Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Bangalore .Net Student Meet


BDotNETStudent is a User Group supported by Microsoft and is organized "by Students and for the students". It feels really cool to hangout in the Microsoft Campus in Bangalore on weekends. :) Last weekend i.e on 21 september 2008, We (Microsoft Student Partners) talked on four topics

Intro to VS2008
- Anil B Pai from Dr.AIT
Microsoft Student Partner

Controlling I-robot using C#
- Lakshman Srikanth from Einstasoft
Microsoft Student Partner Lead

WEB
- Akash Bapna from PESSE
Microsoft Student Partner

Search Engine Architecture
- Samartha from RVCE
Microsoft Student Partner

Find the ppts here
VS2008
WEB

No of people attended : 108
Average Feedback Rating : 8/10


Monday, September 22, 2008

Driving I-robot using C#

I will be more specific and focussed in this post! no no to all the philosophy and lectures! :D

If you don't have a i-robot, not a problem! You can learn serial port programming using C# in this tutorial, You can implement it for your own device if you know the hardware specifications.

Requirements :
Procedure :
  • Connect your I-robot to the serial port of your comp. and go to device manager click on Ports and know the port number (eg :COM9, COM11....)
  • Open Visual C# Express Edition/Visual Studio , Start>New Project>Windows forms application
  • Drag and drop two buttons from toolbox window, Name them "Sing" and Square".
  • Double Click on sing, write the following event handler code
  • In the code "COM11" , key in your COM#.
//
SerialPort robotport = new SerialPort("COM11",57600, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One);

robotport.Open();
robotport.Write(new byte[] {128, 132},0,2);
robotport.Write(new byte[] {140, 0, 4, 62, 12, 66, 12, 69, 12, 74, 36},0,11);
robotport.Write(new byte[] {141,0},0,2);
robotport.Close();
//

  • Double Click on Square, key in the following C# event handler code
//
SerialPort robotport = new SerialPort("COM11", 57600, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One);
robotport.Open();
robotport.Write(new byte[] { 152, 17, 137, 1, 44, 128, 0, 156, 1, 144, 137, 1, 44, 0, 1, 157, 0, 90, 153 }, 0, 19);
robotport.Write(new byte[] { 153},0,1);
robotport.Close();
//
  • Save all and build the solution.
  • Run
  • Click on Sing/square and see how the i-robot responds!
Check out the videos and see how my i-robot responded!


DEMO


CODING/SCREENCAST


*If your laptop doesn't support Serial Port, Buy a USB to Serial converter!
*If you have any queries please add a comment, I shall reply to your queries asap.

Linux Embedded

Everyone talks about embedded nowadays, and in a country like India where Mobile Service industry has reached nook and corner of the country , its really a Hot Cake! Sharing and Learning is a part of everyone's lives but Open Source has marked its values and redefined the word "sharing". Recently I had been to an amazing event in Bangalore,as I was curious about Linux Embedded and after attending the event I learnt a lot about the Linux Community, Embedded Devices, OMAP specification, how to deploy kernel to your device, how to configure the devices! We worked on a device called as Beagleboard .........About Beagleboard :
  • DVI-D for connecting digital computer monitors
  • Compatibility with a huge collection of USB peripherals including hubs, keyboards, mice, WiFi, Bluetooth, web cameras, and much more
  • MMC+/SD/SDIO interface for memory or wireless connectivity
  • S-Video out for connecting your NTSC or PAL television or wearable visor
  • Stereo audio in and out for a microphone and headphones or speakers
  • Power via typical USB chargers for cell phones from your laptop, from an automobile adapter, from batteries, or even from a solar backpack
*If you want to try it out, just see this wiki.
*Photos


Tuesday, September 16, 2008

i-Robot- Endless opportunities






I-robot is a hobbyist robot! which is highly customizable and is generally used to develop path finder robot, maze solver bot, line follower bot ...............Using Microsoft Robotics Studio its lot more fun to develop robot applications for the "i-robot create". Being a Microsoft Student Partner, I had requested 'i-robot create' from Microsoft so that i could start building apps using Microsoft Robotics Studio ,see my previous article on MSRS , i.e on "how to simulate a i-robot create using Visual Programming Language", This time I will show you "how to drive a robot in real time and to sing a song (ofcourse in morse code).... using Microsoft Robotics Studio! hmmm... but as of now my laptop doesn't support Serial Port(gtg and buy a converter)! hence it takes two to three days to post the videos. Have a look at the pics :-)
*Special thanks to Microsoft and Mr. Reza(our team lead) .
...

