings of between 5 and 24 percent is to read through their . If you dig what they’re doing, continue on to their . Right now there are two internships worth checking out: and . It’s unclear whether the positions are paid or not.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research






What do you think of OpenMarkets’ approach? - Full Post

G2

In the world of marketing, it’s easy to get distracted from the end goal. Increasing sales. There are a number of commercials that repeatedly make me laugh, but I can’t name the brand of the advertiser even 5 seconds after the commercial airs. It’s easy to get caught up in the vanity of marketing, but the only thing that really matters is results. G2 is “a marketing communications agency created with one purpose: to help [its] clients sell more.” They have offices in New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Philadelphia, PA, and they “have serious experts in every communications channel delivering fresh, compelling work that creates greater awareness, consideration, sales and loyalty for our clients’ brands.” G2 is yet another company that has consolidated its entire website to a single page. It’s definitely a recent trend, and I kind of like it. It makes it easy to get a quick overview of the company.
Nuthin’ But a G2 Thang
G2 offers expertise in Digital Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Shopper Marketing, Data & Analytics, Promotional & Experiential Marketing, Branding & Design, and Media Planning & Buying. Their clients include Timex, Covergirl, Pepperidge Farm, Adobe, and Dos Eqis. Yes, that means they work with “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” I can’t figure out if they were behind the campaign initially (it sounds like a partner agency was), but they’re certainly running with it now. If you want to work on stuff like that, then you need to consider a career with G2. Unfortunately, they don’t have a Jobs page. They just ask you to reach out to talent@G2.com. However, I did find some internship postings for G2 on Indeed (and it looks like they have an applicant tracking system, but I can’t find the main page). Current postings include:
(Chicago, IL)
(Chicago, IL)
(New York, NY)
That last position is offered in the following areas Account Management (digital, relationship marketing, promotions), Analytics (statistical analytics for digital and relationship marketing programs), Creative Technology (programmers, developers, flash developers, software engineers)
Media (buyers, planners), New Business Development (digital, relationship marketing, promotions), Project Management (offline, online), Strategy (UX, digital, relationship marketing, promotions). If you’re interested in other locations or areas, you might want to try the e-mail address. All of the positions appear to be paid.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about G2? - Full Post

Fancy

The Internet is essentially endless in terms of opportunities to find cool and interesting stuff, yet I often find myself visiting the same sites repeatedly. There is no excuse to be bored when you’re surfing the web, but it happens to all of us. Discovery still isn’t easy as it should be, and that’s why “curation” has been a big buzzword in the startup world over the past few years. Fancy “is the place to discover, collect and buy from a crowd-curated catalog of amazing goods, wonderful places and great stores.” They’re based in New York, NY, and when you land on the home page you might think that they’re just a blog, but they’re actually a company with more than $40 million in venture capital funding.
Oh, You Fancy, Huh?
The point of Fancy is to “find, share, and buy awesome things.” They get a lot of comparisons to Pinterest, and that’s fair, but e-commerce is much more deeply intertwined with the Fancy experience–you can actually buy stuff on the site. I’ll admit that when I look at Fancy, I don’t see a company with a $100+ million valuation, but when you look at some of their numbers, you start to see the potential. As of October they had more than 2 million users and were selling more than $200,000 per week. Obviously those numbers still need to grow a lot, but do appear to be going in the right direction. Once you start to dig a little deeper, you see that Fancy has dabbled in the deals, subscription boxes, and gift cards–all models with huge potential. I’m fascinated to see where they’ll end up. If you want to help determine the path, take a look at . Right now they’re looking for a . The position is paid and looks awesome.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research




