Category: What I’m Up To

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What I’m Up To

Day one of the new job: Developer evangelist at SMARTRAC!

Photo: American Airlines jet as seen from below, taking off. Headline: New job - DAY ONE.

Today — Monday, October 3rd, 2016 — marks the start of my new gig, Developer Evangelist at SMARTRAC, a leading manufacturer of high-security RFID inlays and tags, and the world’s largest supplier of RFID inlays for “e-passports”, according to Wikipedia.

Logo: SMARTRAC / Connect Things

SMARTRAC manufacture a wide variety of RFID inlays and tags for all sorts of uses, ranging from asset tracking and supply chain management to access control to contactless payment (such as “tap” credit cards) to remote keyless entry for cars to animal identification to tickets for concerts and sports events to retail sales and anti-counterfeiting protection.

Photo: A roll of SMARTRAC 'DogBone' RFID tags. The tiny black dot in the center of the tag is the actual RFID chip; the dogbone-shaped metal trace making up most of the tag is the antenna.

SMARTRAC started as a hardware company producing radio frequency transponders and reader, but they’ve seen that a lot of the opportunity is in the software that talks to this hardware and in the emerging internet of things (IoT).

Logo: SMARTCOSMOS - Powered by SMARTRAC

That’s where SMART COSMOS comes in. It’s SMARTRAC’s portfolio of cloud-based services that enables developers to build new applications that can work with SMARTRAC’s RFID tags and inlays to “read the world”.

Here’s the official “SMART COSMOS 101” video:

SMART COSMOS needs someone who can wear a number of hats:

  • Developers will be writing applications that make use of SMART COSMOS’ SaaS services, and they’re going to need someone who can speak their language to show them how it’s done.
  • A number of SMARTRAC’s clients are the sales and marketing departments of large retail operations, and they’ll need to someone who can operate in both the worlds of marketing and technology.
  • And finally, SMARTRAC makes appearances at conference worldwide — a quick glance at their site says that they’ll be a conferences in Vegas, Munich, Tehran, Cannes, and Manila before the end of the year — and they’ll need a skilled speaker and presenter to promote their wares.

You know who’s really good at all of these? This guy:

This is a remote job, with me working from the home office…

…but punctuated with trips to conferences where SMARTRAC will have a booth or will be presenting and developer gatherings, visits to the U.S. office in Baltimore or the European office, and possibly SMARTRAC’s RFID manufacturing facilities, which are scattered all over the globe.

Photo: The city of Asheville, North Carolina in the sunset (or sunrise), with forest in the foreground and mountains in the background. Heading: HELLO, ASHEVILLE!

Day one of the job has me on the road to one of those aforementioned manufacturing facilities. I’m off to Asheville, North Carolina to visit the SMARTRAC plant there, and spend the next few days working with my new team on a developer evangelism plan for SMARTTRAC. This will be interesting, and I’ll be posting quite a bit on this topic, so watch this space!

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Hardware What I’m Up To

Unboxing the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit

raspberry pi 12
Click the photo to see it at full size.

On the most recent Amazon Prime Day — an annual trick that Amazon pulls in order to boost sales in the same vein as Cyber Monday, but in the summer — I managed to limit myself to buying just one sale-priced thing that I didn’t really need: the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit. It normally sells on Amazon for US$75, but it was on sale that day for US$60.

The Raspberry Pi 3 is the current version of a series of single-board computers about the size of a deck of playing cards, and are:

I plan to use the Raspberry Pi to make some initial delving into IoT (Internet of Things) development, and as part of my journey into developing for that category of computer that I call “tiny and shiny” — smartphones, tablets, and now Raspberry Pi / Arduino-type boards.

Here’s the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Start Kit box:

raspberry pi 01

When I opened it, I saw this:

raspberry pi 02

The first thing you should see is a greeting card that also provides an email address for assistance, should you need it. The other side of the card has a diagram explain what each of the GPIO interface pins on the Raspberry Pi 3 board is for.

Below the card was an HDMI cable:

raspberry pi 03

And below that were three boxes:

raspberry pi 04

From largest to smallest, the three boxes contained the Raspberry Pi 3 board and SD card (which functions as its “hard drive”)…

raspberry pi 05

…a case for the board…

raspberry pi 06

…and a power supply for the board:

raspberry pi 07

Below the boxes were these items:

raspberry pi 08

One bag contained a USB microSD card reader. It allows you to use your regular computer to download updated or different versions of the Raspberry Pi OS or software and transfer them onto the microSD card:

raspberry pi 09

The other bag contained two heatsinks for its chips. They already have heatsink adhesive attacked to them; you just have to peel off the backing and stick them onto their respective chips:

raspberry pi 10

At the bottom of the box was the “quick start” guide:

raspberry pi 11

Here’s the board mounted in the lower tray portion of the case:

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And here’s the board with the middle section of the case attached:

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And here’s what the Pi looks like once the case is assembled:

raspberry pi 15

Assembling the case is pretty easy, as no tools are required. It simply snaps together.

