Wessel Rossing - blog

Wessel Rossing - blog http://wesselrossing.nl/blog Receive an update whenever I post something Update http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/20 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/20 Two weeks ago I started working at JHED Media as an intern. It has been quite a shock really to work 8 hours straight with only a half hour break. During that break though we play a lot of ping pong, which is pretty awesome.

Tina Time-lapse

Although my internship makes it hard to work on my personal projects during the week, I managed to spent some hours on Tina Time-lapse. I rewrote it completely and have gotten a lot of positive feedback since it's launch. The latest version works on Android devices running Android 2.1 or higher, but I will make it available for Android 1.6 in the near future.

]]> Sat, 04 Sep 2010 15:24:12 +0200 Tina Password Manager http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/19 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/19 Tina Password Manager is a simple application that creates passwords based on a base key and a profile. When you start the application it will ask for a base key. You should think of this as a master password, but keep in mind that the system will work with anything you enter here. If you accidentally typed in the wrong base key you can change it via the menu. The system will periodically ask you to enter your base key again.

The first screen shows the profiles that you have created. When you touch a profile a password will be generated based on the profile content and the current base key. Note that when you change your base key the outcome of the profiles change as well (until you enter your original base key). When you have just installed the application this screen will be empty. Use the menu button to find the following 5 options:

New profile
Backup-settings
Backup
Base key
Help

New profile

The new profile option will bring you to this screen below, in which you can create a new profile. A profile consists of a name, algorithm, strength and length. The name can be used to describe the profile, e.g. the name of a wireless access point. If you are creating a password for a website which requires you to login using a username and password, I recommend placing the username in the profile name as well. E.g. example.username, to create a profile for user <username> on website <example>.

The algorithm field is for future purposes and contains only one option. The other fields are pretty self-explanatory.

Backup-settings

The backup-settings screen allows you to enter an email address to which backups will be sent. You can also choose to send these backups automatically, if you do not check this box you can send backups manually through the menu option "Backup".

Backup

Sends a backup email to the email address specified in the backup-settings.

Base key

A quick way to change the base key.

Help

Shows this webpage.

]]> Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:59:03 +0200 Tina Password Manager announcement http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/18 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/18 I am about to launch my second Android application, Tina Password Manager. This is another simple tool, like Tina Timelapse, which allows you to generate and keep track of different passwords. It will be available in the market somewhere ~~tomorrow~~, for every version of Android! Actually it will be in the market somewhere today, given that it is already past midnight.

Tina

Tina stands for two things:

This Is Not A...
There Is No Alternative...

It is what I keep in mind when writing software. It started with the PHP framework I programmed, which is really different from other PHP frameworks thus when you start using it you are like "What?! This Is Not A framework!" But as soon as you get used to it, for you There Is No Alternative framework. I can not say this will be the case for everything I write, on contrary I do not think it will really be the case any time. But it is what I keep in mind when writing software, because there is no need for copy cat software.

RC helicopter progress

The weather is not really cooperating and therefor I have not been able to fly with the E Sky Belt CP V2 nor with the Big Lama. As soon as there is any news on this subject you will be the first to know!

]]> Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:05:03 +0200 Tina Timelapse published http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/17 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/17 I am proud to announce that my first Android application is available in the Android market. It is a free download, but only available on Android 2.1 and higher. I have also updated the previous post with a video tutorial, on how to convert the recorded images into a playable video.

]]> Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:31:37 +0200 Tina Timelapse http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/16 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/16

Update (02-09-2010):

I have completely rewritten the application a few days ago and published it under a new name: Tina Time-lapse. I have received a lot of positive feedback, currently the Droid X is having some problems which I will fix this weekend.

Somewhere in the middle of last week I suddenly felt the urge to do some programming for the Android platform. I started at 10 o'clock in the morning and I was immediately hooked. After setting up the Software Development Kit I raced through the tutorials offered by Google and started working on my own application. Because I have not worked with Java recently I wanted to keep it simple and made a small timelapse application. ~~It is not yet available in the Android market, but~~ this is how it looks:

Tina Timelapse

And this is how it works

]]> Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:21:28 +0200 Crashing eye in the sky http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/15 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/15 It was already past 19:00 so I was in a hurry to get the camera in the air because I wanted to shoot some footage with the sun still shining bright. Maybe I should have done some flights to get comfortable with the controls again before flying with the camera because I crashed twice. The combined forces of the wind and the swinging camera made it very hard to control the helicopter. I am, however, very pleased with the image quality. The first video below was captured at 59.94 FPS and played back at 29.97. The second video ends in a bladestrike quickly followed by an inevitable crash. Enjoy, and make sure you watch it in HD!

