unwiredben

As I mentioned on Twitter, I'm one of the lucky developers that are in the Palm webOS developer program. My status as an ex-Palm-employee probably helped my application stand out a little. We recently had our developer agreement amended to allow discussion of the development experience in public forums, so here's my first post on the topic.

First, from watching the homebrew world, I fully expect that lots of obvious niches will be filled very quickly once the app catalog for the Pre opens up. There will be scientific calculators, tip calculators, and shopping list apps. Some one will have a "Drug Wars/Mob Wars" style game, and various dice and puzzle games will quickly appear. The catalog will look a lot like the early Palm OS days.

It will take a little longer for more serious programs to appear, both because of the learning curve of webOS and because developers will want to realize a return on their investments. That means having a larger user pool.

OK, so what are my ideas right now? I've got a few:

1. "Required Reading", a client for a variety of web services that keep track of bookmarks like Read It Later, Delicious, Mozilla Weave, and Newsgator Clippings. This app would let you view your lists, open the bookmarks in the web browser, and have those links marked as read or visited.
2. "Memosa", an application that addresses the problem that you can't easily migrate your Palm OS memos. I envision a web service that lets you upload a Palm OS memo database file and returns a RSS feed of the memo entries. Make this use HTTPS and require a password and you can do one-time conversions. The Pre app could then download and store the memos locally.
3. "Couch to 5K Tracker". I've got an app on my iPod Touch that handles audio cues for the timing of the various C25K runs, but it's biggest limitation is that you've got to start your playlist before you start the app, and if you want to change music, you've got to pause and resume your run. On the Palm Pre, you can just use the multitasking and not have to worry about the timer getting messed up.
4. "Electronics RefCard". This is a simple app to help you figure out the value of resistors and other components by their color markings. I also imagine having some way to store IC pin outs here for quick reference, and maybe having calculators for Ohm's Law and parallel/series circuits.
5. "Photo Puzzle". The standard 4x4 block of sliding tiles with one missing. You get to rearrange them in the right order. The hook: unscramble your own photos instead of a bunch of numbers.
6. "IP Toolkit". Front-end for a web service that lets you ping hosts and do DNS and WHOIS lookups.

Some of these are fairly easy to code, and others will take a bit more work.  I'm currently working on the C25K tracker as my first application; it has an immediate appeal to me because I'm going through that training program right now, and there's some interesting challenges with keeping the device awake to do accurate timing and mixing my alert sounds with the other audio streams.  However, I've also got some code in place for the Electronics application.  I could do a really poor job on that one quickly, but I'd like for it to actually have a nice user interface.

A few weeks ago, I sent off the 1.3 version of my RGB LED Shield to get fabbed. It was waiting for me when I returned from the Mozilla All-Hands meeting in California, but when I'd put it all together, it didn't work. I started checking soldering joints and electrical connections and discovered the problem; two rows of pins were swapped in my board layout, so it wasn't connecting the right pins to the Arduino. Because of the way that the TLC5490 pins are connected to special timer outputs, I couldn't fix this in software. I tried to see if I could reroute the signals on the board, but it didn't seem possible, However, I was able to verify that if I connected the board up with wires to the right pins, it did work.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I'd gotten in a little board called the Stickduino. It's a small Arduino-compatible board that is about the size of a Flash drive. One end is a USB port, although it's not quite thick enough to make good contact in my laptop. I fix that with a couple of pieces of cardboard and a glue stick. I uploaded my arrows sketch to the board, then wired it up to the 1.3 RGB shield. The solid core wire was stiff enough to hold things in place, and it worked when I plugged it into my laptop.

To power this, I got out a $5 USB power supply I'd picked up on my California trip. It's not the most reliable gadget, but it's small, and if you aim the USB port to the ceiling, it will hold up the whole contraption. The picture is from it running in my bathroom. I've also got a YouTube video of it running it's very bright pattern below.

I'd probably not use this as a real nightlight, but as a quick light show at a party, I'm all over it. I also now have something to do with the rest of my v1.3 boards.

Here's one with a color box pattern that I wrote:

This was taken Sunday night over at Eric's place. The patterns you see going up/down from the LEDs are artifacts from the CCD sensor; you don't see them with your eyes. I think I'll do another video of the patterns bouncing off a wall to give a more ambient experience.

