Updates – Home Automation App & Uni
So its been a while internet, I’ve been a little lazy on the blog posting front but I’ve had University to finish! Although its not over yet the end is in sight in just under 5 days! Its not really been a stressed couple of months but it has been busy, although looking back I’ve had plenty on time for chilling out, so maybe not as busy as you think, but it has been busy enough not to post any commits to the Home Automation project I’ve been working on with Andrew… That has changed over the last couple of days and I’ve finally got the HA Windows Phone 7 client to a standard which I like, its been half done for a while now! So I guess that really does mark the end of university now that I have time for awesome projects again!
The client for HA has really got me in to programming for the platform, I’m no epic programmer but I can see myself writing a few public apps if and when I come up with some ideas! Although Matt has recently got an Android phone it really has woken me up to the fact WP7 is still limited on the App front from the major players etc, for example Sky News, that is probably the one app I miss the most on the iPhone. It really did keep me up to date on the world outside of student life! I’m not going to bail just yet though on WP7 I’m sure they’ll be working on it, if not they hopefully will start soon!
So what’s changed in the Home Automation Project…
The task list now includes saved tasks, they are a list of tasks or other non-script tasks, for example uTorrent, you can access the uTorrent API via HA.
Never bothered implementing the Wake On Lan support for the client. As I now have a new Asrock HTPC on the way I thought I best get it done soon! Also properly implemented the settings and application menu bar!
Now to put my new found skills too making an app to put on the market place!
Saving Money / Hosted in the clouds / University
I’ve moved my site to a new cloud hosted server, it seems this site never stays in the same place for very long. This time though it was for a different reason, cost cutting. About 2 months ago I decided a co-location box in a data centre was just two expensive and for what it was costing I wasn’t getting enough out of it. At the moment its hosting various websites some I’m being paid for but it doesn’t cover the cost. They weren’t never supposed too, I got the box to learn some new skills which I’ve learnt and already put to good use so the time has naturally come now for a cheaper solution.
The box is not the only thing having its budget cut. Being close to the end of University I thought it would be wise to consider my future finances as I didn’t know what, if any, budget I’d have come summer. My phone contract is another expense that is taking a cut. Although I’ve got a new phone I purchased this out right as opposed to getting another phone contract and in the long term I’ll be saving money once I’ve moved to a sim-only contract..
Here are the sums…
Current Phone Contract
£35/month * 24 months = £840
New Phone Contract
£15/month * 24 months + Phone £270 = £630
In the next two years I’ll have saved £210 and I’ll be able to sell my new phone when I get bored of it.
Back to the hosting, I’ve opted for the Rackspace cloud not really for any reason but I suppose I already got to play with Amazon’s platform during placement so Rackspace is something new to add to my skill set I suppose. Pretty good service so far, I got the call to confirm and activate my account at 2am after opening my it at 1.50am.
Although the service is flexible I figure it’ll cost around £15 a month taking a guess at my current bandwidth consumption. So lets see how much I’ll be saving on hosting for the year…
Current Hosting Plan
£50 * 12 months = £600
New Hosting Plan
£15 * 12 months = £180
So in the next year in total I’ll have saved £625! WOW, no wonder I have no money at the moment!
I’m glad I had this cost cutting idea two months ago and started to put a plan in place to complete. Since then I’ve been offered a job after university. It would be very tempting now to just keep paying for what I’m using rather than finding cheaper alternatives etc…
All I need to do now is find a hosted Exchange solution as I can’t do without that! The initial plan was at my next house to get an ISP that offers multiple static IP addresses thus I could then host my exchange server at home! Since then I’ve got a job and had to consider on where I’ll be living. As it turns out I’ve decided to commute from Newark and will move into a house there, but guess what, the only decent ISP in Newark is Virgin Media and they don’t offer such a service as I desire so I’m shelving that idea for the time being.
Although on the plus side it should be a cheaper cost of living so I’ll be saving more money.. Although I need to decide on what I’ll be spending this money on! I’ve got a few ideas..
My holiday in Spain at the FIB festival..
A nice huge TV!
