Handling the Digital World

At present, I am watching several films, reading mail, and pulling thoughts together on a separate Doc, oh, and drawing in a CAD package. I use several screens to keep this little lot in the air and viable.
My mac is at present pushing a lot of air through its self, keeping up with all of this, not surprising really given the work load I am putting on it.

I work from a small home office, but today I am in the dining room, it takes about 20 min to set up,  or decamp the usual equipment from my small office to the dining room, but I like to keep my Flatcoated Lab happy

Data storage is now easy, Google drive handles it all, except for my CAD files which I still store on Dropbox, a legacy from earlier days and one I will eventually move to drive. but other projects need more time to evaluate, such as my sensor project, howwill I handle the massive data I know will be generated.

For this, I need to gain a better understanding of sensors their generation of data, routing of information and central collection, how I can organise the storage and interpret the data against other data sources.

A simple and easy first attempt to store a small data collection, is to use Google Drive spreadsheet,  my source is a single house, not too big and not so small, I reckon that as a start, I will install as many sensors I can, say 5 and set up a small google spreadsheet, and feed data to it via iFTTT, moving up to around 20 sensors looking at

• Temp
• Humidity
• Sound
• Light
• Pressure

at various levels and positions within the house to get the best spread of data.

Each Google Spreadsheet has a limit of 400,000 cells, with a maximum of 256 columns per sheet. There are also other limitations: Number of Formulas: 40,000 cells containing formulas. Number of Tabs: 200 sheets per workbook. So in the near future this is going to fill and I need to have moved on, Google has a neat answer here called cloud.iot.core to handle this type of data on a large scale, and don't forget even 20 sensors is going to fill this in just a few years, I am specifying in my project spec notes that the life of the house is going to be 120 years. add external data to show the calculation complete, then a spreadsheet is not going to last, but it's a good start to understand the data and iron out some simple collection problems ready to move to the bigger system.

Next, what sensor system do I use there are several off the shelf systems that sell units, but they are expensive but an easy fix, next up is the Raspberry pie and Arduino small, and I mean small computers, internally they are very useful, external they need a robust power supply, battery is not really a long term option.

Then how do I collect this data, well the off the shelf units are mostly compatible with iFTTT a usefull interface service that's free and I use a lot to feed information to Evernote, yes I know I don't use it much, but the links are still there.

The later Raspberry pie and Arduino units will operate as wifi linked computers and can be easily linked to a google spreadsheet.




References
A web spreadsheet model or handling streaming data
A Spreadsheet Tool for Creating WebApplications Using Online Data
A spreadsheet approach to programming & managing Sensor Networks
LabView
Save Edyn Garden Sensor data to a Google spreadsheet (Using iFTTT )

How to send data from Arduino to Google Docs Spreadsheet

UK Supplier of Sensors

Using Google Spreadsheets for Logging Sensor Data

Connecting Anduino to IFTTT

Gathering Data with IFTTT

https://ifttt.com/wemo_motionWeMo & iFTTT

Google Chrome Browser and my Brother printer Scanner

As part of my move to Google Drive and all it entails, I have been wondering how I might get on with my brother Printer Scanner. The printing side is just not a problem, but and here is the usual BUT, I at present have no way of connecting my Chrome browser to the scanner, I have to use the Apple interface and scan in that way save and then use the imported pdf file.

But there is a work around that seems to work. that is to use the scan button on the printer and set the destination to either mail or file.

Here's how it works. for mail, I have my printer connected via  USB link, so the Brother printer can see mac mail and uses that to link up, I send that to Gmail and all as before. Why it picks mac mail when I have it set up for Gmail is beyond me, yet this works so not a problem, although I managed to correct this simple by going into Mac mail and setting the default mail to Google Chrome.

The other method, and the one I shall use in the future, is to save to file, here as I use a Mac it saves it to the Photo folder, must be a setting somewhere that says save here, but no worries it's a simple drag and drop to the right google drive folder.

