Tag Archives: gadgets

Rasberry Pi User Guide

By Upton and Halfacre

I pre-ordered this as soon as it was announced; in dead tree format, no less, as I was expecting to refer to it at a workbench. I ordered it partly because I thought it would be a useful get up to speed on the Pi I’d bought, but also because I wanted to put some cash the way of Upton, as he’s one of the leading lights behind the Raspberry Pi foundation, even if it had been mostly ‘ghostwritten’ by Halfacre.

If I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting it to be much; a few desultory articles on plugging things together, and a short guide to Python. It turns out that its actually a really great guide that I have and will recommend to anyone with, or planning to get, a Pi!

The authors have made a decent spread of topics of things you might want to know and do with your device. As I read through it I thought how much it would have motivated me in my CDT course at school, having one of these. Heck, I even wondered why we didn’t prototype in the electronics component of the course – was breadboard around in the 80′s? Must have been, right? Anyway, its kicked my hardware hacking interest up a notch, even with my interest in Arduino (and thanks to the book I know understand why the Pi might be good some projects, and the Arduino others), so I will be shopping for breadboard and the like this weekend to start my project!

Fitbit and the Quantified Self

So A. bought me (at my request), a FitBit Ultra for my birthday. I’d read about them a few times from some of the alpha geeks (ahem) that I follow on twitter and the like, and my interest was piqued by the (rather lackluster, I thought at the time), coverage in Fitness For Geeks (I now realise that there’s not much more he could have written – the tools work fine, and you can download the data for your own analysis, not much need for hacking. Or is there..).

Its a very nicely thought out device, it ‘just works’, and the fitbit website has a decent dashboard to graph your steps, calories, miles traveled, even sleep patterns if you use the included wrist strap at night (which I have been, mostly). There is even a Perl Module to grab the data from the website (I plan to use the sample script to download my own data; after all; if their service is free, and they’ve sold me the Fitbit, how long can it keep going (this is perhaps a flaw in the Quantified Self model, but more on that below)? They do have premium subscriptions, and regularly announce new products, so it seems likely for a while, but, anyway, its my data, so..

The only complain I would have is that the Fitbit needs a cradle to Sync and charge, and a small sync deamon. As detailed on this page, the security is a little lacking, possibly due to the decision to allow any cradle to sync any fitbit (it can do this wirelessly). I was expecting to be able to buy spare cradle’s, but, not that I can see, which precludes me having one at home and one at work. Bit annoying. Fitbit obviously realised this as they’ve launched the FitBit Zip, a version of the Fitbit that doesn’t require a cradle and can sync to phones (perhaps via NFC? Or wireless, like their scales..)

The open source community seems pretty active (particularly the OpenYou project) around the device, which means a non fitbit.com client can’t be far away, should this worry you, or require you to use tools you don’t approve of.

So, its been over three months now, so what have I learned? Well, first of all, its noticeable that time with a toddler at the weekend means I have no problems making the 10,000 step daily target, and that I struggle to do so on a work day, especially if its been one with more coding! So far so fairly obvious.
I notice that, when I do make the 10k target, I feel tired, so that if I was expecting do be doing a lot more running around, I need to be in better shape!
The sleep timer has showed me that, far from the insomniac I thought I was, I’m asleep within 5 mins, on average, and awake at least once in the night, something I’ve got no conscious memory of.

Since getting the FitBit, I’ve also found something that looks to be an open source equivalent, with even more sensors, the EZ430-Chronos watch from TI. This has accelerometers, temperature monitor, integrated wireless for heart monitor etc, and a wireless interface to a PC. There’s plenty of Open Source code for it, too, with uses from a fitbit-alike, to using the wireless as a door opener and RFID personal item finder! I’ve added it to my Gadgets list, but as I’ve not done anything with the RasberryPI I’ve got (yet), I’m not rushing out to buy it, even at the insanely cheap price of £35! I mean, you can’t buy many normal digital watches for that!

Of course, once you start getting reports on your calorie burning, you start to wonder how much you’re consuming. I tried a couple of Apps and websites, including the Fitbit one, but finally settled on MyFitnessPal.com, as it has iPhone/iPad, Android and web clients, all of which are best for different things. The Android client, for example, has a barcode scanner which makes entering purchased food easily. All of them allow you to enter meals you’ve made yourself, but that’s quite laborious. Fortunately, other people have often done something similar, so you can use that, and guess (which I also tend to do with the portion size). This means my recording is not quite as accurate as it could be, but hey, its better than nothing. MyFitnessPal also links with the FitBit site, so you can feed the movement data from the Fitbit into their site to get an accurate report of how many calories you can consume without going over your consumption ‘limit’.