New Atom Machine
Just built the new Atom machine I will be using in my Final Year Project. Everywhere is a little too dark so no decent pictures..
Spec
Motherboard + Processor: Intel D945GSEJT Low Profile Fanless Atom Mini-ITX Motherboard
RAM: 1GB DDR2 667 SODIMM Memory
Case: M350 Universal Mini-ITX + PCI Riser
Network: Intel PRO/1000 Dual Gigabit Network CardJ1679
100% fanless / no moving parts 
Christmas Holidays
Well it is that time of year again and I suppose this post is slightly late but its Christmas! Santa was very generous this year but on the downside I have had the flu and spent most days watching films in bed drifting in and out of sleep. In all honesty that would likely happen with or without the flu. Santa has helped me acquire various things to aid me with my final year project which is great as now I’m slightly better I can get back in to working mode and start doing some more work on it. I guess I should probably mention my final year project more on here but I may leave that until I find out why my camera isn’t working so I can take some images of my new toys!
Anyway, Happy Christmas and New Year Internet!
Last Week On Placement
Its my last week on my placement and well I’ve mixed feelings about leaving. I’m excited as well I quite like the idea of going back to University but then I’m a little nervous about leaving as well doing a 9 till 5 job had its up sides.
In terms of university I heard my option module has been cancelled, lack of a student interest apparently, I would not be surprised if I was the only one that signed up. I have now decided after not much thought as well a lot of modules did 1) Not appeal to me, 2) I am already doing and finally 3) I could not do as I did not do the required level 2 modules, chosen to do Information Systems Engineering in Industry. This however has just put a dent in my timetable and I no longer appear to get Fridays off in the first semester, shame I know but then I’ll be at university and be able to study during the gaps between lectures.. I say that but if it is anything like last year the Library staff seem to enjoy baking and working in the Library with the heating on not only in the winter but the summer to is really off putting, its not even warm, its just hot in there but anyway.
I’ve not had much final thoughts on my final year project but I think now that I have the forthcoming weeks off I’ll start to press on with that, I can imagine doing something with IPV6 but I’m getting put off by that idea if every other person is doing it to..
Placement has been fun although in the last month my role has been to step aside and be more of a supervisor to ensure my replacement is up to speed and knows what he is doing so I have not been as hands on as I like to be.
Lately I have been brushing up on my C# skills ready for September and have created a few applications, I may release one or two so stay tuned for that if your using XBMC…
181 Days Until I’m Back At Staffs
Just checked Uni email to find I was suppose to have filled in my option module form for next year by Friday 26th. Well that has been and gone. I must get a few emails a month to my uni email address while on placement so I pretty much check it every couple of weeks. I dislike going on there as the uni still uses Exchange2003 with its ever so featureless weboutlook in anything other than IE.
Anyway I had a look at the booklet for my course and it gave a start date. 27th September, seems ages away but honestly I bet that won’t take too long to come around.
The modules are not very good this year. In the list they include options like 3D Computer Graphics. Although it sounds awesome being on a network course it is no use to me. Even if I wanted to go on that module I would have had to have done related modules the during the past too years, which I haven’t.. because I’m on a networking course.
A cisco module caught my eye, Advanced Wireless but I’ve decided not to go for that as I’d rather not do too many cisco modules. I feel like it would restrict my horizons too much plus I didn’t do the second year wireless module as I took Network and Grid Computing instead. That was a good choice I think I bagged a 1st in that module and really enjoyed the work, would recommend it to anyone. Anyway another module, the only one that seems justifiable to be honest caught my other eye, Ubiquitous Computing. The description sounds interesting…
This subject looks at the current and future of anytime, anyplace, anywhere computing. It includes areas such as pervasise computing, mobile devices, located based services, and allows the student to look at the future of computing.
I did wonder the other day as the weather was warming up that I could actually take my iPhone get a few apps, SSH, RDP, etc and sit on a nice park bench or even the beach working remotely from the office…
Seems I’ll be back to Stafford this weekend to get some books for some backgrounding reading and also maybe a house party or two what with it being a 4 day weekend for the 9-5 type.
