tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75083397600014385532024-03-13T00:18:18.742-04:00scasagrandeThe personal blog of Steven Casagrande, owner of Galvant Industries.Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-22682407319883284942012-02-01T18:13:00.001-05:002012-02-01T18:13:26.669-05:00Bootloader solved!Despite the monitor issues I was having, I've managed to a bootloader running on the adapter. I spent a little bit of time today moving around some traces to make space for a reset button for the bootloader.<br />
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Everything is looking really good now, so I'm back on track for releasing all the source, and with that, making the adapter available for purchase!<br />
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I've also gotten a few more Canadian PCB manufacturing quotes, but I'm still waiting on a few more. We'll have to see what the final decision is going to be...<br />
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PS I got a new monitor, so hopefully no more rage-inducing screen flickering for me!Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-115219870019533282012-01-31T20:39:00.001-05:002012-01-31T20:39:19.239-05:00USB to GPIB Adapter, OSHWI've decided to release my USB to GPIB adapter as open source hardware! I'll be releasing everything under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license in the coming days.<br />
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I would probably be done packaging up the files if it weren't for my monitor being on the fritz. It makes it hard to work when half of your screen randomly decides to stop working.<br />
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I want to get a bootloader in the system too allow for user upgradeable firmware. Assuming that goes well (and I get a new monitor!), we'll have a nice oshw adapter!<br />
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With that out of the way, I also want to let everyone know that I'll be selling this adapter when I release all the source. I haven't completely decided how I'm going to go about that, but I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-45322801728753649552012-01-02T12:43:00.001-05:002012-01-21T17:44:39.530-05:00So, you want to learn electronics?I get asked this question a lot from my friends. <i>"Steven, how did you learn so much about electronics?"</i>. Now before we start, I don't know everything about electronics (far from it) and I acknowledge this. I just know much more than many of my friends.<br />
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Let's back up to when I first started. This wasn't that long ago. Summer 2010 in fact. I was working during the summer for Prof Cory in his freshly moved lab at the IQC. I remember the one day he was showing myself and another how to use the Network Analyser. He asked me a few basic questions about electronics and I was completely unable to answer. Sure I knew Kirchoff's circuit laws from class, but anything beyond that was out of my knowledge. At that point he looked at me and said that I need to take a formal electronics course starting the next term.<br />
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This takes us to Sept 2011, start of my 4A term. Here I took a second year engineering electronics course. It started off as basic as it gets: Kirchoff's laws. My goodness did that course go quickly. We covered the basics of all sorts of things, including non-ideal operational amplifiers, filters, and DACs. This course was 4 hours a week of lectures, more than any other course I've taken (standard is 3).<br />
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This is where I'm going to stop and make a point. This course gave me the solid foundation required to continue on and progressively learn more advanced concepts. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I see people going out and deciding that purchasing an Arduino and associated "project book/kit" is the best way to go about learning the basics of electronics. What I feel ends up happening to most (not all!) of these people is that they simply reproduce the projects found in their project box/book/kit. Most of these "project idea" books aren't going to go into any theory detail to actually teach you about what is going on. They are no match for a quality textbook.<br />
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The Arduino is a development platform. Of course its for also for learning, but its not going to give you that solid foundation. You're not going to learn what the rolloff of a Nth-order Butterworth filter is. You're not going to learn about opamp input bias currents. What you will learn is how to flash a few LEDs or drive a motor using a microcontroller. Sure, with that you'll probably learn about charlieplexing and H-bridges, but you're not laying that solid foundation.<br />
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I see plenty of posts on the Internet of these people asking "where do I go next to further my knowledge?". The majority of the responses that I see go along the lines of "get a generic microcontroller development platform". Although one would gain more skills from broadening their platform experience, one is not furthering their knowledge of electronics. All you are doing is learning the specifics of some different platform.<br />
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Let me remind the reader that I have nothing against the Arduino "ecosystem" at all. I think its a great platform for rapid prototyping and for learning about microcontrollers. I just don't think that it is the best starting point as it does not build that solid foundation of electronics knowledge. If you know the basics, the question of "what do I do next?" never comes up because you're continuously reading and learning about new things.<br />
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Alright, back to my classes. After that course I moved onto my 4B term. Here I took another analog electronics course, this time a third year course offered by the physics department. Although it was third year, it was still a "introductory level" course (there are no 1st or 2nd year electronics courses from this department). The reason I took this course is because there was a large focus on transistors, something that was not included in my previous course. There was also a project component. If you've read my previous entries, you know that my project was an audio trigger for a DSLR camera.<br />
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I learned so much from that project. I learned about designing an entire project from start to finish. I learned about single supply opamps and their limitations. I learned how a device with high current draw can mess up your opamps if not provided with adequate decoupling capacitors.<br />
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Most importantly, I read. I would spend my time at home reading blog posts and wikipedia articles on various electronics topics. I started watching the <a href="http://www.eevblog.com/">EEVBlog</a> to learn about a wide variety of topics and issues. If I walked into a room with a bunch of textbooks, I'd look to see if there was one on electronics to flip through. This is why I've been able to help my friends on a wide variety of electronics related issues. I've build that starting foundation and just kept reading, even if the topic wasn't of immediate project relevance.<br />
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After this course I went on to take other courses. During the summer I took "Intro to Digital Signal Processing" and just this past term I took "Intro to Radio Frequency and Microwave Design". So I went from next to zero knowledge to taking a graduate level microwave engineering course in 1 year. Now I'm not saying everyone go out and enrol at their closest University, but the point is I was able to do it (while taking other courses!) because I built that foundation.<br />
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In summary, getting an Arduino is not a starting point for learning about electronics. Its a great way to learn about microcontrollers and rapid prototyping. Instead, get yourself a good textbook on the subject. An oldie but a goodie is "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. Yes, its a textbook. Yes, there is some math. But it contains so many highly educational sections you will benefit from it.<br />
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So, you want to learn electronics? Learn the basics, and afterwards get an Arduino.<br />
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<br />Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-12349191494422312742011-12-31T11:10:00.000-05:002011-12-31T17:58:56.621-05:00State of the AppHey everyone, there's a few things that I want to write about. For today, we're going to talk about the app for iOS that I've made several posts on.<br />
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A few months ago my developer account expired and I decided not to renew it at this time. My reasoning is pretty simple: I don't want to be directly supporting a company like Apple who is trying to poison the personal computing industry. I'm tired of the system lockouts, the constant injunctions against competitors' products. The fact that you must develop for iOS on an Apple computer (or in a VM) also annoys me.<br />
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On top of that, it's expensive and time consuming for someone casually working on it to keep up with the entire system. My iPhone 3G is still running iOS 3.1.3 to keep it from getting bogged down. My VM is running an older version of OSX, so I can't install the latest dev tools. If I wanted to do things the "proper" and "right" way (according to Apple) I would need to spend around $1000 just to bring my tools (computer and iphone/ipod) up to date!<br />
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Setting aside my stance against the company, the iOS app market is highly competitive. Sure, I was working on something in a less competitive subsection, but is it really worth my time? Maybe yes, maybe no, but what I do know is that I'd rather be spending the time working on my electronics projects than grinding out more PDFs for the app.<br />
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So since I'm not renewing my account, it goes hand-in-hand that I won't be finishing this app in the near future. Maybe someday I'll come back to it and finish it off. Apple currently falls in with a small list of companies that I choose not to financially support (Sony and Ubisoft are the others). If they manage to pull their self-righteous head out of the sand, then I'll rethink my position.Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-22463999870126446782011-08-19T08:45:00.004-04:002011-08-19T10:03:52.401-04:00Hell, it's about time.Well everyone, I finally made it. Despite the lack of blog posts in recent months, I somehow survived my final terms as an undergraduate student at the University of Waterloo. Its been a long time coming (4 years now), which is why it deserved the Starcraft 2 trailer quote you see. Of course, my undergrad wasn't as long as the gap between SC1 and 2, but still, it feels fitting.
