An RSS feed of blog postings for the FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Development Blog. http://freaklabs.org Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:30:58 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://freaklabs.org/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://freaklabs.org An RSS feed of blog postings for the FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Development Blog. http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Zigbee/802.15.4-Chip-Comparison-Sheet-Updated.html Howdy everyone!It's been awhile since my last post. Things are still hectic around here. The Michael Jackson Tribute concert unfortunately fell through. I think there were some management issues with the production company, but that was actually a good thing for me. I was probably the only one smiling when they announced that we were cancelled from the show. With the extra time, I've been scrambling to put the finishing touches on the product designs and get the shop up.... Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:15:55 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Embedded/Introducing...The-WTF-Antenna.html Just as a word of warning, I'm neither an RF expert nor pretend to be one. I spent most of my days in the university ditching classes, hanging out at coffee shops, and attending dance rehearsals. I spent the next decade and a half pretending to work at my various jobs. I'm the furthest thing you can get from an PhD'd RF engineer. But if you're willing to accept all that and are still willing to believe me, then read... Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:46:58 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/FreakLabs-in-the-Oakland-Examiner.html When I was in the bay area a couple of months ago to visit my sister, she told me about a new series she was writing on Corporate Dropouts (http://www.examiner.com/x-11415-Oakland-Health-and-Happiness-Examiner~y2009m9d3-Why-these-local-corporate-dropouts-are-smiling) . Those are people that have left their jobs to pursue something more meaningful to themselves. Since I just so happened to be a corporate dropout, she interviewed me (http://www.examiner.com/x-11415-Oakland-Health-and-Happiness-Examiner~y2010m2d2-Hacker-Christopher-Wang-is-a-new-model-of-underground-indie-engineer) on why I decided to take that path and what motivated me to continue. She also included a picture... Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:16:03 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/The-Dumbing-Down-of-Students.html I was just watching the PBS FrontLine documentary on the Digital Nation (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/) and it completely irritated me. Here were professors from MIT, one of the best technical institutions in the US, complaining about the students’ use of technology. I can’t even say that this is ironic, as much as it is just plain stupid.The crux of the argument is that students these days are completely distracted because of the internet. They’re in the classroom, but rather than listening... Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:01:37 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/Draw-your-own-touch-sensor.html This post is a slight departure from my normal posts which are usually about wireless. But since I'm technically part of the wireless sensor networking world, I figured a fun, little post about sensing might be appropriate.I actually put this together about six months ago to show to the Tokyo Hackerspace back when we didn't have a space. We were meeting in restaurants and would show off our latest weird designs over there. It was really a horrible place with... Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:35:38 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Chibi/Chibi-Project-Page-and-New-Release.html First of all, I just want to apologize for the amount of time it took me to set up a Chibi project page. Those that know me know that things are really hectic right now so I'm not moving as fast as I really want to. However I put up a simple project page (index.php/Chibi-A-Simple-Open-Source-Wireless-Stack.html) for now so that there can be a centralized place where files are stored. It's pretty bare bones but I'll be fleshing it out... Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:45:39 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Zigbee/Chibi-v1.1-Schematics.html I just posted the Chibi v1.1 schematics. Apologies for the lag on everything. Things are so busy right now that I'm just struggling to keep up. I also need to create a project page for Chibi to house all the source code, schematics, and everything else thats going on with the project. It seems Chibi is getting more popular than the Zigbee stuff I'm doing. Guess I can understand since its much simpler and still accomplishes what most people want,... Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:31:24 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/Welcome-to-a-New-Decade.html Welcome back! It’s a new year and it looks to be busy in the world of WSN. Hope everyone had a good rest over the holidays because I think things are going to be exciting this year. I can already see that remote health monitoring is going to be a big topic this year. With all the talk and debate about the health care plan in the US, it looks like its going to throw the subject into the limelight,... Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:40:38 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Misc/Merry-Christmas-Happy-Hanukkah-and-a-very-Happy-New-Year.html I just wanted to wish anyone that reads this a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year. Everyone is pretty much winding down for vacation season so please take a break, get some fresh air, get away from technology, and enjoy the holidays! Next year will probably be crazier than this one so it'll be good to take a breather :) Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:58:53 +0100 http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Embedded/Reflections-on-Teaching-My-First-Microcontroller-Class.html Now that I’ve finished teaching my first microcontroller class to Tokyo Hackerspace, I must say that it was quite an enlightening experience. To put it mildly, I was pretty nervous about teaching it. Microcontrollers are a complex topic that combines software skill, hardware skill, toolchains, and hardware platforms. It’s not really a class to teach for the faint of heart, and most schools take three to six months to teach the subject…to engineering majors. So trying to cram all of... Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:49:32 +0100