Have you tried Fancy? - Full Post

Lean Startup Machine

Some of you (though probably not most of you) should quit your internship search and start a business. It’s , and I can’t imagine having done anything else. That’s why I’ve spent hundreds of hours talking with and helping aspiring entrepreneurs. Yesterday I came across a that I wish they had all read before I talked to them. It explains why most people who hold off on pursuing their dream of starting a business are doing so for the wrong reasons. There’s a movement called that preaches a similar philosophy–starting a company doesn’t need to be expensive and you don’t even need a brilliant idea. Lean Startup Machine is a New York, NY based company that is spreading the philosophy not only to new entrepreneurs but also to people working in more corporate positions.
Get Lean
Lean Startup Machine offers “intensive three-day workshops” that teach “entrepreneurs and innovators how to build disruptive products.” Right now they’re in the middle of a world tour that is hitting nearly 20 major cities. These events are for anyone who is interested, and the cost is pretty reasonable ($150-$300). While there’s certainly a business there, I find far more interesting. They want companies to adopt “a problem-centric approach to business ideation,” and I’ll bet they can make a lot of money teaching corporate employees how to do it. Here are that they’ve already had. If I’ve already convinced you to quit your internship search, maybe you should attend a workshop. If I haven’t, then you’ll be interested to know that that Lean Startup Machine is hiring. Their shows that they’re looking for a paid Interaction Design Intern. They also have these positions posted: Workshop Coordinator/Business Development, Sales and Sponsorship Hacker, and Writer. They don’t call them internships, but there seems to be a lot of flexibility with the positions.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research





Would you ever start a business? - Full Post

Delivery.com

When I was growing up, if we wanted food delivered, it pretty much had to be pizza. For a couple of years, there was a service called “Bring Me My Dinner” where a guy in a tuxedo would bring you a meal from a higher end restaurant, but it didn’t last very long. Then I went to college and the delivery options got more diverse (I could even get cookies delivered after midnight!). Now I live in a big city, and I can get nearly any type of food delivered to my door. But there’s more to delivery that just food. What if I want flowers, groceries, or something from the hardware store? Delivery.com is a New York, NY based company that has been “connecting people like you with merchants in their neighborhoods” since 2004.
Special Delivery!
I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of Delivery.com before today. There area lot of players in the space, and I usually end up using Seamless or . Still, it’s a huge market, and Delivery.com’s approach is a little different in that they’re not only focused on food. Their network spans 50 major cities and more than 10,000 merchants, so they do seem to have some traction. If you want to learn a little more about the business, I recommend that you read . If you like what you read, take a look at . Right now they’re looking for interns in:







All of the positions appear to be unpaid, which is kind of a bummer.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research




Have you used Delivery.com? - Full Post

Unified

When social media marketing first started getting serious attention, I was all about it. SEO had been huge in helping me grow this site, so I thought that social would be the next big thing. But as I started working on using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites to drive traffic, I realized how ineffective they were. I’ve recently decided to give social another shot because I see a lot of companies making it work for them (though I fear that the Careers space will never be as social as it should be). Most companies that take social seriously use a platform “to measure, engage and advertise across social media.” Unified is a New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, and Chicago, IL based company that offers exactly such a platform. Unified’s software is especially focused on “activating social audiences and impacting consumer actions.”
Be Unified
Unified works with more than 400 brands already, and I’m sure that number will keep growing. If you’d like to see what they’ve done for some of these brands, check out . Another cool thing worth checking out is –it will show you a chronological view of their company history and the awards that they’ve won. And if you really want to dig in, you should take a look at to get a better sense of exactly what their platform offers. If everything looks good, head over to . Right now they’re hiring paid interns in and .
Links to Help You Begin Your Research








