Revision as of 21:23, 27 April 2012

Links

To be rolled into Application Guides and Primers (i.e. content extracted and then pages deleted):

Content Engine

To Be Done

Ideas from Physical Computing:

Different types of edge detection (visual, signal, etc)
Intelligent switch integration (plates, pads, 'integrated' triggering)
Cloud and person detection with IR (field of view, etc)

Spatials in animation and materials science

App Guides

Background Priorities:

Check device API pages - no pseudo code
Commit
- Android HelloWorld x 2
- C HelloWorld
- Java HelloWorld
- Python HelloWorld
Figure out licenses
Clean up links to http://sl/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere/Device_Functionality
Phidget Manager
Language - Python#OS X
Language - C Sharp#OS X
Language - C/C++#OS X
Language - Visual Basic .NET#Linux
Language - Visual Basic .NET#OS X
Language - Flash AS3#OS X
Language - Simulink check against MATLAB
Check Language - Ruby perhaps split Linux/OSX?

Completed

Newly Done:

About Us
OS - Phidget SBC#Installing Other Languages
Phidget Dictionary
Clean up Links to General API
Clean up sentence above all uses of Using a Phidget in Code General
Tech support for last three weeks

Last Week:

C# Code added to Data Logging With a Thermocouple
Language - C Sharp#Linux
Mono on the SBC (preliminaries)
Planned hard links to examples/libraries, Brian now lead on this

Older:

Cleaned wiki of link references to Phidget Webservice, replaced by Phidget WebService
Data Logging With a Thermocouple
Temperature Sensor Primer#Emissivity (And associated Trac bug report)

Language - Python - Code Snippets
Language - Python - Linux section
OS - Android
Language - Android Java
All old (red) Manual Installation links redirected to Windows Page
OS - OS X - Structure, with content suggestions

Phidget WebService
OS - Windows - Structure and content suggestions
Language - Java - Linux section
Template:ExamplePseudocode Change to Hello World - Java Page

Software Flow

Don't get lost!

Getting Started for Device
Pick Your Operating System
Pick Your Language
Examples, run and build
Learn about General Phidget Programming
Device Specific Pseudocode in API
Code Snippets / Hello World pseudocode on Language Pages
Write Your Own Code
- Language-specific API
- General API - TO BE DELETED
- Device Specific API

Outreach

Edgy - Dependable - Accessible

"It's normal and cool to want to play, or build seriously"

We NEED non-hobbyist project descriptions

Show where we lie within the span of Hobbyist, to Deployable Project, to Industrial Automation

Point out the attributes that make Phidgets easy to learn:

Economically, they have to be.
- Our users often earn more than we pay ourselves, so we need to spend the time to get it as right as we can
We use them ourselves.
- Never underestimate the power of engineers having to use something seriously, rather than just tinkering

Point out the attributes that make Phidgets dependable:

Our boards that use external power have electrical isolation
We don't make a board and then move on and forget about it

Very General Ideas

App guides - Mini robots driven by phone - Save money automating energy - Explore science with your kids or class - Do it exactly the way you want, customizing - Motion capture data and motion paths (Maya, 3d Studio) for animation, etc

Currently, how are gyros, accelerometers, GPS, etc used on phones for cool things?

Maybe spy via Arduino + Android books? (These seem like hobby projects - we are more serious)

Tech Journalists
Make Magazine and Wired / Gizmodo
FB / Twitter prototypes (i.e. the funnel)
Improve Wiki Pages (wikipedia, etc)
Selling through Amazon (kits only? Cornerstones?) - How to manage reviews
Google placement (links) - Meta info and content on category pages
Google adwords - To Primers and App guides
Stickers and better board/product/accessory labelling
Co-marketing with Giants (Microsoft, Samsung)
Sending robots to tradeshows
Roaming classroom hardware
Photos in action on webpage, project writeups
Better forum moderating (make sure users don't lead each other astray)
Stay general, but add specific visualizations of projects (e.g. Trossen / RobotShop)
Add project concepts (very general) to the What Is A Phidget page
Offer an ecosystem of apps, for the SBC in particular

Outreach Tab on Website

Hey, Teachers!
- Project and lab experiments
- Roving hardware
- Competition projects (include short list of past projects)
Custom Design Services - Beta
- We live in a global world
- We have some great manufacturers and they want design work, we can hook you up!
Hobbyists
- Share your projects! We love hearing how Phidgets are used. This helps us design them better.
- At the very least we'd love to feature your photos of your project on our website.
- Then some projects will catch our attention and we might ask you for more, such as to write it up - of course for discounts or even free Phidgets.
- Before we get mobbed by everyone thinking this is a contest, though, keep in mind we're all engineers, not marketing people! (Trust us, this is a good thing.) So we don't really have a system for this, we're just playing it by ear.
Industry design group
- We welcome an involved group of companies, research groups, and.... for project input
- Set some general lower limit of phidgets used?

