Transitional Interfaces

This post about transitional interfaces, and the importance of animation in them, has been making the rounds at the office. The examples provided are a good jumping off point for smoothing out tricky transitions.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial

I’m starting on a project that needs a somewhat robust back end system. Since it’s been a while since I’ve looked at any Ruby code and even longer since I’ve tried to code something from scratch, I thought it would be wise to take a little refresher course.

I’ve started working through the Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. It’s a great tutorial. I really like how it incorporates several other, important, aspects of development (e.g. using git, test driven development, deploying to heroku) in addition to the basic Rails concepts. I recommend this to anyone getting started in, or requiring some brushing up on Rails. The HTML version is freely available.

Arduino GSM Shield

Arduino has released a GSM shield. It comes complete with a SIM from BlueVia, which is offering worldwide data service at 10€ for 10MB. However, you can use your own SIM instead.

Its currently on sale in the Arduino store. At 69€, it’s not cheap, but it will be good for projects that need Internet access where wifi isn’t available.

Space Glider

Space Glider Balloon Burst I’ve been fascinated by the videos and images people have been capturing with high-altitude balloons. This, however, is the first instance of a remote controlled space glider I’ve seen. The glider is transported to the upper reaches of the atmosphere by a balloon. Once the balloon bursts (see photo above), the plane is piloted back by remote control.

Space Glider The glider is packed with electronics, including a first person video transmitter so the pilot can see where the plane is going. Check out the video to see the whole launch. There’s also a good blog post that goes into some of the details and challenges.