Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 - Test Drive

Finally we got VS 2010 Beta! I have just installed it and had a test drive of it. Look and feel is relay cool, seems more productive with lot of built-in functionality.

·         Aims to become a tool for everyone involved in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) – from architects to developers, from project managers to testers. Not just for developers.

 

·         Unified Development and Database product editions.

Design & Architecture

·         Architecture Explorer – to discover and identify existing code assets and architecture in number of ways including graphs, stacked diagrams and dependency matrices.

 

·         Ability to create and share various types of diagrams like use case, activity and sequence diagrams.

 

·         Modeling tools that are tightly integrated with code and thus helps in keeping model and code in sync.

 

·         Architectural Validations - Ways to put constraints on code using models and doing validations at the time of check-ins and builds.

 

·         Architecture Layer Diagram – One of the most useful and simple tool getting introduced. It allows representing your application architecture in form of layers and showing dependencies between them. It also allows to map physical components like classes, namespaces etc. to map to these layers. After all mappings you can validate whether the code meets the expected mappings and constraints.

 

·         Microsoft joins OMG and UML gets introduced in Visual Studio 2010.

 

·         Support for UML 2.1.1 – 5 out of 13 diagrams – use case, component, activity, class and sequence diagrams.

 

·         Ability to keep all the UML diagrams in sync so that a change in one automatically reflects on others.

 

·         UML design tool is developed using DSL toolkit.

 

·         Will be interoperable with Visio 1.1 templates.

 

·         Supports Top to bottom design approach.

 

·         Supports Bottom to top design approach – reverse engineer. Filter based on namespaces, number of level deep.

 

·         Model Explorer – Similar to Solution Explorer, this allows you to explore all the models you have created which includes objects created as part of various UML diagrams – logical view.

 

·         Ability to create a Sequence Diagram from existing source, simply by right clicking in the VS code editor and selecting "Generate Sequence Diagram..."

 

·         Parallel Programming: To better utilize power of multi-processor and multi-core machines, .NET 4.0 will add support for parallel programming using PLINQ, Task Parallel Library and Coordination Data Structures. The debugger has been enhanced to identify concurrency issues. Two new features added are MultiStack and a Task List views. Introduction of concurrency analysis report for performance analysis of applications.

Quality/ Testing

·         Test Impact View - Identify and run only the tests impacted by a code.

 

·         Eliminating ‘no-repro’ bug  i.e. bugs that can’t be reproduced by providing tools for better collection of test data.

 

·         The Microsoft Test Runner Tool – a standalone tool that a tester uses to guide them through a series of steps to complete a test case. During the test run, this tool can take snapshot of test environment, application screenshots and even capture full video for assisting in reproducing bugs.

Source Code Management

·         Enhanced version control capabilities including gated check-in, branch visualization and build workflow.

 

·         Ability to perform constraints check on code during check-in based on Architecture Layer Diagram.

Project Management

·         Integration with Project Server for enterprise wide project management and new features for Agile project scheduling with Excel.

(from http://www.vikasgoyal.net)

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/10-4/10-4-Episode-20-Downloading-and-Installing-Visual-Studio-2010-Beta-1/

Firefly Cellphone in Ireland (from O2)

The new Firefly wireless phone is designed for kids. It is easy to use. Just press a couple of buttons to place a call. There is no need to remember numbers or dial. The special phone book makes this possible. It can hold up to 22 pre-programmed numbers. Use parental control options to limit incoming and outgoing call to the numbers in the phone book.

With just 5 (front) keys, it brings mobiles back to what they were originally designed to do - keep you connected. Firefly phones also keep it fun with lights, sounds, colours and animations.

Most importantly, it has PIN-protected features so you can control who the user receives calls from and, who they speak to.

Firefly Fireworks™ display flashes when making and receiving calls, during standby, and when charging.

The user also has:

12 ringtones

5 animations

7 LCD screen backlight colours

A huge range of accessories to choose from.

visit www.mrmubi.com for latest news.

http://www.o2online.ie/wps/wcm/connect/O2/Home/Shop/Phones/Firefly+for+kids/

Color Picker Pen

With color picker, all range of artists will be able to cerate a more sensorial and visual insight of their surrounding nature’s colors. This is amazing innovation by Jinsun Park. Color Picker is an great design of a concept pen that can scan colors from anything around and instantly use the color for drawing. After placing the pen in front of an object, the user just presses the scan button. The color is being detected by the color sensor and the RGB cartridge of the pen mixes the required inks to create the target color. This superb device will help people to observe the changing colors of nature. 

Tahoe-II Development Board

Finnaly i got Tahoe-II Development Board today, thanks to my boss
Dr. Ahmed Javad, who has alway encouraged me to
welcome the new technology. Next couple of weekends will be very
interesting working on it.

