Hey guys,

I wanted to let you in on a long term project I have been working on. At my work we have this bot running on an IRC channel that is allowing the developers to get reports on builds in progress. Also if we had any errors on our test etc. There was also a frontend website that spins around giving anyone watching realtime information on our project status. The whole system is called Rosie!

Inspired by this and jarvis from iron man movies. I set about making my own bot for my home system.

Robin!

The essentals of the bot is to be able to issue commands over IRC that would either goto my XBMC raspberry pi or my other pi which I use for experiments like this and also music center.

If your using bitbucket you can request access by going here: https://bitbucket.org/theladdie/robinbot

More information coming soon!

Hey guys,

I am back from the land of not blogging!!! I know it sucks you come along, sign up to the RSS feed and nothing happens. No content nadda! It is always an issue for me when work is overtaking everything I forget about the little things. Those things that are important but arnt that important if you know what I mean.

So I want to start blogging again so lets see how I get on.

Quick update on the projects:

• Project: RasPi Arcade – Scrapped due to Pimoroni’s Picade
• Project: Tasty Test System – Back burnner right now. I am not liking how the system turned out so I am waiting for inspriation to strike

I need to get back on the wagon so I hope work stress does not overwhelm me again.

I have been dropping a lot in terms of projects and side things in order to refocus my efforts on some of the main things and also more important things.

As part of my growing at work I am going to put a little more work in TTS in order to have it in a releasable state. Unfortunately it will be tailored for the company I work for just now. I am hoping that later I will be able to release another version that suits the general QA lackey

More news when it comes

I have neglected the blog for a while now. I never really seemed to understand the concept of baby steps. Too many projects, too many ideas and too many things to do! I could not see the Forrest for the trees.

So I am looking back and checking what a can and can’t do.

After I have cleared my list, I want to return to the blog and fix the broken links and maybe clear up what I wanna do here… Finally…

Talk again soon

Short post to say I am super excited about the new version of ‘Raspbian’ for the raspberry pi!!!

Raspbain if you have not already guessed is a version of the debian linux operating system specifically designed to run on the pi.

I used the debian wheezy build on the pi before and found that although it worked the performance was annoying and in fact the demo I was running was looking at how the system ran a heavy javascript webpage… which it did not really…

I am downloading as I type… SD Card is ready and waiting

Link

I gotta say.. I am knackered!

I have been pulled from pillar to post trying to sort myself out with my new job, learning, projects and life. Without much luck to be honest.

2 kids do demand a lot of time (not that I am complaining) its just that I always hope for a balance. Come from work, see the kids, get something done and go to bed… Rarely goes that way and is the reason I stopped posting here.

I get bursts! Something becomes important, and then not so important, then something else is important etc. Turns out I need weeks to get something done, whatever it maybe.

So I was trying to think of a system to enable me to have the time for things. Some kind of priority system that means I get the most important things done and hopefully allow me the organized time to do other things.

I’ll report back on that later! (when I find the time HA!)

A few weeks ago I finally got my raspberry pi!

If you have been living under a rock for the last year then check out their website.

In short. Credit card sized, $25 linux box that its mega awesome and run by the charity called: The Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Their concept is really interesting so check it out!

I digress… I got my Pi and I am sitting wondering what I do with it. I have been planning on installing xbmc so I can use it to stream media from the internet and my harddrive. So I am busy with that.

This morning my plans changed (at least if I manage to get another Pi this is what I will do with it)

I want to build a RasPi-Arcade!

I saw that you can get an arcade shell for the ipad where you slot the thing in and away you go. So I thought why not do something like this with the Raspberry Pi… Ok its not the most inventive idea. But for once maybe something obtainable and small enough not to anger the wife! (most important factor)

So planning the project I want to split up to the following stages (or sprints if your a scrum fan)

Stage 1 – Is the Pi  a viable platform for the MAME or other emulator. If it can’t run the games then the project is a bust.

Stage 2 – Choose control system and make sure its compatible with the Raspi

Stage 3 – Convince wife to let me use the spare monitor. Design a case with controls around it.

Stage 4 – Buy the things I need to build this bad boy

Stage 5 – Build it so they come

Stage 6 – Play some arcades!!!

