Two:Thirty AM

Recently I have been feeling the need to build something tactile. I create and work on projects everyday on the computer and online, but nothing analog. I have been very interested lately in building and programming robots. A large part of the robot is the code you write to control the robot, but the part I am going to be working on first is the actual fabrication of the robot. As you may or may not know, robots can grow to be very expensive hobbies, so I am going to start off on some cheaper projects to work on skills without harming expensive parts.

I recently went to the local Fry’s to look for some robot kits and came across some really cool little electronics soldering kits. Needless to say I picked up a couple to practice soldering!

I picked up 2 kits:
Sound-to-Light Kit
Dual Electronic Dice Kit

The first project (this post) I did was the Sound-To-Light kit. It is a pretty simple kit that only serves one purpose, not totally useful in daily life, but fun none the less! So lets get into it.

Kit Maker: Velleman
Kit Name: SOUND-TO-LIGHT Kit
Price: $5.99
Items Needed: Soldering Iron, Solder, 9V Battery.

Four high-intensity LEDs light up and react simultaneously on every sound. For different funny and practical applications, such as : sound indicator, simple sound-to-light unit for music, for the hearing impaired : can be used to indicate the telephone, door bell. Adjustable sensitivity with potentiometer. Built-in microphone.

From start to finish this kit took me about 30 minutes to complete. The instructions were a little confusing as first, but are actually really well laid out. You do really need to pay attention to how they lay the instructions out. There are minimal written instructions, most of the instructions are in picture form. The kit came with everything you need as far as parts go. If you are looking to get into electronics or just want to learn more about soldering and electronics, these kits are a great place to start. They have MANY different kits to choose from, check out their catalog.

I will be posting more projects as I get through them and try out some more kits. It was very fulfilling working on this project. I can’t express how good it feels to get away from the computer for a while and get into the analog world of building something with your hands.

Here are a couple pictures of my finished project and a short video of it working.

circuit-1 (link to short video)

I have had an iPhone since version 1.0, and although the iPhone is great, it has been a rough road. The first generation iPhone was absolutely amazing, considering what its competitors were at launch. I was in line for 6 hours on launch day to get mine, and it was completely worth it. After a few months, much of the wow began to wear off after I started noticing what it didn’t have. It didn’t have MMS, video recording, or the ability to install extra applications. Along came Jailbroken applications, which did alleviate much of this. The problem with that is that jailbreaking wasn’t really an option for the “everyman”.

Throughout the 1.x releases Apple added a FEW extra features and fixed bugs, but that was pretty much the extent. It wasn’t really until the 2.0 release that we began to really have the “New Platform” that we had been promised. Problem though, 2.0 had a TON of bugs and flakey apps. Apple hit us with a couple incremental updates: 2.0.1, then 2.0.2.

Some of the biggest issues with the initial 2.x releases were:
- Horrible battery life.
- Insanely long backup times. (hours)
- Very crashy apps

Flash forward, and we have iPhone Firmware Version 2.1

Version 2.1 finally feels like a finished product. It fixed a lot of the battery life issues, reception issues, and overall crashiness.

Along with iPhone 2.1 came iTunes 8. With these 2 updates combined, we are definitely seeing a product that feels finished. I am in no way saying that as customers, we are getting everything we deserve, but it’s getting closer. We still are missing major features that are available in just about every other phone on the market.

I would love to end this article by saying that Apple is heading in the right direction and steering the ship toward the island of happy customers, but this is very much not the case! Apple has been making moves lately concerning the iPhone that frankly scare the hell out of me. This once dream phone is starting to turn into a locked down nightmare. With Apple seeming to block whatever they want for any reason and letting through apps that have little more value than a gimmick, it leads me to wonder, do they want this phone to be what it could be, what it should be, and what we deserve it to be? Or rather have they been in first place in this market just long enough to lose sight of the real goal?

Being a loyal user, I am hoping much of this is going to blow over fairly soon and they will realize the error of their ways. If they don’t, they are going to have a very serious problem of users switching to other options. More importantly perhaps, if they keep screwing their developers, they aren’t going to have enough content to keep the few users that do stick around.

If the problem does continue, or heaven forbid gets worse, it will make getting the word out that much more important. I hope I won’t have to, but just in case, I am starting a project called Apptimism. This project will be for developers to get the word out about their dealings with Apple. It will also be a place for developers to have a pool of beta testers to choose from. Additionally, it will lend itself to promotion of apps. The main reason for this project is to help the end user, the customer, get what they deserve. This in turn will give everyone a better overall iPhone experience.

Best of luck to everyone and here’s to Apple doing the right thing!

UPDATE 10/1/08: Apple has removed the NDA! Looks like things are starting to turn around.