What I'm doing with my Arduino boards...

For those that haven't read My Arduino Life page, here's a summary of what I'm doing with my Arduino boards:

  • Data Collection - SD Card
  • Information Server - Internal Use
  • Amateur Radio - AX.25 Communications
  • Automation & Robotics - Just Started...
  • Anti-Crime Tools - Active!
  • Data Security

Over 90% of my projects are closed source, due to the nature of my projects. For example, many websites have been attacked by Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks; I'm working on projects that will neutralize those attacks and restore Internet useability. Details of these type of projects defeat the project's purpose in the first place.

Another one of my complex projects, that uses my Seeeduino (ATmega328P) and Wiznet Ethernet Shield, is to rapidly change my passwords on a list of websites I've preselected, at the touch of a button. I call that the War Password Changer. This is also a closed source project that I made, just incase sites I use, such as Facebook, has been hacked into.

My venue is in Manila, Philippines... Unlike my past life in Seattle, Washington, USA, spontaneous events happen more frequently here. Examples of that are cable TV disruption, commercial electricity distruption, internet disruption, noisy neighbors, hot weather, typhoon, earthquake, etc. Data logging is one thing, and is probably the easiest task to do, but I'm focusing not only on automated reporting, but also with automated compensation strategies.

After a year of working closely with microcontrollers (in general), I have chose Arduino to be my primary development platform, duplicating development style with Atmel AVR Studio and CodeVisionAVR, and mimiking to other platforms (Zilog Z8, etc.). My idea is to have a working project, working beta project, working alpha project, and a few working backup projects. I also focus on error compensation; what to do when an error happens.

Over the past few months, many people have seen so many of my projects using LEDs and categorized those projects a "general" since those projects are found all over the internet. Many people don't know that, over the past 5 years, I have been doing stuff to improve my own health. An example of that is, I'm no longer a diabetic... Now, as for LEDs, I have learned how to successfully manipulate bits to reduce stress, induce sleep, and generate "Visual Caffeine". I've used soo many DigitalWrite()'s in For/Next loops with Millis to generate the flashing frequencies, that control my own brainwaves, even while my eyes are closed! I haven't tested with other people, including my wife, because I'm still learning how to manipulate my own brainwaves with my Arduino LED projects. Some of my LED projects do change my mood, for example, from angry to happy. And only some of my LED projects are still open source.

At this point in time, I have a dozen Arduino-compatible boards, two of which are pre-built onto printed-circuit boards. For the boards I've built, some have extra features, such as RTC and GPS, while others are barebones. Some are configured as I2C Slaves for my proprietary data encryption firmware. Each board is assigned task(s) that may or may not be replicated with other boards.

Over a month ago, I purchased the EGBT 9830 Bluetooth Module from e-Gizmo in Manila, Philippines. After some tweaking of bootloader code, I'm not only able to upload Arduino sketches via Bluetooth, but I can continue using my Palm Tungsten T for firmware production. Since I've been a Palm OS software developer between 2001 and 2007, I've decided to create new apps that allow me to use my USBasp AVR programmer and Bluetooth module to flash firmware/upload sketches via the Palm Tungsten T's Bluetooth transmitter.This will, soon allow me to write and upload Arduino sketches using only my Palm Tungsten T.

Recently, I've changed my own policies which involved the destruction of one of my blogs. Since I've concluded that most people viewed by PayPal donation links as offensive, I've decided to closed-source every project I've purchased with my own money. Some people will claim my decision was selfish, but giving away knowledge so others (except me) will benefit, does have its limits. Yes, as a hobbyist, I am buying my own gadgets, but my pockets rarely have any money in them. Those expectations of receiving monetary donations to share, are over. When ProtoStack sponsored my projects by introducing me to Atmel AVR, I shared what I could, but people expect more from me. When I taught myself Arduino, on my own, people expected me to give away what I've learned, skipping past my PayPal donation links. So the decision had to be made... Closed-Source all of my Arduino projects.

There's an alternate here... Though I'm not expecting, if someone sent me an Arduino board and/or Arduino shield for FREE, then all projects using those free components will be open source. Since I am a Stay-at-home Husband, I have a lot of time to do Arduino projects.

Kuya Marc

P.S. - Please, NO OFFENSIVE MESSAGES! I have had my share of negative feedback, already. I come to Arduino Forum for support. I'm expecting Forum moderators to delete offending messages before I see them. Thank you!

Hey

My message was not ment to be offensive, it really was curiosity. Anyway, you may want to keep topics within a thread. I found this by chance, cause I saw your postcount increase and was wondering whether you had responded in another thread. Most people will not be able to make the link between the question I asked in the excibit subforum and the response you gave in the general discussions subforum.

but... auto resetting all my passwords by pushing a button on my arduino.
that sounds neat :slight_smile:

p.

Love that Z8duino, I also cut my teeth on Z80 assembler and later had a Z8-based gadget on the market. Heady days indeed :slight_smile:

It's not clear to me why you are so adamant about closed source (except for the security stuff I guess). I like OS myself and everything I do is OS, but each to his own.


Rob

OK, please don't see this as offensive, more as questioning why.

I understand that you spend a lot of time in programming and developing stuff with the Arduino.
It's very cool that the community around Arduino is so helpful by teaching people new to the system, such as myself, the basics and help people out who are doing projects in getting everything to work.

The Arduino is completely open. Everybody is free to use it and to change it to their own needs, you can build clone boards (as you did yourself from what I have seen) without paying anything to the original developpers.
They have spent alot of time developing the tools that we are using to create the cool things that you can see here on the forum, and keep developing upon this.

Now I do understand that when you create a security system that you don't like to open up the source, since this can make your system too vulnerable.

What I don't understand, is why you seem to take offence in the fact that people don't want to donate stuff or money to you for the things that you did open up.
What is it that makes your projects more special than other projects that can be found all over the web, made by people who've put in just as much work to development as you have, without asking anything in return, except maybe enhancements to their work, or a picture/video of how others implemented their work?

If you want people to pay for your work, then don't opensource it. It's that simple. If you open something up and still want money for it, start selling preloaded board or ready made shields/prints, as an added value.
You can't say OK this is open source and you can happily take this from my website but you have to donate something so I can develop other stuff.
That is not how it works, fortunately, otherwise the community here would be much smaller and way more grim! (No I'm not helping you with that because it is my IP and you must PAY!)

That's just my view on stuff. I'm not someone to comment on someone elses way of working or their expectations very quickly, but I have seen you telling your story in a couple of topics now, and just wanted to give my view on things.
I don't want to tick you off or something, I just thought I'd shed my light on this.

You're free to keep your projects closed source, it's just that when everybody starts thinking that way, Arduino would lose alot of it's 'magic' and the community would die a slow and sad death.
The open character of Arduino is what attracted me to it, the way how people share their knowledge and projects, for others to benefit and expand them.
If that would go away, the hobbiest like myself would lose a valuable resource.

I'm expecting Forum moderators to delete offending messages before I see them. Thank you!

That is rather a difficult request. As offensive messages are subjective in nature, I only know it when I see it kind of thing, it's hard to know what you might consider offensive before you even read it.

Lefty