Here’s the case on my desk, placed beside a $20 bill for size comparison:

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The Pi case is smaller than the hard drive that I connected to it (you can see it below the Pi):

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I decided to take the beginner route and start up the system using NOOBS, short for “New out of the box software”. It came pre-loaded onto the SD card that came with the board, and it installed Raspbian, the official supportedRaspberry Pi OS, and based on Debian. Once the OS is installed, here’s what you see when you boot up the Pi:

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Once it finishes booting up, you’re taken to a GNOME desktop:

raspberry pi 20

I used to have a stack of USB keyboards, but I’d given most of them away to friends and family, and my last couple are still back in Toronto. Figuring that I’d end up taking the Pi to meetups, BarCamps, and other demo sessions, or perhaps use it as a living room media center / internet device, I went with the Logitech K400 all-in-one keyboard, shown below. It’s currently on sale at Walmart for US$20:

raspberry pi 21

And thanks to Anastasia Sistevaris, an intern at Wiley, I got hooked up with a set of Raspberry Pi books, the first of which arrived recently: Exploring Raspberry Pi by Derek Molloy. I’ll do a writeup of this book in a later article:

raspberry pi 22

Watch this space for more Raspberry Pi articles as I start noodling with my new toy!

Categories
What I’m Up To

Winning the Gnu

Plush gnu on top of my travelling accordion
The GNU gnu and my accordion.

The CUSEC convention’s last keynote speech was Richard Stallman’s presentation titled Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks. It’s similar to the one he gave at the University of Toronto in the summer of 2007; you can see my detailed notes on that presentation here.

At the end of his keynote, he declared an auction, the proceeds of which would go to the Free Software Foundation (I heard a couple of people say “Yeah, right” behind me). The first item up for auction was a hardcover copy of his book Free Software, Free Society. I already own an autographed edition, so I wasn’t interested in bidding.

He started the bidding at CAD$40. In response, someone from the audience yelled out “we’re students!”. Oblivious to the remark, he went on with the bidding. The book ended up selling for somewhere close to a hundred dollars.

With the book sold, he showed the audience the next item for auction: a plush gnu, the mascot of the Free Software Foundation:

stallman_showing_gnu
Stallman shows off the plush gnu for auction. Photo by Matthew Gallant.

“You should totally bid for that!” someone behind me said. I’d been thinking the same thing.

As with the book, the bidding started at student-unfriendly 40 dollars. I waited until the price hit $60, after which the room fell quiet. That’s when I threw my hat in the ring.

“Sixty-five!”

The room burst out in laughter. They’d seen my presentation yesterday and knew I worked for Microsoft, long a major figure in the Free Software Foundation’s demonology.

“You should know that he’s with Microsoft!” someone in the audience said to Stallman.

“There are anti-animal cruelty laws,” said Stallman, facing in my direction.

“You have The Empire’s assurance that no harm will come to him,” I replied.

The bids continued. For every bid that came in, I immediately countered with one that was $5 higher.

“Seventy!”

“Seventy-five!”

“Eighty!”

“Eighty-five!”

By this point, the room was really getting into the bidding war. Would the Microsoftie actually win the auction for the symbol of the organization that views it as The Great Satan?

And up the bids went until I said “One hundred.” Just to underscore my intent on getting that gnu, I bid again. “One hundred five.”

“Going once…” said Stallman, “…twice…SOLD! For one hundred and five dollars.”

I walked up to the stage to thunderous applause.

Richard Stallman, Joey deVilla and the plush gnu at CUSEC 2009
Claiming the spoils of victory. Photo by Andrew Louis.

Stallman seemed a tiny bit confused as to why someone from Microsoft would even want a gnu, never mind pay that much money for one.

“You do promise to obey anti-animal cruelty laws?” he asked again, as if it were a real flesh-and-blood gnu.

“I won’t harm a hair on its head. I do come from the Free Software world,” I replied, being careful not to call it the “Open Source” world. I didn’t want to give him any reason to cancel the sale.

Richard Stallman and Joey deVilla onstage at CUSEC 2009
I give Stallman my word that no harm will come to the GNU Also, look at how he’s playing with his hair while speaking to me. I think he LIKE-likes me! Photo by Andrew Louis.

I pulled out my Microsoft corporate credit card. I held it up and asked the audience: “Would it be all right if I paid with this?”

Joey deVilla showing his Microsoft corporate credit card to Richard Stallman

Joey deVilla showing the Microsoft credit card to the CUSEC 2009 audience
Asking the audience if I should pay with my Microsoft corporate credit card. Photo by Andrew Louis.

That got a good laugh from the audience.

Joey deVilla and the Microsoft credit card
“The Microsoft corporate card. Don’t culture-jam the FSF without it.” Photo by Andrew Louis.

Using my best Darth Vader impression, I extended my hand out to Stallman and said “Join me, Stallman, and together we shall bring order to the galaxy!”, which got a good laugh.

Me inviting Stallman to join the Dark Side
“Join the Dark Side, Stallman, and together we shall bring order to the galaxy!”

At the end of the conference, I walked up to Stallman, who was selling Free Software Foundation paraphernalia at the registration table. I asked him for his autograph, which he gladly provided on the plush gnu’s tag. “Happy hacking! Richard Stallman,” it read.

Joey deVilla gets Richard Stallman to autograph the gnu's tag
Getting Stallman’s autograph after the keynote. Photo by Andrew Louis.

I did it all in the name of fun and also to show that Microsoft people have a sense of humour. I was also more than happy to hand over some money to the Free Software Foundation as a way of saying thanks for all the things they’ve done for developers – myself included – over the years.

As for the gnu, I plan to take it out from time to time, posing it for photographs just as the travelling garden gnome is.

Plush gnu on top of my accordion