Life, the universe and everything - Technical Ambitions

I never thought that personal branding had any place in the little mans world. However it seems I have been purely mistaken. When starting out with my internet endeavours I thought about it for around 5 seconds and decided to sign everything I do with johnkweber. This I did mostly because I was not really sure of any other cool name to use.

So I started this branding image type thingy and soon found out that if you use a name often enough people will start reffering to you by that specific name (in this case BRAND) so even at work to most of my colleagues I am now johnkweber (spelt more like john kweeber) I dont really mind since I started it all but there are exceptions when branding can do damage as shown below. Specifically mistakes made by others.

In hindsight I guess it turned out ok because the is only really one johnkweber that uses it the way I do. The flipside ofcourse is the problem that I have currently with Google syndicating news articles. Around 1989 there was an article in a newspaper in USA somewhere regarding a certain John R Weber that allegedly raped and murdered his wife Emily Weber. Google seems to have done a scan of the page and the OCR was performed incorrectly and suddenly John R Weber now becomes John K Weber.

This proves to be quite a nightmare to fix since ater having searched in Goolge for johnkweber as I usually do once a week at least (to thank people that have mentioned me in their blogs etc) I saw this article that goes "John K Weber rapes and murders his wife Emily Weber"

In my endeavour to get this fauxpas fixed up I chatted to Google a number of times and it moved the article to the very first page on the google search for johnkweber. This due to the fact that the answers and arguments are open for everyone to see on google answers. DAMN.

Be that as it may I went to JHB to talk to a number of guys about a security product I was punting and when they did a MEMEX search on my name (checking if I was who I say I was) it turned out the Memex took the Google article as its main tagline since it scored so high in Google Ranking that it must be me and nobody else. Try explaining this whole scenario to non internet type people. Man what a time I had. Anyway they all seemed to end up seeing the light and now at least I have documented in one more place (this blog entry) what the real story is.

So when thinking up brand names be careful what you wish for as weird things crawl out of the woodwork when you start owning something, even a name.

Scrum and Agile are two buzzwords that currently rank high on the list of technical jargon. Awesome ideas and methodologies which can seriously enhance the way your staff delivers products, which when implemented wrong could be the biggest mistake you have ever made within your company.

The thought behind Agile is that staff members self manage and self motivate themselves to get products off the shelf. An Agile team basically sets itself up with the mandate to get work out the door. The fact that the project is self managed within the team means that you have an awesome bunch of people that are highly skilled but even more important, highly motivated which are now engaged with what they are doing and therefore churn out amazing results and therefore excellent products.

Scrum masters on the other hand are not managers at all but motivators and their only goal in life should be to assist the team to ensure that there is nothing impeding them to do the best work that they can achieve. So when Scrum masters start saying which work will be done and how long it wil take, then you start facing the problem that once again the team member actually doing the work is not in charge of his own life or surroundings, we all know how detrimental that could be to the IT developer type guy. Don't tell me what to do, then tell me how to do it and then to top it all tell me by when I must do it.

These thoughts have come to mind whilst reading another good book called "Why work sucks and how to fix it - Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson" The book website and Purchase from Amazon

The book describes a way to work called a ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) where every person is captain of his or her own ship. This means that your time is your own, your way of working is your own. You decide how, when and where you wil work. You still work (maybe harder now than ever) because suddenly just being at the office for 40 hours is not what you are being measured on, you now need to produce results that are directly measurable. Meaning this : No results, no job.

I suggest it as an excellent way to start working. Managers, change the way you measure your staff input. Make them excited to go to work for a change. Allow the staff to give you the best hours that they can. Not everyone works well from 8 to 5. Rather let the guy or girl who works best from 22h00 till 04h00 give you excellent results than let them just be in the office from 08h00 till 17h00 and not produce quality. It seems like a no brainer to me.

I am excited about this new year as it promises great things. Enjoy 2010

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch

The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

I have just heard one of the most amazing lectures ever. It was delivered by Randy Pausch and is available for you to hear on the interent. When Randy realised that he had pancreatic cancer he realised that he could do nothing with the cards he was dealt, it was how he played the hand that has made his lectre so popular. Millions of people the world over have heard his inspiring lecture. It is all about living life and what is needed to ensure you get something out of life.

