Technology

I had mentioned before that we are enjoying our Amazon Echo, one of those robots that listens and then responds with a certain degree of intelligence. We don't use the Echo for very many things, but that is partly because we are not in the habit. For example, if I'm sitting in a certain chair in the library, reading, I have to stand up and turn around and kind of bend over in a certain direction to see the clock on the wall. Or, I can say, "Alexa, what time is it?" and the Echo Dot tells me. But, I almost never think of asking Alexa. But over time I'm sure I'll get in the habit, and after…

It has been a long time since I've written any machine or assembler code, and it is a rare day that I hand construct a logic circuit using transistors. But it is comforting to know that these skills and the knowledge associated with them still reside in some form or another in the world of microprocessors. The Manga Guides published by No Starch Press and written by a wide range of authors manga-based graphic novels on diverse topics in science, math, statistics, and technology. I've reviewed several here (see this post for a partial list of some of the other guides). And the newest entry…

Tenergy is a company that you know well even if you don't know them. They make a lot of the replacement batteries for everything, external power supplies, other electronic items. But recently they've added a few items to their line of products that reach out in an entirely different direction. Tenergy Odev Tomo 2-in-1 Transformable DIY STEM Education Programmable Robot Kit is a robot kit that can be configured as a tricycle with two large wheels, or as a two-wheeled "bicycle" which operates like a Segway. Which is pretty amazing. So far Tomo is my favorite out of the box Robot Build, and I…

SEE END OF POST FOR IMPORTANT UPDATE A while back, I read Confederate Saboteurs: Building the Hunley and Other Secret Weapons of the Civil War by Mark Ragan. The central theme of the book was the invention, more or less, of the submarine and the torpedo, curing the Civil War, but the South. The torpedo was a very tricky idea at the time. Most of the first ones involved dragging an object with a bomb inside it, or the bomb itself, by a rope, behind a submarine. The submarine would approach the target vessel, and submerge, going under it, and the bomb would hopefully be dragged into the target…

Almost every resource on the Internet on building your own computer is oriented towards building a gaming computer. The second most common discussion is how to build a "budget PC." When I sought out the latest information on building a computer a few weeks ago, I did not like either of these two options. A "gaming computer" is oriented towards two features: a) overclocking your processor and b) having one or two mondo power-hungry and gigunda graphics cards. A "budget PC" is an under powered machine that replicates what I could have purchased in many forms for less than the cost of a build…

I don't, and a couple of months ago I decided I probably wouldn't, because of apparent possible connection to Russian hacking. Check this out: There is absolutely nothing to see here.

First, a word about Arduino and why you should care. An Arduino is what is called a "prototyping micro-controller" aka "really fun electronic gizmo toy." Micro-controllers are everywhere. When you "turn on" a machine in your house, chances are there was already a micro-controller sitting there, running on a minute bit of juice from a built in battery, waiting for you to push a button. Then, you turned a dial or selected an option on your dishwasher, or changed the setting on your thermostat, or picked some alternative mode on your coffee pot, or shifted into a different gear using a "gear…

I got an Amazon Echo Dot for my birthday. This allows me to command a computer, using voice, to do things. The voice response on the echo is amazing. It does not get much wrong, and you can speak in a fairly normal voice from another room and the mysterious entity that apparently lives inside the Echo (known to me as Alexa) will hear you. There is an Amazon Echo and the alternative, Echo Dot. The price difference is very large, and the differences are fairly small. The regular Echo is tall and has high quality speakers, the dot is short and has OK speakers. If you have nice speakers that…

I can't give this a meaningful review because I don't have the setup to test it out, Coding iPhone Apps for Kids: A playful introduction to Swift by Gloria Winquist and Matt McCarthy looks like it is up to the high standards of this publisher and these authors, and might be just the thing for your kid: Apple’s Swift is a powerful, beginner-friendly programming language that anyone can use to make cool apps for the iPhone or iPad. In Coding iPhone Apps for Kids, you’ll learn how to use Swift to write programs, even if you’ve never programmed before. You’ll work in the Xcode playground, an…

Several weeks ago I tried once again, after many prior ill fated attempts over several years, to get a device that would play music, audio books, and be a radio. The audiobook part wasn't the most important part, but the ability to play various audio files AND act as a radio AND not be a big giant thing I had to strap to a body part AND be sturdy were all important. This latest attempt has gone very well, and I now have a device that is very nice and therefore, I figured you'd want one too. This time I tried the AGPtEK M20S 8GB Mini MP3 Player(Expandable Up to 64GB), Lossless Sound Touch…

