Engscope

кухненски столовеThere is a unseen war going on, that is mostly unnoticed by the majority of the masses. The desktop/laptop consumer market is quite sizable, but the real money is the embedded market. Most reports seem to indicate that the embedded market is about 10 times the size of the consumer computer market. You can wage the Mac OS vs Win7 vs Linux debate all you want, but the debate can’t hold a candle to the massive battle of the embedded OS.

And it’s easy to see why. Think about how many electronic device you have in your house. Compare that with the number of computers. You might own 3 or even 4 computers, but I’ll bet you a nickel that you have at least 10 times that many embedded devices in your house. Your washer/drier, microwave, router, even surge protectors these days have some microcontroller(s) running the device. Not every one of them is running Windows Embedded or Linux Embedded or FreeRTOS, but if you’ve seen the functionality of some appliances these days (internet refrigerator anyone?) there’s bound to be an OS underneath.

I was getting my car serviced today and the smug guy next to me had a macbook pro. I asked him if he liked his macbook pro, and he gave me a slew of one liners about how the os/computer is faster/better/badass than a PC. Not that I’m against macs or anything, but I feel like a lot of people miss the point. There needs to be a bigger awareness of the technology around us. The embedded world is so massive, but it is unfortunate that not many people understand and experience it.

Next time you look at a fancy surge protector, just think about the lonely programmer in India that probably had to write the C code for the device. I promise that you’ll get a new perspective of the world around you.

-J

I hate being sick. I hate it even more when you know where the infection is and just have to wait for the immune system to do its job. Last night the infection was right in my sinuses. Now it feels like it is going down my throat. Hopefully it stops there and I don’t get bronchitis. The thing I hate the most about it is that you can’t get any work done. You gotta stop to wipe your nose ever 2 minutes. There’s probably snot all over my microcontrollers now.

-J

I must admit, WordPress is one heck of a piece of software.  I just upgraded, to the latest version.  It is the most headache free content management software I have seen.  It is so robust and easy to use, even a clumsy engineer such as myself can use it, not to mention my other liberal art friends…

In any case, I’m committed to getting the PIC24 tutorials out the door.  The project has been sitting on my things to do for a while now.  You will be seeing many sections of the PIC tutorial come out soon.

Stay tuned.

-J

I hate sales people.

I really really hate sales people.

I have no idea if they are talking out of they’re ass, or if they are trying to help me. I wish I lived in a perfect world where car prices were fixed, and I can just add it to my cart and click checkout. But alas, I don’t live in a perfect world.

Anyways, I just bought a brand spankin’ new Honda Civic. I thought I’d be jumping for joy or something, but I don’t know, it kinda felt ordinary (probably cause I saw the bill). I have never signed so many pieces of paper, and I had a sneaking suspicion that everyone at the dealership was out to get me the whole time I was there. It wasn’t too bad though. Honda had a recent graduate program, so the rates won’t eat me alive – they’ll just take my legs. On another note, you don’t realize how shiny cars can be until you buy your first new vehicle. Still, it sure beats my old Tercel.

I just moved into a bigger place, thinking that I’ll be stuck in this software development job for at least a good while. My girlfriend and I signed the lease for a year to our new one bedroom apartment. So after all the painful packing and unpacking, I go in for an interview in Reston, VA. They loved me, and offered me a job. Now I have to drive 90 minutes to work every day without the option of moving to a new place.

I tell you, if I can measure the irony of the situation, I’d be swimming in it. God I hate moving.