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<br />For my most recent winter term (starting back in Jan 2011), I actually ended up doing pretty well. It was my first term in my university career where I actually managed to get an over-80% average. I know for some people that might not be much of an accomplishment, but for me that was a lot of work. It took a long time to make up for the mistakes I made in first/second year. As an added bonus, I finally was able to bring my academic standing up from satisfactory to good. My overall average was pulled down from my earlier mistakes, which took a long time to pull up.
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<br />This spring term, I ended up taking 2 courses. The first I mentioned in my last post, Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and the other was Intro to Computational Math (CM). Now, before I mention how much I disliked CM, let me say that DSP was a great time. I had an amazing professor who was extremely enthusiastic about the subject. It was one of the best courses I've taken during my undergrad. Although the final hasn't been marked yet (it took place on Aug 13, which was also my last exam!!!), I feel that I will do fine. I did after all, get a 94% on the midterm.
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<br />Now, CM. What a waste of time that was. Now of course, I picked it because I wanted to hopefully learn a little bit while also not working too hard. I went into the course expecting a programming focused course, where our assignments mostly consist of us applying various computational methods to different problems. It wasn't that in the slightest. Our assignments mostly consisted of theoretical work. Any and all programming problems we had our hand held, told step by step what to do. We spent the first 6 weeks on GEPP. In the end, I learned a few useful things, but overall, it was not what I wanted.
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<br />On a positive note, I'll be starting graduate school in Sept! Yeah, that doesn't leave me much time to go on post-undergrad vacation and whatnot, but that's not a problem. I'll be a student in Prof Cory's research group. It should be a good time.
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<br />Last thing for now, I plan on changing the URL of this blog. I was never really happy with the current URL, so I'm going to just change it tomorrow or so to scasagrande.blogspot.com . If anyone reads this, update your bookmarks!
<br />Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-66851212358265812632011-04-01T22:14:00.002-04:002011-04-01T22:19:30.874-04:00Analog ProjectSo this morning I gave my analog electronics project presentation. Yes, I did extremely well. If I didn't get 100% I would be surprised.<br /><br />What this means is I'll soon be in a capacity to upload the schematic to this very blog for all to enjoy! Hurray! Until then, I'll just leave you with the circuit concept.<br /><br />For my project I designed a audio level trigger. It uses the intensity of the sound picked up by the condenser microphone to trigger a secondary circuit.<br /><br />Expect to see the details soon!<br /><br />(that said, there are some improvements I would like to still make)<br /><br />PS: Long time no post?Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-35442763794290587942011-01-17T19:03:00.003-05:002011-01-17T19:26:52.560-05:00Work work work...Its been nearly two months since my last blog post. I didn't get anything done on my app during that time. Thankfully, it wasn't because I was lazy.<br /><br />Shortly after my last post was my 21st birthday. Carolyn got me a record of ACDC Back in Black and a ring that say "one ring to pwn them all". ISN'T THAT AWEOMSE?!<br /><br />I wanted to get some work done on my app, but I just didn't really have the time. Sure I could have spent my weekends, but I also wanted to get *some* video gaming in. Exams hit shortly after my birthday. After exams, I went to my parents house for a lovely time.<br /><br />When I got back, I was working on finishing my research project. Experiments to run, presentations to prepare for, reports to write. No time for app development.<br /><br />The presentation for my research project was last Monday. It went extremely well, and my supervisor seems to be pleased with it. Today, I handed in my written report, so I hope that it also goes well.<br /><br />With reports and all that jazz out of the way, I can return to my app. My course load for this term is lighter than last, so I'll have more time to spend in the lab and more time for my app.<br /><br />I made some development progress tonight. I removed the "main menu" screen and made the app boot straight to the root browsing directory. I decided to do this based on feedback, and because you can access search from anywhere in the app. In its place I added a png "loading" image. This image is displayed for the few seconds (~2 sec) it takes to load the app on my iPhone 3G.<br /><br />Since I removed the main menu, I moved all the additional buttons that where there (rate this app, tell a friend) into an "about" screen. This is currently accessed by clicking "About" on the root directory of the browser. I'll include a screenshot of this later because I'm sure that was not clear.<br /><br />On the academic front, I'm taking the following courses this term:<br /><ul><li>Introduction to Quantum Information Processing</li><li>Electricity and Magnetism: Part 2</li><li>Analog Electronics & Lab (yes, this is the second analog class<br /></li><li>Research Project</li></ul>This isn't enough for me to graduate. I'll be taking one additional term to finish off my undergraduate degree. This is in an attempt to lower my work load so I don't go (more) crazy. During the summer I plan on taking Digital Signal Processing from the Electrical Engineering department, and one other course that I haven't decided on.<br /><br />Anyways, enough talking. Going to get some more work done!Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-6479019566780303412010-11-19T15:59:00.005-05:002010-11-19T16:27:41.279-05:00More app features!Hello everyone, I've been wanted to do another update on the app all week but I had some studying for a test to take care of. I had a test in my analog electronics course on wednesday. Pretty sure I got 100% so I'm pleased with that :).<br /><br />Late last week I asked the iphone subreddit community for some feedback on what I had so far. I took the comments very seriously, and here is some of the work I've done.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97YaOhmMeRIz17dDoHrKQMCxyqDkwgjpEWgXEhkjAMjGvktCa5yQT6PXpBsqAxrLdI7WOTxwDKWrA5WeuS7hfqizyCERFW2gUD0y988WHrKfb8G0ehe7yAM0_ZOmGpnqoSKQj_QCM17bb/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.19+15.57.34.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97YaOhmMeRIz17dDoHrKQMCxyqDkwgjpEWgXEhkjAMjGvktCa5yQT6PXpBsqAxrLdI7WOTxwDKWrA5WeuS7hfqizyCERFW2gUD0y988WHrKfb8G0ehe7yAM0_ZOmGpnqoSKQj_QCM17bb/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.19+15.57.34.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541369807319358930" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;">So in this screenshot you can see two new features. First, there are little icons beside each category. I feel that they add a little to the experience of using the app, making it feel less like you're just looking at shoveled out tables and made by someone that cares.<br /><br />The other new feature is the search button at the top. This way, search is readily accessible throughout the app instead of just at the home screen. I'm considering doing the "pull down to search" thing like you see in the Contacts app, but depending on time constraints that might be something for a future version.<br /></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXlOJqSFe5T3nruR7cBiDb8SdCoEtY_XbUKgWUmAbiyvU8CjeBgTgES-ckmiac6umzfSWp-keHAaW8qvQ91vVHzPK317CEBSf3EGjJD3xipwNpgNtwQsw_PqZMh_zaDklaWdUA1prgFk8Q/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.19+15.58.22.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXlOJqSFe5T3nruR7cBiDb8SdCoEtY_XbUKgWUmAbiyvU8CjeBgTgES-ckmiac6umzfSWp-keHAaW8qvQ91vVHzPK317CEBSf3EGjJD3xipwNpgNtwQsw_PqZMh_zaDklaWdUA1prgFk8Q/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.19+15.58.22.