I don't have, a Chrome book, so can't test it, but if anyone has can they do a swift trial and let me know.

My.Sketchup is quickly coming of age

Have you had chance to play with my.sketchup.com lately, I should if I were you, its suddenly becoming a very useful tool.

I have left it alone for a month or two, and today I thought lets have a peep and see whats been added, well to my surprise, most of the major tools are there and working well.

First is section plane, and scene settings, these work well and the dialog box for playing the scenes is so easy to set.

Next is save, now if like me you use Chrome, then you might have to addmy.sketchup.com to the advanced privacy setting to allow it to communicate, but as its a named site ythis is the only one that it will allow.

Views works well and all the usual are there, so are styles, and to my mind are easier to use than the stand alone program.

Layers are also there and again I find them easy to use and set.

The two main menu pallets are simple to use, but not movable, but they work well and as so small they fold away without taking up to much Realestate.

As for upload I tried to load in a dwg but could not see how to do this, currently limited to skp, jpg & png

If layout is added, then this is going to change the whole CAD market, I can easily do my work on any Chrome book and thats simply going to do away with the rather expensive Mac I currently use, simply because I can't run Autocad or Vectorworks in any other way,

Saving models seems limited, and as far as I can tell, I can't share models with a team, so this area needs work.

Overall I like what I see, the improvements are working well and just need a few tweeks, plus one or two more functions added to make this a real product, but as it's still beta, I don't think I can moan to much, just ask nicely.

My ToDo list become so much more with Google Keep

For so long, and I have written about it her and in other places, but my todo list have gone through so many different formats, and for a long time this been a series of paper lists that were rewritten as new item appeared and old items completed. It beat electronic versions, in as much as I just like the feel of pencil and they are always there, as I use my Moleskin to keep the lists with a sort of yellow sticky note-it as a label for the current page that had the latest list.

I even went as far as copying the page to Evernote, my goto place for all storage for a while, well a long time,,,,,, that is till I found Google.Keep.

And keep for so many reasons has transformed a lot of my note keeping and todo lists ot tasks or as Keep describes their version, a Reminder.

So its so Keep that I moved, not so much as a complete goodby to Evernote, but more a trial, and I just clicked with the whole thing, ok so I am a big Google fan, and use Gmail and all it offers, Drive plus a lot more, so surprise, surprise, keep fitted better than I had hoped.

So I used keep to store information, the tagging worked and apart from not being able to drag in pdf documents I like every thing it offered, the small way-round the pdf was to store it in a folder within Drive and just gather a link for it and post that into the keep document, it works well.

Then I started to experiment with some of the functions, the best and one I want to promote here, is the reminder. Clicking this within any note allows me to add a date, and get this a time for any action, which appears in Google Cal, yes I use Cal as my main calendar, you have to switch the calendar from Task to Reminder, and low and behold they appear as a small blue icon, if you complete it then click the icon and mark as done, this leaves the note created in Keep intact, and ready for search to loo over it if needed, try and do that in Tasks or my old Moleskin list, almost impossible.

Also, the note in keep is tagged, with a variety, if needed, specific tags if the note applies to more than one project.

One word of slight warning, you can add a reminder straight from Calendar, and it works well, but there is not a note made in Keep, and I just found that adding notes to a keep note reminds me of things I need to know for that task rather than delving into my moleskin, or scraping the depths of my memory, so I make my reminders in Keep, and add my reminder from there.

So there it is, Keep is my new reminder to do things, a repository for my notes and links. The video below is my short overview. As for Evernote, sadly I don't see a use for it, except that I have a lot of notes stored in it, so it remains, that is till I sort a way of transferring it to Keep,,,, let you know !.

CAD research on Google Search results

I was doing some research on CAD use over the globe and used this excellent service from Google Trends to compare search terms on three main products :

• Autocad
• Archicad
• Vectorworks
• Sketchup

The graph below show a remarkable scale of interest, and not in the order I was expecting.

ok Autocad I expected to be top, but Sketchup so high and the other two Vectorwork and Archicad so low, remarkable.

