A bit of the old API Mishmashup

I finally had a bit of time to relax and write some code for fun (for a change!)

Problem: I have a WP8 Phone. The DriveNow (car sharing) website uses Google maps which are purposefully broken on IE10/WP8, and there’s no mobile site or app for WP8

Solution: I mashed up their (non-public but easy) JSON API with the Nokia MH5 mobile app/map api to make this:

http://kraln.com/drivenow/

Willkommen aus Deutschland!

I’ve picked up the cat and the wife and moved to Germany!

It’s been quite stressful, but I think overall the move will pan out and be beneficial moving forward.

Programmers are bad at time.

Or maybe, computers are bad at time. Anyway, this is something I ran into a *lot* working for a physical access control company.

Linky

Server Downtime/Migration

Greetings.

This weekend, the server was supposed to move datacenters. Instead, it ended up moving brains. Upside: More power, more memory, everyone is happy.

Downside: All the file permissions got trashed.

I’m doing what I can to fix them. Shoot me an email(@kraln.com) if you have specific problems.

A New Adventure Awaits!

Today, I put in my two weeks notice at Brivo.

It has been my genuine pleasure to work for Brivo Systems during these
last three years. I have enjoyed working with Brivo’s fine staff of
professionals and colleagues, and will greatly miss my associations
here. I wish you and Brivo Systems continued success in all your
endeavors.

Thank you all for being the best Brivo family, and allowing me to share
a part in it.

Beginning in April, I will be starting a new adventure, in Berlin, Germany.

Notacon Badge

I designed the hardware for the 2012 Notacon (Notacon 9) badge. It looks really cool, I’ll post the design when I can.

Eye-periment

Based on some reading, I’m trying an experiment to see if I can’t save some eyestrain: I’m changing the temperature of my monitors.

 

No, my monitors are not a cooking implement, I mean the color temperature. Normally, monitors are adjusted to give reasonable approximations of colors under daylight. However, how many of us that use monitors actually need that accurate reproduction? For my work, I mostly need to be able to read and discern text, and the daylight spectra leaves me tired at the end of the day.

My experiment is thus: I have removed about half the blue component and a fifth of the green component from my color spectrum, leaving me at about 3000K — a very warm, reddish light. So far it seems to be easier on the eyes, but only time will tell.

Trying out posterous

Just trying out posterous. It’s amazing to me these services that are essentially social network glue…

quickie: On troubleshooting DSP SDKs

For anyone who is trying to install the software for the Freescale Symphony SoundBite DSP kit, and is running into strange eclipse issues, the version of eclipse they ship with (3.2.2) desires the 32bit version of java 5.0.

If you install it to C:\Symphony-Studio\eclipse\jre, all will work.

DSP Eval Board

I find that it’s important to keep your skillsets relevant. In the embedded world, things don’t move overnight, but they certainly move. To that end, today I purchased a DSP Eval board from Freescale. Why? I’ve never touched a DSP before in my life, and I want to play with it. I think it will be fun, but more importantly, it’ll yield important experience with a growing segment of the embedded market.