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Tomatoes!

February 2nd, 2012

Recently, quite accidentally, I came across this word ‘pomodoro’ I didn’t like the word so I didn’t try to figure out what it is. But then within few days I bumped into same word couple of more times, to warrant an interest in trying to find out what its all about. Well it turned out be tomatoes!. The word ‘pomodoro’ stands for ‘tomato’ in Italian, but it also stands for a time management technique invented by Francesco Cirillo.

I was skeptical in the beginning and then I thought I would use the technique to read the free book on pomodoro. The book turned out to be too big to read in one go and too small to warrant a serious reading. But by reading the book with the technique proposed in the book (starting page 5) I could easily finish the book.

Some of the things I noticed right away were:
- I was not tired and exhausted after a seemingly long reading session
- I liked the way the work has to be broken down and estimated upfront
- And I guess it certainly increases the productivity in multi-project environment
- And a constant improvement learn mode is build into the technique
For the free doc and further reading you can click the pic below(which links to www.pomodorotechnique.com)

I Use the Pomodoro Technique

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Future of Cable: Xfinity

June 17th, 2011

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There are editors and there are Editors

March 2nd, 2011

… or What Is Emacs.
After a good computer the next most important thing in a coders life is the editor. In most instances the time spent with the editor is next only to the time spent in office (till you become a manager). It becomes pertinent that we make a good choice when selecting an editor. The advantages of sticking to a good editor are many. Productivity increases as the familiarity with the editor increases. As one discovers more features actions which would take multiple steps can be done in fewer steps. You can spend time on solving problems than spending it on figuring out the tools to enable the problem solving.

There are many good options available while choosing an editor. There are many good proprietary editors/IDE available; few of the good examples that come to mind are: Source Insight and Visual Studio. But for software that you pay for license portability becomes an issue; the software that you buy, can it be used at your workplace ? home ? or other system that you use ? across operating systems ? So in general it would be better if one chooses an open source operating system that would work across operating systems (at-least Linux and Windows and possibly Mac OS X) And there are plenty of options to choose from. To list a few important ones:

  • Eclipse
  • Emacs
  • Notepad++
  • Vim

Eclipse, based on Java, is highly configurable and extensible through plugins but some people may consider it too heavy (might require more than 1GB RAM for good performance). notepad++ is a window only tool so we will go past it. Vim is an extension to the vi (from pre-historic era). Its a powerful tool in the right hands and is probably the highest used editor in the world. Vim(vi) strength is also its light weight. It has been ported to all kinds of system, including embedded systems.

Emacs is another weapon from pre-historic era to fight the everlasting battle against bugs  (basically its an editor). When I was choosing an editor it boiled down to vim and emacs. There are lost of face-offs between the patrons of these editors on web. What nailed the decision for me was that emacs supports vim emulation and vim does not support emacs emulation. So, after the highly biased introduction, what follows is a an introduction to emacs.

Emacs

Few people say emacs is not an editor but an operating system itself. Few other people disagree and say its not an operating system its a way of life and a religion (http://stallman.org/saint.html the coder in you will naturally ignore the ‘warning’). These statements are inspired by the fact that emacs not only can edit source code it can act as your browser, calendar, dairy, syndicate reader, organiser and what not. Symbol browsing ? Yes. Built in manual ? Yes. Calculator ? Yes. Games? Yes. Doctor? Yes (M-x doctor). If you can think of it, its probably there.
xkcd tribute to emacsxkcd tribute to emacs

By the way, the butterfly command(M-x butterfly) is actually supported, not kidding.

Emacs is based on the principle of minimum hand movement (more like hand displacement). You can get all of the work done from the main layout of the keyboard. Nope, you don’t even have to reach the arrow keys in the far flung regions of the keyboard. Yes , the initial author of emacs is none other than Richard Stallman himself.

Download

Download the latest emacs version from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/ . It will be a file named emacs-23.2-bin-i386.zip where xx.x is the latest version.

For linux source code can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ and compiled. Fedora, used in Linux by the way comes with the emacs package.

Installation

In windows unzip the contents to a convenient location.
Run <install dir>\emacs-23.2-bin-i386\emacs-23.2\bin\addpm.exe
Done !

Commands

Emacs can be used with mouse to get common tasks done, but the real power lies in commands.
Commands mostly start with with Control button represented in instruction by combination ‘C-’ or the Alt button represented by ‘M-’.
For example if you want to open a file you would give the command :
C-x C-f : Means holding the Control button press x and f keys.