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541372443274873714" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Here what we have is the new modified equation view. This tab bar will allow the user to flip between showing the equation and other related material. The "more" button is currently a placeholder and will be replaced with the correct buttons, graphics, and text that I need.<br /><br />Some things to note about this tab bar. I didn't take a SS of it, but when you rotate the device to landscape mode, the tab bar is hidden so as to not take up vertical screen space.<br /><br />Now the reason I implemented this is because I've decided to add a worked out example for each equation. I just decided on this a few days ago, and have recruited the help of <a href="http://dearinternetsincerelycaro.blogspot.com/">Carolyn</a>. This tab bar will also allow me in the future to add support for things like derivations, interesting historical facts, etc.<br /><br />My work for the next bit will be adding more icons and regenerating a lot of the equations for better alignment due to the change in screen size.<br /><br /><br />As usual, I'm always looking for feedback so feel free to leave some :)<br /></div></div>Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-40725150380175333552010-11-12T16:29:00.008-05:002010-11-12T17:14:18.553-05:00Searching and LandscapeYes that's right, I bring to you today some more updates on my upcoming app! Last night, as I was frustrated with my E&M assignment, I decided to spend some time on the app. Since I wasn't in the mood for starting some more equations, nor in the mood for graphics related work, I decided to implement a big feature that I had been meaning to do for a while...the search function!<br /><br />As you might have seen from my last post, on the main screen there is a large search button. Until last night, it was just a placeholder. Every time I would show someone the work I had done on the app, one of the first things they would say is "the search button doesn't work". Well no more! Here's some screenshots of the search function in action.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9AgAoSCh4tyezgfKLe2nx5zf_TAxYvaWPZid7dLUUmiYifuU9O_eH-thcdHu7aUOG88NhLBrd-u76JZklLASt2v9yNLrBQ2al_UolHfYUEzMDY7W6QOMfzTv1tiVl13LPCQbIclqi3NCT/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.25.43.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9AgAoSCh4tyezgfKLe2nx5zf_TAxYvaWPZid7dLUUmiYifuU9O_eH-thcdHu7aUOG88NhLBrd-u76JZklLASt2v9yNLrBQ2al_UolHfYUEzMDY7W6QOMfzTv1tiVl13LPCQbIclqi3NCT/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.25.43.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538784004600041666" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcOoQ9r3BPkzbv8PptJxKbeET3HFCFywXgKeTcq4Kp8sXe3bIWZ5suuBnh23XKXWLzv91jkvBOqAvGL3zcTkJ-_XMaRLqzQVNMoiC4HZQAOgxRCM6J2Zg3YUx20tJaPFEAZKirPONa8-l1/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.25.56.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcOoQ9r3BPkzbv8PptJxKbeET3HFCFywXgKeTcq4Kp8sXe3bIWZ5suuBnh23XKXWLzv91jkvBOqAvGL3zcTkJ-_XMaRLqzQVNMoiC4HZQAOgxRCM6J2Zg3YUx20tJaPFEAZKirPONa8-l1/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.25.56.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538784006153076130" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiSqp8oR19xwnOANwcAgsGvABO1orCIrEqPssj0vcwNfVd9RpzDLg4eGffMLLWGpuxNQL_alzAYz31e-QOPoZ6Gh-VH8MC50lf1ckVA9UOCYKNcqYhxuv_xRBq4TQ6-uyeP6HJps6fZC8Q/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.26.08.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiSqp8oR19xwnOANwcAgsGvABO1orCIrEqPssj0vcwNfVd9RpzDLg4eGffMLLWGpuxNQL_alzAYz31e-QOPoZ6Gh-VH8MC50lf1ckVA9UOCYKNcqYhxuv_xRBq4TQ6-uyeP6HJps6fZC8Q/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.26.08.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538784010025729042" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">OMG SEARCH!!</span><br /></div><br />It was a very exciting moment last night when I got it to work. So every time the user hits a key the search results update. Its pretty awesome.<br /><br />Ah, but at this point last night I still had some time before bed, and since I was feeling awesome for getting the search to work, I decided to also add landscape mode support!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVp3BJvm9_mN7flBaimkdPtlPS3EKG46VPdX-CDxon9GBnqrtftLGWbgfu-MPRoPPHF-WPcVEiaDAXSlY1ygam8COh6XAczlZi-Ffxhy0qo_DfRW9uMEYDfZAJoTvCCeh02mg0hcX7JLC7/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.28.12.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVp3BJvm9_mN7flBaimkdPtlPS3EKG46VPdX-CDxon9GBnqrtftLGWbgfu-MPRoPPHF-WPcVEiaDAXSlY1ygam8COh6XAczlZi-Ffxhy0qo_DfRW9uMEYDfZAJoTvCCeh02mg0hcX7JLC7/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.28.12.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538785207064025714" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_4DtMeRmkXdJyorNDoPXowzSaXvJD29Q-kLN3iu9AM_EaHZuXpRRJFiErpoy1rYp5Tqbz4GWPK1kjyNu6TbpPxCF8aCa2ZbHItcohNmnQj1O3GmWQkRWqXx-uTCfSh4U1uaGxWcn5hAT/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.27.50.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_4DtMeRmkXdJyorNDoPXowzSaXvJD29Q-kLN3iu9AM_EaHZuXpRRJFiErpoy1rYp5Tqbz4GWPK1kjyNu6TbpPxCF8aCa2ZbHItcohNmnQj1O3GmWQkRWqXx-uTCfSh4U1uaGxWcn5hAT/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.27.50.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538785199305650850" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOoFlBXNUDfM_4KrUHaxQYHaqzIPgtTqjr0xdEGGNX8zAY94DY8AxJTSsLDyaNiZh3V7ziihnjpoB7zPh695NdLDghP24H8WTtN0Af-X-NBD_90bWMi4qFqFfSbTjsRZNGMcnbONqNXLTo/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.26.19.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOoFlBXNUDfM_4KrUHaxQYHaqzIPgtTqjr0xdEGGNX8zAY94DY8AxJTSsLDyaNiZh3V7ziihnjpoB7zPh695NdLDghP24H8WTtN0Af-X-NBD_90bWMi4qFqFfSbTjsRZNGMcnbONqNXLTo/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.12+16.26.19.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538785195564155794" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br />So now the menus, the equations, and search all have landscape mode support! When viewing an equation and the user rotates the device, it automatically zooms to fill the width.<br /><br />So there you go, progress is coming along nicely.<br /><br />Let me know what you think!Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-73848307008392785462010-11-08T23:01:00.005-05:002010-11-09T09:33:49.601-05:00Early App ScreenshotsHello everyone, I bring to you today an app update!<br /><br />Since the last post I've added a few sections: Taylor series, probability distributions, linear algebra, and the 4-band colour code for resistors. Still a few sections to add to math, but I took a different direction tonight and was working on the main menu's graphics. I decided to take some screenshots of a few different parts of the app to share them with all of you.<br /><br />Let me know what you think!<br /><br />[edit] For those wondering, the name isn't finalized yet. I've been playing around with a few ideas, and I wanted to see how this one looked.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnMEM1Cnao_bJuAUc-BZKwVjrjwK4tMNdFZyl3NY9_PgReE7l7wb4-bTcRcBr6wiZ1IeY-qfL2NoqYaamiTj63SFZ17lFveUKN8tkLzEjs1A7vkK7FLN9dyxldl785erTpKtY3no34fvc/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.38.07.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnMEM1Cnao_bJuAUc-BZKwVjrjwK4tMNdFZyl3NY9_PgReE7l7wb4-bTcRcBr6wiZ1IeY-qfL2NoqYaamiTj63SFZ17lFveUKN8tkLzEjs1A7vkK7FLN9dyxldl785erTpKtY3no34fvc/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.38.07.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399087780462194" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKqa_QXBXLUYdeiPTJNsrAVuYnbPzPFOaFfLiWie4P-ozFVorXCAmE2WEdGGr-o31nZuag9L-US26OcbdaZ-krKbSvugmd019mqBoEklv0MbfyAYAw-QTnZECqy5EKHeCuPvFr1N2s-CEd/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.47.56.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKqa_QXBXLUYdeiPTJNsrAVuYnbPzPFOaFfLiWie4P-ozFVorXCAmE2WEdGGr-o31nZuag9L-US26OcbdaZ-krKbSvugmd019mqBoEklv0MbfyAYAw-QTnZECqy5EKHeCuPvFr1N2s-CEd/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.47.56.