What have you heard about Unified? - Full Post

BrainJuicer

Market research is an essential part of marketing these days, but it can get out of hand. It’s easy to keep requesting more research and never take action. The goal is to predict people’s behavior, so once you have a good idea of what they’ll do, it’s time to put the research to work. BrainJuicer is a market research firm that aims “to inspire brave clients to do great marketing by translating a generation of breakthroughs in psychology, behavioural economics and social sciences into Juicy tools that better understand & predict people’s behaviour.” That extra u in behavior may have tipped you off that BrainJuicer is based in the United Kingdom, but they U.S. based offices in Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; and New York, NY. There are also quite a few other offices across the world. BrainJuicer’s website is pretty funky. It has a fun feel and makes it interesting to explore what they do (there’s a if you find it overwhelming).
Juice Your Brain
While the website is a little goofy, BrainJuicer is serious about their business. It’s not often that a company lays it all out there for everyone to see, but that’s exactly what BrainJuicer does with their annual reports. The starts with “For the first time since BrainJuicer was established in 2000 I have to report that the Group has had a poor year.” While the content of that sentence isn’t great, the candor is. I usually take this part of the post to dive a little deeper into what the company does, but today I’m going to urge you to read this annual report. It’s just over 50 pages long, and is packed with information. Most people who want an internship at BrainJuicer won’t read it. They’re too lazy. The ones who do will have a huge advantage in that they’ll have a much deeper understanding of how the business works. So do that, then take a look at . Right now they’re looking for interns in (Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; and New York, NY), (Los Angeles), and (New York, NY). They explicitly state that there is the opportunity for the internships to transition into full-time, though they don’t mention whether there is any compensation.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research





What have you heard about BrainJuicer? - Full Post

MOpro

You’ve probably noticed that most of the small businesses that you interact with aren’t all that tech savvy. Whether you’ve visited their websites or tried to make a purchase, it’s often glaringly obvious that the owner shouldn’t be anywhere within 50 feet of a computer. The problem is that being online and tech savvy is becoming more and more important to running any kind of business. Merchants who can’t keep up will have a hard time. MOpro makes it easy for business owners to do all of the technical and marketing things that they might not be able to do on their own. They’re a Los Angeles, CA based company that expands “the digital possibilities for small businesses.”
Gimme Some MOpro
MOpro’s is pretty cool. They started out serving the marketing needs of huge brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Victoria’s Secret, Volkswagen, and Levi’s. They realized that they could do the same stuff at a much larger scale for smaller sized clients. MOpro offers a that includes websites, video, photos, mobile, Facebook, social, support, hosting, blogs, e-commerce, and online ordering. You can see what it looks like in action . If helping small business grow sounds like your kind of thing, take a look at . You can see their internships , and they’re offered in web development, design, product management, copywriting, QA, video editing/production, business development, sales, human resource, social marketing, and more. I’m not sure if they’re paid.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research




What do you think of MOpro? - Full Post

Moveline

I’m moving in two weeks… because I’m getting a puppy in three weeks (and my current landlord does not approve). This will be my third move of under 2 miles in the past five years, so I expect it to go pretty smoothly. However, I realize that for a lot of people moving is a huge deal and causes a ton of stress. The physical move is usually a big part of it, but it’s all the little things like forwarding your mail and setting up new utilities that drive you crazy. Managing those things would be a lot easier if the actual move was mostly taken care of for you. That’s what Moveline offers. They’re a New York, NY based startup that is offering “a radically easier way to move.” A radically easier move is still a huge pain in the butt, but I’m not sure there will ever be a startup that can change that.
Make Your Move
The core idea behind Moveline is that they own the relationship with the movers. Here’s . Basically you take a video of your stuff as it is in your current place. Moveline sends back an inventory of everything and then provides a number of quotes based on your moving needs. You pick the mover, and then your “Move Captain” handles as many of the details as you want (from scheduling elevator time to getting questions answered by the moving company). Moveline generates revenue by charging moving companies a referral fee–they describe it as working just like most of the travel sites that people use. We already have movers that we’ve used a few times, so I won’t be trying Moveline, but I’d definitely try it otherwise. If you like the idea of helping people move more easily, take a look at . Right now they’re looking for an unpaid Operations Intern. It looks like a great learning experience.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research






Where do you want to move? - Full Post

Havok releases 'Project Anarchy,' a free mobile development toolkit

JoystiqFor the rest of us, Project Anarchy includes tutorials and sample projects to learn the ropes, in addition to low-level C++ access and Lua scripting/debugging for those already familiar. Show full PR text. Havok™ Releases Project Anarchy, Completely ... - Full Post

Eclipse M2M Webinars

The Eclipse M2M Industry Working Group is a collaboartion between some of the leading M2M industry players. The goal is to create a common set of tools and frameworks that makes it easy to create an open platform for M2M applications.

These webinars will guide you through the fundamentals of M2M to communiation and development with the LUA language.

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