I’ve found I’m a lot more aware of my eating habits since doing this, and have tended to eat slightly less, and certainly hold back on more food if I’m near my limit. Its also made me realise my portion sizes didn’t need to be as big as they were, so I’ve been able to cut back a bit. Overall, that’s lead to a weight loss of 7kg. Not huge, but hey, its in the right direction, and I think, sustainable.

All of this is a good example of ‘The Quantified Self’, something I’ve read a fair amount about in Fitness For Geeks and ‘64 Things‘.
An example of the Quantified Self approach is this OReilly conference talk summary, or you can go to QuantifiedSelf.com.

Basically, its using data about how you live your life to do more of what you want to be doing, and take better control. Lets see what I’m still doing in a year!

Cambridge Hackspace?

Listening to the Ubuntu UK podcast interview the founder of the London Hackspace, I thought what a great idea it was and how cool it would be to have one in Cambridge.  Looking at the Hackspace Uk organisers web page, it looks like plans for one are already in progress with 111 people signed up as interested parties.  I’m following them on Twitter, so looking forward to any progress..

Tech tips from India trip

So after my recent trip to Pune, a few observations in no particular order or importance;

Almost everywhere I went in Pune & Mumbai had plug sockets that took Indian and UK plugs, which was nice.

This Wiki has an excellent guide to buying PAYG sims with Data, although I didn’t take advantage of it in the end.  Its odd how much you get used to having pervasive, all you can eat data (India not having ubiquitous 3G coverage, yet).  It will be interesting to see how the UK market changes as all the operators go for restrictive caps and per-use charging (I thought they’d learned; the smartphones only took off when people weren’t terrified at the prices being charged per MB).

Having a real GPS makes a difference; I took my Garmin eTrex this time and it did a much better job fixing onto satellites on the Pune – Mumbai road.  Also the USB chargeable batteries I picked up in Morrisons for £10 lasted the entire 4 hour drive (but not the return trip – about 5 hours in total!)

I’ve proved that my Acer Aspire One with extended battery works very well as a movie viewer on airplanes – big enough to view, small enough not to get in the way even with a meal on the tray (yes, even in economy).  A combination of DVD ripping and MythBox means plenty of viewing.

I’ve never regretted the purchase of the noise cancelling headphones, although I think they make better in-ear ones these days..

Most hotels Internet connections appear to be wise to the ‘bring a wireless router and connect it up to the connection and put all your pc’s and smartphones behind that’ approach.  The wiser ones just provide it free, to as many devices as you have, of course.

Motorolla Milestone (aka Droid)

This is Motorolla’s grab at the iPhone crown, and their top-end smartphone. Of course, as soon as I bought it, Google announced the Nexus One, due 5th Jan, but that’s tech for you..

This was my xmas present to myself.  A little extravagant, but I’ve come to realise how useful a one handed computer with speaker can be when Fred-sitting, and the G1, bless it, was definitely an early adopter device (on an unrelated note, I have an excellent T-Mobile G1 – unlocked – available for sale..). I realised I loved the Android OS, but hated the phone itself – battery life was poor, even with the extended battery I bought (which turns it into a brick), I rarely got 2 days.  The brain dead design decision to make the headphone socket require a mini-USB adaptor means I always had to carry converters (I’ve got several now), and the sound quality was never excellent.  I ended up rooting it to get the ability to use it as a 3G modem with Wifi and Bluetooth tethering – a very useful tool, that I use on about a monthly basis (well, did until I got a work laptop with a 3G card and the work 3G Blackberry tethered (works out the box on Linux and Windows 7 with the bluetooth DUN profile – why cannot all other manufacturers do this?)).  I even put a custom firmware on to give new features – but it was clear that technical limitations meant the G1 wouldn’t be getting Android 2.0.

Upgrade was super easy with MyBackupPro which dumps SMS, playlists and similar ephemera to the SD card (and because its Linux under the hood, can be cron jobbed to do so on a regular basis), and DoggCatcher (my podcast client), which can backup and restore its config (including current listening position in files!) to SD card.  Once that was done I just swapped the card.