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399090755011874" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmkrNNCwiBHlOGpysZcjAp6K-KES9l_nvudYY_KnJ0B-iXbOd-nAK90NnHwjw-7nILWQR7ZDx297lEgWTwXGxjgx32ahVBukkYZwIq4BmYzjNE93dD47nx7iXOPNoSrTDoFvbz72kp4-C/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.49.35.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLmkrNNCwiBHlOGpysZcjAp6K-KES9l_nvudYY_KnJ0B-iXbOd-nAK90NnHwjw-7nILWQR7ZDx297lEgWTwXGxjgx32ahVBukkYZwIq4BmYzjNE93dD47nx7iXOPNoSrTDoFvbz72kp4-C/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.49.35.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399105288548834" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYQh87e5tfXjzLwTJYfcX-4D9Z0-PYQscdKFoCRmVzyE1uEgXFBztFNtDLJOooMe9pIcwkUnCNA_nvDAIVb9bKyo6UJ3Jpj8-U0TUZU9eCwrgI2wxBOEV8nj8oC32F0BjpqtbJRmUljTdg/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.54.09.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYQh87e5tfXjzLwTJYfcX-4D9Z0-PYQscdKFoCRmVzyE1uEgXFBztFNtDLJOooMe9pIcwkUnCNA_nvDAIVb9bKyo6UJ3Jpj8-U0TUZU9eCwrgI2wxBOEV8nj8oC32F0BjpqtbJRmUljTdg/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.54.09.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399109995334210" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyOiwAbACW11CWnrYgTxeWKRYLC8y7UkfgXrZz0Nm_4Oq6xiOUq2qzpN94EMQ_kefLqo5mKOw1XwGtLwHZgHr_kCtp8shdpZz20YRckq_uqVmaegvrVzNCWIvV75PtZXFb8kqIsq_ae0Fe/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.48.13.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyOiwAbACW11CWnrYgTxeWKRYLC8y7UkfgXrZz0Nm_4Oq6xiOUq2qzpN94EMQ_kefLqo5mKOw1XwGtLwHZgHr_kCtp8shdpZz20YRckq_uqVmaegvrVzNCWIvV75PtZXFb8kqIsq_ae0Fe/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.48.13.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399094914471058" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrjBtnDHaQbtKiCt3A8lDwvYFzS9WvWA3FJN1k2FPMIEmlXqbz50CPS8Zywmt3Itovk__hNWslVzRL1btQY801GtZFYkk123EngTZyUrfDWFUwCuugKZbluPXyfzxDPT2T7kUwzRAwRNsT/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.59.44.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrjBtnDHaQbtKiCt3A8lDwvYFzS9WvWA3FJN1k2FPMIEmlXqbz50CPS8Zywmt3Itovk__hNWslVzRL1btQY801GtZFYkk123EngTZyUrfDWFUwCuugKZbluPXyfzxDPT2T7kUwzRAwRNsT/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.59.44.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399662065248546" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsN-NmYO0W_3B7TpM7rzjASPpL2SBkoOQV0uoKcTNskQ7hhnc9f_Xtz0G3qLD_p79HuJOh-TJw7_QY_HzXViLsX6uR6XD2ZASxYQQXdqA_7QCGVFllI6zW4FMFqMKszXKBHgi-8iIooRn/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.58.14.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsN-NmYO0W_3B7TpM7rzjASPpL2SBkoOQV0uoKcTNskQ7hhnc9f_Xtz0G3qLD_p79HuJOh-TJw7_QY_HzXViLsX6uR6XD2ZASxYQQXdqA_7QCGVFllI6zW4FMFqMKszXKBHgi-8iIooRn/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.58.14.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399656489058210" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJwK0tGD800B76XlcFodgjsq-RGtHJUsbqhH838u-rS1dva2XOwv72TRRH_0Wso3kYTpUlZV42iZQfjT9elLhBoSb0iuzouWGCCxy2NmqjFevi-joglr7pa90FE5ANCFZQ502VljYD1Hm/s1600/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.54.27.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJwK0tGD800B76XlcFodgjsq-RGtHJUsbqhH838u-rS1dva2XOwv72TRRH_0Wso3kYTpUlZV42iZQfjT9elLhBoSb0iuzouWGCCxy2NmqjFevi-joglr7pa90FE5ANCFZQ502VljYD1Hm/s320/Screenshot+2010.11.08+22.54.27.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537399651783860498" border="0" /></a>Steven Casagrandehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12435342329627053027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-86652283416591104192010-11-04T23:25:00.000-04:002010-11-04T23:25:51.716-04:00Introducing, the APP!Sorry for the failing, its been quite the past few weeks. The term has been pretty intense, with homework filling up most of my time. Speaking of term work, I didn't manage to get into Econ 101, the instructor refused to let me in.<br />
<br />
Before I get to the main topic of this post, I'd like to mention something. shortly after my last post, my girlfriend and I celebrated out 1 year dating mark! I'm not going to take up a bunch of this blog post with with rambling on about how awesome she is, so go check out her blog <a href="http://dearinternetsincerelycaro.blogspot.com/">here</a>.<br />
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So yes, now for the main topic. In the spare time that I've had, I've been working on...an app! Specifically, I've been working on an equation reference app for the iOS platform. I thought to myself, "how can I use my years of physics experience to make an app?" and this is the idea I came up with! I know that I can provide a more comprehensive solution than the few other similar apps on the store, so why not?<br />
<br />
After investigating a few of current apps available, I found the following: the majority of them cover the basics well, have a limited physics section, and include some completely useless material (did you know that x+0=x ?? ). Now granted, I understand that not everyone knows everything, but I feel that some concepts don't require an entry in an app like this. That's why I'm not going to include stuff like that in my app just to "pad the equation count".<br />
<br />
For launch, I'm aiming to include material that would be useful for a senior high school / early university student. Currently, the following has already been implemented:<br />
<ul><li>Physics</li>
<ul><li>Newtonian Mechanics</li>
<li>Electricity and Magnetism</li>
<li>Optics</li>
<li>Fluid Mechanics</li>
<li>Thermal Physics</li>
<li>Quantum (basics such as photo-electric effect)</li>
</ul><li>Math</li>
<ul><li>Tables of derivatives</li>
<li>Trigonometric identities</li>
</ul><li>Electronics</li>
<ul><li>Capacitors</li>
<li>Resistors</li>
<li>Inductors</li>
</ul><li>Error Calculations</li>
</ul>It should be noted that none of the sections in physics have been done at a deep-level. Its all been aimed at the experience level I stated above.<br />
<br />
Heck, I'd someday like to have equations from much more advanced material included (equations for time-dependent perturbation theory anyone?). For now, some more fleshing out of the math section is important.<br />
<br />
So although a lot of the current apps have a number of the equations that I already have, their organization of the material is very poor. I'm approaching the problem from the perspective of someone who would actually find this information useful, so I'm able to organize the equations in a more optimal way.<br />
<br />
I should also note that I haven't seen others with the error calculation equations. That alone could probably be packaged into an app. I know that every time I have to write a lab report, I constantly forget these ones.<br />
<br />
<br />
There's a bunch I want to add into the math section before launch (integrals, geometry, taylor series, etc) and some tables (eg coefficients of friction for common materials). If there is anything that you would like to see included in the launch version, or in a future version, please let me know in the comments below, via twitter, or by email.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
TL;DR<br />
Making equation reference app for iOS, send me stuff you want included.<br />
<br />
<br />
Thanks!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-36674602913172606662010-09-12T17:44:00.000-04:002010-09-12T17:44:00.544-04:00Ready, Set....So yeah. The term starts tomorrow. I've got so much I still need to do. I've still got a bunch of classes to sign up for. Ugh forms.<br />
<br />
The return trip from Boston went well. Went straight from the airport to Waterloo. We installed some blinds on all the windows in the apartment so that we can have some degree of privacy. Afterwards, we went to the Futureshop and picked up a new 37" LG TV. Its very shiny. I'm in the process of installing software to the HTPCs now that they can be used. I just finished installing XBMC Live edition to the first one, did some system updates, broke the nvidia drivers, and now updating those drivers to work again.<br />
<br />