The one big lesson I have taken from it is that when you dream, you must not dream small little dreams. DREAM BIG. It is only when you dream big that your life takes on a more significant meaning. You have to fulfil those dreams ad it is too easy to fulfil small little dreams. These are also needed to allow you to focus on the smaller little more achievable goals.

A man without a dream is a lost man. Wandering around without purpose or passion. So go ahead now and start dreaming big. The dreams are your minds way of telling you that you can achieve them. Your mind will never set you up for a fall. So dream big and trust in your dreams. It is probably the most important thing you can do for yourself.

Thank you to Randy Pausch for teaching me so much in so little time. Even though the lecture was meant for your kids, it has inspired me in my life and I feel great that I was able to listen this life changing lecture and hope that you (the reader) also take the time out of your life to listen to it. It might just be the first act in your changed life.

The lecture, even though Randy does not talk about his impending death is charged with sadness and life. Randy shows little or no sadness throughout but you as the listener is charged with the knowing that he will die soon and that the positive attitude that he is exuding is about to change a lot of peoples lives.

ENJOY.

It is extremely frustrating now that Google shows the revenue that one earns in the currency for the country you reside in. Due to the exchange rate for the Rand for instance the amount changes per day. It is never stable and one really never knows the exact stats for the month since the figures change so drastically from day to day.

I rather preferred the fact that it showed in US Dollars and not ZA Rands.

The other thing that I have noticed that was changed for the worse on Google Adsense program was the fact that you could view the revenue you have made since the last payment. This feature is no longer visible and it really is a crying shame since it was actually quite a nifty feature.

A short while ago, Google held an opinion poll regarding the service they were delivering via Adsense and I am guessing that the rework they did was based on that research. It just goes to show that research is also just one way of measuring satisfaction of service. There should be many more ways used to judge satisfaction of a service or site.

Priceisright.co.za is a free service aimed at stretching the South African Rand for Joe Public. All too often I hear "There is just too much month left after my salary" and it is getting to be more true every month. Costs of groceries increasing every month.

This is the perception out there and I have decided to do a test and to measure this exact growth per month on my grocery bill. The site currently just shows a few lists of prices that have been taken from various sources online. However the idea is actually that the visitors to the site actually grow the list of prices and shops organically. We do have people out there checking prices and getting shopping lists but it will take a bit of time to get the site to have a good list of prices throughout the range of suburbs and shops in South Africa.

The future development of the site will allow the visitot to the site to create his or her own shoppinbg list and then get a feeling of how much the groceries would cost if purchased from Store A compared to Store B maybe.

This comparison can actually take a considerable amount of money off your end grocery bill and if the prices are updated by the visitors to the site when they purchase their own list of groceries, very soon it will be a very useful service.

The site has been created by the owners of TAGGA - Proactive Searchable Stolen Goods Serial Database and is a FREE service as is TAGGA.

Please let us know what you think about this great idea. Lend a hand to make it a successful service please.

Here is a link to an interview held by HandyTechTipper regarding Priceisright.co.za

This is probably the best classical guitar piece I have ever heard. Edgar Cruz plays it to perfection. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

If you ever wished you could play guitar, this piece will either deter you for life or it will encourage you to do just that. Practice over and over till you get it right.

I have renewed enthusiasm to practice after seeing this piece of music played so flawlessly. Stunning.

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen


Edgar Cruz website with many tunes

So here is an awesome way to start generating some bucks on the internet with no initial outlay. You set up a shop and choose a few of the millions of products that will get shipped without any hassle to the buyers. All you do is set up the shop and market it online. The rest as they say should be history.

So here I have set up a shop with a number of exciting books on electronics and a few little gadgets. Lets see what sort of money one can make with this idea.

http://gadgetfreaks.zliogifts.com

To set up your own shop go to
http://www.zlio.com/

http://hootsuite.com/

This is one of the most awesome Twitter help tools I have found to date. I have seen many but none allow you to do so much for so little (free in fact).

Once you have set up your account you can automate your twitter account to start doing things on your behalf. One of my favourites is the fact that it will automatically feed you new blog entries such as this entry to your twitter account. This allows you to not have to concentrate on too many places when adding a new blog entry, the work gets done for you automatically.

The adsense plugin that allows your google ads to show when you shorten a link using their Ow.ly link shortening is also allowing me to earn more google income.

It is amazing that Twitter seemed to be such a useless tool and now it seems to be one of the bigger internet phenomenons. Go figure.....

