Social Networking for My Toaster

My Toaster Twitters

That statement sounds odd. Well, let me explain. My friends would describe me as the kind of person that has a lot of time on their hands. They would be right. That time is never put to productive use, but over Thanksgiving I got the gumption to start a new project. Sometimes, I start little servo, robotic, web-based projects for my own gratification, but I get fed up with all of the time I invest just so I can impress my 3 friends that also have nothing do to over the holidays.

My friend Jason Winters has been working on an module that simplifies the connecting of projects to the internet. He sent me one of his ioBridge modules to beta test and my mind started spinning. My goal this Thanksgiving was to think of a crazy project that would be the most senseless thing someone has ever heard of before.

Again, My Toaster Twitters...

Twitter is a social networking site that allows you to tell the world your current status - kind of like a microscopic blog that gets to the point. You can write, "Hans is going to lunch" or "Hans is tired", etc. It's fun to follow people and see what they can do creatively with just a few characters of updates.

I use my toaster when I am home and I thought that the world may want to know when I'm toasting.

twitter.com/mytoaster

How do you make a toaster twitter?

I grabbed my old bagel / toast toaster and glued a switch to the outside, so when the slider gets pressed down it triggers the switch and when it pops up, the switch opens (couldn't be any more binary then that).

The ioBridge module has a digital input that I can hook the switch up to and monitor that state of toasting or not. Using a terminal board, a pull up resistor (1k), and some alligator clips, I hooked up the resistor from the digital input to the +5v source from the module, and clipped my clips on the resistor and the ground. A few pictures are worth more than my description.

Here is the whole system hooked together:

The Web Stuff

Using the ioBridge website, I created an event widget that monitors the input state of that particular digital input. And when the input is "high", the site sends an email to any address of my liking. And the same for the "low" state. I chose my Twitter Mail address, but really could of hit any social network, email by blog, or even UberNote.

Follow My Toaster on Twitter at twitter.com/mytoaster. I think I proved empirically that I have too much time on my hands.

UberNote for an Ubermensch

"Web 2.0" is a bona fide buzzword. What happened to versions 1.1 through 1.9? What does 2.0 mean exactly? To me, Web 2.0 defines the separation of static web pages to truly dynamic and useful web applications. There will be other versions, but this is the first clear step in my mind.

Examples of Web 2.0 applications are Google Mail, Basecamp Project Manager, and UberNote - Note Management.

I recently became aware of UberNote by reading through articles at The Tech Brief. The UberNote application (almost wanted to call it software because you forget that this is a web application since it so useful and easy to use) allows for quick note taking, advanced editing, and intuitive tagging.

I am note taker. I always have a notebook in my pocket, so I never miss a fleeting idea – maybe one about how toothbrushes with a blue strip fade prematurely while using whitening toothpaste – wouldn’t want to lose that gem. There are times that I email thoughts to myself, leave voice mails on my Skype (which are the only voicemails I get), write on the back of a placemat at a diner – you get the idea. After getting invited to use the UberNote site, I have been putting my thoughts online and have found this a way to keep track of my little thought nuggets that will return literally tens of dollars someday in the future.

I recommend trying UberNote, joining their forums, and helping them shape their initial product offering. Check it out soon, so you don’t miss Web 2.0 and before the Web moves to 3.0 and maybe even Web 3.0 beta..

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