spanner888 – Page 6

{U}sable{D}evices Site update

Due to the slow progress posting and adding information to the Wiki, here is a brief status update on the {U}sable{D}evices site.

A lot of effort has gone into the Wiki establishment, and it is now starting to get past the mostly self inflicted issues in implementing the wiki semantic data structures, forms, pages and templates to assist with central changes to groups of pages. These changes are already visible, but won’t be promoted until a they are a bit more presenatable and populated with more information. If you want to give any feedback, or contribute, please jump in!

As the only current interest in the forums is spammers, the forums have been disabled until I find a better anti-spam solution, as dealing with the spammers has been a big timewaster. Does anyone have any suggestions beyond the built in phpBB options?

The Server Internal Error 500 messages have reduced to a trickle. If you run into one, I would really appreciate it if you contacted me with what you were doing at the time!

All of which has slowed posts here on the blog, not to mention all those new projects I have been planning!

In short, progressing slowly, groundwork mostly in place, and the really interesting content will start to trickle out.

Inspirational people – part 3

This third article in the “inspirational People” series features two people involved in establishing the first hackerspace in China, Xinchejian. This space is very active, has a very diverse range of projects and is actively involved with many external organisations in the local community and has a very diverse cross-cultural membership.

David Li

In addition to David’s involvement in founding Xinchejian and creating new projects, which can be seen at the Xinchejian site, David has given a number of interesting conference presentations, for example recently at the China Open Week (Slides and Intro here! (Partially English) ), and at TED Five Star Square.

David was also one of the five contributors to this astounding background piece for a commercial research organisation Innovation spaces of the future: research notes on China’s shanzhai meeting the Makers. This really is a must read for several major reasons!

Ricky Ng-Adam

Ricky plays a key role in helping to run the Xinchejian and is involved in several global initiatives which are mentioned on the Xinchejian site.

One in particular is highlighted here because of the staggering vision that everyday folk can contribute to “The 100 Year Starship™ (100YSS™) study is an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible.”

Ricky is one of the hackerspace contributors through the Hackerspaces Global Space Program.

You are strongly encouraged to keep up to date with the current activities and read more on these two inspiring people at the Xinchejian site and through your own research. You might even get inspired and join in, or enthuse others, or follow your own inspiration! You can even contribute inspirations and other helpful information on the Wiki.

Computer wiring – eliminating chaos – part 2

The first attempt to improve access to the computer cables and to eliminate the wiring chaos worked fairly well for the easy access, but not so well on the eliminating chaos. Some valuable lessons were learnt, including to reduce the size of cable bundles and to split the bundles based on cable destination, to reduce the stress on connectors when desk or computer is moved.

This second attempt is a major improvement as it:

improves the rear cable management “rack”:

rigidity and strength – to support heavy cable bundles and pulling when moving.
space to get hands in to adjust wiring.
air flow.
by adding cable management at rear top of computer.

splits cables into three bundles:

local to the computer (USB, eSata and power for external disk drives).
to the desk.
to the wall.

included extra slack in the cable bundles.
used velcro for quick un/wrapping cable bundles.

Many of the improvements were made through the planning of what bundles go where and then bundling with velcro ties and good slack. You can make big improvements, without the trolley and rear rack, by planning your cable bundles, adding slack and using easy cable wraps or ties. Also be prepared to have a make improvements or even redo completely, as you discover better ways to run the cables and bundles.

You might even have a computer case with holes or brackets where you can tie or add screws to support cable bundles and eliminate the need for the cable “rack”, although this does work better with smaller cable bundles.

The lessons learnt this time are to:

label both ends of each cable
have a labelling “standard”.
Resist adding ANY extra cables unless well labelled and documented, and even then resist as they add complexity and bundle weight and stiffness!!!
plan for change – you will refine and also just change, think about the common things you use and move.

It’s very surprising how often you forget which cable does what a few months later, even you think it is just so obvious when you do the wiring, so at a minimum label “this end” with what the “other end” is connected to – and this needs to be done on each end. If you can write up a table or spreadsheet or have custom software, then that is also very useful.

The outcome – was chaos eliminated?

Both computers now wheel out easily and the desk, which has one computer each end, can also easily be pulled out. A bonus is that this enables quick disconnect of the entire computer – you only have to unplug a couple of easy to find cables.

The real miracle is that the cables have not magically reverted to a horrible rats nest, despite adding and removing several devices and cables and even an overhaul to fix a failed fan.

The outcome is that chaos has at least been deferred long term, the final result is very pleasing !

Inspirational people – part 1

This post in the inspiration series focuses on inspiring people and what they do that is inspiring. Previous posts in this series focussed on the inspirational project or presentation, rather than who is inspiring.

Rob Gray

Inspires because he has shared many interesting projects, such as “The Quub is an open-source microcontroller system based on tiny “core processor” boards, a system of addressable daughter boards, and provision for simple networking. ”

He also has an extensive interest in nature photography, he travels and lives in his own design and build mobile home – now at generation 2 and also because his “entire web site is archived by the National Library of Australia as a “publication of national significance”.

Rob provides an excellent example of sharing and community building through his web site and extensive essays, tutorials, FAQs, diaries and publications.

He does most of this while living on the road in remote “outback” Australia!

Interview Inspiring Project QUUB Another inspiring project wothahellizat

Ian Lesnet

Inspires because he is taking a pioneering role in open sourcing his projects, crowd sourcing the project design, development and maintenance, and is also placing large portions of his business processes and web site setup into public domain as well and even seeking community input on pricing.

His the projects extremely useful, very adaptable and are continuously being used for new purposes and enhanced, and he is really successful at targeting a low price, including shipping that is very attractive to users.