I love reading books about successful people and I love to hear stories of people who aspire to amazing things in life. It is so awesome to be able to spend a few minutes listening to someone who really knows a thing or two about life. It is a moment in time that I grant myself in order to learn something which took others maybe many years to learn. It is a gift unto myself when I do this.

I play guitar, I have spent thousands of hours learning guitar and it is so interesting to note that the people I have taught and that were willing to put in hours and hours just doing what I had showed them, pass me by in a ridiculously short time. I have taught them within hours something that took me years to perfect. Somehow I manage to switch something on in them that may have been lying dormant or may just have needed a bit of a push to get them started. But it is really surprising everytime I see how fast people can learn when they are being shown what has taken others many years to learn. It allows them to go forward in leaps and bounds.

What I have noticed though is that they have an ability which I do not possess. They have a feeling for music which I do not possess. I have a technical ability and a love for music but they hear things which I dont. This allows them to take what I have learnt and make it their own and make it much better.

Anyway, I have just had the opportunity of listening to an audio file that was given to me when I registered for the newsletter on Zig Ziglar's site at http://www.zigziglar.com/newsletter.php

It is called Biscuits_Fleas_and_Pump_Handles and has a size of 31.8 MB (it is worth every bit of your bandwidth to download this file after registering)

Do yourself a favour and listen to the message of inspiration on this audio file. I have for number of months now been quoting Zig Ziglar on my facebook daily status update as I enjoy positive messages. I am actually surprised at myself for taking this long to google Zig Ziglar and find out why he is so popular for his sayings. One of his most popular sayings is the following: You can have anything you want in life just as long as you help enough other people get what they want in life.

This is so true and I have lived by it without realising it. It is a way of life for me. I first build bridges with people and then they inevitably build bridges beyond my normal reach. That I think is the secret to success.

This 60 minute recording of one of Zig Ziglar's messages will remain with me as it is a truly motivational message which gives me great hope and I trust that it will be of great meaning in your life as well.

So after having checked out the Twitter scene for a while I have finally managed that it is a very cool way of staying in touch.
Being aware of everything happening with your friends and family is a tiresome task to say the least. Now with Twitter you can stay in touch with what is happening in their lives without having to even call them. Remember personal communication is still the best and only effectiove communication, however Twitter and its tweets are really great for informative purposes.

Go to http://twitter.com to register.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/johnkweber

Have fun and let me know where you are.

Regards johnkweber

One of the best things about listing your stolen items on http://tagga.co.za is that the item becomes searchable under google search engine. Due to the way that the TAGGA site has been created the stolen goods become searchable under google.com

SO if you for instance entered your serial number such as I have done on some of my stolen items such as the IMEI of my phone, 353659014407270 If you use this IMEI number to search in google you will see that it points back to the TAGGA site. This way you have a much better chance of people finding your stolen goods.

The other nice feature is that your item is becoming searchable in a host of other programs and websites that we link to. We provide a daily dump of all the stolen goods in our system which other programs or websites can include in their sites or maybe imnport the list of stolen goods into their programs. Programs such as Pawnboss, http://www.crimex.co.za and others as we start forming links and associations with them. This way your items have a better chance of being found than if it were on TAGGA alone.

So now Second hand goods dealers really dont have an excuse as they can now even search google for the serial numbers of the items that they are buying in as stock from the street. They have really got no way that they can now say that they were unaware that the items were stolen. Maybe now we can start seeing a difference in the way crime is being dealt with on the street.

No buyers means no market, means less theft.

Link to TAGGA

When God speaks it seems not many people hear Him anymore. I am astounded at the fact that even I don't listen as I used to before. People around us are in need all the time and yet we don't seem to hear or see them in any way. It is easy to ignore people and circumstances that are a thousand miles away. How is it though that it is so easy to ignore our neighbours when they are in need.

Today I learned that while I was having a lovely weekend, my neighbour below me, Andre had died in his couch sometime early in the weekend already. I was blissfully unaware of anything that had transpired. It turns out the Andre had cancer.

I had noticed him becoming thinner and thinner and every time I saw him I meant to ask him how it was going with him and whether I could be of any assistance. However I never got around to it and even though I had that nagging feeling tugging at me all the time I managed to suppress it and forget about it. How is it possible that after having had the religious upbringing that I have had, that I have no compassion left for my fellow human being? I feel terrible about the fact that Andre has left this world a lonely person and that I have done nothing to console him or make his life better in any way.