Some common commands:
quit : C-x C-c
open file : C-x C-f
save file : C-x C-s
If you are starting out on emacs I strongly suggest printing out this cheat sheet and hanging it around your system where you can see.
http://home.uchicago.edu/~gan/file/emacs.pdf

More info at:
http://www.emacswiki.org/
http://wiki.pace.co.uk/wiki/index.php/NicolasCastay

Related topics

ECB is a plugin for emacs to help browse the code tree. It gives you option to configure windows to show you symbols, directory etc.
More info at: http://ecb.sourceforge.net/

ecb screenshot

Cscope is a non-emacs specific symbol indexer which makes symbol browsing easy. Emacs has built in command set to browse symbols through cscope
More info at: http://showriprasad.info/what-is/what-is-cscope/

Org mode is a special mode in emacs for tracking todo list, agenda etc. Org stands for organize. More info at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJTwQvgfgMM
(Tidbit: Ther person giving the introduction is T.V. Raman, an IIT grad with 9.68 GPA and a Doctorate from Cornell working in Google on Auditory Interface. And the startling fact is he is visually challenged)

A final warning: If you are a mouse oriented person and use keyboard when you cannot type with mouse then emacs (or vim) might not be an editor for you. Also you will have to remember lots of commands when you start out. But as you go along the storage area moves from your brain to finger muscles. (Again, the coder in you will naturally ignore the warning)

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USB Networking

January 20th, 2011

Came across this interesting way of connecting two PCs together using USB Cable. Why would you want to do such a thing you say ? Speed, faster speed is the answer. USB spec supports higher speeds than your average LAN networks. So if you are doing PC to PC transer (which are physically close, how close depends on the length of the cable) then using an USB cable will result in quicker transfers than with ethernet.

For the USB networking the normal cable that you get with your devices like phones, media players cannot be used, these are A/B connectors. But in our case both the PCs will host A type ports. There are A-A connector cables available (apparently illegal because of USB spec violation) BUT never use this as this will short the PCs togeter and probably damage your PCs.

For the USB networking you get what are called bridged USB cables or USB networking cables. This has a microcontroller which sits at the center of the cable and does the conversions necessary to talk between two PCs.

There are some drawbacks in connecting PCs in this way. One of the main being the lack of scalability. You are limited to two PCs or few at most by using hubs but then the contentions should be handled and may end up with performance less than the regular LANs.

For more information please follow…
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Connecting-Two-PCs-Using-a-USB-USB-Cable/248

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Triton Color E-ink Display

November 13th, 2010

E Ink Triton Imaging Film from E Ink Corporation on Vimeo.

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Cyrus Cylinder

September 18th, 2010

The Cyrus Cylinder is a Babylonian document of the 6th century BC, discovered in the ruins of Babylon in 1879 and now in the British Museum. It is a clay cylinder, broken into several fragments, on which is written a declaration.  The text is in the name of the Achaemenid Persian king Cyrus the Great.

The Cylinder was created following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Persian army under Cyrus invaded the Neo-Babylonian Empire and incorporated it into the Persian Empire. The last Babylonian king Nabonidus was defeated in battle by the Persians and was deposed by Cyrus, who replaced him as ruler of Babylonia. The text on the Cylinder commemorates the Persian victory and praises Cyrus’s kingly virtues, listing his genealogy as a king from a line of kings, in contrast with the low-born Nabonidus.

It has widely been regarded as an instrument of ancient Mesopotamian propaganda.

This cylinder has sometimes been described as the ‘first charter of human rights’, but it in fact reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC, kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms.

References:

1] www.britishmuseum.org

2] wikipedia

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Google Voice Action

August 14th, 2010

Well …. need I say more …..

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Unbreakable OLED

July 22nd, 2010

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What is Motion Sensing

July 2nd, 2010

An article by me published in Techspace – a quarterly technical magazine of Pace India

Motion sensing in Consumer Devices

By Showri Bekal

Motion sensing, which is the current wave in user interface (after multi-touch of course) is driving the Consumer Electronics devices into new uncharted territories. Chances are high that you have already used a product which has motion sensing. For example if you have used a camera which has electronic image stabilization, or a camera which changes the image orientation to landscape or portrait depending how you hold the camera, or if have used iPod, iPhone, iPad, or if you have used the laptop that shuts off harddisk when its falling, or if you have shaken your phone to change music and the list goes on. The most famous application of the motion sensing technology is of course the legendary product from Nintendo – The Wii Remote. In this article we will walk through how motion sensing work, the trend in consumer devices industry to adapt motion sensing and applications of motion sensing.