But whats a awesome day without some difficulties? Once we finished with those adventures, I went to sit down and browse the internet. I glanced at the dsl modem, only to find that the power led was red, and the only other led that was on was the green wireless led. I finally managed to figure out what was wrong, and it turns out that the power adapter died. Apparently its common for this model of dsl modem to have this problem. Thankfully, I had my PSP power adapter around, which just happens to have the same output specs as the stock adapter. After biking to work to retrieve said adapter, the internet was back up and running.<br />
<br />
At least I didn't have to end up purchasing a new modem.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-16042737845783701622010-09-10T23:34:00.000-04:002010-09-10T23:34:56.983-04:00Vacation End and Term StartSo as I sit here in the guest bed, getting ready for my last sleep of my vacation, I can't help but want to reflect a bit on my adventure to Massachusetts...<br />
<br />
Everything has been pretty awesome. This area is a nice place to say the least. The family with whom I've been staying with have been very kind to me. They've allowed me into their home, and everyone has welcomed me with open arms. Coming from a much smaller family, the large number of people has been a fun experience. <br />
<br />
Today was the first day after several of "no driving allowed" for Carolyn (due to doctor appointments), so we went into Boston. Our goal was to visit Harvard and MIT. Seemed simple enough....until we discovered that parking is pretty much impossible. At the end, we got to drive by some of the buildings. Considerably less than I was originally hoping for. Oh well. Next time, proper visit!<br />
<br />
Tomorrow morning I leave for Logan airport to return to Ontario...where I will promptly start getting ready for my 4A term. I have a nice selection of classes this term....and by nice I mean OMG SO MUCH WORK<br />
<ul><li>Quantum Physics 3</li>
<li>Quantum Theory 2</li>
<li>Electricity and Magnetism (part 1)</li>
<li>SYDE electronics course* & lab*</li>
<li>Econ 101*</li>
<li>Research project*</li>
</ul>* indicate courses that I haven't been signed up for yet...sigh<br />
<br />
On another note, I started thinking about what content I want to put into my Phys 10 presentation about the misconceptions of quantum computing.<br />
<br />
Anyways, gotta get some rest for tomorrow.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-83015938093692399442010-09-07T23:25:00.000-04:002010-09-07T23:25:21.229-04:00NES to USB AdapterA few days ago I ordered a NES to USB adapter from RetroUSB.com , and it showed up in the mail today. I had it sent to the address in the USA I'm staying at this week to save on shipping. I also had the foresight to bring a NES controller with me so that I could test it out when it showed up. That said, it seems to be working like a charm.<br />
<br />
I gave it a test on my laptop (running ubuntu 10.04) and after installing a few packages, got it to work as a generic joystick. Seems to be pretty good! Now, it might be my lack of practice, or my aging laptop, or the power setting mode, but I feel like there is the ever so slightest input lag. I'll have to check it out more because I suspect it isn't the adapter, but a combination of my laptop and the software that I was running.<br />
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Overall thought, I'm very happy with it! So far, I would definitely recommend their products.<br />
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On a more personal note, my flight to Boston went excellently. I'm still here (until Saturday) and having a great time. The people that I'm staying with have been very nice to me so far. I'm hoping that we have the time to go visit MIT and Harvard before I have to leave.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-13358082192090794112010-09-02T21:21:00.002-04:002010-09-02T21:27:53.782-04:00INTERNETSINTERNETS....I HAVE THEM!!!!<br />
<br />
So I was (freaking finally) given connection to the internets yesterday. The Bell tech needed access to the apartment (turns out our unit's phone lines were cut) but no one was home. When my housemate returned, he called to let me know that a message was left. After informing him to take care of it, he did, and my poor DSL modem that has been struggling for a week to connect to Teksavvy was finally able to see the data signal.<br />
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The odd part of this story is when the tech went to the modem to see if it had connected, he noticed my gigabit switch also plugged in. Apparently he declared it "not necessary" and unplugged my switch. This is after he's seen my expensive custom computers around the house. Needless to say I called him up after I returned home, thanked him for getting our internet to work, and (kindly) gave him feedback on unplugging the switch. Yeah, I'm like that.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-83206140478946732862010-08-31T17:43:00.000-04:002010-08-31T17:43:29.338-04:00MovingThe word of this post is "moving", lets see how many things I can talk about related to the word moving.<br />
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Moving...<br />
<br />
...to a new place in Waterloo. Well, I should say have moved. Just over a week ago, I managed to free myself from the grasp that was shitty housemates, and moved to a far nicer and cheaper (or as my mother would say, "more economical") two bedroom apartment. I've moved in with a fellow physics student, which other than the obvious benefit of being able to have physics related discussions, has the unrelated side benefit of living with someone who cleans up after themselves more often than once every two months. Oh internet, I'll be ranting about that on another occasion. But I digress; the move took the entire weekend. Saturday was full of cleaning and box moving, while Sunday was all about renting a truck to move the larger items (bed, shelf, dresser, table, etc). The new place is also a little further away from the IQC than my previous arrangements, so after walking in to work on Monday I was pretty tired.<br />
<br />
...my internet connection. This has been the biggest struggle of my move so far. I called the Friday before I was going to move. Now, my ISP is Teksavvy. I've had great experiences with them so far. For just under a year actually. That said, the man that I was talking to in order to move my service was not a help at all. So after telling me it would be 5 business days to move the dry loop (which is really out of their control, and not their fault at all due to it being Bell's issue) and explaining the moving charges ($20...which is lame) I agreed. I was also informed that I would be receiving confirmation via email within 2 business days, ie Tuesday. So when Tuesday rolled around, and I hadn't received any emails, I called them up. The lady told me that they were very busy, she brought up my file (well, she said she did) and told me that everything was fine. So when Thursday came by, and I still didn't hear anything, I called them again. This time, I was told something different. I was informed that my account only had the address updated, and there was no move order issued the Friday that I did call. If it wasn't for the fact that this lady was very nice and helpful, I probably would have started yelling at her. She made 100% sure that the order went through while we were still on the phone. The bad part was it was going to be another 5 business days.....so 1 week. I'm still waiting.<br />
<br />
...my blog address. I decided to ditch the old address, so for now its pmcandl.blogspot.com until I think of something better.<br />
<br />
...my ass to Boston for a week. I'm leaving this Saturday with my lady friend to visit her family. I'm pretty excited. Well, excited minus the airport part. I am very much against the full body scanners and the ability of the TSA agents to do things like search your laptop hard drive. Rant for another time...<br />
<br />