I got my first PC board back from Seeed Studios on Saturday; they arrived mid-week, but since they shipped from China, I had to go to the Post Office to retrieve them and sign the customs form. The box had a variety of parts including a big bag of tiny switches, and it had the five PC boards. I put my own board together that afternoon and tested it, but the real fun was earlier tonight when we got three more of the boards populated and flashing lights. Eric Moore got his waves test pattern running in a spiral configuration, and it looks really nice, especially bounced off a dark ceiling or wall.

There's more pictures at Flickr, and I should soon have the website at http://combee.net/rgbshield populated with part lists and assembly instructions. I've got a few tweaks to make for a version 1.2 of the shield based on our experiences putting these together, but nothing that should be too difficult to setup.

I've been working on a pretty nice chunk of code for the class I'm teaching later today. The main idea of the class is to put a web server on an Arduino board. Once you've got that, you can use any computer with a browser to pull data from the board or send commands to control things. As I worked on the code, I realized that a little refactoring would turn it into a nice framework for building lots of different webby things.

If you're interested, the project is hosted at http://webduino.googlecode.com. I'm releasing it with a MIT-style license. I expect to do a few more modifications to it over the next few days, especially after feedback I get from the class. I'll also probably restructure it to fit into the library scheme used for Arduino add-ons; right now, you just put a copy of the header into the folder with your code, which is nice for keeping it with your sketch, but not-so-nice for code duplication.

Work continues with Mozilla.  We're about to go into a week of testing on the first beta release of Fennec for the Nokia N810.  I've got one major patch that should be in this release.  I've been working in the JavaScript code that acts as the front-end of the browser.  We had a problem that we could drag around the content of the page, but lists that were in the chrome around the page, like the URL suggestion list or the bookmark list, couldn't be moved.  My patch moved the drag handling to a higher level so it can be used to handle both cases.  Most of the implementation strategy came from Stuart and Mark, but I did the actual grunt work of writing the code and getting it to run correctly.

I really like the Mozilla review process.  Basically, I do work on my own machine and post it as a proposed patch to the bug.  Other people on the team get a change to review the change, and if they like it, they give it a thumbs up.  If they have issues, they post them back to the bug, I fix them, and produce a new patch.  Once the reviews are all accepted, the change gets landed in the source repository, and it goes into the next official build.

Outside of Mozilla, I've started doing some work with a new hacker group here in New York called HTINK.  The h is silent, so it's pronounced like "tink", and makes me a htinker.  We've got a big workshop we're doing here in NYC on March 14th where we'll be building lots of Arduino-compatible microcontroller boards and hooking them up to RGB LEDs and robot servo motors.  There's more stuff being discussed later in the year too.  I'm also working on material for an Arduino web server workshop where I'll show how to hook up one of the boards to your Ethernet and run a simple server on it so you can read sensors or change outputs.  That class will happen at NYC Resistor, probably in early April.

Version 6.1 of the SXSW schedule is now online at the SXSW web site.  This version updates a lot of information for the music fest, and also adds a couple of small features.  You can now use the space bar to select or deselect items from your "My SXSW" list, and while you're viewing that list, you can send it as a memo to another device.  This is probably the last version of the program for this year.

I hadn't expected the Daylight Savings Time change in 2007 to affect any of my work directly.  However, earlier this week, I found myself looking at a SXSW schedule and wondering why all the events on Sunday were starting an hour later than expected.  It ends up being a glitch because we store timestamps in the database using UTC and we only ever had to add a few hours to turn them into the local Austin times.  Well, this year, since we "spring forward" in the middle of SXSW week, on some days the local time is UTC+6, while on the rest, local time is UTC+7.  It ended up only being a small change to handle this, although I had to touch several parts of the application to get all the dates right.

I'm excited about the other changes: I've got Google Maps support working nicely, and I've added the option to download MP3 files through the web browser in addition to playing them through Pocket Tunes Deluxe.  We've got the graphics all updated for this year's look and feel, and I think I'll be sending a build to SXSW in the morning for their approval.

Details on my panel at SXSW have finally been posted to the web.  If you want to learn more about with whom I'll be presenting, check out the entry for "Designing for Convergent Devices".

BTW, work on this year's Palm OS app is coming along nicely.  We've got all the new data in place and most of the graphics have been refreshed.  Now that Interactive has their data updated, we're getting close to the first public release.

The Bateman365 DVD will be released soon; you can get details on pre-ordering it and see the list of clips on Scott's LiveJournal. Among the 69 clips chosen from Scott's year of animations is the classic "Ben Combee's Robots Are Go!" where I narrate a story about seeing robots in the grocery store as a kid. If that's not enough reason for you to pre-order the disc, you also can get your name in the credits of the Bateman365 movie by ordering it before Friday. Then, you'll be famous too!

