Controlling an Ambient Orb with Ruby

[Bil Kleb]

Is anyone using Ruby to feed an Ambient Orb data

http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/

using Ambient's serial port hardware developer kit?

http://www.ambientdevices.com/developer/

I'd like to use the Orb to monitor our Continuous Integration
along the lines of,

http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/articles/169058.aspx

but instead of paying for the premium service fee to interface
via the web/wireless routine, I would like to control it
via a direct serial connection.

Currently, I'm browsing their sample Java code and planning
to use

http://ruby-serialport.rubyforge.org

unless someone has already been there, done that.

Thanks,

 

[Dave Thomas]

I'd like to use the Orb to monitor our Continuous Integration
along the lines of,

Bil:

Have you seen this:

http://www.pragmaticautomation.com/cgi-bin/pragauto.cgi

The top article is a guide to using Lava Lamps to achieve the same
thing. Mike looked at using Ambient orbs, but they cost a lot more than
a Firecracker controller and a couple of cheap lamps.


Cheers

Dave

 

[Bil Kleb]

Have you seen this:

http://www.pragmaticautomation.com/cgi-bin/pragauto.cgi

Cool. --except for the Java bits

However, after Columbia, safety is number one; and so we'll
have to go with the expensive, LED-powered Orb.

I did snag the CVS loginfo RSS feed script -- excellent!

Thanks,

 

[Mike Clark]

Hi Bil,

Cool. --except for the Java bits

However, after Columbia, safety is number one; and so we'll
have to go with the expensive, LED-powered Orb.

I did snag the CVS loginfo RSS feed script -- excellent!

If you wouldn't mind contributing a few paragraphs or so describing how
you end up using Ruby to control the Orb, I'd love to post it on
http://pragmaticautomation.com. You'll get full credit, of course.

We have a few posts highlighting Ruby, but I'd like to showcase more
automation techniques using Ruby on the site.

Regards,

Mike

 

[Kirk Haines]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 11:02:30 +0900, Mike Clark wrote

If you wouldn't mind contributing a few paragraphs or so describing
how you end up using Ruby to control the Orb, I'd love to post it on
http://pragmaticautomation.com. You'll get full credit, of course.

We have a few posts highlighting Ruby, but I'd like to showcase more
automation techniques using Ruby on the site.

Mike, what kind of things are you interested in with regard to Ruby
automation? I use some Ruby scripts to automate regenerating sendmail
database tables, to monitor/stop/start Iowa application processes, to act as a
smart(ish) FTP proxy to fetch data files from one site and transfer them to
another, to automatically load data feed files to database tables, and stuff
like that. It's all pretty mundane, but easy to setup stuff with Ruby.


Kirk Haines

 

[Mike Clark]

Hi Kirk,

Mike, what kind of things are you interested in with regard to Ruby
automation? I use some Ruby scripts to automate regenerating sendmail
database tables, to monitor/stop/start Iowa application processes, to
act as a
smart(ish) FTP proxy to fetch data files from one site and transfer
them to
another, to automatically load data feed files to database tables, and
stuff
like that. It's all pretty mundane, but easy to setup stuff with Ruby.

Yes, I'm definitely interested in the mundane stuff!

Readers of that site are pretty much interested in anything related to
project automation. Basically, how can I put my computer to work doing
mundane, repetitive tasks so I have more time to write good code?

Dave's piece on generating RSS from CVS loginfo using Ruby was very
well received, for example:

http://www.pragmaticautomation.com/cgi-bin/pragauto.cgi/Monitor/
Loginfo2Rss.rdoc

It's a cool and effective technique, and the fact that it uses Ruby
gets folks thinking about using Ruby to automate other project tasks.
Tasks like monitoring processes, transferring files, priming databases,
and such are all fair game. Readers in general aren't Ruby
programmers, but I think they appreciate solutions that use different
tools.

I hope that helps. I'm open to ideas, so feel free to send me a
paragraph or two describing how an automation technique makes your life
better and a snippet of Ruby code.

Regards,

Mike