...my computer into a new case! I got myself a shiny new Antec P-183 case, and holy crap, it is definitely MUCH better than my old case. When the CPU fan kicks into high, the dB increase is so much less than my old case. The only issue I had was that since the PSU is now under the motherboard, the +12V 4pin CPU power can't reach the socket on the top of the motherboard, let alone be routed properly. I had to do some creative thinking just to get the cable to reach it. The 24 pin EATX cable can reach the connector fine, but can't do that while being routed properly. I'll have to get some extension cables next time I'm at the computer store. Oh, and pictures of how I got it to work will follow soon(ish).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-33279442726584450632010-08-02T09:14:00.000-04:002010-08-02T09:14:28.964-04:00Continuing at the IQCSo I confirmed with my boss the other day that I will be able to do my 4th year research project at the IQC. He already has an idea as to what he will be having me do, but I don't know too much about it at this point, so I'm not even going to try to explain it :P.<br />
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I'm pretty excited though.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-38828533662974870762010-07-27T18:49:00.000-04:002010-07-27T18:49:19.393-04:00Motion Sensors....I hate them.So the other day, I was taking the bus to work. Normally I walk, but I was running a little behind, so I took the main bus line in town.<br />
<br />
But I have a problem with these buses. Every time I get on I think about the terrible, terrible motion sensor on it. You see, the rear doors on these buses require that you wave your arms around in the general area of the door so that they open. Now in theory, that would work fine. You approach the door with your arm, indicating to the bus that you would like to exit. It opens the doors, and you're free to go on your adventure.<br />
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Sadly, it doesn't work very well.<br />
<br />
So back to the other morning. When I got to my destination, I was stuck waving my arms around in all sorts of directions and ways in an attempt to get the doors to open. You see, the motion sensor sucks. It was a terrible idea, and I have no idea why they use it. I was stuck there for at least 10 good seconds flailing about when someone yelled "Could we get the back doors open?" to the bus driver for me. It wasn't just this bus too. It happens a good percentage of the time I attempt to exit those buses. I see other people struggle with it all the time too.<br />
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The don't open when you want them too, and if the bus is crowded, they open constantly at stops from people standing under the sensor. Of course though, in that situation you'd rather they stay closed so the bus can start moving.<br />
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And its not like all their buses use this system. In fact, these are the NEWER buses that use it. The older ones have a physical switch hidden in the door handle. If you wanted to exit, you would push slightly on the door handle, and BAM, door opens.<br />
<br />
Seriously. Like, wtf?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-24699978137637795402010-07-26T22:49:00.000-04:002010-07-26T22:49:48.754-04:00The Quest for the HTPCI swear I must have a problem. When I get it in my head that I'm going to do something computer related, I research it for hours, no, days until I'm ready to make a decision. Sometimes its just to save $20 in the end. This is definitely the case with my current project: The HTPC.<br />
<br />
But first, what got me on this adventure? I was transferring some videos from my personal server to my external hard drive on my desktop when I noticed that this was taking too long. I'm not sure why this time specifically I noticed that it was only going at about 10 megabytes/sec, but I had to fix that. A trip to the store later, I was the proud owner of an 8 port gigabit switch. After a few tests, I found transfers to hover around 40 megabytes / sec. Not fast enough! After some research on my old hard drive being used in the server, it was clearly the culprit. But if I'm going to upgrade the hard drive, why not go the whole way?<br />
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I started this project off with a simple goal, to improve the capabilities of my personal server and to build a device worthy of 1080p playback on a new TV. The TV part came up when it was mentioned that I might be receiving a new HD TV for the fall. How hard can that goal be?<br />
<br />
Well, according to my OCD, there is always more to research!<br />
<br />
In the interest of keeping costs down, and overall complexity down, I've decided to make one computer that will serve as both the 1080p playback device and my personal server. The requirements I initially have put on both parts are the follows:<br />
<br />
HTPC<br />
<ul><li>Smooth 1080p playback. The best quality movie I have right now is about 15Mbps, so that should be something I am for.</li>
<li>Relatively quiet. I'm not completely crazy over silencing the components, but I'd rather to make some effort in keeping the noise down.</li>
</ul>Personal Server<br />
<ul><li>Backup of personal documents (photos, work, etc)</li>
<li>SSH</li>
<li>Webserver</li>
<li>Samba </li>
<li>Etc, all easy stuff.</li>
</ul>Since all the requirements on the personal server side are easy (assuming I roll with an Ubuntu distro), I decided that I would use XBMC for my HTPC experience. For those that don't know, XBMC is a media center application dealie. Give it a search on google for more information on their website.<br />
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However, with this decision, I opened myself to a ton of other questions. General questions include: How do I organize my media best for XBMC? How do I continue to add new media to my collection? Lets start with organization.<br />
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I took a look at my movies and tv shows that I have stored. Although I did a tad of work recently for organization, it wasn't anywhere good enough. This is especially true when you take into account the organization required for XBMC (and to satisfy my OCD of course). I started off with just doing some renaming and folder structure. I used this perl script I found for TV shows where it renames the files to include the episode name. That was working for a while, but it required me to name the season folders "Breaking Bad1x" (as an example for the first season of Breaking Bad).<br />
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The season folder naming had to be undone when I moved to media scapers. As a mostly Ubuntu user, I needed a media manager program to run under linux. Should be easy enough, right? Well, other than the fact that it needs to organize everything for XBMC, but it also needs to like, run on linux. The problem is nearly all of the popular media managers are made using the .net framework. I tried a bunch of them listed on the xbmc forums. Some require .net fw 3.5 (which doesn't work with wine), some were completely unstable in mono (I'm looking at you, Ember), and the one cross platform one I found (programmed in java) didn't fulfill my needs. After much aggravation, I switched direction. I just downloaded TinyXP rev9 and ran it under VirtualBox. I shouldn't have had to do that, but it got stuff working. Of course there were some issues with getting TinyXP to work (like installing the network drivers, .net 3.5 framework, etc) but I knew how to get those issues resolved (they just took some time).<br />
<br />
So with my XP VM running, I decided on Media Companion. Why? It works, and seems to still be doing a good job. So with this program in hand, I'm downloading nfo files containing all sorts of info about the movies / tv shows and all sorts of pictures, including fan art and folder images.<br />
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Life is now going well in that regard. Just to point out though, that took a few days of work to come to this conclusion.<br />