The Tahoe-II development platform is the ideal place to start when developing small, smart, connected devices. Featuring the .NET Micro Framework, you have the hardware and software tools to get your project done faster than ever before.   Through its fully integrated Visual Studio experience, the .NET Micro Framework brings a reliable and productive development environment to the world of embedded development. Complex applications can be developed and debugged faster by leveraging the powerful emulator and Visual Studio’s debugging capabilities. The familiar development environment also enables .NET  desktop programmers to work easily on embedded projects. The Tahoe- features a 3.5” touch-screen LCD, wired and wireless networking, USB function for interfacing to PCs, an accelerometer for innovative sensing and user interface applications. When you need to prototype a new device, the Tahoe-II has easy access to an array of expansion options; including serial ports, I2C, SPI and plenty of GPIO.    The Tahoe-II is built around the Meridian CPU, while features a Freescale i.MXS ARM9 processor, 4Mbytes of Flash, 8Mbytes of RAM. Moving from prototype to production is simple with the Meridian CPU. The Meridian CPU and the .NET Micro Framework are ideal for applications such as; industrial automation, home automation, healthcare, consumer devices, retail point-of-sale, PC peripherals, and automotive applications.

Specifiaction of Tahoe-II

• Meridian CPU (ARM920 @ 100MHz, 4Mbytes Flash, 8Mbytes SDRAM)
• 3.5” Landscape TFT LCD with touch-screen
• 9 user input buttons
• RS232 serial (DB9)
• USB Function
• Ethernet
• Accelerometer, with support for event notification including free-fall detection
• SD Card interface
• Temperature sensor and 2x ADC channels
• Interface for XBee wireless module (and additional ADC channels if fitted)
• PWM output
• Expansion connectors that expose GPIO, I2C, SPI and UART signals

The Tahoe-II supports version 3.0 of the .NET Micro Framework.  A Board Support Package (BSP) for use with the Porting Kit is under develpment for advanced users.

You can find out more detials about it on ...  http://devicesolutions.net/Products/TahoeII.aspx

Meccano Spykee Wi-Fi Spy Robot

I heard of this robot few month earlier and it really attracted me.

You all know about good feature of skype and if those are plugged into robot you can imagine how 

interesting it would be. Many people have Wi-Fi network at home now a days, and this robot is connected to Internet using your home or office Wi-Fi, you can remotely operate this robot via internet and talk to you your family, kids especially.

The Spykee Robot is spy robot kit that stands at approximately 1 foot tall. 

Once built, this remarkable robot acts as your walking, talking spy, a wireless VOIP phone, 

a webcam, a digital music player for your MP3s, and personal video surveillance thanks 

to Spyke's motion detector. The Spykee comes with 210 parts and is compatible

 with other 

Meccano sets for customization.

Characteristics:

• Spy robot - Spyke moves, watches, speaks and listens 

• VOIP phone - Use your Spyke as a wireless VOIP phone (compatible with Skype 3.0 PC technology) 

• Digital Music Player - listen to your own music over Wi-Fi with Spyke 

• Video Surveillance - When a movement is detected, Spyke activates an alarm on your computer or sends you a picture by email

• Other play functions include snapshot, sound and video recording, light, voice and sound effects and video filters 

• Wi-Fi card included 

• Motion sensors activate automatically when something happens 

• Returns to recharging station automatically when battery is low 

• Control on local Wi-Fi connection or remotely via internet 

Run the comprehensive software and you have a Wi-Fi enabled robot that can be controlled on a 

local connection or remotely from the Internet on a well-crafted and easy-to-navigate MMI or 

Machine Man Interface. This page can be opened using the CD ROM provided.

See how it looks like before you purchase.



For further details and to purchase this item you can go to http://www.robotshop.ca/meccano-spyke-wifi-robot-1.html.

Need Robot Parts

There are lot of online stores from where you can get the robot parts but i really like the www.robotshop.ca for this purpose, they support variouse payment methods including money order and wire transfer. you can also use paypal. Following are some caretories fromar robotshop.ca.

iRobot Roomba Parts Microcontrollers Sensors Motor Controllers Motors and Actuators Communication and Control Power Systems Software LCD and Display Interface Adapters and Converters Cables, Wires and Connectors Components

There are also lot of sotres in UK but if you live in Ireland, you can 

get some electronic items from Peats and Maplin, 

but they dont have a wide range of robotic items. so you many need to order online.

Boe-Bot Robot with Bluetooth

There are 3 types of Boe-Bot avilable with USB, Serial and Blue tooth version. But blue tooth version is realy rocking one. This Boe-Bot robot is paired with the eb500 Bluetooth  Transceiver AppMod, a

 winning  hardware combination to use with your PC as a base station. When used in conjunction with other PC programming environments,  tremendous opportunities exist for large-vo

lume datalogging, remote operation, web monitoring, real-time data analysis, and more. The choice is yours!

Sensors to make your Robot more intelligent
Boe-Bot come with all necessary items you require to built a bot. Additionally you can get sensors to have more experimeno ts.

