Daily Cup of Tech

LibriVox Catalog Pages:

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/24/free-audio-books/trackback/

One thing that I’ve always liked about technology is that it has the ability to react to different stimuli. Be it an infrared beam of light from a remote that turns on a television, the dropping temperature in a home that turns on a furnace, or the different pressure placed on a bathroom scale that is translated into the weight of the user. So, when I say this little critter, I thought, “Hey, this would be a really neat little project for the kids on a rainy day!”

The Blinkybug is a neat little project that shows how electronic systems can interact with their environment.  The “eyes” blink whenever it detects a change in the environment.  There isn’t any really complicated circuitry and the hardest part of the entire project is getting the antennae set up just right.

The principle of this project is straight forward.  When something in the environment causes the antennae to move, it makes the “eyes” blink.  This can mean something touches them or a breeze moves them, or a temperature change causes them to expand or contract.  A neat way to “read” the environment and learn some basics of electronics and sensor creation.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/23/interactive-insect/trackback/

I love technology. The only thing that I love more than great technology is great technology that goes with you. Apparently, Jenn K. Lee feels the same and she shares her passion for all things portable in Pocketables. With a heavy emphasis on reviews and new technology, Pocketables will help you keep up with the tech Jones. Take a look at some of Jenn’s recent posts:

• Unboxing the iriver clix 2
• Intel unveils Ultra Mobile Platform 2007
• Palm UMPC more likely than ever
• Benchmark battle: Sony Vaio UX180P vs. Samsung Q1P
• T-Mobile announces Sidekick iD

If you are looking for a new cell phone or the latest gadget for surfing the Internet while you are riding your bicycle, definitely spend some time over at Pocketables.

I have also learned that Jenn has decided to make Pocketables her full time job in the near future (brave lady!).  We really need to get behind these types of people and support them!

Vital Links

• Website: http://www.pocketables.net/
• Post Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/pocketables/PpUx

If you would like to have your blog considered for the Tech Blog of the Week, feel free to submit it and you may also find yourself highlighted.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/22/tech-blog-of-the-week-pocketables/trackback/

Thanks for all of the financial support that Daily Cup of Tech has been receiving lately. A big tip of the hat goes out to Martin B., Kay A. S., Brian C., and AlwaysWebHosting.com for the generous donation both in the Tip Jar and the Release the Code Project. These fund help to keep DCoT up and running.

We are also starting to see some movement in the DCoT Menu project on Release the Code. DCoT Menu is already at 60% of it’s donation goal. I would not be surprised if this code was released later this week. If you would like to help donate toward this or other applications’ release, please feel free to donate on the Release the Code page.

Thanks, again, for your ongoing support. While small donations of just a few dollars may not seem like much to you, when enough of you get together and pool your money, it can have a big effect on DCoT. All financial support, regardless of how much or whether it is to Release the Code or help the Tip Jar, it is all greatly appreciated.  In fact, I am finding that I am at a crossroads with the blog and it is these donations that may decide for me what direction I take the blog into.

Note: Did you notice the link to AlwaysWebHosting.com?  Looks like someone discovered an inexpensive way to get some advertising!  If you would like me to link to your website when I mention your name here, feel free to send me an e-mail after you donate and I will gladly put a link to your site.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/22/support-update/trackback/

Yes, you read that correctly. I am posting about replacing my favorite thing in the whole wide world, USB drives! OK. To be fair, I am aiming directly at the larger external USB hard drives because I think that their days are numbered. (My little flash drives, though, are still going to be with us for a long time.)

eSATA is touted as the next product that is going to replace external USB or FireWire (IEEE 1394). Just what is eSATA? Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Aimed at the consumer market, eSATA enters an external storage market already served by the USB and FireWire interfaces. Most external hard disk drive cases with FireWire or USB interfaces use either PATA or SATA drives and “bridges” to translate between the drives’ interfaces and the enclosures’ external ports, and this bridging incurs some inefficiency. In the case of USB 2.0, protocol overhead limits the maximum effective bandwidth to a fraction of USB’s physical signalling rate. With modern hard disk drives, USB’s transfer rate is a bottleneck. FireWire, with its isochronous transfer mode, is more efficient, such that even in its slower variant, FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a), the effective transfer rate is significantly faster than that of USB 2.0, but this can still be a bottleneck for fast drives or RAIDs. Some single disks can transfer well over 70 MB/s during real use, well in excess of USB 2.0’s or the older FireWire 400’s abilities. Finally, some low-level drive features, such as S.M.A.R.T., are not usable through USB or FireWire bridging. eSATA does not suffer from these issues.

With home networks becoming more common, it is not surprising that a consumer version of externally attached storage standards was developed. Even though the standard has been around since 2004, it is only now that we are starting to see devices being built with this standard in place. And it has a long way to go before it enjoys the popularity that USB and FireWire enjoy. For example, when I searched a popular online tech store for 3.5″ external storage, it had 142 USB, 48 FireWire (400 or 800), and 17 eSATA. I suspect that this will start to change as time goes on.

What I believe will be the major turning point for eSATA is when the ports become standard on motherboards. This will then make it just as easy as USB and FireWire to connect to their systems. Presently, most systems do not come with eSATA connections so this requires either installing a card in your system or using a eSATA converter (either from USB or FireWire) to attach an eSATA device. Unfortunately, installing cards is more than many people want to do so they will go with a USB device that does not require any extra installation and the converter devices generally eliminate many of the advantages that eSATA provide so that removes many of the reasons to go to eSATA.

Here is a nice summary from Wikipedia comparing some of the different ways of attaching external devices:

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/20/replacing-usb-drives-with-esata/trackback/