Tony is a Geek

Whilst tidying up and throwing out / clearing up a room in the house, I re-found my minidisc players and discs.  I then remembered that I did have a play around with a Mac and minidisc quite a few years back (2017), article HERE:  https://tonyisageek.blogspot.com/p/sony-minidisc.html I wondered if I could still use this device as I have 100s of mini discs and this device allows you to RECORD too. Wow! how times have changed! A really cool person has made a web site application that can interface directly to the mini disc player from an Android phone using Chrome web-browser. https://web.minidisc.wiki/ Would be rude to not give it a go, wouldn't it. Here's the web site support page: https://www.minidisc.wiki/guides/webminidisc/start I plugged in an old USB cable to my Android phone, started up Chrome and entered the URL.  From the drop-down [Connect] box, it showed the NetMD device, awesome!  I believe I had to grant permissions and created a folder that can be u...

Tentacles get into code! Scratch is an amazing learning resource but it struggles on mobile devices.  So, say hello to OctoStudio! Designed on the back of requests from educators, it's aimed at phones and tablets, where children don't have access to laptops or desktop computers, but do have access to mobile devices. Learn more at  https://octostudio.org/en/ Android and Apple / iPad system requirements: and they have a You Tube channel with a load of examples / tutorials too: If you know someone who is between 7 - 12 (or even older to be fair! I might give it a go!) and lives on their mobile device - how about getting them to be a game creator! it's like going back to the 1980s, but with newer technology - I wonder what creative things will get made?!

As previously mentioned and clearly visible due to the relatively low / lack of content posted over the past 18-months, I have been somewhat distracted by the work / owrk thing.  Yes, it does pay the bills & keep a roof over my head; but I could just as easily gamble on the stock-exchange, or crypto-currency, or do presentations at Glastonbury about UFO UAPs in order to pay the bills.  I however choose to stay in corporation land and get under-paid and under-appreciated for what I do - knowing my mere existence annoys upper-management makes it all worthwhile.  Besides, I work in delivery services, basically I am pimped out from my company to do whatever a customer / client wants me to do: mostly that is to save them or earn them more money; I don't get a proportion of that, I get below basic wage (yes, that is a fact and is even published online someplace)... this raises the question: "why don't you quit / move job?" Well.....I actually like working for the custo...

Having a little bit of an internet wander over lunch, whilst at a customer site in London, I stumbled over this great resource.  Obviously, it raised an eyebrow for me as it's the next step up from Critter-bot :-D   ( I did say that I would wander off on the scope, didn't I...well, I'll finish the basic version first before venturing onto this project, I promise ) So checkout the interactive web page here that allows you to "drive" a virtual rover around: https://opensourcerover.jpl.nasa.gov/ Then, select the 2nd [O] dot on the right-hand side and you'll see it switch from the official Rover to the one you can build!  Select the 3rd [O] dot to get to the instructions..... Well, that'll just take you to the Github repo here:  https://github.com/nasa-jpl/open-source-rover The really good thing about this is that they have decided to use a Raspberry Pi as the "brain". Something we all have knocking around.  It looks like the motors ...

A few posts back I mentioned: Oh, I've also been making a Java Android Mobile application that uses Speech to Text, then calls the APIs of the IBM Watson Conversation Service translates that Text back to Speech and enables you to have a full blown conversation in voice instead of having to type and read messages ( also does it in 3 different languages at the moment ) - I'll create an article specifically to show you how to do this quickly and easily using the Watson SDK.  Then, "if" my arm gets twisted enough, I might look at porting it to run on iOS ( but as I still don't have a iOS device, it might be tricky!) Well, here it is.... CLICK HERE TO READ THE WALKTHROUGH ARTICLE CLICK HERE TO READ THE WALKTHROUGH ARTICLE CLICK HERE TO READ THE WALKTHROUGH ARTICLE Naturally, I'll be extending and growing this example of using Watson APIs beyond just the Conversation Service.  I think I might interface with the Watson Visual Recognition serv...

