My own private idaho (self employ)

Dongles are disliked for good reasons.

Virtual dongles (including DRM) are hated because there are too many "you're left dead in the water" failure mechanisms.

Start by thinking of internet connectivity, then DDOS attacks on some part of the infrastructure, then on your servers, and finally consider servers being switched off or a company folding.

Learn about Microsoft's PlaysForSure (TM) (sic) music viz: "DRM servers related to PlaysForSure were turned off August 31, 2008, meaning that any operating system upgrade or migration rendered all content unplayable."

This week's hoo-haa is about Sonos speakers.

Customers are rapidly becoming sensitised to the problem.

I think you exaggerate the issue. The device only has to be authenticated once.

ok, considered. Now what?

Ok, thanks.

Hi Clifford. Well first building something like the labjack is not my forte. So better to let someone else do it. Much of the lab/interface/ hardware and software space is taken up by national instruments and lab-view. I find their hardware over priced and hate the software. So pushing an alternative seems like it might not only be good for me.. but also for the physiics lab community.

I guess I wouldn't worry much about labjack coping me... small market. If I head dwon this road I would try and contact labjack early on... see if there are other vendors like me re-selling their stuff.

Anyway it is interesting to think about. at my PPoE I would often get requests from customers to provide some sort of an experiment where students could learn instrument/ computer interfacing. Going to physics lab workshops the way people are doing this these days is either with Arduino's, maybe a few Rasbery Pi's and labveiw.

One huge problem with this idea, is I'd have to become a labjack expert and at the moment I'm a novice.

George H.

ade and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they d o. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understanding is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.

. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free sh ipping

You've got places like Spark fun and ada-fruit which seem to be carving out a niche in this space.

George H.

Have (some) links about the sonos problem? A friend has his sonos apps in disarray , one phone to old, the other phone its app needs a password, but updating that password at the sonos site fails, (new password not accepted, try again). So their radio turned into a doorstop.

Google is your friend...

I should have emphasised "this /week/". Read comp.risks, and you will see many other examples of this. Google/Nest springs to mind.

tirsdag den 28. januar 2020 kl. 17.04.53 UTC+1 skrev George Herold:

made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets hig h enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understandi ng is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.

se. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free shipping

which is a bit surprising since much of what they make can be had for a tenth on ebay complete with a link to sparkfun/adafruit for documentation and software

It might be interesting to mount a Nitinol coil spring coaxially with a steel one to make rotary motion. The spring rate would let you limit the torque on the valve, and running the current down one spring and back up the other would cancel out the magnetic field pretty well. The parlour trick would be the encoder.

Alternatively a model airplane servo would work--you can turn it off between motions to get rid of the field.

Or you could put a breakaway shaft extension on the valve, so that Mr Gorilla just has it come away in his hand without anything breaking permanently. Something in a nice low-density polystyrene, maybe.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Hi, George:-

I guess the important thing is to know the customers and what they're comfortable with- software they get free or already have and know how to use, and hardware that they think is good for their application. The younger guys I have been dealing with like MATLAB/Simulink, for example (despite free alternatives), and I have yet to find anyone who likes Labview much, but some use it. As an aside, I've been playing around with it, because I ended up with a little NI data acquisition system that runs off a PXI Windows XP card and a couple NI USB-powered data acquisition modules. Nice for gathering data in simple experiments.

This is just an impression but I get the impression it's not that uncommon for university purchases to go either top end (they have specific funding and are going to spend it on really nice equipment) or bottom scraping (they've got very little budget), which doesn't leave much room in the middle. That's not the educational market though, which I'm not that familiar with. I've seen a few products like Mr. SQUID, for example, but no idea of that market.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Free shipping on that stuff generally takes 2-3 weeks I'll gladly pay a little more to get the product in 48 hours or sometime before Hell freezes over.

made and sold sort of cheap. But I can't find a way to sell they way they do. There could be lots of competition, but not until the volume gets high enough. I would love to contract out the whole thing, but my understandin g is I would never see much money from it because of the way they work.

se. The minutes it gets any traction you can buy a clone on ebay with free shipping

When I order that sort of stuff I typically don't have a pressing need. Ha ving a couple of weeks to think about it on the back burner is usually a go od thing.

AD8706?

Some ideas that may be useful:

I quit a family business 20 years ago to work on my own and it's been good. I'm not rich but doing OK. No one bosses me about, I go out with the dog during the day when it suits me and work when it's raining or dark.

I've done 100% work for other people and while I've had zillions of ideas I don't make my own products. Still thinking about it but doubt I'll ever do it - I'm good at what I do but a lot less good at all the stuff you need to be into to sell stuff and produce it.

I design things, write software, make prototypes and one off test gear and do some product testing. It pays for loads of fun gear and a pretty good time.

I don't get hung up about other people making money from my ideas - there's always another idea coming along during the next dog walk !

I do buy test gear - I quote jobs on a fixed price - its up to the client to decide if likes the price or not - he doesn't need to know it covers loads of labour or a new scope.

In the end you have to discover what works for you, but it might be good to try for a couple of freelance type jobs from existing contacts while they are still fresh. Nothing builds your confidence like sending out an invoice.

MK

Maybe do something exotic and physics-related. Cryo sensor adapters? Mag field sensors? You know that business.

We've recently been moving from a straight NRE basis into know-how licensing plus NRE for customization. If you have enough recurring themes in your designs, you can do your own based on stuff you've learned on other jobs.

Many of our projects, especially for new customers, include a photon budget and proof-of-concept (POC) demo as the first two milestones.

These days our POC systems usually consist largely of a collection of our existing boards (often modded) plus fairly small amounts of hand-wired custom circuitry and fairly simple optics and mechanics as required.

Here's the POC from the cathodoluminescence system that I posted a few months back: . It goes from photon counting up to bright room lights with a twist of a knob, which we think is pretty slick.

We find that when they see our stuff doing what they wanted, better than they hoped, cheaper than they expected, the licensing conversation usually goes pretty smoothly. It helps that our royalty expectations are fairly modest--we'd way rather do lots of deals that put smiles on everybody's faces than screw the last dime out of only a few.

YMMV, but a bit of recurring revenue is very comforting.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Sorry, typo. AD7606. There's also the 24-bit ADS1256, and modules for both.

Here's Analog's selection table, lots of nice devices:

CH

If you need a piece of test equipment, ask. A lot of us have an item or two that we wouldn't miss, and at a better price than the used equipment deale rs or untested on Ebay. For my use, I bought mostly damaged or 'for parts' items and repaired the best of a model. Sometimes it was a working but dama ged item, and one that looked brand new but wasn't worth repairing. Like a Fluke 8920 True RMS (up to 20MHz) like it had either been used in a High Vo ltage circuit, or it had been hit by lightning. It did yield a nice case. ;

-)

There are a lot of diecast and extruded cases on Ebay for prototypes. There are some nice knockoffs of Hammond diecast with a brushed finish.

I found some two piece 25mm extrusions that you can use with 'large flange' BNC,N and other connectors with a 1" square flange.I use them to build RF modules and test fixtures. These come in several colors and lengths.

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r right-wing lunatic to to tell just who has just e-mailed him privately.

I would rather have Jim here and for the Grim reaper to have done his assig ned job on you.

You are a cancer on this group.

A lot of good people have left because of your continual attempt to be rele vant, which you can only do with your mindless attempts to put others down. If you were the man you want us to think that you are, you wouldn't act li ke a baby cutting their first tooth.

Michael Terrell wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

If folks left due to a bad taste problem the group would be empty except for you.

Some folks leave... some folks stay... you knowing any real stat on the matter is pure horseshit... guaranteed.