1. Got a new job:
I joined the superbly interesting and fun guys over at Catch. Read all about it here. I’ve already in the short time I have been there had a chance to work on some great stuff which will be ready to show very soon.

2. Moved to London:
I am finally a London resident again having moved to a great place in North London with 4 buddies. This picture is what graces our front room. I’m growing to like it but its safe to say opinion in the house is divided.

3. Using Destroy Twitter:
There is a myriad of twitter apps around. But someone pointed me in the direction of this one. For me its brilliant, very slick and does everything I need it to do on my desktop. Check it out.

4. Reading WIRED UK:
For a while i’ve been picking up the US import of this from Victoria station’s WHsmiths (the little one near platform 15-19). But now they’ve gone and launched a UK one. Great! I now subscribe and its truely brilliant.

All of this has meant that my Arduino has been a bit neglected. But I have big plans for it! Will update soon.

Thanks @Skins Read the article over at learnd.

My first investigations led me to the AS3 Glue Library. Which used in conjunction with Serproxy (which is bundled with the library download) I managed to get flash to control the Arduino connected to my machine. Then loading serproxy on my laptop on my local network and controlling from my main PC this was working also. serproxy however is quite hard to use and it did take me a while to configure.

But that when I found a brilliant tutorial by Bjoern Hartmann over at Stanford. It can be found here.

This tutorial uses a new custom Arduino IDE which incorporates a Serial Proxy. This is much easier than serporxy! The only issue I then had was allowing files ran in a standalone flash player to connect. As flash player since version 7 (i think) won’t allow socket connections by default unless the file is trusted or a policy file states that it is allowed. Information on that can be found here..

I have now managed to get a Policy file server working on port 843 as suggested above which will allow connections to port 11100 where the Arduino socket to serial proxy is listening. I also forwarded ports 843 and 11100 on my router to my laptop where the server is. This means by specifying my router IP flash files ran on someones local machine can connect to my local server and in turn connect to my Arduino. I have only tested this with one connection so far so its early days. But it means that I can create a flash interface and upload it to my hosting. Where another user on the internet can connect and use it to control my Arduino locally.

For reference here is my code:

First the Flash Policy File server which is running the standalone perl version from http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/socket_policy_files.html.

Using this command line
sudo perl flashpolicyd.pl --file=../flashpolicy.xml --port=843

The flashpolicy.xml contents:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM "/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd">

<!– Policy file for xmlsocket://socks.example.com –>
<cross-domain-policy>

<!– This is a master socket policy file –>
<!– No other socket policies on the host will be permitted –>
<site-control permitted-cross-domain-policies=”master-only”/>

<!– Instead of setting to-ports=”*”, administrator’s can use ranges and com$
<!– This will allow access to ports 123, 456, 457 and 458 –>
<allow-access-from domain=”*” to-ports=”*” />

</cross-domain-policy>

Then loading the standard firmata and running a serial proxy using the new Arduino IDE (013) and using this AS3 code to connect.

var arduino:Arduino = new Arduino("000.000.000.000", 11100);
arduino.addEventListener(Event.CONNECT,onSocketConnect);
arduino.addEventListener(Event.CLOSE,onSocketClose);
arduino.addEventListener(ArduinoEvent.FIRMWARE_VERSION, onReceiveFirmwareVersion);
arduino.addEventListener(ArduinoEvent.DIGITAL_DATA, onReceiveDigitalData);
arduino.addEventListener(ArduinoEvent.ANALOG_DATA, onReceiveAnalogData);


This connect code taken from AS3 Glue Examples test_arduino.as. Replacing the 000.000.000.000 with your routers IP will then allow it to be used outside your home network or if using it internally the local IP for your other machine.

I have posted all of this here along with other peoples comments http://protolab.pbwiki.com/TutorialFlashSetup2009

First step in creating an automated Electric Railway using an Arduino. The video shows it running a simple test program of on full speed for a second and then off for a second. Next I need to find a relay to switch the direction and figure out how to control the points.

I must also add some thanks to Richard Shipman for some help on the circuit.

I did a quick search on Make Magazine website and there are some amazing things people are doing with these little babies. http://blog.makezine.com/archive/arduino/

Agency: AMVBBDO

I implemented this theme using custom PHP to add further customisation from the Wordpress backend. This means header images are selected by random to be shown unless the author specifies a particular image.

The main aim for this project was to guide more users to the donation pages by placing the donation form in a more suitable location on everyday and creating a form to take users to correct donation type straight from any page on the site.

The piece follows Mercedes idea that every car has a green life cycle from manufacture to the end of its life. We focused on the Recycling programme Mercedes run to take old unused cars. The concept was an installation that reacts when a users blows on a flow shaped device. The working prototype is here (microphone and flash needed)

I’ve been very busy, and i’m currently working on a new work section for my site. So hopefully I will add it there soon.

More at: http://www.searchenginerapbattle.com/

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