]]> Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:44:29 +0200 Game of Life revisited http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/14 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/14 About 1 year ago I wrote my first Game of Life application, and I still find it quite fascinating. The Game of Life produces seemingly random output, but when you give it some time patterns will start to emerge. I was wondering if these patterns could be put to some useful purpose and after a while I came up with the idea to make those patterns create music. Unfortunately I am not a musician and I do not know a lot about creating music. So this will be a process with a lot of trial and error, but at least the basic Game of Life is running:

]]> Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:45:47 +0200 Krav Maga seminar http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/13 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/13 Together with some friends who also train in Krav Maga we attended a Krav Maga seminar yesterday. The seminar was held at the Willem Lodewijk van Nassaukazerne, a military base with the largest training village in Europe. The village is called Marnehuizen and consists of more than 120 objects including residences, a bank, an underground sewer and more.

]]> Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:18:15 +0200 GoPro Hero HD carried by the E Sky Big Lama RC helicopter, video http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/12 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/12 Today the weather started with some wind and rain, but around noon the wind calmed down and the clouds began to disappear. Perfect weather to try and find the best way to attach the GoPro Hero HD to the Big Lama RC helicopter. After making some test flights with different constructions we arrived at the conclusion that the vibrations coming from the helicopter were too violent for the camera to make a decent video. The first video below was made when the camera was attached directly to the helicopter:

]]> Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:29:32 +0200 Big Lama outdoors with payload, video http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/11 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/11 Although my flying skills are barely enough to call me a novice RC pilot, I was eager to test the lifting capability of my E Sky Big Lama RC helicopter . I tried it today with a 50 gram weight attached to the skid, which you can see in the video below. Despite reducing the battery life to 5 minutes the helicopter performed very well.

]]> Sun, 06 Jun 2010 21:20:11 +0200 Big Lama maiden flight http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/10 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/10 The E Sky Big Lama is a big (51 centimeters) radio controlled helicopter suitable for outdoor use. I bought one a while ago and first flew it yesterday. The helicopter came with a controller which could be connected to the computer, so I had been practicing quite a bit at home with a simulator. Still I crashed the helicopter twice, damaging 6 rotor blades and some other essential helicopter parts beyond repair. Luckily the shop where I bought the helicopter advised me to buy a repair kit as well, so after replacing the damaged parts the helicopter looks (and hopefully works) fine again:

E Sky Big Lama

Eye in the sky

]]> Mon, 24 May 2010 18:04:54 +0200 NHL Academy Award http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/9 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/9 During my previous minor at the NHL Hogeschool I worked together with Eric Cuperus, Richard Venneman and Laurens Dijkstra on a serious game called Watermanager. This project has been nominated for the NHL Academy Award :D. You can vote for us here: http://wr0.org?k, we are project A. If you have a dutch mobile provider you can also text the following (without quotes) to 1008: "SMS NHL A"

Watermanager goal

]]> Thu, 20 May 2010 09:40:04 +0200 Becoming self-sufficient http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/5 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/5 During this year I am going to try to become more and more self-sufficient, I have thought about this for a while now and I think it is time to take the first step. You can read my plans below but I want to talk about the why part first. Why would one want to be self-sufficient? and what is it exactly? Offcourse Wikipedia provides and answer to the second question: Self-sufficiency. As for the first, I think there are many different reasons.

The approaching end of the world
Trying to be good for mother nature
It is a way of life

For me, I just think it is interesting to see what is possible for a person living in the middle of the city with a small garden.

Plans

]]> Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:04:31 +0200 Teaching http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/4 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/4 I was following an advanced PHP class yesterday, and out of the blue the teacher asked me to show the class how I would solve a certain problem.

Despite a few problems I was able to keep the class interested for over an hour. And afterwards I received a lot of positive feedback from both the class and the teacher.

]]> Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:16:25 +0200 URL shortener, base convert and cURL http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/3 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/3 Weekends always give me some time to work on my own projects, and today I decided to create an URL shortener at wr0.org. I had written one before, so after an hour it was up and running. It basically works by inserting the long URL into a database, and then converting the assigned ID to base 36.

Base convert

Humans normally work with a base 10 system, we use 10 digits for counting: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. When we reach the end of our 10 digits, we append another and continue counting. Computers work with a base 2 system, using the digits 0 and 1. To write the number twentyfive in base 10 we write "25", in a base 2 system this would be written as "11001". In base 36 you generally use the letters a - z as extra digits, and then the number twentyfive would give us "p".

This is quite useful when trying to make a URL shortener, because you want to be able to shorten a lot of URLs, and they all need to be given an unique ID. When we assign IDs using a binary system, we run out of single digit IDs after shortening 2 URLs. The "normal" base 10 system allows for 10 single digit IDs and 36 single digit IDs can be assigned using base 36. This seems like much effort for little reward, but it gets better, take a look at this table.

]]> Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:58:34 +0200 Hello World!? http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/2 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/2 Hello World!? It should be working... Whenever I post something new to my blog it should be visible in my Google Buzz feed. For those not in the know, I did some programming and created my new blog. It has some cool features, the one I like most is the infinite scroll. As for now it is a one way street, there is no way for you to comment, but I will be working on a comment system this weekend.

]]> Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:08:34 +0200 Quick update http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/1 http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/1 I finished most of the work I wanted to do before starting to blog. Next to an RSS feed that contains all the posts, each of the 3 categories has its own RSS feed.

]]> Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:23:52 +0200