RasterWeb!
(consider it cc:by)
I started drawing a robot, but it ended up looking like a creepy guy, so then it sort of turned into what I’m just going to call “CreeperBot” for lack of a more fitting name.
Hmmm, didn’t I draw an Angry Robot recently? I don’t know what it is about these robots… I thought they were supposed to be our friends, and happily assist us with all our tasks.
Of course there is that “DESTROY ALL HUMANS!” thing…
This is Charlotte. Charlotte is a kitten. Kittens are cute. When Charlotte is good, she eats out of her food bowl. This is what a kitten should do.
Sometimes Charlotte is bad, and chews on things she should not chew on, like a USB cable. Bad Charlotte! I’m now out one USB cable.
Luckily, that was just a USB extension cable, and not the iPad cable that was plugged into it.
Since Apple is a little picky about who can manufacture iPad cables, I’d prefer not to have to buy replacements unless I really need them.
Luckily, my local hardware store has this great tubing that is just 23 cents per foot, and I’ve got an X-Acto knife.
My plan was to just slice the tubing open and then push the iPad cable into it. Simple enough, right?
In my first attempt I tried to use a steel ruler to get a nice straight line on the tubing, but that didn’t really work, and it was much easier to just freehand the cut. I will warn you that I have a BFA in Graphic Design, so I’ve been using X-Acto knives for well over 20 years. If you’re not as handy with them, be careful when you cut your tubing.
Here’s our new improved cable, with a protective covering. I showed it to Charlotte and she tried to chew on it, but either she didn’t like the taste, or figured out she was not going to chew through it. Either way, I win.
One tip: when you cut the tubing to the length you need, cut it just a bit longer, so you can cut it to the exact length after you’ve fed the cable into it. I managed to cut the first one I made just a little too short, though it was easy to fix with a very small piece of tubing added to the end, and then held in place with some clear tape.
I’m hoping once Charlotte is out of her “chewing” phase I can do away with the tubing, but for now, it works quite well.
Those guys over at Make (who seem to be my new BFF) mentioned another button I made, which was inspired by Matt’s AWESOME Button post on Make, which in turn inspired Patrick from Milwaukee Makerspace to build a footswitch-style button, which got mentioned on Hackaday, which is where I saw the link to Flip’s 1-Key-Keyboard Project.
It’s getting a little circular in here…
So on the Zen Button post, Flip commented on his 1-Key-Keyboard Project, and noted that it had the same “dead-simple functionality” but was a much lower cost.
The “dead-simple” part was also in the post’s description of my button, but I think that “dead-simple” had more to do with the parts and the build than the function, and here’s why I think that matters.
If you go back to the original AWESOME Button post, you’ll see a few people (including me!) wondered if you could use an Arduino instead of a Teensy. Why? Because the Arduino is cheap, and easy, and lots of people already have one.
But the Teensy is also cheap, and fairly easy, maybe just a wee bit more difficult, but still fairly easy, and you just plug the dang thing in via a USB cable and hey, what could be easier!?
But with ease of use comes a price. If you look at Flip’s 1-Key-Keyboard Project, it’s probably what he considered “dead simple” but to me, I see a list of parts including either a ATTiny45-20PU, or ATTiny85-20PU, or ATTiny85, or ATTiny45… and then there’s a few resistors, diodes, capacitors, some prototype-board, and a programmer that works with the Atmel AVRs.
Flip has done a great job writing up the project. I mean, I assume he has, but it’s way over my head. All the comments lead me to believe it’s pretty awesome. If you’re comfortable with everything he talks about, and it all makes sense, then that’s awesome too. Either way, I’m definitely glad Flip shared his project.
For those of us not ready to get that deep into AVR development, things like the Teensy or the Atmega 32u4 are simple enough to use that even beginners can get pretty far. Just in blog post comments and some emails I was able to help a few folks get their Teensys up and running.
Remember, everyone starts out as a beginner… but that’s not to suggest that you eventually need to get to the level where you’ll be using an AVR programmer with bare chips if using an Arduino or some other board does what you want with less hassle. Easy really is one of the main reasons the Arduino platform became so popular.
So if you ever see your project on Hackaday, try not to be discouraged by the commenters who are quick to point out how they would have done it better, faster, cheaper, and with 10 times the capabilities of what yours does, because while they were busy leaving discouraging comments, you were busy making something. :)
Cheers!
At various points in my life I’ve either been told I look like one of the guys listed above, or I’ve been mistaken for one of the guys listed above.
Sometimes I took it as an insult, and sometimes I took it as a compliment.
The photo of Bre was taken by David Neff. The rest I totally nicked from the Internet.
Dave is a cranky old man, and I say that in the nicest possible way, because really, I’m one too. Cranky old men like things the way they like them, and sometimes that means, the way they were before you damn kids came and messed everything up. And you did, really, you did.
Dave is not happy with the Mozilla folks and their Firefox browser.
Personally, I don’t think browsers are done or feature-complete yet. I say this because I’m dealing with developing web sites, with HTML5, with the <audio> and <video> tags, with codecs, with multiple computers/devices, etc. and it’s not perfect yet. Firefox 4 was a welcome upgrade from Firefox 3.x in my mind. Speed increases, Mozilla Sync, and a few other features were worth the small inconveniences I faced along the way. (Granted, I was running the beta for more than 6 months on one machine, so I wasn’t surprised by anything new.)
I’d admit that I am definitely a fan of Mozilla. I may even know a few people who still work there, but I’m not a Mozilla developer, or part of their marketing department, I’m just someone who wants to see them succeed.
And why do I want to see Mozilla succeed? If you notice the graphic above it says “We Believe in an Open Web” and while Apple and Google both have browsers, they’re both in a constant battle for mindshare and eyeballs, and ultimately are interested in making a profit. Mozilla is a non-profit organization that (and I hope I don’t sound naive) has an interest in keeping the web open and free. (I didn’t even mention Microsoft because they only make a browser for one single platform, and it’s a platform I don’t even use, except for testing.)
I’m a fan of freedom, and ultimately I believe that freedom (on the web) is better served by Mozilla than by Apple or Google. I fear the closing of that freedom, and think that supporting Mozilla may help prevent it.
And oh, the beauty of open source! If Dave really wants the keep using Firefox 3.x, there is nothing stopping him. It’s open source. The code is available. Hell, look at what the TenFourFox team is doing. You want Firefox 3.6 to live on forever? Start working on it, or hire some developers. This may not be entirely realistic, but it is completely possible.
I should note something here about Mozilla providing Firefox (software) for free versus Osbourne selling computers (hardware) for money. Maybe I’ll fill it in later.
Years ago when things were looking grim for the web, I always though some company would come out with a web browser that would do away with the ‘View Source’ command. I mean, sure, Chrome hides it, but Apple finally managed to get rid of it with Mobile Safari. Ugh, Mobile Safari… I wish I could run Firefox on an iOS device. This closing of the web concerns me.
I know all the cool kids abandoned Firefox, but to me, that’s like abandoning freedom, and I just can’t see doing that yet…