not much to look at, but this is my new time tracking device.
A while back, I was shown (http://toggl.com)[Toggl], a website that allows you to track how you spend your time. The site is great, but what if my current task (or hobby) doesn’t involve a computer?
I’ve just completed a functional prototype for a physical interface to Toggl. Tokens, containing RFID tags, are placed on a time-tracking pedestal. An Arduino microcontroller beneath the pedestal notices that a token has been put on the pedestal, and starts tracking how long it has been there. When the tag is removed, it outputs the tag number, and the number of seconds the tag was present.
This data is read by a small python script, which looks up the tag number, maps it to a Toggl project name, and creates a new task in that project.
All that’s left is to design an enclosure that is both awesome and functional.
Worry Isn't Work - Dan Pallotta - Harvard Business Review -
“The Puritans had a strong work ethic. They also burned witches at the stake and massacred Native American women and children. We need new role models.”
http://schuhlelewis.blogspot.com/2010/10/carry-on.html
cake pirate ship!
Chris Eckert is pretty awesome. I love the exposed mechanical elements in Gimme.
Anyone have experience working with Teensy?
the builtin USB support would make it great for making physical controls for software systems.
Sometimes, writing android apps is harder than writing iPhone apps. Mostly, because android phones run on a wide variety of carrier networks, each with their own “quirks”…
For the last couple years, android apps could send text messages with the following snippet of code:
import android.telephony.gsm.SmsManager;
// some other stuff omitted.
SmsManager sm = SmsManager.getDefault();
sm.sendTextMessage(destination, service_center, "my message", null, null);
That only works because of the following assumptions: * your phone is on a GSM network * the destination specified knows how to send your message back to the proper recipient.
With the Verizon Droid series of phones, neither of those assumptions hold.
For the first, the newer android releases (>=2.1, i think), supply the android.telephony.SmsManager class, which has the same interface.
The second, i’ve found, is a bit more complicated. All email-to-sms-gateway’d messages on verizon come from the same 4-digit code “6245” (aka- MAIL on a numeric keypad). This gateway does not store any state on which messages were sent from which email addresses, so all responses must include the intended destination address.
To that end, i’ve added a new preference to Klaxon, under “Sms Settings” called “Send Destination”. If you are on Verizon, you will need to ensure that this box is checked, otherwise your messages will not arrive at their intended destination.
Reference links: Wikipedia list of Email to Sms gateways stackoverflow answer
beer menu from Hair of the Dog in Portland. The Greg was really interesting.