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I think I'm going to save part 2, the media automation, for another post. This is getting long enough. Actually, I'm not really done figuring out the automation stuff, so it'll be more of a work in progress post :P.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-84236666225989525552010-07-18T09:51:00.012-04:002010-07-18T10:46:37.039-04:00Well....it was kinda soon.What a crazy last few months its been. And naturally, I've failed to keep track of it.<br /><br />Where to begin? Well, let me first go over what has happened in WoW. I ended up leaving my previous guild and joining Tabula Rasa on Dragonblight. Amazing people, really fun to hang around and play with. A few months after I joined, the officer responsible for handing out healing assignments had to take a break from the game to focus on his family (I think him and his wife just had a baby at the time....not sure on that though). I stepped up, and filled the roll of assigning healers. A few weeks later I had a discussion with the administration and was made an officer.<br /><br />Fast forward to May. I'm starting to get really tired of raiding. I was so busy with other stuff that staying up late was killing me. But I stuck with it because I committed to it. At the end of May, I went to a physics conference (which I will talk about later), and ended up receiving an amazing job offer to start right after the conference finished. It was such a good opportunity, that I had to step down from officership to ensure that I got enough sleep, and still managed to get other things done in my life. With that decision I also decided to completely stop playing WoW.<br /><br />On the academic front, I really put my butt into gear this year. I almost managed to get an 80% average this past term (I was juuuuuuust short). My goal for this upcoming fall term (which will be the start of my 4th year) is to hit that 80% average.<br /><br />So this past year, I have taken a number of courses. Last fall term I took Quantum 2, Mathematical Physics 1, Intermediate Classical Mechanics, and a lab. In the winter term I took Condensed Matter, Mathematical Physics 2, Statistical Mechanics, Scientific Computation 2, and a lab.<br /><br />So what's this conference I mentioned? Well, the stars aligned and I was chosen to attend the Institute for Quantum Computing's USEQIP conference. This stands for undergraduate student experimental quantum information processing. It was a 2 week conference consisting of about 14 students from all around the world. I was taught by some of the world leading experts in the field. It was such an amazing experience, and it has really helped push me in the right direction for getting into grad school.<br /><br />During the conference, I was offered a job in one of the labs. Naturally, I took it. I am currently working for Dr David Cory, a very famous scientist who just received the CERC prize (google it for more info). As part of his prize, he's been given a huge amount of lab space; 10k square feet I am told. Its the entire first floor of this new building on campus. I spend a lot of my time helping set the labs up. One of the big projects I am working on right now is helping setup the low temperature lab. Its absolutely amazing getting to see just what goes into setting up the equipment. The postdoc that I'm working with is a great guy, and answers every question that I have.<br /><br />I don't just do labour though. I work with a very simple nuclear quadrapole resonance (NQR) setup. Due to its (comparative to other setups) simplicity, its perfect for me to get hands on experience with the basics.<br /><br />So some of you might have heard that Dr Stephen Hawking was in Waterloo last month. Well, I'll let the following picture speak for itself....<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftdOmBZO9lHS5rE_gFWu2PB06lOqHyI_eDZn9604pvmgiWzSBuswccF2LHSYWpCd7jfzSBRfS-I8cNwbbvSxwed8xCKBRyRLOyNhWNCOiO32oUI5zVfWE-u1xMp_G_48T8pebgmb9f18/s1600/steven_and_stephen.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftdOmBZO9lHS5rE_gFWu2PB06lOqHyI_eDZn9604pvmgiWzSBuswccF2LHSYWpCd7jfzSBRfS-I8cNwbbvSxwed8xCKBRyRLOyNhWNCOiO32oUI5zVfWE-u1xMp_G_48T8pebgmb9f18/s400/steven_and_stephen.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495253473045392674" border="0" /></a><br />YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Aww. Yeahh.<br /><br /><br />All of these events in the past year have been really exciting. None of them compare to me meeting my girlfriend. We started dating in Sept 09 and have been happy ever since. She's really nerdy like me (she's a math major, that's right up there with physics on the nerdy scale). She's a really awesome person. There have been times during my academic terms where the homework load was putting too much stress on me. To help me out, she would come visit the physics study lounge to keep me smiling while working away. Heck, she even brought me pizza when I was working all night on a take home final. I know she's going to read this at some point, so Carolyn: RAWRRRRRRR!!!!<br /><br />Anyways, that's the key things that have happened. Maybe later I'll go into some more detail about how stupid my housemates are.<br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-1336233431511525742009-08-09T11:23:00.002-04:002009-08-09T11:24:15.962-04:00Boo!I'll do an update, I swear! Lots of stuff has been happening, so I've been a very busy person :)<br /><br />Real update soon, kthxbyeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-74305474218693582212009-07-07T09:32:00.007-04:002009-07-07T16:41:21.778-04:00I'm really bad at this aren't I...So here I am, finally posting an update. Been long enough hasn't it? Not a day has gone by since my last update where I haven't wanted to post something. It just seems like every day comes and goes without me actually getting around to doing it.<br /><br />Lets see here, what has happened? Well about two weeks ago I went to the Games Workshop annual convention "Games Day" and had a blast. Took a bunch of pictures for our website, but have still yet to upload them. Why? Well let me get to that...<br /><br />My power supply, the same one that I've had for about 6 years, finally died. Prior to that it was making some funny sounds, so I knew that the end was near. I got home from work one day, and it just didn't turn on. Upon openning the case, I could smell that magical smoke that is released from electronics...that don't work anymore. After taking appart my power supply (what, I'm cheap and wanted to see if I could fix it) I discovered that it wasn't something simple like a resistor; it was one of the main induction coils, making the thing junk.<br /><br />Since I wouldn't be able to use my desktop till the weekend (which would be the only time that I would be able to get a new power supply) I borrowed one from work for the time being. Thinking that I might as well take one that looks like it doesn't suck, I do (after asking of course) and that night get it installed.<br /><br />A few days later a new problem crops up. Since the list of symptoms is far too long and detailed, I'll give the shortened version. The motherboard was getting power, but the computer refused to turn on. Sometimes it would turn on, but then turn off randomly, to then either a) repeat that or b) not turn on. Whatever I did that seemed to fix it each time would be different every time. Eventually I managed to get a new power supply, hoping that my motherboard wasn't causing the above issues and it was just the power supply from work.<br /><br />Thankfully, I was right, and it works completely fine again. I picked up the OCZ StealthXStream 500w PSU from canada computers for $30 after rebates and junk. It apparently has nearly the same internals has a much higher end PSU, just missing modular cables and some feature. It's working very well so far, and I'm happy.<br /><br /><br />On the World of Warcraft front, I started raiding again after a 3 week break. We had a little (and by little I mean big) explosion on the forums where a bunch of people's built up thoughts errupted. The entire conversation was based around the fact that many members of our guild were tired of having to carry people constantly through the raids. As I did in my last post, it got to the point where we just couldn't get anything new done. Not because it was too difficult, just because there were a few people holding the raid back every single time.