Weather, Data , & the planet Earth

I have not blogged for a few weeks, its been sort of busy, with end of year, sorting marking and working out how I can lecture at two colleges. So many slides and lecture notes to prepare.

I have taken Google wholesale into my work pattern, Apple just does not cut it, they are so private, I understand why, but I need to share, so google it is. But this brings me onto a new web page, I so like Sites.Google.com the new version is so easy to use, it still lacks some function, but I can easily use it to create a new site I have made. To this end I purchased Scays.co.uk from the Domains.google.com site, its so easy, and linking it to the new web page just some simple copying of the URL and within about a minute I was up and running. The site is being developed, I want to allow better access to my lectures and slide, it is a work in progress, but it may change.

So what else, I have a major research project trying to understand the weather, how we can look at weather patterns and use the data to help buildings project, weather the weather !, Again its still early day's but open up a lot of different routs from storing building data, to something so simple as, can I give a building an email address. I had to think long and hard on this, but eventually I ground it down to a simple need, if my building needs to communicate with other buildings in a simple mesh to hear about incoming weather patterns how does it do it, and how can other building know were my building is located, and what relationship does it have in it's actual position to all the other buildings.

I wondered about using its actual easting and northing, that might work, or perhaps a simple address, the first line of any address plus the post code, that puts it in common with the postal service and its position. but its a tad long, perhaps easting & northing is simpler.

Storing all this data is the first big hurdle, I have no idea on the actual amount and given building might want to store, I am in talks with several people but as yet the life of a building might be 60 years or more, thats 60x365 or 21915 day or 31536000 hours say we store 5000 separate bits of data every minute, thats 5000x60 or 300,000 bits of sensor data over the 60 years, thats 31536000x300,000 or a staggering 90,000,000,000 data bits over its life time 90bn bits, thats just one building. magnify that by a smart city.

To that extent I am now researching methods of storage, Google is looking very good, with a service called IOT CORE, it's still in beta but it looks very good.

Heritage is also featuring very high in all of this, looking at the way older materials differ to new materials in their performance.

Todays picture is a sketch I made to understand an eaves detail on an old building, and how to water proof it.

A History of the Passport

It’s been a long old month, what with student marking, teaching at a new college, and several new projects, going away for a few days to Oslo to watch the Bisslett games was a nice time out, but as always I could not leave the net alone, fortunately Oslo has a lot of free wifi access points in cafes and hotels, ours was particularly good. The trip was via two flights through Amsterdam, it’s been awhile since I used this airport, it’s grown and not just in size, the people volumes were huge, travelling on a Saturday was the main point not to make, it was bad enough mid week, but a weekend.

It was our passage through the passport control that prompted me to make this blog, for the first time, I realised just what the Brexit means, the very long lines of non EU people. Even though we still use the EU line and that was long enough, the guards asked for our destination and reason for travel, not had that in a long time.

So sitting on the plane I thought I might pull together a short history of the passport, and it’s clear the original intention was not to control movement, but request safe passage through foreign lands.

So the hunt is on for information, I still have my old passports, the old blue, together with a temporary passport. My parents have much the same as we all started travelling much the same time.

The passport is one of the most widespread documents in worldwide use and yet, paradoxically, it has no basis in law: one state cannot demand another to do something - give access - simply by issuing a document. Yet, by insisting on the requirement of holding a passport the state has provided itself with a neat self-financing, data collection and surveillance system.

From earliest times to the present day. When the Roman Empire was spread across Europe, those wishing to travel could only do so with the authority of the king or emperor. The passport's power to facilitate passage was, then, embodied in it from the beginning. But the passport is also connected with territorial and population control by the State. Today, the machine readable passport enables swift checks against lists of names, enabling customs control to sift out undesirables, and the question of identity cards (used throughout continental Europe), is again an issue in British politics, and probably the main issue in Brexit.