Stage 1 is in progress!

Check this out!!!!

Scott Hanselmans presentation about productivity was brilliant.

I watched it this morning and I think I will try out some of the system he proposes. I want to see what will work.

1st I will audit my email… Wish me luck!

My little girl is growing up fast (too fast if you ask me).

One thing that’s plaguing my mind is ‘what will she grow up to be?’ Although an interesting question to pose, its still one I can’t even begin to guess. The only thing I can do is expose her to lots of things and like pasta on the wall… See what sticks.

I watched a YouTube video ‘Ted talk with Eben‘ discussing his new 35 euro mini computer (mini as in freaking tiny… As in credit card size.) He pointed out that there is this gap generation that don’t know engineering or programming.

His points got me thinking.

Can I teach my almost 4 year old programming?

I think I can. Sure it won’t be objective c or python but I would like to see if I can get her into the idea of programming.

Step 1: I have to observe her in the way she plays and does simple tasks and then decide on parameters for this experiment. I wanted to be sure she understands that things need to be done in a certain order. Potty training is a perfect example. She needs the loo.

1. She puts up the seat
2. She puts on the toilet her own kiddy seat
3. Does her stuff
4. Wipe
5. Flush
6. Washes hands

Without prompting she does this perfectly (now…). But that’s still not what I am looking for because the program is now mindlessly done and also it feels more like she is programmed rather than programming.

Memory Game was my 2nd example.

1. Lift up a tile
2. Record the Image
3. Lift 2nd tile
4. Record Image
5. Does 1st and 2nd tile match
6. If yes put them to your done pile
7. If no put them back image down

Ok it feels more like it but still I think its lacking the cause and effect factor I am looking for. To explain: If she lifts a 3rd tile, ok its cheating but nothing happens.. She has no feedback to say this is not going to work. In fact it only makes the completing of the memory game faster.

So memory game is good but still bad example of programming.

3rd example Marble Run.

I did not know that these things existed until my wife showed them to me. They are really expensive building blocks with grooves in them. When put together you can put a marble at the top and watch it go down… It will follow the groove all the way down though holes or what ever you want.

Perfect I have cause and effect now. If I put a block in the way of the run then the marble wont do down. If I put a turning block at a point then the marble turns. I got it!…. But do I… Marble Run is missing something memory had. A goal.

Granted the goal is to have fun but its not getting her the idea of getting to a defined end result. She has no end. There is nothing to say (except gravity) that the marble should go down the run at all…

Now I think I have my parameters:

• Got to be fun
• Not repetitive
• Has a clear goal
• Should have cause and effect

Her birthday was last Sunday and I was hit by a train! My wife bought this cool game that was perfect!!!!

Its called Camelot Junior.

The idea is that you have a book that tells you a layout of the playing field (an example is shown above. Your goal with the defined pieces is to get the prince to the princess without making him (figuratively) jump. In the above image you are allowed the 2 blocks with stairs… Placing them in the gap will allow the prince to walk down then up again to the princess.

The more you do the harder it gets.

I think this is perfect. You have a goal, its not repetitive, its fun and!!!! has cause and effect. If I do something wrong the prince can’t walk across.

Ok its hardly the road to html but I think that this game and hopefully more like it, will give her a thinking skill that opens the road to programming.

Step 2… Making my own game that bleeds into computer programming… hmmm Need to think about that!

I love this command… Party because for the longest time I thought it was not real and that it is usable everywhere in unix/linux

‘grep’ – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grep

Effectively its a search program thats very very powerful! (at least to me) You can search lots out output or files for the results your looking for.

If your reading the wiki page then good I will get to what I learned…

I needed to look for processes in a server with the name TCP. The command I used was

ps aux | grep tcp

Super simple! With the pipe separator I can look for any entry within the processes for the entry TCP (if you do it but don’t have any processes, not to worry it finds your search as a process )

The reason why I thought it was not real was Hollywood’s  fault. I would always catch a glimpse of some one performing computer wizardry by randomly hitting the keyboard. Grep would be a command I would see and coupled with the super stupid disabling on the missiles 2 seconds before launch. In spotted in the Tron: Legacy movie!

So all this time it was hiding right under of my nose!