Sean Sheedy's Blog: January 2008 Archive

The MEDD conference was exactly what I thought it would be: learning about cool stuff (SunSPOTS!), meeting old friends and making new ones. And it turned out that one topic stood out above the rest - confronting fragmentation in the mobile space.

Looking at the lightning talk feedback we find the most highly rated lightning talk was possibly Terrence Barr's "Do We Need a Mobile Developer Alliance"? Were the ratings also votes for making such an alliance a reality?

SunSPOTs and ham radio

Posted by sean_sheedy on January 23, 2008 at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This week I decided to drive from San Diego to Santa Clara to this week's MEDD conference rather than fly home and back again. This gave me the opportunity to try out a new ham radio product called the TinyTrak4 which is about to be released by its creator, Byon Garrabrant.

The TinyTrak4 provides me with an APRS setup in my car to track my position as I moved along. (I also beaconed that I could be reached by voice on 144.39 MHz, which is the ham radio national calling frequency for two meters, and kept a second radio on for that purpose.)

Links:

Present location
Ham stations near me
APRS users around the country

Now, there is a really cool product called the TinyTrak4 which has been through a year of beta testing (that's my TT4 on Byon's web page) and is about to go live. You hook up a GPS receiver to the TT4 and it creates packets and uses smart beaconing to send it into the ham radio APRS network via an attached ham radio.

The TT4 can do more than this, and one of the cool things about the TT4 is that it can take sensor data and attach it to these packets.

There are devices called "digipeaters" which hams set up to hear radios like mine, and retransmit them, the idea being that other radios in the area can more easily hear them. Transmissions can go over multiple hops or none at all depending on the path that the user sets in the tracker.

Furthermore, there are "i-gates" which are receivers hooked up to the Internet, which take packets (that are not flagged to not be gated) and post them to the Internet, where you can look at them on maps such as at the above links.

There are 30,000 or so APRS users out there, and a device that can include sensor data with a scheduled transmission is useful. This brings us to the other neat feature of the TT4, which is that it can be used as a data modem or "TNC" as it is known in ham radio speak.

APRS is not only used for tracking yourself (in fact, use of this mode with no other information is discouraged by some because it really does not contribute much other than a spot on a map, and does lead to more congestion of the channel.) Some other uses include letting people know how you can be contacted (as I did, by including the frequency I'd listen to), or send messages back and forth (many APRS systems are capable of messaging), or transmit weather station information, or many other uses.

What I wanted to put out there is that the SunSPOT is a device that is easily programmable using Java and has a number of interesting sensors that are of interest to hams, the original Makers. Temp sensor, accelerometer, inputs/outputs, etc. What could be done if you connect a highly programmable sensor like this to a network like APRS? What could you get from a network of sensors working simultaneously or that can receive and act on messages sent to it remotely?

Open Discussion of Developer Issues

Posted by sean_sheedy on January 17, 2008 at 04:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the years, there has been much written and spoken about the challenges facing mobile developers. This will be no different in some of the sessions and in the hallways at the Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference and at BarCampME in Santa Clara next week.

To facilitate converting talk into action, a room has been been reserved from 9 AM to 1 PM on Friday January 25th near the MEDD site for an extended face-to-face discussion.

The timing coincides with the conclusion of the MEDD conference to take advantage of the momentum caused by the conference, and so that members of the community who are flying in to attend the MEDD conference can participate in this discussion.

The discussion is not limited to any particular technology or aspect of the mobile application ecosystem.

The agenda is fluid but is looking something like this:

Introductions - getting to know each other and why we are interested in developer issues
Vision/Goals - what would we like to accomplish in the interests of developers? In 2008? In the next quarter?
Recent Activity - What was attempted last year that worked or did not work?
From Talk to Action - Blogging and writing articles has helped us understand but not necessarily led to change. What new *actions* can we take during the next quarter towards reaching these goals?

We might only reach the second agenda item, but leaving with a better knowledge of who is genuinely interested in addressing mobile developer issues, having a common vision, and sharing email addresses and phone numbers, will in itself be a great first step.

If you are interested in attending, please email Terrence, or myself at developermeeting@gmail.com.

Pack your sleeping bags!

Posted by sean_sheedy on January 15, 2008 at 03:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Pack your sleeping bags! The MiniBarCamp, "BarCampME", which bridges the two days of the Mobile & Embedded Developer Days (MEDD) conference, is on!

My friend Dan Green is due a big Thank You from me and everyone who will participate, because late last week he found a secret FooCamp/BarCamp veteran who came through with the support we needed to make it happen.

The MiniBarCamp starts at 8:30 PM Wednesday January 23rd, after the MEDD dinner, and runs until 8:30 AM the next morning. Information can be found here:

BarCampME

In case you were wondering, here is the Wikipedia entry for BarCamp.

Thank you Terrence Barr and Roger Brinkley for putting this on the MEDD agenda!!!

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