I keep wondering what my purpose is in life and I seem to be getting no answers. Or maybe this is an answer of sorts. Maybe I am placed here to help out my neighbours. Maybe just maybe my calling is to be more neighbourly.

I fell terrible that I did not heed the nagging feeling at my consience that I could help in a small way maybe. I could have been there for him in his last hour and maybe seen that he did not have to leave this world alone. No, in my selfish routine I have missed this opportunity to maybe have done some good for someone.

I guess I am not alone in this world when it comes to wondering what my our purpose is in this lifetime. Even though it is brief I feel that it must have some meaning and I wish I knew what it was that I was called to do.

Some people have a calling in life. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt what it is that they are meant to be doing on this planet. I don't. I try and fathom it out.

I am getting older by the day and not wiser. I seem to be making mistakes but not learning from them. When does one become wiser. Age does not seem to be doing it for me. The experiences I have had in life should have changed my way of thinking and maybe shown me the way but even that seems to be failing me. What is it then that will make me change my ways?

I really need to know what it is I am supposed to be doing on this planet. I also need to know in no uncertain terms as I seem to have become deaf and blunt to God's whispering. How am I supposed to know what it is I am meant to be doing????

For the last few weeks now I have come across a multitude of people saying that they have had enough of Facebook. Well my sentiment so far is that they have probably just spent half their year on it and that is why they feel that way. There is a million things to do on Facebook. That does not mean that you have to do them all.

As soons as you have raced away all the races allowable in an app like petrolheads then maybe it is going a little too far. Specially if you should happen to do this as part of your ritual every night or day. These apps will keep you busy and drive you insane.

Now for what I actually wrote this article for.

When you have an application such as Facebook in front of you, the only thing I as a programmer can think, is why the hell did I not think of it. It is certainly one of the most exciting advents of the century so far. Imagine having millions of eyes on your cyber estate every day. It must be the fastest money spinner ever.

If it is the last thing I do, it will be to write an app on Facebook. My thoughts are whether the app could attract so many people that it could make a difference to my bank balance. I guess if I come up with the right concept then just maybe it could.

I think Facebook has enourmous potential and therefore I am all for it still. I reserve my judgement but so far I love it.

I have tried unsuccesfully a number of wireless monitoring software packages. After a search on the internet for suitable packages that would work with Vista, I came across a fantastic blog by Martin Sauter (Wireless Solutions Consultant). Martin wrote and article about layer 1 tracing on wireless networks at Martin Sauter Blog.

Then I stumbled across Wireless Mon from Passmark.com and this works well on Vista. Click here to download Wireless Mon

I am currently using the trial version and i like the way it is set up. The software package is really great and well thought out. Thanks guys.

This is probably the singular most exciting book that I have ever read in my entire life. Rhonda has put into writing, the exact essence of what I practise everyday. To me it feels as though my thoughts and ideas on life have been tested and tried by literally hundreds and thousands of people by now.

Rhonda has managed to put everything into context for me. Now I know why I do what I do and why I get the results I get.

The greatest thing though that I have learned out of the book is that it is the negative things that we think about others that can harm us more seriously than we could ever imagine.

Do yourself a favour and read The Secret


Sydney Weber - Living by God Inspired Faith

One of the strongest resemblances to The Secret that I have ever read in a book, were written by my Father - S K Weber
In this book he explains exactly what Rhonda explains about manifestations and positive thought. The only difference is that he shows it as it should be seen from a christian perspective. Sydney is a man that practises what he is preaching in the book. The books name is "Living by God Inspired Faith" and I had the priviledge of publishing his book.
I had to read it literally hundreds of times to make sure all typos were out and that the syntax was good. However during all of the reading, I remembered the miracles that he was describing in the book. It all came back to me and I realised at that moment why I have such faith even in times of adversity and even when I am at my deepest and loneliest moments.

My father has given me an amazing example as to how faith can make things happen. If you ever read the book you will see that the similarities between Rhonda Byrne's - The Secret and S K Weber's - Living by God Inspired Faith are what makes her faith so strong, or I suppose one could aslo say why my father's faith can produce such miracles.

It all boils down to one simple rule in both books. Ask for it, Accept it and say thank you.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Thank you Rhonda and thank you Sydney

This is probably one of the most exciting developments I have seen for a while. Really original and totally awesome.

