No so. I haven’t had much motivation lately to actually work on things (the stalling of iE6B by Apple douses any fire every time I think about it). To fill my time then, I’ve mostly been reading a lot. A chapter here of one book, part of a capter of another.

Write Great Code, Volume II has been a staple for about a week. I love getting low-level details, and those details aren’t going away in all our high-level fancy languages & runtimes. Even with the nice, modern Xcode/iOS environment, most of the times the code breaks in a disassembly view, the error hidden in a naive use of the UIKit framework.

The God Delusion is an extremely interesting read, even if the writing style is quite distracting, and the pompous and arrogant statements can be a turn off, the points are valid and insightful. Even if they are repeated unnecessarily. Again. And Again.

And my prayers (ha!) to the media industry have been answered. Reading magazines on the iPad is a great experience. The Newsweek and Time apps are easy to use (although Time wins for design and seemless transition between orientations & reading styles), I can buy issues instantly, and thank you Newsweek for making it cheaper to buy issues digitally. $2.99 is a great price point, although $1.99 and a subscription with push-notifications would be optimal. Sub-$1.99 pricing moves the notion into “holy” territory (did it again!).

So, I’ll get back into coding soon, hopefully iE6B v1.5 will be available any minute, and I’ll be blogging more!

Oh, the expectations…

So, I guess we can all grab a beer, sit back, and listen to the soft elevator music and the totally neutral voice say “Please Hold.  The Next Available Representative Will Be With You Shortly.  Thank You For Your Business”.

PS:  Here’s a preview of version 1.4:

Were Those the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park?

Yes, AT&T runs my tech life.  In addition to my iPhone, I also have U-verse service for DSL/TV (but no phone service.  Who uses a landline?), and trying to get any kind of support is akin to trying to climb mount everest in nothing but a pair of socks:  it can be done, but you’re going to loose a few limbs along the way. “Calling and asking about U-verse?  You must have our phone service too!  Let’s cross-reference all your information with your home phone number!”  No.  Bad AT&T.  No treat for you.

For transfering my U-verse service, I talked the sales rep into giving me $100 back (just by asking!) via a Visa pre-paid card.  Great!  $100 for being a loyal customer.  The sales rep informed me it’d come after about a month of service, which put a damper on the excitement, but still: free $100.

The card finally came, and with the inexplicable glee I normally have when activating one, I called up the number, navigated the surprisingly easy phone system, entered the card number, followed by a “pin”, and……!!!!!!  “We’re sorry.  We cannot verify your security.  Please try again.”

Thats weird.  Ok, maybe I entered a number wrong, so I’ll try again.  No-go once again.   I scanned the letter that the card was attached too…. what’s my pin?  Oh, its suppose to be the last couple of digits of my account number.  Duh!  That was the problem!

Nope.  Several tries later, I still continue to get the condescending robot voice telling me something about my “security”.  Brushing off how this machine knows so much about my personality, I tried to website.

No dice.  Worse than no dice.  When I press “Submit”, abosolutely nothing happens.  Well, something happens, with a URL gracing the status bar for a few short milliseconds, and I assume the request completing, no redirection.  The browser just sits on the same page I entered the card number & pin.  No error message.  Nothing.

I guess it’s time to call and try to talk to a person.  Of course going to att.com and clicking on the “Contact Us” button leads you to the AT&T Wireless “Contact Us” center, which is not at all what I want.  Again.

Dear AT&T: Please stop trying to guess what I want.  You’re about as psychic as an alley cat.

I had already wired up the light sensor, and wrote some simple Arduino code to just count the number of square-wave pulses over a second and return that number out via the serial port.  I was getting overflows on the counter, but wasn’t concerned; I half expected that when I set up the sensor without scaling.  Switch to longs seems to have mitigated this…. for now.  I will probably have to add some logic to slide the scaling factor up and down as the light varies.

Light Sensor

First up today was to wire up the OpenLog module, starting with soldering, my greatest weakness.  Well, it took a bit, but I was able to solder the pathetic 4 connections, and hooked them up to the Arduino.  I was under the impression I could use any two pins for Serial IO, but a quick look at the Serial library didn’t corraborate this.  I had to hook them up to pins 0 & 1, which creates a conflict when I load the sketch since the board uses these same connections to upload it.  Oh well.

A brief check of everything, upload the sketch, and viola!  Data logged on the OpenLog, just like that!

Then things got a little strange…  I pulled out a 9V adapter to power the whole setup without a computer, scoured for a nearby 9V battery, and took it over by the glass door to test it out.  microSD in: Check.  9V Batter and adapter: Check.  All wires still connected: Check.  Power up.

Blue LED on the OpenLog lit while it initialized, and then……… nothing.  Both LEDs on the log were dead, no flashing to indicate it’s recieving data.  Drats.

Arduino, OpenLog, & Light Sensor

Light Sensor

The first stop for this kind of adventure always begins at SparkFun.com for goodies.  I looked over the different kinds of light sensors, and decided on this one.  It was slightly more complicated, but had better a sample on someone else’s blog.

OpenLog

To log the data, I also threw in an OpenLog board.  It uses a microSD card and can be written to with some simple serial commands.  I was under the impression it came with a microSD, so I was disappointed when I had to acquire one.  Oh well.

So, I’ve got the components.  I’ve got the time in the next few days.   Let’s get to it!

• iOS 4 support including fast app switching. The graphics however, have not been updated for the iPhone 4′s Retina display. Hopefully next version.
• Added a basic empty weight and arm to the weight and Balance screen, as requested.
• Changed heading view mechanics, so they expand when activated, giving you finer control over the value. Also tuned algorithms to help with input.
• iAd integration

I hope to keep the ball rolling with another update very soon! Thanks for the patience.

–Chris

Here are the changes in iE6B Version 1.2:

Enhancements:
- Added support for negative temperatures

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where some settings weren’t getting saved properly

Keep the feedback coming!

We have listened hard to all of your feedback, both the e-mails you have sent us, as well as the comments posted on the application page.  We have taken steps to resolve every issue you have noticed and commented on, and added new features you asked for.

Here are some of the changes to iE6B version 1.1:

New Features

• Pressure/Density Altitude Calculator
• Weight & Balance Calculator
• Fuel Calculations based upon Weight of Fuel
• Fuel Volume/Weight Conversion
• Pressure Conversion
• About Page

Enhancements

• Added Text Boxes for all the Sliders for precision input
• Added a Heading Control Sensitivity slider in the Options

When the new version is available, we’ll post another announcement right here, and you’ll be able to download the update directly to your device.

Pleas continue to leave feedback, both for the current version and the version 1.1 when it becomes available.  For those of you who have left feedback, THANK YOU!