Category: Tech

At times wonderful, and at times totally frustrating too. That’s technology, my experience of it anyway. I do a lot of stuff with technology and I suspect I will continue to do that.

Chromecast Audio

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Chromecast Audio box
Chromecast Audio box

I’ve been meaning to get one of these for ages now, but I’ve never got around to it. However, a friend told me that they were on sale at Curry’s for just £15 so it seemed rude not to.

Chromecast Audio in the box
Chromecast Audio in the box

There’s not much in the box itself, it’s pretty minimal, but then it doesn’t really need much does it?

Chromecast Audio
Chromecast Audio

The device isn’t much bigger than an iPod Shuffle, maybe a tad bigger and seems very straightforward to get going with. One audio in, one power in, that’s it. Doesn’t need much else really.

When I get it all set up, when I have a minute, I’ll let you know what I think of it.

App Inventor getting updated

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I haven’t used Android App Inventor in age, so when I got an email from MIT telling me about what they’re doing with it, it came as quite a nice surprise, especially as they’ve got new stuff planned for it, such as …

  • Better support for multiple screen sizes and densities (responsive design).
  • The Backpack provides a way to copy and paste blocks between screens.
  • The App Inventor Gallery lets you exhibit and share your apps for collaboration and remixing.
  • App Inventor Services (coming soon) lets you create apps that can run in the background.
  • App Inventor Extensions (coming soon) let advanced users augment App Inventor’s capabilities without limitation by
  • creating and sharing new components.
  • The Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) component lets you build apps that control BLE devices, and experiment with mobile apps and the Internet of Things

All of which will be quite interesting to have a play with. The other cool thing in their email was Thunkable. Which is a version of App Inventor which is run by a commercial outfit. I think I might have a try of that soon.

Now is probably a good time to get back to trying out App Inventor anyway. I did play with it a long time ago, with a view to seeing if it could be used for audio apps, but really it couldn’t. I wonder if any of the new features coming to it will help with that?

And now there’s the RandomBus

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I’ve mentioned this on PalmSounds just now but, as I’ve already made a bot called the Wisdom of Pullo and talked about it here a number of times, I thought I’d mention my new one, the RandomBus, which I’ve just launched. It was fun to make and hopefully it’ll be fun for anyone who wants to follow it too.

Getting the bend (sensor)

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littleBits Bend Sensor
littleBits Bend Sensor

I got this recently but haven’t had a chance to use it as yet. I’d really like to though, and I’m sure that the time will make itself available soon enough.

I’m keen to expand my littleBits collection. I’m sure that there’s lots more I could do with it that I’m not, and that I haven’t even thought of as yet.

Getting the mCookie up and running

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mCookie Microduino USB
mCookie Microduino USB

One of those tech things that can annoy you by just not doing what you want it to. But, at last I’ve got the basics up and running. It’s a nice kit though, with a lot of possibilities, and that’s what I’m really looking forward to now.

mCookie Microduino OLED screen and parts
mCookie Microduino OLED screen and parts

Especially what I might be able to do with the OLED screen, and also the speakers too.

mCookie Microduino components
mCookie Microduino components

The audio components look good too, and the audio stuff is going to be my focus, although bluetooth could be useful as well.

mCookie Microduino sensors
mCookie Microduino sensors

When I got this kit (quite a while ago now), I got the full range of sensors too.

mCookie instructions

So now I really need to get into reading this and then move forward.

So Zapier releases Multi Step Zaps, or real workflows

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Now this is a pretty impressive thing from Zapier. In the past you could like one trigger or event to one outcome. Now you can use Zapier to build whole workflows with connected apps, and they have a lot of apps that are connected.

This is something I’ve wanted to see with IFTTT for a while but they’ve concentrated they’re resources elsewhere, and, to be fair, they’re much more of a consumer brand rather than Zapier who are very business focused. Of course, Zapier has to be paid for, and IFTTT is free (at least for now anyway), but even so, this is a big step forward for Zapier and I think it’ll make a lot of business processes a lot easier.

You have to love something like Serendipity

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I can’t think why I really like this, but I do. I think it’s a lovely thing, but I really don’t know why. It doesn’t fit my ideas of utility at all. If you’ve no idea about what I’m talking about, then you should know that Serendipity is an app built on Spotify’s API which shows where two people are playing the same song at the same time anywhere in the world. It is quite amazing to watch, but, as far as I can tell it has no real purpose. Not that it needs it though.