This is very simple, and it has more to do with the philosophy and marketing of operating systems than the technology of the operating systems themselves, though the technology does matter a great deal as well. First, lets have a look at how this ransomware attack was allowed to happen to begin with. The vast majority of affected systems in this latest world wide cyber attack were Windows based computers that were not updated with recently available and easily deployed patch. The attack did not affect other operating systems, and Windows systems that had a recently released security patch…

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners by super Python expert Al Sweigart is a pretty thick intermedia to somewhat advanced level programming book. It covers how Python works, so someone familiar with programming languages can get up to speed. Then, the book tackles a number of key important tasks one may use a computer for. This includes working with Regular Expressions, file reading and writing, web scraping, interacting with Excel spreadsheets and PDF files, scheduling things, working with email, manipulating images, and messing around with the…

The merging of Alexa and your Internet experience appears to be happening as we speak. You know about the "Echo" by Amazon, similar to Google Home (which apparently you can buy at Target, which presumably does not have a similar device). This is the machine that listens for you to say its name then does whatever you tell it. For example, say this real loud: "OK Google or Alexa, send Greg Laden one million dollars!" OK, thanks. Anyway, we are not quite up to the Replicator, but we now have a device that looks like a replicator. It is the Amazon Echo Show, which is both an Alexa client and,…

We begin with the usual list of things you pretty much always do after installing every Linux OS. Why these things are not automatically done for you on installation is a bit mysterious, but down deep there are generally reasons (legal reasons) for some of these things. In fact, pretty much everything here, with some minor tweaking you can ignore, is the same as for Ubuntu 16. And 15, probably. If you've been upgrading to the latest Ubuntu on a regular basis, this might all be pretty automatic for you by now! Anyway, after installing Ubuntu 17.04, consider these next moves: Update and…

A Zapus is a kind of jumping mouse. A Zesty Zapus is the new Ubuntu Linux operating system, 17.04. It has just been released and has some important features. But Zesty Zapus is not as interesting at the Artful Aardvark, which I'll discuss briefly below. Support of 32 bit hardware is waning across the Linux world, and in this release the 32 pit PowerPC is not supported. The 64 bit PowerPC still is, but I would not be surprised if that support dropped in the not too distant future. There are various other changes deep under the hood that the average desktop user may not care about, including…

Learn to Program with Small Basic: An Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math is yet another addition to the growing list of programming books for people interesting in learning programming. Basic is an under-appreciated language. I wish I had a good basic compiler handy, and I'd love to see a basic scripting version that worked like bash. Can you see the value of that? Anyway, Small Basic is an updated modernish basic that runs only on Windows, so while I can't use it, you might, and this book looks like a good intro. From the publisher: Small Basic is a free,…

Have a look at the list of books, below. Would you like a subset, or all, of these books, in electronic format, for very cheap? There is a way to do that. Note: This is time sensitive, the offer running for just about two weeks and it started yesterday. I've reviewed several of these books on this blog, and have recommended them. I'm going through Python Crash Course right now, and we've found the various kids programming books to be helpful, for instance. I've not looked at the grey hat or black hat books, but I'm sure they are fine. The publisher, No Starch Press, has created one of…

This bill was so unpopular that only 11% of Americans thought he should sign it. It was so unpopular that 74% of Americans thought he should veto it. This bill was not one of Trump's campaign promises, and it wasn't part of the Republican Party platform. I can only assume it was a bought and paid for deal. I'm speaking, of course, of the bill that allows your Internet service provider to collect pretty much any information it wants, including quite possibly the contents of what goes into and out of your house on the Internet, and the physical locations of you and your family members, and…

Drones are so early 20th century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=35&v=92RpDNAvNH0 That doesn't actually look too hard to make. The only tricky part is how to attach it to the monkey.

Your objective is to learn Python programming. Everybody has to learn Python. You are looking for a book that will make that easier for you. One possibility, one that I'll recommend for most people in this situation, is Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming. To cut to the chase, there are two reasons I recommend this book. First, the specific programming projects used in the book are a good match for most people, because they are bare bones (but highly developed) exemplars that are fairly adaptable and together cover a wide range of applications and…