I had not intended on spending many hours of this weekend working on computer problems.  I thought I'd do some shopping, see a movie, go on walks, and do some reading.  However, on Friday during a lunchtime visit to Fry's, one of the specials caught my attention.  That led to two more trips to Fry's and hair-ripping frustration.  I think it's over now, but I wanted to document everything before heading to bed.


My fingers are crossed that I don't have any more problems with any of this equipment.  kazanya gets back on Tuesday night, and I don't want to be knee-deep in personal computer problems when I could be spending time with her. :)

With a few days to go before the start of the film and interactive conferences, we've just put our first public build of the SXSW 2006 application online. You can download it at http://2006.sxsw.com/toolbox/schedules/pda/. This year's code was developed both on my Treo 650 and on a loaner Treo 700w device, where I ran the code using StyleTap, a utility that lets you run Palm OS programs on Windows Mobile. I got lots of assistance from both Patrick Sullivan, who did graphics and database work, and lizardprincess, who scoured the program and data for bugs and glitches.

The last week has been "Get Stuff Done" week for me and my home.

Saturday: pick up a replacement 1/2 HP garbage disposal for my kitchen sink; the original 1/3 HP disposal that came with the house had died during the summer. Also get fluorescent floods to replace the burnt-out incandescent floods in the track lighting over my never-used fireplace.

Wednesday: pick up replacement insert for back door that I'd ordered a few weeks ago

Thursday: with the help of tangoglenn, replaced the window insert in my back door. The outside plastic frame had warped in the sunlight and it was letting moisture into the insulation.

Friday: with the help of zen_elf, install the garbage disposal. This involved a trip to the hardware store to get a replacement drain pipe, plumber's putty, and Teflon tape, plus lots of cleaning of "fragrant" organic matter from the pipes. I also went and looked at couches at Eurway to replace my futon, and I'm really liking this sectional couch configured with two corners and two straight pieces.

zen_elf gave me an interesting idea about what to do with the old window insert, a sealed glass unit with an integral window shade and a magnet switch that opens and closed the blinds. His idea was to build a wood frame around the insert and turn it into a end table. I'll have to think about this one a while; it's a little ambitious for my own skills, and I don't know if I'd actually want to use it myself.

I'm also thinking about replacing the carpet downstairs with wood laminate flooring. My parents have some leftover material that I might be able to use, and Costco has a really good deal on new flooring. The carpet that's down there has some bad stains, and it's a mess to maintain. I'll wait until 2006 to do this, as I know I won't have time to work on this project until next year.

Going over my schedule for the last ten days, I've computed my final tallies, with highlights in bold:

14 films - My Big Fat Independent Film, Seoul Train, The Aristocrats, Cavite, Promedio Rojo, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic, The Puffy Chair, The Fearless Freaks, SXTV, Highway Courtesans, Max and Grace, Kissing on the Mouth, Comedia Shorts, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa

13 bands - Sonya Kitchell, Mike Doughty, The Thermals, The Album Leaf, Sleater-Kinney, Apollo Sunshine, By Divine Right, Trashcan Sinatras, Beangrowers, Love Tractor, Magnapop, Chris and Thomas, Ditty Bops

6 Interactive Panels - Open Source Marketing, How to Grow Online Communities, Ana Marie Cox, Al Franken, How to Trick-Out Your Blog, Taking Your Act on the Road With Mobile Technology

3 trade shows - Film/Interactive, Music, Flatstock

15 ideas for improving the SXSW Palm OS schedule

5 business cards from people I had conversations with at the conference

AWARDS
Best Swag Award goes to TalentMatch.com that was giving out copies of both the Elmore Leonard novel "Be Cool" and the soundtrack to the movie. Runner up is the 40 free downloads card from eMusic.com.

Venue with a View Award goes to the 18th Floor Lounge at the Crowne Plaza. It's a great place to see the lights of Austin at night with big glass windows.

College Music Never Dies Award goes to the Magnapop showcase. I've got to pull out "Hot Boxing" and listen to it ASAP!

You Need a Badge Award goes to the pigeon that strutted around the Convention Center theater before "Cavite".

Excellent Way to Take Advantage of a Business Opportunity Award goes to Thai Passion on 7th Street which stayed open until 3AM during the festival.