Facebook

CAC - weekly (or biweekly) ask what people are working on
- Encourage discussion
- Not forums, but excitement builders
Photos, photos, photos! (And videos)
Updates on distributors and stock

Strengths of Arduino:

They have Shields
- Solution: VINT can probably improve our third-party interest if we expose the HW comm API?
They appear as not-for-profit
- Solution: Whatever. They're in it for the money. Make it clear we're in it for the customer! And, for the coolness and fun factor.
Strong Community, which comes from open source, and being hard to use so people feel like they're learning
- Solution: This will probably be helped by exposing the HW API comm in VINT, in which case we are open enough for third-party add ons
- Solution: Primers! People will learn that way. Maybe mesh primers with app guides so that people can learn hands-on.
They have multiple O'Rielly books, magazines, Evil Genius books
- Solution: Man oh man do we need some rad app guides.
- Solution: More beginner stuff (physics classes, physical computing, experiments)
- Solution: Phidgets are not just about learning, they are about building real, useable, durable systems (a photo book? a video tour?)

Strengths of Sparkfun:

Custom - Almost Digikey-level modularity
- Solution: Basic hardware with lots of different versions for different needs
They release a veritable product firehose
- Yes, and they have 130 employees
- Their projects are hobbyist projects. No production-level designer is ever going to go to Sparkfun, or if they do, they are darn lost.
Scrappy and edgy
- Solution: Hipsters can't ride long distances in tight blue jeans. We have endurance.
- Solution: More creative, scrappy kits ('robot in a can')? Or maybe not.
- Solution: More humour and wit in our writing for application guides
- Solution: We can be more in touch with colleges and communities
- Solution: Expose good relationships with our mfg community, help relationships to be built with others there
Strong Community, which comes from their staff diversity and connections to colleges
- Solution: Maybe set up mentoring or at least community discussion resources

Strengths of National Instruments:

Dependability
- Solution: Advertise our calibration and spec confirmation methods
- Solution: Show many real-world uses
- Solution: VINT can maybe interface with third-party sensors?
Market themselves as 'industry solution leaders' (white papers, trend predictions)
- Solution: Don't do this. You're not the expert unless you're -really- the expert, and NI is not the expert, they're just another company.
- Solution: Make it clear that we think the customer knows best. They know their systems the best, their requirements the best. We just help them.

Our possible additional strengths:

Expose our entire product development and mfg process
- Allow and help our partners (i.e. China) to make new relationships directly with our customers
- Share ideas and manufacturing/design experience with China to make new products and add some Sparkfun-like agility to customer needs
  - Make this an iterative process so we have some control and they have some learning and we don't suffer the three-hour-woodchipper effect

Random Software Mess

High-Level Pages

Software Overview
Getting Started with Phidgets
General Phidget Programming NOT the API (Guts) page
General API The Guts page. No device-specific APIs. - TO BE DELETED

Guidelines and Goals

Primer Primer	High-level philosophy for primer construction
Software Example Design	What examples should contain, exceptions for different languages
Internal - Code Example Guidelines	Formatting, style, variable naming conventions, interaction philosophy
Internal - Software Wiki Structure Guidelines	A more formal layout of the structure and flow between Software pages
Application Guide²	Guide to the Application Guides
Application Guides	Internal list of most guides and some structure

Strawmen and Templates

Product Related Pages

Device List

Product Page - Template

Base for Product stubs

Them Templates

General

Template:ContentNeeded	Red box and bold
Template:ProblemSolution	Red and bold text
Template:KnownIssues	The tech support catch-all at the bottom of stubs

For Language Specific Pages

Language List

Template:LanguageSupport	Full API, etc notes, support section at top
Template:UsingAPhidgetInCodeGeneral	Introduction to how to write code (open, etc)
Template:ExampleCodeReasons	Why you want to start with example code
Template:ExamplePseudocodeLogic	For logic-only languages
Template:ExamplePseudocode	For event and logic based languages

For Specific Device Pages