But not all has been rosy, with the passport system, the use of false passports has been rife throughout history,  WW2 has a lot of individual and community use of false documents, from the Jews escaping Nazi Germany, to the prisoners of war escaping, the great escape being a famous episode, although it did not end well for the men involved, and as for the Jews, there are several forgers who for all the right reasons made documents and passports, the short film link below is based on an old man living in Paris during the war, who I think is still alive, he tells a complicated tail, a New York Times post, its a real story of this subject, the title tells all :

‘If I Sleep for an Hour, 30 People Will Die’

The mechanism of the passport system, including the secrets of the machine-readable passport, are of particular interest, it fits well with my pursuit of data and its use within Architecture, it’s not that different.

And there are the special diplomatic passports, what does diplomatic immunity really mean and what status do the embassies really have, I plan to look into this in the coming weeks.

Then finally the Royals, do they have passports

Before you ask, today’s photo is not of any passport I have owned, I just found the picture on the net.

So the link I have posted below, is my slide set, when it's finished, I'll post it on slideshare, a service I think I might populate with some of my slides, It's obviously a work in progress, and will get updates as I find new material, but until then, enjoy.

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Internet trends report | Mary Meeker, KPCB | Code Conference 2016 & 2017

Mary Meeker has just given her annual Internet report, so I thought I might review last years presentation, before hand, available on YouTube. Before I start on this years show.

Its fast paced, and busy, she breaks all rules on slide presentation but who cares, you have little time to read them anyway. The slides can be downloaded from LinkedIn, and perused for information, which is vast, and shows all sorts of graphs on computer use, by who, and such things as general population growth, which is why i started to watch these presentations. I have down loaded both 2016 & 2017 slides and added them to both Evernote, but more importantly now, Google Keep, with multiple tags.

You might want to review this excellent article on Backchannel, a news site I particularly like, giving a great overview of her work and a very light back ground.

You might ask why I listen to her, its simple, the growth of computer use and the type of computer used have a direct link and influence to Architecture, plus the way we perceive the use of computing to draw, share our designs, and how the data generated is used, a subject we have yet to explore fully.

This years presentation was given on May 31st 2017, again her slides are available on LinkedIn, as yet I can't see any video on YouTube, but Recode have a video up together with slides.

Its highly entertaining and packed as before, and with 355 slides forget trying to read it, sit back as listen and go back later to the slides.

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Google not Apple

I have made the first of many moves I expect to make as I set up my computer system for the next few years. I have been Apple mostly from about 1985, with the odd lapse into Windows at some one else behest, namely an employer.

But now I am setting up for a life with Google, I have transferred all of my emails over to gmail and I now use this as my main email services, I have moved my calendar over. Both these were remarkably easy to do, next was all my main files, again this was no more than a drag and drop, plus a short wait for it to complete a large move. Adding Google to my mac as an account on Mail, and pulling folders across made this job so easy, as for my calendar, I just had to add google tags to my Apple cal appointments and all was good, I could see them is Google calendar.

Next were my photos, again Google made this easy and for some time I have had them copied across, I use Chrome for almost all of my surfing, and google drive for my slides and now writing, Blogger is my preferred domain, and sheets my spreadsheet of choise. I now prefer Keep to Evernote, simple because it just as easy to use, and easier to find stuff.

It's not that I don't like Apple, I have a Macbook Pro 15" and an ageing iPhone 5s its that they are a closed wall system, and don't like me sharing as much as I want, Google on the other hand do. Attending a google show in Excel London a few weeks ago, did little to sway me away from this, in fact its was the final nail. As for the phone thats going soon, I fancy a Google Nexus, but could so easily take the Samsung 8, its just down to the best deal.