<br /><br />Because of all the talking that we all did, we had a guild vent meeting just a few days later to talk all this over. In the end, lots more people started signing up for raids, and the administration used that to help buff up the groups for the more difficult content. Because of that we managed to get Hodir down again in our 10 man group, and we finally managed to get him down in 25 man! And before you ask, I didn't get the token :P . I did get my T8.5 gloves off of Emalon in a guild ad-hoc VoA run last week. Just need chest and legs off Hodir (25&10) then hope that my 10man group can do Thorim 10 for my shoulders. Then I'll finally have my 4pT8 bonus!!!! EEEEEEE!!!!<br /><br />Lorentz has had only a little bit of focus on him. He's level 76.<br /><br />Other than that I've been doing some physical labour around the house....shovelling mulch and moving rocks. Lots of both. LOTS. OVER 9000!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-81170040947153570582009-06-17T18:24:00.005-04:002009-06-17T19:02:22.016-04:00Choo Choo Northrend ExpressMy enhancement shaman alt, Lorentz, just hit 75 the other night. Which makes him about half way done Northrend. The funny thing is though, he's not even done Dragonblight (and he didn't do the Fjord!). By done I mean finished the quests.<br /><br />Once I hit 75 I ran on over to Zul Drak for a few moments just to knock out the ampitheater and that wanted elite giant fish guy. Got myself 2 new weapons to replace my matching fist weapons (the ones from UK and Nexus) from those quests, and headed back to Dragonblight to finish the Wrathgate quest. Just gotta head back to SW now with his shield then (a few conversations later) I'll be able to do the Undercity attack again.<br /><br />Northred really is flying by though, and I'm happy for that. Those BoA shoulders + rest experience really do make a huge difference.<br /><br />Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the leveling process. I just prefer to get it over with. Unless that is, I'm leveling with someone. In that case I enjoy doing the quests and having fun with them. Its just that doing it alone is so...lonely? I'm not sure what to say about that really. Well I guess that kinda makes sense. At max level (assuming you don't completely suck at the game) you can attend raids with other people. You can do heroics. Even PvP (ok, you can 70-79, but lets be honest here...it sucks). A lot of the time when leveling you see a few people only in passing. Finding a group for anything can take forever....assuming you can get a group at all. Its just a strangeness about it that turns me off lingering around the leveling train.<br /><br />In order to level with somebody you would have needed to have made that decision a long time ago in that toon's life. Its practically impossible to find a random person in northrend (or anywhere in WoW) that is on the same parts of the same chains as you are. And even if you do find someone to quest with that day, what happens the next? What if the other person logged on earlier and played without you? Now you have to find someone else.<br /><br />I'm not saying that I'm a lonely person. I'm just saying that since I don't level with anyone, I don't have a desire to hang around in the leveling stages. Maybe its that whenever I did level with someone, it was the fun in "hanging out" with them that made me want to wait for them to log on instead of leveling solo to rush up to max level.<br /><br />Or of course, maybe I'm just thinking too hard about this :PUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-49852535763921099172009-06-11T15:52:00.011-04:002009-06-11T16:47:54.441-04:00Purplez, Breakz, and TechnolustSorry everyone, its been a busy week. Much stress was had at work. On a positive work-related note, I got my ASP.NET calendar working how I wanted. I had to get it to highlight days that had events in the SQL server for. Then also show the details in a hoverover div.<br /><br />On the WoW side a good amount happened too. Last friday I finally got my first piece of gear from Ulduar! I managed to grab the leather head piece from heroic Auriaya....and when I wear it I feel like my Druid is a character from Sailor Moon or something. I would link the item and some pictures, but I'm not at my personal desktop atm.<br /><br />That night we ended up making some progress on Hodir, getting him to 25% on our last attempt (which happened to be the same attempt where we didn't die prior to enrage). Not that bad for my guild.<br /><br />On the weekend it was another story. Well, most of the weekend I spent with my friend who came to visit me for saturday&sunday. She left prior to my sunday ulduar-10 raid, which I was excited for. On the saturday they downed everything up to Hodir, minus the IC. We went straight for Hodir....and spent the next 1.5 hours dying on him. Some players didn't understand the concept of moving to stay alive. On one attempt this mage died 3 times (brezed 2x obviously). That same mage also never broke 2k dps. In fact, the majority of the dps never broke 3k. I could do better than some of them in pvp boomkin spec with resto gear! /sigh<br /><br />So once we FINALLY didn't all die on Hodir and hit his enrage timer, he still had 25% left. So we left him and went to Freya. We spent about 45 minutes on the trash and managed to get 2 elders down. I died so many times from random things its not even funny. DPS breaking CC, mob goes straight for me, spam heal myself, no one takes the mob off me, I die. Or how about the pulls where I would put 1 rejuv and 1 LB on the tank as he runs into the pack of mobs, and all of a sudden 3 of them run at me....with no intervention by anyone. When I played mage that would be a time I would frost nova to save the healer! In the end, we killed not a single boss.<br /><br />Because of this frustration, I'm taking a break from raiding with my guild. I just can't stand it these days. The majority of them really are great people. Its an adult only guild too, so I don't have to deal with the problem that a lot of guilds have being immature children. I just can't stand raiding with them some times.<br /><br />Oh well, it'll give me some more time to do some work around the house.<br /><br /><br />The big thing that I've been working on the technology side is the planning for a multitouch table. I've got some big plans, and I really hope that I can do this. Its going to be a lot of work. The main things I'm working on for it are finding out where I can find infrared (850nm specifically) light sources (I've found some good online retailers, but seeing if I can find local), how to program the UI, how I want to make the UI, securing a projector (I have access to one to test my designs with), and lastly a webcam with a ir bandpass filter. The rest is fairly trivial.<br /><br />To learn more about this stuff, check out <a href="http://nuigroup.com">http://nuigroup.com</a><br /><br />Since I had to spend all day at work today in a "diversity training" meeting thing (I don't know why...apparently everyone in this building has to including myself [IT] and maintenance) I was working on writting down my ideas for the UI and what I want to do with it. I was even working on the database design for how to store some of the information.<br /><br />Now to learn OpenGL....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508339760001438553.post-24268705256877636902009-06-02T21:44:00.005-04:002009-06-02T22:33:00.904-04:00Bored Druid is BoredEXTENDED DOWNTIME ARG<br /><br />Honestly, I wouldn't have a problem with the down time if they actually gave a realistic end time. If I was told originally that it was going to take this long, I would have started something else a long time ago. But the problem is I don't want to start something to do it for only a tad, then go back to WoW (seeing as I was waiting for it!).<br /><br />ARG<br /><br />:( I just wanted to relax after work :(<br /><br />All this down time has made me miss horde though. Maybe I'll make a horde toon for me to play when I'm bored. I've got a druid (duh), a shaman at 73, a pally&rogue both at 58, DK at 60 (does that really count? :P ), and a mage at 71. I've played a warlock to low 20s before. I refuse to play a hunter because I hate pet management, especially to the level that hunters have to deal with. Any suggestions?<br /><br />[edit] Extended again until at least 9:30 PDT (12:30 my time)....THATS IT TIME TO DO SOMETHING ELSE [/edit]Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3