1. Co Gas Sensor Module
2. CH4 Gas Sensor Module
3. Digital Thermometer
4. Flexiforce Sensor Kit
5. Tri-Axis Accelerometer
6. Compass Module
7. Relavtive Humidity Sensor
8. Infrared Receiver
9. IR Transmitter Kit
10. Temperature Sensor Kit
11. LPG Gas Sensor
12. GPS Receiver
13. Ultrasonic Sensor
14. QTI Sensor
15. Color Sensor
16. Light to Frequency Converter

Crawler Kit
You can make your Boe-Bot Robot a Crawler by adding Boe-Bot Crawler kit, which can be additionaly purchased. The Crawler runs on standard Boe-Bot source code with only minor adjustments for ground speed. Sample PBASIC code is included in the documentation.

Gripper Kit You can covert your Boe-Bot Robot in a lifter by Gripper Kit. Gripper Kit adds pick-up and carry capability to your Boe-Bot Robot. The Gripper features parallel plates that open, clamp onto and lift objects all with one cleverly utilized Parallax Standard Servo. Since the Gripper's servo plugs right into a servo port on the Board of Education, no additional battery pack is needed. The lightweight but sturdy aluminum, brass and plastic Gripper hardware weighs less than 7 ounces. Sample Programme of Boe-Bot... This program will prompt you for the number of pulses to send to the servos, and then the pulse width to transmit to each servo.  The program sends about 43 pulses per second, so 43 pulses would give you 1 second of run time, 86 would give you 2 seconds, and so on.  For speed control, 800 is about full speed counterclockwise, 700 is full speed clockwise, and 750 is stop.  If you want a wheel to go half speed counter clockwise, try about 775.  Half speed clockwise, would be about 725, and so on.

' Sample.bs2 ' {$STAMP BS2} ' {$PBASIC 2.5} pulseCnt       VAR     Word pulseLeft      VAR     Word pulseRight     VAR     Word counter        VAR     Word 'Wait FOr the eb500 radio To be ready. PAUSE 1000 'Wait for the EB500 Bluetooth connection to be established. DO UNTIL IN5 = 1: LOOP SEROUT 1, 84, [CLS,                    "Click the Debug Terminal's",                CR, "transmit windowpane and..." ] PAUSE 250 DO    SEROUT 1, 84, [CR, CR, "Enter number of pulses: "]     SERIN 0, 84, [DEC pulseCnt]     SEROUT 1, 84, [DEC pulseCnt]     SEROUT 1, 84, [CR, "Enter left servo",                        "pulse width: "]     SERIN 0, 84, [DEC pulseLeft]     SEROUT 1, 84, [DEC pulseLeft]     SEROUT 1, 84, [CR, "Enter right servo",                        "pulse width: "]     SERIN 0, 84, [DEC pulseRight]     SEROUT 1, 84, [DEC pulseRight]     SEROUT 1, 84, [CR, "Executing..."]     FOR counter = 1 TO pulseCnt       PULSOUT 13, pulseLeft       PULSOUT 12, pulseRight       PAUSE 20     NEXT LOOP

If you are a beginner and need to learn about Microcontrollers and Sensors, i will highly recommend this to you. You can learn more about it at...

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/BASICStampModules/tabid/134/ProductID/302/List/1/Default.aspx?SortField=ISBN,ISBN

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)

RFID has become very popular now a days, it being used as auto data collection (ADC) technology in many fiel

ds for example Passports, Libraries, School, Universities, Hospitals, Stores and Museums.

RFID is way of tracking objects using the radio waves typically called an RFID tag. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

There are two major parts, One is an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating aradio-frequency (RF) signal, and other specialized functions.The second is an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal.

On the other hand some say that using this technology for identification is a security threat, for example countries that put RFID in passports include Norway, Japan, most EU countries including Ireland and UK, Australia and the United States, Serbia, Republic of Korea.

See this artical at InfoSecurity.Us!

For further details you can visit... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID

Traxster .NET Micro Framework Kit

Wirte your own progrmms for Traxster robot using .NET Micro Framework Robotic Kit.

. Now you can learn the .Net Micro Framework, and use it develop cool autonomous applications using the Traxster Robot! This is the coolest .NET Micro Framework development kit available!
The Traxster MF Robot Kit uses one of our Serializer Robot Controllers for the low level sensory and motor control, and features the SJJMicro EDKPlus development kit that serves as the .NET MF brains. The EDKPlus kit is based on the 200 Mhz iPac-9302 ARM9 processor, which is where the Tiny CLR runs.
Developing managed C# applications for the Traxster MF is extremely easy, and deployment is a snap. Managed applications deployed to the EDKPlus board are non-volatile. Thus, the application starts right up once power is applied.
This kit comes packed with hardware and user documentation, including a Visual Studio 2005 Solution containing the source code for the SerializerLibMF library and useful examples.
Want to learn the .NET Micro Framework, and have tons of fun doing it? The Traxster MF Kit is your development solution!

For futher details see...

http://www.roboticsconnection.com/p-85-traxster-net-micro-framework-robot-kit.aspx