For the time being, I will stick with my Mac, its a good machine, and I need it for my CAD software, plus a couple of items I like, such as Skype, although I am fast liking google Talk and hangout. but there is little else to keep me on such an expensive machine, even CAD is migrating over to a web based environment, both Sketchup who are still in Beta, and more so Autocad who are in a different league, Which brings me back to my Mac, I don't need it if I go on a trip, I can so easily go online via a Chrome book and do most if not all of what I want to do, take into account the way airlines seem not to want us to travel with laptop, then hiring, or even buying a chrome book at the destination seems feasible.

As for my office phone, well thats linked to Skype, but outgoing land line calls via Google are easy and good quality. Google just have to get the UK sorted.

I look after several web sites and use a Mac based program to do this rather than hard coding, but I will eventually move even this to Google Drive. As you might imagine I have rather a lot of files, and what not, in Drive, so had to upgrade to 1Tb, in doing this I seem to have all the benefits of a G Suite account. My existing Dropbox account will go as I migrate all my files across to Google Drive, but here lies a small problem is the way I share this drive with my business partners, I will have to trial it with Google drive and make sure they are happy with the syncing before I go ahead.

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Google Chrome offers new Search

I happen to notice today as I searched some info, that a new menu item has been added to the Chrome Browser, that will show what you have in your private collection that matches the search. Its limited to photos and gmail, but its a start, and I like it. I have a lot in Drive, and now a start of a good structured collection in Google Keep.

OK so Evernote has something like it, but its never quite worked for me, even in this version the new Google addition has useful heads up.

So make a search and in the result, took at the title bar above for more, drop this down and click on Private, and a window opens with the additional links.

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iFTTT

Some people call this Ift, as one spoken word, not if but ift, some spell it out IFTTT, i"f this then that", for me, call it what you will its a great free service, I use to allow my blogs to get posted onto both Twitter and my Facebook konstrukshon CPD page.

After another forced absence, mostly due to pressure of work and other projects, I'm making a specific move to do more blogs, and open up articles and posts thoughts on some of my project.

Tech Junky at Sea

On the 4th Jan 2017, I left Southampton, on the P & O ship Oceana, for a 35 night cruise to the Caribbean and the USA on what promised to be a really great start to my 65 year.

I will turn 65 in October so by my calculations I should have, by now, been created, and will be forming, I would liked to have talked to my mom, and asked her, when she knew she was pregnant, but unfortunately she has dementia and that memory is lost.

I had brought with me most of my travelling computing equipment, my MacBook Pro, iPhone, and my Kindle, with the first 6 days after out initial stop in Spain, at sea, I have planned to complete a little work, and start writing a little. The ships WiFi showed up on my Mac, and I logged in, it has been some time since our last cruise, but it looked the same, £12 for 24 hours, fine by me I thought, I will dib into this and let my system catch up, 15 min should be enough to send stored emails, pick up waiting mail, and let Apple save the photos on line and I will log out as before,  24 hours should last a long while.

Little did I realise, and the opening screen made no reference, but once the 24 hours has started, there is no logging out, I can’t stop it, I can stop my machines use, but the 24 hour clock kept ticking.

So my plans to dib into the time like all the other cruises was scuppered, to use a nautical phrase. So after complaining to reception I got no where, but referred to the cyber librarian, who understood my pain, but was unable to help, except give me a credit for the last 24 hour period I had lost because I thought I was able to use it as before. At this point the word maritime was used saying anything connected to satellites is expensive and slow, I intend to come back to this point later.

So for the best part of my trip, what I planned as a technology fuelled holiday, fully connected turned out to be anything but, OK the trip was otherwise as planned, great ship, good food, plenty of onboard entertainment, and far to much to drink. But I am a tech junky, I want full connection to the net, I wanted to talk to my family and friends. Google and the like, and I am on the cusp here, I use gmail, as well as Apple,   They both promote the life style of connection,yet the moment I leave land I am stuffed,

So here it is P & O, I like your ships, yet for such a simple thing you take such a ridiculous stance, the ship is full of wifi, the walls in the bar are promoting the latest game of English football, live yet for accessing email a paltry insignificant portion of your ships download I am penalised.