We imported a Subaru Sambar from Japan a couple of years ago.  It was a replacement for a Bedford Rascal van that I purchased as a run around for hosting our 2 basset hound dogs.  They could get as muddy / grubby as they wanted and we could just stick them in the back of the van, wash them off and not get the interiors of our cars full of mud and dog fur. After a year or so, I finally decided that I'd replace the Japanese radio ( that didn't pick up anything anyway ) with a cheapo head unit from ebay.  That wasn't that good either.  I then got to thinking, I wonder if I could "modernise" it a bit. A few years back, I fitted an amp to my MG Midget, so that I could plug an iPod into it, instead of using a radio head unit.  I thought I'd do the same but update it a bit. I was also going to fit a set of "wireless" parking sensors and give the engine a service, oh and underseal the bottom of the van....and whatever else I could think of doing whil...

Interesting, Google have announced their new Android of Things : CLICK HERE to access the PREVIEW certainly something to keep an eye on. https://developer.android.com/things/index.html If you have a Raspberry Pi 3, you can download an image and get going pretty quick.  I'll give it a look over the next few weeks.

http://enough.de/en/app-coaching/devguide/ http://enough.de/en/app-coaching/devguide/ "Our free Handbook for App Developers, Designers and Managers We are offering this free, non-commercial book since 2009. The latest 16th edition has been published in late February 2016. It provides an overview on the different mobile technologies and platforms for developers and decision-makers on more than 270 pages. Learn how to enter the app business and how to do your first steps as a developer for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Firefox OS, Java ME or Windows smartphones and tablets. More than 20 writers from the mobile community share their know-how in dealing with topics such as accessibility in mobile apps, UX design, mobile analytics, prototyping, cross-platform development, native development, mobile web and app marketing. As of today, we have distributed over 80,000 hardcopies. Free pdf and e-book downloads are also available in several languages. " ...

It's all about the IoT..... Apparently, Gartner predicted in November 2015 , that during 2016, 6.4 billion device will be connected to the Internet and will be classified as "The Internet of Things".  By 2020, that figure will rise to 20.8 billion.  Staggering. Just connecting devices to the Internet is one thing, but it will mean that the devices will be pushing a tremendous amount of data around.  I'm pretty sure that being able to make sense of that data, to gain insights from the data is also going to bring great rewards to the companies that get smart to this. Now, as you may or may not know, I've been making "stuff" that we used to call "Client-Server" apps (back in the day), which is great for small proof of concept stuff, ie. getting my robot to send data to a server humming away in the corner of the room, triggering events and sending a signal to activate a solenoid that opens a door before the robot hits the door.  This i...

This year, I think I shall be mostly MQTT-ing.... BLUEMIX seems to be a central element in this equation  :-) After checking through some "old code", I wrote my own MQTT back in 2006...but got distracted and moved onto working on other things (I think it was called a "PassThru Server" or something as catchily named as that - I'll see if I can find the images/docs later) - sigh...but then again I was working for Sybase/iAnywhere at the time, so it would have get buried inside SAP by now...

Apparently, I'm getting an Oculus Rift (again! ....long story...) Although the docs state that you need a PC to do the development work, I've just found that the Mac OSX SDK and Runtime are still available.. (huh!hum!....download whilst you can) I'm sure the official SDK will come back in a short while. After checking out the Mobile SDK , I noticed that there is a Samsung GearVR headset that runs from your Samsung S6 phone, now that's more like it: Android coding! and here are the instructions to setup your Mac for the Mobile SDK . It might be time to purchase a Gear VR from Amazon , get my hands on an S6 (I thought I had an S5, turns out it's an S6!!! Woo!hoo!), okay, I have the right equipment.  Time to setup the Mac and see how far I can go with development before having to purchase the actual Gear VR... I'll naturally do a write-up article when I do start developing....watch this space. Then it'll be time to test out some apps from ...

