Tony is a Geek

Another week, another "this will solve world peace" Linux Distro.... except, I like the look of this one: http://zorinos.com/ There is an ULTIMATE version that currently costs $15 and adds a load of things. For trial purposes, there is a CORE version , that has all the essentials, minus a few of the custom elements. If I get time this week, I'll do a USB install onto a 64Gb USB stick and see how easy it is to transition over to, or whether it is just like using a Debian / UBuntu distro with a new set of wallpapers....

PolySync Arduino-fest..... but you have to have a Kia Soul...for now: If you’re tired of waiting around to get an autonomous vehicle, PolySync’s  Open Source Car Control Project  (OSCC) development kit can be had for under $1000. Autonomous cars are still in their infancy, and can cost upwards of $100,000. If you’re willing to do some of the work yourself—and trust a machine you modified to drive you around—PolySync has an Arduino-based kit (nearly) available to help you build your own. You can pre-order a kit right now for $649, and you’ll have program each Arduino module yourself when you receive it. You’ll also need a 2014-or-later Kia Soul on which to install it, chosen for its combination of drive-by-wire controls as well as relatively low price. Keep in mind, however, the project is intended for R&D and off-road use only. The OSCC Project is built around a number of individual modules that interoperate to create a fully controllable vehicle. ...

Zigbee...Zigbee....Zigbee..... yep, I have quite a few of these in my "Arduino" stash drawer. Have you used the Zigbee in any of your IoT projects?  If so.....you might want to read on.... " Within the next few years, billions of IoT devices will densely populate our cities. In this paper we describe a new type of threat in which adjacent IoT devices will infect each other with a worm that will spread explosively over large areas in a kind of nuclear chain reaction, provided that the density of compatible IoT devices exceeds a certain critical mass. In particular, we developed and verified such an infection using the popular Philips Hue smart lamps as a platform. The worm spreads by jumping directly from one lamp to its neighbours, using only their built-in ZigBee wireless connectivity and their physical proximity. The attack can start by plugging in a single infected bulb anywhere in the city, and then catastrophically spread everywhere within minutes, enablin...

"Elementary, my dear Watson"..... A fast and Open replacement for Windows and MacOS.  Interesting. CLICK HERE to find out more.

Toys for me to work on over the next couple of months:  Raspberry Pi 3 C programming... Combine Arduino, webcam and a Sherman tank with WiFi capabilities.... and finally, insert some radio equipment and motor into this boat, so it too can be controlled over the internet, etc.... also put a load of sensors on everything to capture data and feed back to Node-Red IoT services. If you have any other/extra ideas of what I could do with these, please feel free to let me know :-)

If you are not up to much on Saturday/Sunday October 29/30th, get online and join in: " IoT With The Best second edition is a two-day online conference tailored for developers wanting to explore IoT deeper and enjoy an interactive empowering experience while connecting with peers from all over the world.  Join from wherever you may be, the world's top IoT experts to get inspired and learn from their tech talks and masterclasses.  Explore the hardware, software, data and services behind IoT. With The Best is the biggest Online Conference Series for developers. Join 100 IoT experts (CEOs, CTOs, Architects, Researchers and Devs) for exclusive tech talks, live coding and demos on sensors, smart grids, smart homes, smart cities, intelligent transportation, connected devices and wearables. Go further and benefit from 1-to-1 mentoring sessions with the speakers. " CLICK HERE

After receiving my Can-Bus Arduino shield & cable from ElecFreaks (very fast P&P!), having a little play around with some C code and then soldering the pin legs on, it was time to give it a little test run in the car.  I chose the 2016 Mercedes c200.  Why? Well, it was the nearest :-) ( I had an old DFRobot Romeo knocking around, should really be for robot programming, but it does the job ) Hmmm...... well, after a little bit of fiddling I managed to start reading some data and boy, is it chatty! Somewhere in the end of that file are the codes from the Drivers side window going up and down. Next step, isolate the ID codes and the commands and replay them back to the car.... (or just identify which ones give me some useful information) CLICK HERE to see some C Code and it working for REAL!

Some of you might know that I've been building a custom car ( for what feels like an eternity ) and I have kept it really basic with no modern technology at all.  ( Hey, I've seen some of the code you guys (and myself) write, I'm not trusting that in my £100k car! ). Here's a photo of earlier in the year, minus lots of things, working brakes being one of them, hence the custom low-loader delivery truck: Check out the ongoing journey at the website CLICK HERE So whilst I keep Lil'Merc nice and dumb, I do have an MG F, a Subaru Sambar and a shiny new Mercedes c200 company car, that has LOTS of new technology. I went through a cycle of getting various OBDII bluetooth devices for the MG F, only to find that is was built 6 months before that technology was adopted and has a MEMS unit in it, which is not compatible. Sigh.  I even did some diagnostic work with this guys Android app to try and get it to work, with no luck.  So I did what I do best.  I ...

Well, you could have done this previously ( of course ), but is is sooooooo nice to see that this has become more mainstream. If, like me, you have played around with Arduino ( for many many years! ), then you most likely were coding in C.  Then the Raspberry Pi came out and everyone was excited, yay! it was a mini-Linux 'puter that could do stuff with GPIO pins ( or not ), but a vast majority of the code you found was for Python. Begrudgingly, I did actually use some Python to control my Maplin robotic arm from a web page, which worked and the code did make sense.  But, and this is a big BUT, I don't know, maybe I'm old skool, I just didn't LIKE coding in Python.  It felt like Perl ( now who remembers that nightmare from the early 2000s!!! ), it allowed you to do a lot of stuff and you could hack stuff together, but come back in 6 months time and you were none the wiser.  Don't even think about picking up code from someone else! Anyway, I digress, through a ...

I was invited to do some work at the new IoT Watson offices in Munich : Highlight Towers After work, I was invited for a meal...I was told there was an interesting guy who was going to join the team.  Anyway, due to some error with the restaurant booking, I had the pleasure of being on a 4-person table with John Cohn for the entire evening. I'm not sure who was the geekier / nerdier.  As you can imagine, Arduino's, MQTT, Pi's, Robotics, all-the-IBM stuff and a ton of other stuff was talked about and laughed about.  It was a great evening and helped me to realise, I should stay as I am and not "become what management structures" think I should be. Continue to have fun and actually do that rare thing: ENJOY what you do.  If you do not, stop doing it, do something else.  I know I have fun & actually enjoy what I do. Look forward to some "fun" postings over the next year - rather than "an IBM sales blog" (as a good Friend recently...