Friday, September 12, 2008

Barcamp Bangalore 7


Hi Everyone,

I will be "live blogging " the event tomorrow , here is my twitter feed www.twitter.com/bloggersrikanth , also will update this post with latest discussions and sessions going on! Those of you who are new to barcamp check out my friends post BCB7. Hope to see you @ bcb7.

Embedded Linux : Low cost Embedded Device which is similar to a computer! cost is 10k you can develop applications, watch videos..all you need is that device , monitor and a keyboard! The device is very small! Tts really great and open source community driven ! The OS is linux. It has S-video, USB .......... ! check out www.beagleboard.org . The session is still going on @ L-22,IIM-B.

Hacking Orkut/Gmail passwords :
Parashuram talked about , How Orkut Developers can have access to your gmail passwords , while you use the open social applications like i-read, emote......... see Dy-Verse. I was really amazed to see my own password hacked!!

Barcamp ROCKS!

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Wifi Booster

If you have a wifi router and are not getting sufficient signal to your laptop, then download(print) the pics from this site , so that you can enhance/boost your wifi router signal with just alluminium foil, cardboard, gum and a pair of scissors....
So what are you waiting for??...... start building....

See this video :


The first pic is what I have right now @ home and i am getting full signal . Before that , my laptop use to lose connection with the router repeatedly! Now its working awesome.
You can build this for your Wireless PCI card too(for your PC) so that you can get better signal reception.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Nokia Code Camp

Hi Everyone
Dear readers , Sorry, I was busy with my startup so couldn't blog for a month.....Well I am back now with full zeal and ofcourse passion! Recently had been to Nokia Code Camp by Forum Nokia at
IIIT-B , It was real fun, had free wireless internet, laptop, tea, lunch and yeah a bunch of GEEKS!As the name says "Code Camp", I thought there would be more coding than just talk but it was the opposite! :( . Although provided laptops to everyone, I used my laptop as i am kinda addicted to it, like a Girl Friend :P. So I had everything, and was just waiting for the session to start.
The Session started, again a business guy!(Prakash Sayini) In every event business people talk first and then the real thing, i mean tech happens! hmmm... will have to figure out why???.... phew.....and they gave us a document which had the agenda and all the tutorials,ppts to start developing small appl
ications for Nokia S40 cellphone. So I didnt wait for the session i.e coding session , and started browsing tutorials online.Starte
d using Netbeans 6.0 (mobile edition) , J2ME and then developed 'hello world' application for my cellphone and transfered the application to my cellphone and luckily it worked!woooot :-) If you are interested in developing a hello world app for your cellphone check out these steps ........

Pre-requisites:
*if you dont have a S40 based cellphone ,dont worry there is another way to test your app, just read.....

Open Netbeans - > New Project - > Select mobility -> MIDP


Key in the project name and click next , next and finish!
The default file "Hellomidlet.java will be open , In your workspace change the view->editor->screen
Select "Hello", In the Properties Window key in some text in text field, this will be displayes under the label 'hello'.



Press F11 to build main project and then F6 to run..



Now to open this app on your S40 based Nokia Mobile phone , goto Documents->NetbeansProject->MobileApplication1->dist
Copy MobileApplication1.jar and send it to your cellphone memory through PC Suite or any other application
This above tutorial talks about creating a hello world J2ME application for a mobilephone , but in the Nokia S40 SDK, Start-> Nokia Connectivity Framework-> Run Emulator , You can see a simulated S40 cellphone here , so that you can test the app right here using the SDK if you dont have a S40 cellphone.

After doing all this , it was lunch time and the theory session was still going on about Nokia S40, MIDP, J2ME, Mobile media API...... by Balagopal K S.

Theory ,tutorials , softwares, SDK's :