Google....good old Google have decided that the phone is not enough being just a phone.  It needs to evolve. Let me introduce you to PROJECT TANGO : " Project Tango brings Motion Tracking, Depth Perception, and Area Learning to mobile devices. Thousands of developers are building experiences that do things like finding your way around, measuring your world, and walking through stories. Show everyone what you can do with Project Tango by getting a Tablet Development Kit, creating an application, and uploading it to the Play Store. We believe this journey is one worth following." Well, I "was" building myself an Arduino based robot this week that could basically do all these things shown in the nice diagram above.... I'm now wondering if I should bother?  or should I just get myself a DEV KIT and use all the cool new tools/toys from Google instead? Nah, I think I'll continue building the robot side of things myself....and wait for...

Augmented Reality and Pokemon Go.... just moved up to a whole new level! Pokemon Go for Android & iPhone Told you 2016 was going to be the game changing year :-)

We bought an Amazon Fire TV stick earlier in the year, so that we could use the Amazon Prime Instant Video service on our ma-hoo-sive Samsung TV (rather than via the X-Box). This weekend I looked into "what is the Fire TV stick"? turns out it's running Android. I also was a little disappointed that none of the Apps allowed me to run an app that would display the Crunchyroll Manga/Anime shows.  After checking the official forums it turns out there is no Crunchyroll app for the Fire TV stick. This got me thinking....the Fire TV stick is running Android and the Crunchyroll app is a .apk app.... I'll now explain,  how to go about getting Crunchyroll onto the Fire TV stick and watching all those great Manga/Anime shows! >>>>>>>>> CLICK HERE to view the photo's of how to get this working <<<<<<<<<<

Okay, okay, okay..... so this "might" be a little bit of a promo for IBM, but I have to say this is a really interesting field to work with. There are loads of scenarios that you can think of where you could utilise the beacons to detect the location of a persons smartphone If you want to get up and running using IBM Presence Insights via Bluemix, click on the following link and press the BIG red button at the bottom, it'll guide you through all you need: https://presenceinsights.ng.bluemix.net/piui/ Here's the link to the generic sales/marketing web site link To be able to try this out, you'll need: Android smartphone (okay, you "can" have an iPhone....but, pfffhhh, if you must, there is an SDK for both) A couple of Beacons (you can get some from beaconinside.com - they're not the smallest, but they'll do the job and not break the bank) Some time to write a sample app using either Eclipse+ADT or Android Studio I'll ...

I thought I would do a write-up and share how to use the Wikitude SDK for Android to allow you to see how awesome Augmented Reality is from your phone. Here's a little YouTube video showing the outcome of the slides presentation above: any questions, feel free to ask.

After getting an ear-bashing from my missus for having our personal music collection exposed to the world, I decided to finally get around to setting up an OpenVPN server onto a Raspberry Pi. Read all about it here: http://tonyisageek.blogspot.com/p/installing-and-setting-up-openvpn-on.html I now have hearing back in one ear and a secure mechanism for listening to my music collection from external places, like the shed, garage, hotels... all those places where the missus is out of earshot :-D

If you were "lucky" enough to have your Nexus 7 device auto-upgrade itself to Lollipop (v5.0) and are now pulling your hair out at just how slow and buggy it is, then fear not.... All you have to do is go to this link and download the previous version (v4.4.4) and flash that to your tablet...    https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images I say, "all you have to do is".  It's not quite as scary as it sounds, but I am assuming that it is the same as a factory reset, so you'll have to re-install all those apps you forgot you had installed.  I'd also connect to some online cloud backup service (or my Raspberry Pi :-) ) and backup all those files, pdfs, ebooks, music files and photos that you've also forgotten about, as they'll probably get fried by the reinstall. Fortunately for me, my 2 Nexus tablets and MotoG phone haven't had the option to upgrade yet, but, my wife (who has one of the first 2012 devices and hasn't let it...

It's time to get to know socket.io too..... should keep me busy for a week or so.