Download the software to your cellphone from http://www.shotcode.com/download onto your smart cellphone with a camera and then use shotcode software to take a photo of this image and then see what it downloads to your phone.

This is going somewhere, I am not sure where but I will give you more on this subject later.

A communication platform for road users
How http://www.motormail.nl works

By : John K Weber

Once again the promise of new technologies to be learnt, has prompted me to embark on a new project. This project is unlike anything I have ever undertaken as it involves Linux and the underlying operating system plays an important role in it's development.

Calling all licensed vehicles
The main aim of this project is to allow all road users to be able to communicate without having to know anything about the users that they are communicating with. There are many ways to achieve this but I have chosen for the simplest of all. EMAIL. The saying used to be that money makes the world go round. I think that that should be rephrased to email makes the world go round.

In the fraction of the time that it takes to write an email, it gets sent to its destination. It is a very powerful medium that has made its way into the 21 century in no small way. So it is with this in mind that I decided to use email as the underlying medium for communicating with all road users.

Motormail allows any person to send an email to another road user based on their vehicle registration number. As simple as that. Even if the user is not currently registered, the emails are stored and delivered to them as soon as they decide to register.

The mechanics of email are so simple to set up that it is also not as large a project as is assumed when starting out.

Cobalt RAQ 4 server
I have my own Cobalt RAQ 4 server set up in Amsterdam and linked directly to the internet backbone.

The Cobalt RAQ 4 allows the users to set up web sites using a smart web interface. It requires absolutely no experience with Linux which is the operating system or Apache which is the web server of choice. It allows the user to setup emails and web space so easily that it takes around two minutes at the most to set it all up.

Automatic email creation
The main problem is just to create the script that will allow the email accounts to be created on the fly. This is essential so that the user can use their email accounts as soon as they are opened. This script requires in depth knowledge of the Linux operating system and seen as that I have no clue as what is going on I decided to call in the experts.

I have recently purchased a product that would allow me to set up the user accounts on my Cobalt RAQ 4 server and setup the databases etc with minimal effort. It is a sort of shell that works around the user interface set up for the Cobalt server.
Due to the fact that port 81 is closed in most network environments, it is impossible to set the account up without the port 81 being opened. So this product "Auto Setup" allows me to set up the user accounts now using the http port, port 80.

Remote project completion
So I emailed the owner of this product "Richard Kurth" and requested a quotation for the script I needed to create the emails automatically.


How Motormail is set up
The technical glue that keeps it together

Having requested the quotation from Richard Kurth I got a extremely prompt reply saying that it would cost $150 to create the script. I accepted and the next day my script was set up on my server without me having to touch it at all. Excellent, I have just outsourced my first project and by email of all things. So now that I have established that email makes the world go round….

How does the email account get created
So what happens? The user sets up an account by giving a vehicle registration number and a password which allows access to the POP3 email account. He details get stored into a mySQL database and using a Cron tab (scheduling mechanism in Linux) the database is read out and all users that are currently in the database get created one by one.

Once the email account is created the ser may immediately use it to send emails or read emails that may have been posted to the account before it was created.
However there is still one problem. How do the users know when someone is registered or not. I mean it is not really possible to send an email to someone who does not exist. As soon as you send it you will get an email back saying that the user does not exist.

The catchall email account
In order to solve this problem the Cobalt RAQ 4 allows the web administrator to setup a catchall email account over and above the email accounts that are already setup. This entails setting up an account that will catch all emails sent to a domain name.

This is a really handy solution because now anybody can send an email to any registration number at motormail and it will get sent to the catch all account.

A loop to beat all loops
I then have a program called RSVP that runs in the background on a system attached to the internet using ADSL and running on Windows. This RSVP program costs around $40 dollars and is probably the easiest program to use when it comes to email processing for Windows.

The program will fetch all emails from the catchall account on the Cobalt RAQ 4 server and will resend them and then delete them. This means that if the account has now been created it will just catch the email or otherwise if it has not yet been created it will be sent back into the catchall email account, only to be resent again in a few minutes. This means that no matter whether you are registered or not at the Motormail site your emails will always be kept and delivered to you after you have registered.

The hardest part is yet to come
Now, of course, this all really means nothing when only a handful of people use this service. So it needs to be marketed.

