Sayan's BlogWorld » technology

Notion Ink Adam update

Sayan — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:33:26 +0000

I got my Notion Ink Adam tablet a few months ago.

Tablets have finally evolved to a level to be useful. I use my tablet mostly as an ebook, secondary display, and music/video player.

Notion Ink has been refining and improving their Android port over the last several months. I have been updating my tablet with the official OS as they are released. This time around I decided to try an unofficial Android port- boy was I glad that I did.

The unofficial OS I installed is called ‘Beast’ and it is one of the slickest, most useful, and most stable tablet interfaces I have used. I am absolutely delighted and I am now eagerly awaiting the release of Android Honeycomb for the Notion Ink Adam.

Steve Woz on our closed source education system

Sayan — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:33:12 +0000

A very succinct message from Steve Woz on how our education system(s) kills creativity in its quest for a one size fits all approach to education…

This is so true all over the world… the waste of human potential is the greatest waste

Via EEtimes and DangerousPrototypes

Earth Day & Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot

Sayan — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:10:05 +0000

This gives me goosebumps every time I watch it…. Happy Earth Day !

LPCXpresso success

Sayan — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:27:30 +0000

Success at last …after 2 frustrating days trying to get the NXP LPCXpresso board working. In the end I figured out the issue myself with little / no help from NXP / Code Red Support

Issue:

Project building but debug not working (deployment to board failing)

Resolution:

I looked up the build log files in \.metadata\.log and noticed the following error:
java.lang.Exception: Input Error: There is no script engine for file extension “.vbs”.

I changed the file association for .vbs to WScript but the error did not go away.

A quick google-ing turned up this 3 step process
http://www.nilpo.com/2009/07/windows…ile-extension/

Step 1: Set a default script host

Open a Command Prompt window. In Windows XP, click Start, Run…, and typecmd.exe. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, click Start and type cmd. Then selectcmd in the Instant Search results.

Type the following command and press Enter.

cscript.exe //H:WScript

Step 2: Registering the vbscript.dll module

Open a Command Prompt window. In Windows XP, click Start, Run…, and typecmd.exe. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, run an elevated Command Prompt.

Type the following command in the command prompt window and press Enter.

regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\vbscript.dll

You should see the following confirmation message.

DllRegisterServer in vbscript.dll succeeded.

Step 3: Restore the .vbs file associations

If the previous two solutions didn’t work, you should restore the file associations for the .vbs (VBScript) file type by downloading and running one of the registry files below.

FixVBSFileAssociationsXP.reg

FixVBSFileAssociationsVista.reg
Restart and ….

Voila ! the thing works now !

Mumbai surgeons perform knee surgery replacements using an iPod touch

Sayan — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 23:27:30 +0000

Mumbai surgeons perform knee surgery replacements using an iPod touch – http://pulsene.ws/1nGYJ

If neurons talk using RFID…are we zapping our brains with our phone yapping?? !!

Sayan — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 18:38:42 +0000

I stumbled across this article today about how neurons in brains do not rely just on physical connections to talk to each other. They interact with each other with their version of electro-magnetic coupling similar to Near Field Communication (NFC)or RFID.

NFC or RFID type technologies can be prone to interference from various gadgets or devices. This new discovery about neural communication may bring into focus how electronic devices affect our brains and cognitive abilities. Is it time to think about how our society designs and uses the billions of cell phones ?

Here is the article from Caltech:

Neurobiologists Find that Weak Electrical Fields in the Brain Help Neurons Fire Together – Caltech Media Relations.

I don’t think that on the deck of the Enterprise we’ll have rotating rust

Sayan — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 04:10:21 +0000

I have been thinking about making my own ZFS-based mini-NAS using FreeNAS for while.

ZFS has often been called one of the best innovations to come out of Sun Microsystems.

During the course of my reading about ZFS I came across this interesting interview of the developers of the ZFS filesystem where they mention “I don’t think that on the deck of the Enterprise we’ll have rotating rust”.

This interview from 2007 mentions how ZFS can be leveraged for high-performance database systems- this is distinct possibility now with the acquisition of Sun by Oracle.

A Conversation with Jeff Bonwick and Bill Moore – ACM Queue

The Story of Electronics

Sayan — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:52:00 +0000

The Story of Electronics employs the Story of Stuff style to explore the high-tech revolution’s collateral damage—25 million tons of e-waste and counting, poisoned workers and a public left holding the bill. Host Annie Leonard takes viewers from the mines and factories where our gadgets begin to the horrific backyard recycling shops in China where many end up. The film concludes with a call for a green “race to the top” where designers compete to make long-lasting, toxic-free products that are fully and easily recyclable

t r u t h o u t | The Story of Electronics Video

Home wireless overhaul successful !

Sayan — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 20:33:56 +0000

I had been struggling with the poor wi-fi at home for a while. After some looking around I got a refurbished Netgear WNDR3300 dual-radio 802.11a/b/g/n wireless router from www.newegg.com for about $30.

The stock firmware on the router is mediocre so flashed it with DD-WRT. Now I have super-fast connectivity to my computers and phones. Ya for awesome free open sourcey stuff !

Now for my geeky friends here is my setup: This router has 2 independent radios so after flashing the firmware to DD-WRT I configured a client bridge setup to the interweb on the 802.11g radio . On the other radio (802.11a/b/g/n) I setup a mixed 802.11g/n 2.4Ghz access point

Netgear WNDR3300

because my Android phone cannot do 5Ghz 802.11n

TED goes to India

Sayan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:56:05 +0000

Just found out that TED is organizing a TED India conference (November 4-7, 2009) in Mysore at the Infosys campus. Check it out here

TED | Michael Pritchard’s water filter turns filthy water drinkable

Sayan — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:59:13 +0000

Turn any water into drinking water… $20 billion can provide safe drinking water for the entire world… this would an ideal stimulus plan…. healthier people can improve their own lives and contribute to their and society’s development

Star-Trek Traction beam discovered

Sayan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:48:10 +0000

The traction beam cannot lift your car or boat but it can move really really small objects. Who knows this may solve other mysteries like dark energy Here is the blurb from the article in ScienceDaily:

A team of Yale University researchers has discovered a “repulsive” light force that can be used to control components on silicon microchips, meaning future nanodevices could be controlled by light rather than electricity. The team previously discovered an “attractive” force of light and showed how it could be manipulated to move components in semiconducting micro- and nano-electrical systems—tiny mechanical switches on a chip. The scientists have now uncovered a complementary repulsive force.

Happy Birthday! The Gasoline-Electric Hybrid Car is 100 Years Old

Sayan — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:16:03 +0000

Treehugger has a great article on the hybrid car technology turning 100. Actually about a 100 years ago there were more electric or hybrid cars than pure gasoline / petrol driven cars.

Google Calendar and contact syncing for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices

Sayan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:42:44 +0000

Google just announced a new service for pushing Gmail contacts and Google Calendar updates to mobile devices. This is neat!

Forward Osmosis- revoluntionary water treatment?

Sayan — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:23:07 +0000

Cleantechnica has a post on Forward Osmosis. It is better explained here. The authors description in a gist:

…conventional desalination and reuse technologies use substantial energy. “forward osmosis,” exploits the natural diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane. Their process “draws” pure water from its contaminants to a solution of concentrated salts, which can easily be removed with low heat treatment — effectively desalinating or removing contaminants from water with little energy input.

The concentrated salt solution is probably a mixture of ammonia and/or carbon dioxide dissolved in water. The ammonia and CO2 are later easily boiled off and reused. The energy required for this quite less even low-cost solar heaters may be sufficient.