A very inspirational presentation “Get your stuff made“. A long list of great projects.

Explore the site – there is everything from open part lists (BOM) and links to easy purchase shopping carts, to extensive documentation and extremely good information on designing, making and especially manufacturing. The forums are extremely active and very helpful. The Dangerous Prototypes community even proposes and designs some projects almost independently of Ian who has even funded some of the PCB prototypes.

——————————–

If you don’t have the technical knowledge of those listed above, then check out Ian Lesnet’s Dangerous Prototypes site, or Adafruit, Sparkfun, ePanaroma, etc. Do keep coming back here as the Wiki will be collating many resources to help you get started, or continue your journey.

You don’t have to design any electronics to create a working circuit! You can use electronic building blocks and some code to make it do what you want! There are plenty of code examples to get you started. You might even find an existing product or a kit that does what you want.

You can take many approaches from the use of pre-existing hardware and software building blocks, to modifying one item, or creating the entire system.

There are even groups, forums, sites and companies that are very supportive of of individuals and will manufacture and maybe sell your idea.

The people selected in this series of posts were chosen because they have completed and shared interesting work and encouraged others to use and modify it, and also because they provide alternate ideas to common mainstream approaches. I also have to admit personal bias, as two of them are fellow Australians and are a similar age to me, and I have purchased and built one project, want more, plus I have several of Ian Lesnet’s projects!

The inspirations from this and previous posts are being collated in the wiki, please view and considering contributing.

Computer wiring – eliminating chaos.

Over the years I have seen many ideas on the web to help reduce cable chaos and made many of my own attempts to reduce or eliminate. My best attempts have created neat, tidy and largely hidden the cables, but very soon after, if not minutes later I always had add or remove a device or to take wall wart on a trip, or just rearrange, and the immediate wiring chaos that occurs is not desirable at all. Often my attempts were never even completed, as frustration at the bad results, lead to abandoning the attempt.

It also seems that all attempts are for fixed wiring that does not allow you to move the computer to easily get to the rear to make changes. I also am trying to overcome issue of heavy cables pulling on plugs & especially cards in motherboard slots.

First attempt was to add some swivel wheels to a flat board and use cheap power cord wrappers with some added bracing, which also keeps the computer on the trolley.

The result was a definite improvement as the trolley for in/out easy access was great and the power cord holders provide fairly good cable management.

However there were a lot of lessons learnt:

plan which cables go into which bundle, for example cables that are entirely local to computer and cables that go from the computer to different destinations.
bundling can actually increase cable weight/pull on computer plugs – take care to include slack and support BOTH ends.
try hard not to twist cables around each or it becomes very difficult to remove cables.
use of cheap plastic bags ties are good, but not as quick to undo and reuse, and not much good for thicker cables/bundles.
power cord holders used where OK, but a bit flimsy for larger cable bundles and did not leave enough space to fit my large hands in.
had to undo angled brace on one side to open computer case!
next time buy a case with wheels.

The biggest issues were not enough room for easy access to change, too many cables bundled together and worst was wrong cables in wrong bundles severely restricted ability to move the trolley in/out for easy access.

However all this did lead to good ideas for improvement, which the next post on this topic will show were really successful.

Safer Alarm – 7400 competition entry

The Dangerous Prototypes Open 7400 competition winners have been announced, congratulations to all the well deserving winners.

The Safer Alarm did not get a prize, but the project is still a great idea :), so please have a look and think about providing at least some ideas!

This competition has helped to generate some interest in this site (and traffic) with visitors from ten countries in the first two weeks, thanks to Dangerous Prototypes.

Contact emails and legal and copyright information.

Email Contacts:

Site issues: webadministrator at this site usabledevices.com
Content and other matters: spanner888 at this site usabledevices.com

Legal and copyright.

These matters are guided by the sites core goals:

open community sharing, lets all help each other.
unrestricted access

The general intent for different content on site is:

Wiki and forums are treated as community created content that is publicly shared.
Projects: Each project community will select an appropriate licence, preferably open with attribution.

Attribution for each of the above would be a nice courtesy on re-use of any content. This is important for the warm fuzzy feelings and encouragement, but more importantly helps the originating community know of improvements or re-use for different purpose.

If you wish to re-use something and the above do not suit, please contact us to discuss alternatives. This site has no wish to mandate, dictate or force the use of any particular Open Hardware or Open Source Hardware approach nor any other perspective or licensing scheme. Such restrictions conflict with open sharing goals.

While it is clear that these are necessary and provide useful support, the current state of copyright, licensing, patents, design registration etc, when applied to work that contains documents, photos, circuit and PCB designs is a horrible mess! Research work for this site must have gathered enough information for “50” posts on these matters. Some summary information will be posted in due course.

The approach of open sharing, thus non-restrictive, does not prohibit individuals or businesses licensing for commercial use. It is my personal opinion that for disadvantaged individuals and communities, that there are clear needs for both open non commercial and open commercial licences.

Site Errors

The biggest remaining issue in my building this site is the Wiki, Blog and statistics (PiWik) are giving fairly frequent “500 Internal Server Error”. So if you experience one, it would be great if you can provide details of what you where trying to do (page) and the date/time + time zone, or if you have any suggestions to fix this on a WordPress/MediaWiki site, I would really like to hear your advice.

My hosting services advice is that most likely something to do with .htaccess (Linux hosting). I have not manually edited any of the site .htaccess files, although admin settings for WordPress permalinks and caching plugin have updated the files. Also spent a fair bit of effort bedding down the site and fixing a heap of email and site technical issues. Content issues will be tidied up “as time permits”, or for the wiki probably needs to be blown away and re-installed to easily fix all my property/type errors (did not RTFM). You can respond by commenting on this post or via the contact link.