Grant

Glasgow's Star Turn

<![CDATA[This Monday we hosted the grand final of Glasgow’s Star Turn, a talent competition in the Evening Times for singers, dancers, comedians, musicians and other talented performers. The event was a great success, with an audience completely filling the Old Fruitmarket and a set of celebrity judges who were hugely impressed with the talent onContinue reading “Glasgow's Star Turn”

The Wee Red Book: now available as an app

<![CDATA[The Wee Red Book is the definitive football annual in Scotland. First published in 1928, the book contains hundreds of pages of football facts and trivia dating back as far as the 1870s. Last year I put forward the idea of turning the book into a mobile app. It seemed like a logical move –Continue reading “The Wee Red Book: now available as an app”

Funding success for my Nesta Destination Local project

<![CDATA[A few years ago, while I was Web Producer at s1, I was asked to develop a ‘hyperlocal’ community web platform. The system I designed and developed with Duncan McDonald, s1community, went on to power over 100 s1-branded community sites, 80 Evening Times local sites and still employs full time journalists to curate content fromContinue reading “Funding success for my Nesta Destination Local project”

My first Kickstarter project: The Digital Street Paper

About a year ago my manager at the Herald & Times set me a challenge – how do you move street papers like the Big Issue into the digital age? On one level it sounds like a trivial problem. Dozens of solutions already exist to translate newspapers and magazines into digital editions. We already useContinue reading “My first Kickstarter project: The Digital Street Paper”

How to get started with the Mifare MF522-AN and Arduino

Within an hour of my video upload last night I already had someone asking how to do it. It’s a good question – despite the popularity of the Philips/NXP MFRC522 RFID chip and the MF522-AN board based on it, there’s actually very little online in the way of tutorials or source code to get started.Continue reading “How to get started with the Mifare MF522-AN and Arduino”

Adventures in RFID (with the MF522-AN module)

<![CDATA[I've been meaning to do some experiments with RFID for a while. The technology is cheap, reliable and opens up a world of possibilities for exhibit and event IT interactive displays. I chose Arduino as my platform for RFID, not only because it's robust and I'm familiar with it, but also because it has establishedContinue reading “Adventures in RFID (with the MF522-AN module)”

Space Invaders Gmail Notifier – parts summary

<![CDATA[Wow! I've been blown away with the amount of interest in my wee Space Invaders alarm clock modification. Thank you everyone! Four days on from my original blog post my YouTube video has been viewed over 11,000 times and details of my project have spread right around the globe, translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese andContinue reading “Space Invaders Gmail Notifier – parts summary”

Retro Space Invaders Gmail Notifier

A couple of weeks ago I was in our local Boots chemist. They were clearing out all the Christmas gifts at 75% off. I saw this Space Invaders alarm clock reduced to around £3 ($5) and had to have it, even though I had no use for another alarm clock. (Btw, even though Boots areContinue reading “Retro Space Invaders Gmail Notifier”

Self-driving remote controlled car

<![CDATA[In 2011 I took on a few commercial Flash-based projects that required a physical element, introducing me to the world of Firmata and connecting Arduino to Actionscript code. That gave me the bug to try a personal project, and when I came across this bargain £10 remote control car in Maplin I decided to haveContinue reading “Self-driving remote controlled car”

My Christmas e-card for the Herald & Times Group

<![CDATA[For the past couple of years I've had the dubious honour of being asked to produce the Christmas e-card for the Herald & Times Group. It's always a tricky brief – produce a seasonal e-card without dragging myself or others away from a busy schedule. In previous years I've just pulled together a picture, someContinue reading “My Christmas e-card for the Herald & Times Group”