Of all the things to do when creating any web site, the marketing is the main pain.
It is actually up to word of mouth to make this site work as a large advertising budget is out of the question as the service is mainly free. The only way it can pay for itself is to place a small text advert in each email when it is sent. So the costs have to be kept as low as possible as the users are sick and tired of having banners placed all over the place.

Take Yahoo! for example. It used to be a really great Service but it now has so many adverts that it is nauseating to even look at it. So the advertising which usually pays for all web sites is out the window. As is the small one liner text advert within each email is already bad enough but it is a necessary evil nonetheless.

So what can you do with motormail!
Have you ever been driving down the highway when your dream car which is actually an exotic import zips past you. Wow if only you could chat to that driver and ask a few questions like "where did you actually buy this car?"
An another occasion you drive past this car for sale. The only problem is that the for sale sign has no price or telephone number. It probably does have one but not something you can see before zipping past it. Well now with a bit of training(reading number plates through your rear view mirror) you can actually just note the vehicle registration number (97GXSB) and send an email to 97GXSB@motormail.nl and you will be able to establish a dialogue through emails.

Simple isn't it?
So why don't you register and make it work?
Just browse along to http://www.motormail.nl and set up your very own email account. Just supply your vehicle registration number and a password with which to login to the site to read and write emails and you are A for away.
So who thinks up these great ideas?

Well this one was thought up by Esther Zijlstra from CSC in Bunnik and the work was performed by John K Weber and partly by Richard Kurth in the USA.

I also would like to acknowledge the fact that we are using a very easy to install email client called instantwebmail. This client blended straight into our website without any changes at all to it. As is. This is seldom the case with any web projects. These guys have made a really easy to apply Web Mail client. Check it out at http://instantwebmail.sourceforge.net/

It won't make millions
I can almost guarantee that this site will not make millions, however it will breach the gap between the members of the public and the road users.
This domain name has already been purchased for most countries by a different party. It has no affiliation with our site at all.

What next?
I am currently still busy with a remote weather station, which will be able to send all status messages via SMS to a ground station which is also online at all times and available for research. There will be more of this project in the near future. Keep your eyes open for any other interesting ideas and you may always send them through to me at johnkweber@yahoo.com - JKW

ABAT UAV had it's wares on display at the Ysterplaat AAD show in October 2006. It was really amazing and there was an amazing response to the autopilot as well as the small planes which we chose as a platform to test and fly the autopilot. Here is an article as written by Peter La Franchi from http://www.flightglobal.com/

The full article as printed by Flight Global can be viewed at http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/Article.aspx?liArticleID=209216&PrinterFriendly=true

South Africa's ABAT unveils plan for mini-UAV courier business
By Peter La Franchi


The South African-based autopilot manufacturer ABAT has unveiled concepts for a local area courier delivery business based around small electrically powered UAVs.

The “Posduif” – an Africans language word for carrier pigeon - business would utilise a flying wing UAV manufactured from Styrofoam with a pusher propeller and an underslung payload canister. The Styrofoam airframe is sufficiently strong to support repeat operations, but lightweight enough to ensure low kinetic energy ground impact effects in the event of a collision or system failure says company co-founder John Weber.

The UAVs would be dispatched from a central co-ordination centre, with launch either by hand or a rail system. The delivery point would be pre-calculated using GPS with the flight planning system incorporating ground maps, air charts, and a terrain elevation model to allow a safe route to be plotted. The original software suite was developed as a toolset for use in planning aerobatic routines for manned aircraft says Weber, with its evolution into a UAV flight planning system commencing some 18 month ago.

The basic UAV has a 60km range, and uses a GPRS modem, operating over commercial cellular telephone networks, as a datalink. The maximum payload is anticipated to be 0.7kg.

The system would have particular application in supporting remote communities in the African environment Weber says, but could also have a role to play in established urban environments, particularly where speed of delivery was an issue.

Once at the delivery point, the Posduif would either perform a landing, with the lower wing surface acting as a skid, or simply drop the canister from low altitude and then return to the dispatch point.

Weber says if the UAV lands, its return would be achieved by the package recipient simply picking up the UAV and throwing it back into the air. The UAV would automatically detect that it was airborne, stabilise itself and identify its location, and then engage a pre-loaded return flight programme to return to its original departure point.

For high use recipients the business model could also involve setting up a rail launcher with integrated battery recharger to allow for air vehicle return.