Once again I went through the Android device initial sync with Google pain (although you don’t have to with Android 2.0/Eclair – you can be Google Free if you want), which is where it gives you the option to set the time, including a ‘get from network’ option.  If you chose this, it doesn’t get/set the time, and the connection to google fails (probably because the SSL can’t negotiate a handshake as it thinks its 1970..).  Once you set the time manually, its all smooth sailing.

Apps I installed immediately;

  1. Aldiko (Open Source eBook reader with capability to download purchases from Orielly eBook shelf)
  2. Astrid (Open Source GTD app)
  3. Barcode Scanner (required for Shop Savvy and v. cool)
  4. DoggCatcher (Podcast client and player – I use this to download all my podcasts direct these days)
  5. EasyChess
  6. Musical Pro (Metronome, tuner and assorted ‘instruments’
  7. MyTracks (GPS recorder and running tool)
  8. MyBackupPro (see above)
  9. NewsRob (Google Reader offline client for RSS feeds)
  10. Nru (cool positional lastminute.com client)
  11. Retro Defense (Desktop Tower Defence game)
  12. Scrobble Droid (last.fm integration with music player)
  13. Shop Savvy (scan barcodes and find local prices, web prices etc)
  14. Swift (Twidroid not available for Milestone it seems, but this is actually a better Twitter client)
  15. Wikitude (Augmented Reality Wikipedia App. V cool)

Most impressed with the ‘Phone Portal’ app that Motorolla have bundled – gives a web app that can be accessed via wifi to be able to add/remove/manipulate contacts, appontments, music etc – runs fine in Firefox 3.5 in Linux!

When connected via USB, you have four choices; sync, windows sync, mount card and no action (just charging I presume).  When selecting sync, you get the very promising;

Dec 30 17:29:21 UncertianGuest kernel: [21711.212133] usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 32
Dec 30 17:29:21 UncertianGuest kernel: [21711.345245] usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Dec 30 17:29:21 UncertianGuest kernel: [21711.425120] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
Dec 30 17:29:21 UncertianGuest kernel: [21711.425128] cdc_acm: v0.26:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

Nothing else appeared, no magic 3G modems in Network Manager, so I may have to go digging into HCIConfig, or whatever the hell Linux/Ubuntu is using this week to manage its devices – expertise with this much appreciated!

(Update: just googled, and there is loads out there, just not as easy as the old WifiTether – this is a marked improvment on even a few weeks ago, when I had run the search prior).

Also comes with the Motorolla SatNav application MotoNav, which I’m looking forward to putting through its places.  I went all out and also bought the car kit and cradle as well, but Expansys had no stock of the latter and mucked up shipping of the former by only shipping the cradle, no suction mount etc (The nice customer services lady said they’d had trouble with this before xmas and would ship me the remaining bits, but they haven’t turned up today..), so until I have the car kit I won’t be trialling the satnav.  Also, its a ‘two months free’ type service IIRC, which we’ll have to see about, since I have a perfectly good Garmin Nuvi 310…

Hardware wise much nicer.  The keyboard is just as usable, although the delete key is uncomfortably near the top edge of the case, so I keep hitting enter instead.  Battery appears as good(?) as the G1 with the extended battery, but then the touchscreen is larger and (joy of joys) multitouch.  Battery management tools built in tell me that its the display that’s used all of the power – I used it on 3G a lot inside buildings today researching Fob watches (another story), so am not surprised the battery is now low.

Its slimmer than the G1, although feels heavier, but MUCH sturdier.

Bluetooth has OBEX push I think, which is new  to go along with the preexisting stereo headset profiles  although I’ve not scanned the profiles yet..

5mp camera – haven’t uploaded any photos yet, so the jury is still out (and I’m not the worlds best photographer)..

In the last couple of days, the jailbreaking procedure to gain root has been posted.  I’ll hold off for now, as Tethering was the only thing I used that for but good to know I could if I wanted.

In Conclusion;

Its not an iPhone beater, because Android still doesn’t have the user at its heart, but if you like being able to muck around with your phone, or want one that ‘just works’ while avoiding Apple this is the best I’ve found..

Right..that’s enough detail for now – managed to stay awake to see the new year in, I think!  Happy New year All!