What good is a programmable lamp if you don’t have a cool way to control it? So I built one. Even made it work for the tv and cable box. I also put a “manual” switch on the lamp itself to make it look more… uhmm… normal. I used a Particle Photon as the brains…
Raspberry Pi Smart Lamp
I was left at home alone for a couple of days so I decided to take our old boring regular lamp and give it an upgrade. I honestly never thought I would ever need a hammer to fix a light fixture š. That thing refused to give up its secrets easily! A Raspberry Pi, a…
Alexa Pi + Pi IR Blaster + Jarvis Alexa Skill
Ever since I “installed” my Raspberry Pi IR Blaster on the living room lamp, I have been getting a flood of praises from my wife about how well it goes with the decor and how she barely notices that it’s there. Well, that’s what I hoped she would say after I tied a Raspberry Pi…
Thoughts on leap motion
Here’s a post I wrote awhile back for our UX Community of Practice regarding ideas on how to use this new type of input device: I too bought a Leap motion controller and would like to think there is much potential for this type of computing interface. Hardware is solid. Excellent sensor and works well…
Fighting time
The train announcement was blaring from the platform and stating the destination of the manhattan bound train. I was on my way down the stairs to catch that train. As I stood on the platform trying to jump in, the doors started to close. Unlike in an elevator situation where I would have reached out…
Appreciate your way to happiness
We all have an insurmountable amount of things to be unhappy about. Without any significant effort, I am sure every single one of us can think of at least one reason to be unhappy right now. There was a study done about the correlations of how unhappiness is linked to mind wandering. They posit that…
Calm down (Pre-office stress)
Not everything in life needs to be done now. In fact a lot of things in life are just simply overhyped. Stressing to get to work in the morning is probably the best way to be unproductive all day. In this age of blackberry devices that allow us an insight of the horrors awaiting us…
Doubting the Developer Faith
I have been a software developer by trade for over a decade. I have made my name and living by writing software that is functional. It even sometimes satisfies the business requirements. I cannot count the number of times when I tell myself, “who the F is going to use this software?”. Let’s be honest…
What I should have done while I was here (What I will make sure to do, the next time I come back)
I have spent an entire year on this organization trying to deliver a software product. I now look back at those first few moments when I started typing on this keyboard and on this journey. Hindsight is always 20-20 they say, but until you realize that there are things you could have done better, you…
Prism: Decoupling at multiple levels
Iām sure we all agree that decoupling is the key to creating extensible and maintainable applications. Prism is something that will help us achieve this using a bunch of different techniques. Prism is designed to decouple UI components from each other at various levels. Below is a good diagram showing how the different parts are…
Technical Insanities of a Mad Computer Scientist 