Weber says the primary obstacle to the launch of the business remains approvals from South African civil airspace regulators. However he anticipates solutions in the form of a more open flight approvals regime and certification basis for civil UAVs in South Africa in the not too distant future.

As an interim step, ABAT is promoting the basic Styrofoam UAV as a farm management system, adding a low cost staring digital camera to collect imagery. The airframe material again lends itself well to this user community says Weber, as while many South Africa agronomists already using light aircraft in property management and stock control roles, there is a high potential for frequent crashing in the early stages of introducing a UAV system.

A glassfibre or all composite airframe is unlikely to be sufficiently robust to be re-useable after impacting a solid wall or tree Weber says, whereas Styrofoam will absorb the bulk of the impact. If the airframe is badly damaged however, the autopilot and engine module can simply be removed from their mounts and placed into a new wing, something farmers could do themselves.

The world of the extremely bored technician

How a tech nut thinks
By : a tech nut of note

Without a challenge, a keen inquiring mind gets bored in an instant. An ever, advancing level in the challenges faced is what keeps this certain breed of technician from becoming insane. Like a junky awaiting his next fix, the tech nut awaits his next biggest challenge. The one hardly finished before the next has to be found.

The result of this weird addiction
One of the main features in the tech nut’s repertoire of rare and mostly fascinating ideas and projects is the ability, to stun people into silence, make the audience applaud with enthusiasm or most often laugh out load and to his face.

The latter reaction is what has greeted this tech nut in his latest venture. In his quest to find the most interesting and exciting elusive challenge he wondered into the world of the insane when he decided to conquer the real outside world, spoken about in many circles, but only with vague insinuations and rarely with any conviction, with the ever popular phenomenon, known to the uninitiated only as the internet, web and ultimate source of entertainment.

In order to capture an audience that, to say the least, is as fickle as fate, must be the ultimate challenge. Well with a good dose of imagination and some really way out mental glitch, he came upon the idea of shooting via the internet. Not just any shooting mind you, a real live gun that makes a noise and is likely to hurt if aimed at you.

Gripping stuff

Once it had taken post in his mind it began taking root as the idea twisted him this way and that. Not letting go of him until he had totally given in to the idea. What was he thinking? What would his wife say every time the shots rang out in his living room, never mind the mess that would be his living room while he struggled with the very fabric of existence as he slowly painstakingly put the pieces of this very extraordinary puzzle together?
This is it, the tech nut’s delight
The number of challenges facing him began to mount. What gun? What will they shoot? Where will the funding come from? How will it all work? (obviously secretly delighted that he had managed to figure out a problem that would keep him solidly busy for more than a day) Why – oh don’t bother, “Why” does not figure in this equation.
One of the most difficult things to figure out, would be to make this so called online gun do what the demanding audience would require of it to do.

Given the fact that the very idea of guns scares off so many people that it might have been insane to even contemplate such an idea, he nonetheless decided to give his full and undivided attention to this man made problem.

This is his story
Seen from the eye of the average Joe, this may be the time to put down this article and leave it be. It can’t be worth anything as it is not marketable. Maybe not, but it sure is interesting. Ain’t it.

How Pellet Cam is set up
The real nuts and bolts stuff

This is a highly technical story due to it’s complexity and therefore is not for the faint hearted. It may however be the light that you have been looking for. I doubt it but you never know. Also please take note that the project is not entirely finished yet as it is still lacking a bit of funding for various items. It should however be finished on schedule within the next two to three weeks.

The technical idea behind it all
The idea is to have a gun that can be maneuvered via the internet. It can be made to point at a target and actually shoot a projectile in order to hit the target. There is no prize, there is no glory, it is just to give you that feeling of touching something out there without physically being there to do it.

The original idea was to use a pellet gun, but due to the fact that I keep on getting the question of “When is it going to be ready so that we can shoot the darn thing?” I decided to use an easier implementation that would not require a fully automated loading tray. The actual work that goes into manufacturing this sort of tray would not really be compensated financially at the end of the day, and due to it being wholly self financed the shorter route has been taken. Of course a a tech nut I would still like to do this and now have the time to actually really go into it while the people still have the ability to shoot.

The idea behind it all is of course that in order to sell anything or advocate any sort of ideas via the internet, one has to have an audience. Well this may just bring that audience to my web site.