The two key instruments behind motion sensing are Gyroscope and Accelerometer. Gyroscope is a simple but amazing instrument that can be used to detect orientation. The principle on which gyroscope is based can be seen all around us from bi-cycles to space station. Gyroscope is used in destructive purposes like maintaining the bore sight of the canons on destroyers on high seas. But when such beautiful inventions are used constructively in consumer devices it opens up an entire new vista of opportunities, as demonstrated by the now famous Wii remote. While Gyroscopes measure angular momentum, accelerometer are instrument that detect movement. Use of both Gyroscope and Accelerometer allows motion detection in all of 6 Dimension ( 3 linear + 3 rotational along linear axes).

Accelerometer

Accelerometer can measure linear acceleration with reference to an inertial frame, as long as there is no rotation. They can be used to measure tilt. But accelerometers have a limitation, they cannot tell the difference between gravity and linear motion. So under certain conditions accelerometer cannot give correct results. This becomes clear if we see how an accelerometer is constructed.

Accelerometer construction

Accelerometer can be constructed based on various physical principles. The different type of accelerometers based on the physical principle used in the construction are: Capacitive, Piezoelectric, Piezoresistive, Hall effect etc. The cutting edge of accelerometer construction is the MEMS (Micro-Electro Mechanical System). While MEMS technology already produce devices with form factors suitable for consumer electronic devices, the future of accelerometer is in nano-technology and the quantum tunneling effects, which will result in smaller and higher accuracy accelerometers.


The diagram above is a model of multi-axis-capacitive accelerometer. When the free mass held by string moves, the attached capacitor plate pass by fixed capacitor plate. The capacitance, which is directly proportional to the overlapping area is converted to a voltage vector. The vector represents the direction and extent of motion.

Gyroscope

While an accelerometer says I am accelerating at x m/s2 a gyroscope says I am rotating at x deg/sec. Gyroscopes measure all type of rotation including horizontal and their response is more than that of

accelerometer. Their limitation being, able to respond only to rotation and not linear motion. Gyroscopes are constructed based on the principle of conservation of angular momentum. Once a gyroscope is set in motion its spin axis remains pointing in the same direction irrespective of the external torque applied. This principle is used to measure the changes in orientation of the gyroscope frame.

Applications of Motion Sensing

There are many products in market that are using accelerometers at the time of writing this article: Nitendo Wii, iPhone, iPod touch, Apple iPad, Google Nexus One, HTC Hero, Samsung Omnia, Samsung Omnia HD,Samsung Rogue (U960), Motorola Droid, Nokia N96, Nokia N97, Nokia 5800, Nokia N97 mini, Sony Ericsson W910i, Sony Ericsson C902, Palm Pre, Blackberry Storm, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Dream,Microsoft Zune HD etc.

The most imaginative use of the accelerometer, I think, is ‘The Wand’. The wand, as the name suggest, looks like a wand, similar to one used by Harry Potter. Its capabilities are no lesser, a flick of the hand is all that requires to change the TV channel ! Few movements to increase decrease volume. Imaginative combination of accelerometers and wireless remote has really brought magic to life. But the best application of motion sensing in my opinion is the Google’s SkyMap app for the Android phone. Just point your phone in any direction in the sky to display the name of the constellations, planets visible in that direction.

Of course Pace is not behind in adaptation of motion sensing, our own Le-Cube has an accelerometer to detect whether the box is placed vertically or horizontally and adjust the LCD display accordingly.

Le-Cube

Le Cude Set Top Box with accelerometer to change LCD orientation.

Today Accelerometer has more adoption in Consumer Devices than Gyroscope. As we have seen each have their limitation. The trend is moving towards using both accelerometer and gyroscope to offset each others disadvantages. InvenSense – a company that produces MEMS bases gyroscope, is confident that in future gyroscope only system is feasible. While Texas Instruments, ST Microelectronics are pioneers in MEMS based accelerometers. InvenSense is a prominent player in MEMS based Gyroscopes. Accelerometers are available at less than $1 per axis while gyroscope from Invensense are available at $2 per axis. Form factor being almost same the price battle might finally decide which technology is used en-masse.

Which ever way the technology take us motion sensing is here to stay and the user interface is up for complete revamp.

Author

Showri Prasad Bekal

Project Parker / US Cable

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barnard 68

June 29th, 2010

The Barnard 68 is a ‘absorption nebula’ situated in the milky way at a distance of about 500 light years. So close that not a single star can be seen between it and the Sun.

A absorption nebula is a type of interstellar cloud that is so dense that it obscures the light from the background emission or reflection nebula.

Cataloged by American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard in 1919, the cloud is now classified as a Bok globule. Harvard astronomers Bart Bok and Edith Reilly suggested that such a globule could collapse and form a star.

Barnard 68′s well-defined edges and other features show that it is on the verge of gravitational collapse within the next 100,000 years or so, and is on its way to becoming a star.

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