The gun is a semi automatic paintball gun with a remote Co2 tank that allows it to shoot 1000 rounds without being refilled or manipulated in any way. This is a cheat obviously due to the fact that every 1000 shots I will still have to replace the cylinder but I was not prepared to go through the cost of actually automating that as well.



A laser site (that incidentally comes from a real gun and was purchased in South Africa in December) is placed on the gun so that the users can view the position of the gun. The laser points to the targets and the idea is, where the laser points is where the projectile will hit.

The targets consist out of a number of metal plates, which are also customary in a normal shooting range for close range shooting. The plates have micro switches that are activated when they are hit. This allows me to keep an electronic score over and above the visual realization that the targets have been hit.
There is a camera that provides a constant visual image to the user that is currently shooting. They can therefore see the targets as well as the laser which points to the targets.

The main electronics behind it all
In order to make all the parts move, a web server is needed that will be able to translate the users requirements into actual movement of the gun.

For this purpose I went scouting on the internet and found the perfect partner that would be capable of achieving my goals.

It is to be found at http://www.bcl-online.de

The web server shown above is a totally self sufficient unit. Other than the power supply that is connected to it, there is nothing else needed to host your sites. It does not have too much space obviously so it should be carefully designed in order to maximize the experience for the user. In order to achieve this I am currently using Flash. The Flash files are relatively small and achieve a lot besides being easy to create.

A web server alone, is nothing!
In order to move the servos that are connected to the gun’s mechanism the web server has to talk the language spoken by servos and other interesting objects.



The humble servo, used by the average hobbyist is one of the most versatile items to use when it comes to automating machines (it is relatively cheap as well), of course when it came to finally purchasing servos I soon realized that the average servo was not going to be able to hold the weight of this large paintball gun which weighs a considerable amount when loaded with 200 paintballs.



The servos I chose eventually turned out to be digital servos which meant that I need to buy a digital servo programmer as well (I see a new project to begin on straight away – a computerized digital servo setter upper). They cost a fortune but are capable of lifting 20 kilograms without breaking a sweat. Also the gear trains are supposed to be unbreakable. I sure hope this is the case as the success of this project is riding on that factor.

A language unlike anything we know
The servo needs to have a signal that is given at specified intervals in order to move. This signal needs to be between 900 and 2100 microseconds and needs to be repeated every 20 milliseconds. Now, actually this should be no problem as any computer is capable of producing these types of PWM (pulse width modulation) pulses through careful programming of a few timers.

Well in actual fact it turned out to be a nightmare. I created something in Delphi and it worked fantastically, on one servo. I needed at least 5 to work simultaneously. So what to do.

I finally ended up wading through several hundred web sites each professing to have their own servo drivers. Most of them would handle one or two but no more. Finally I got a subscription to the Elektuur which is an electronic magazine here in the Netherlands, and checked out hundreds of articles till I found the correct circuit. It had to be done electronically as it would leave the microprocessor free to do the rest of the work as well as move the servos when it was required.

I first tried making the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and after a few tries I let some company make them for me at a ridiculously low cost, even less than the cost of the items I had purchased just to make 1 PCB.

The basic idea was that the web server would talk I2C to the servo controller and tell it to move to the correct positions and the electronic controller would translate this into the correct signals required by the servos.

Anybody who knows me even reasonably well will know that I am a gadget freak. I love and live for all things hi-tech. Ever since I was a little kid I have been experimenting with electronic gadgets and any other types of gadgets that I could lay my grubby little hands on.

The love for gadgets is a really easy way to lose money fast. Every new day millions of gadgets see the light of day. We only see a fraction of those. Due to the internet admittedly we see a lot more than say 15 years ago, where the only gadgets I saw where in the electronic shops and Newworld Pharmacy in Pretoria, South Africa.

My love for gadgets has taken me down many wonderful roads and I will die a gadget freak I guess. My grandfather who lived to be 93 years old, said to me the weirdest thing when he first saw MNET, "Boy this new fangled stuff is enough to blow your mind" Bear in mind that he worked for Telkom for half his life as a technician. So as one can see new things will be blowing our minds soon. My kid will one day be showing me things which I wont understand (actually he does that already)

Anyway I have created a few interesting projects and I will share them with you. I have had many firsts in my life and I think the one that no one else has had will be the first article I write about. Unfortunately it is not online anymore as it costs a packet to run and is a lot of hard work. However maybe one day it will again be online for the viewing pleasure of all.