Let's just review what the ship is using in terms of wifi connection, and satellite connection, general navigation, engineering, communication back to p& o base, a lot more than the passenger use, I once did some research in passenger flights and realised that each engine on an airplane say just four engines, has 2500 sensors,, per engine communicating with its base, live.

It does not take too much imagination to establish to general communication campsite of and ocean going liner the size of Oceana, to realise that the ships use is far in excess of the passengers, yet we are treated like morons and charges inexcusable as a profit margin. Over dinner, one of the table mentioned that several of the screens in one of the bars was playing live football, and that is coming into the ship by satellite

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Lesson Plan - My Way

Most lecturers and Teachers will know of Lesson Plans, I have mine it may not conform to some standard or other official way, but it works for me and helps me plan the lesson.

I have all the information I need to plan the lesson, from the subject I am covering, the equipment I might need, to the slide set I will use.

My slides are in subject on Google, and so often I go back to teach a lesson I did last year, and can't remember which set I used, the lesson plan sorts this.

I also have a reading list, I expect my students to have at least read before attending, often as not its a free download, I give links to the source, and point to any specific section I want them to read. There are many reasons I do this, but most its to save time, and get the most out of my limited lesson, by asking them to say read a section of the building regulations.

I also give a bibliography of source books, web sites and article I have used in generating my slides.

This lesson plan have been refined from a simple spread sheet to this A4 google Doc format, which I may well have published some time back on this blog.

Each time I use it, I have made notes in my Moleskin, problems, good points, additions I felt might have helped, links I might have added, so over the summer I will update this current version. I'll post once its done, but till then the two sheets I have used as jpg's should be enough for you to copy and make your own, if not leave a message and will send.

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Sensor Update

For so long, I have always thought that to track how a building is running, what machines or devices are running, I had to install sensors into the element and or object. That seems to have been turned on its head with a new single sensor board, that seems to use sound, and a smart algorithm, to analyse each sound to determine what is creating the sound, ir opening a microwave door, a window, or just entering the room.

The video below outlines the product. as yet I can't get one, but as soon as it becomes available I will purchase a few and trial them out.

Follow this link to the official site for more info, and the Academic paper describing this unit.

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Browser or downloadable program

On Thursday of this week, I attended the Google Next cloud event in London, ausum, not just good but totally, aussum, and I say that not because of the free lunch, but the presentations, and information the way I was received, and the help I got from all the Google Staff.

So first, the reason I attended, was to learn about data, the way Google Handles it and how I can tap into this, using the wide breadth of storage they offer, but also to tools. It's here you suddenly understand the breadth of the capacity Google has, its in a world of it's own, they talk in numbers that only a few can really comprehend, and at speeds, I just look at and wonder.

For some, the type and format of the products offered by Google is an easy choice, but for me, it's not so easy, this video has some answers:

But for my sort of work I think it's spreadsheets, this video on Google Cloud give me more info

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Lesson Plan

In the early days of my slight change in career, from simply running my small practice, to being a Professor, I would be asked to run a lecture, so I made the slides and loaded them up, ran the lesson and was mightly pleased at the result, but come the next year, I found that I have added similar slides to the set, for other years and slightly different classes, that I could not remember which slides I used last time, and the over all format I used.

So I went in search of a lesson plan, and whoooo, there are so many, and so many reason, layouts, formats and styles. So I sat back and played about with different ideas, this was over a few weeks. I left it dfor a while, and tried again, this time fixing a style I likes, see todays photo.

My lesson plan works for me, I tweek it every now and then, but for the past year its worked well, I use it not only to itemise the slides I want to use, but why. My most recent addition is the pre lesson reading list, articles or books I want the students to read, prior to my lesson.

In my slides I so often add a post lesson reading bibliography, but if I am using several slides, this get a little mixed up, so I have also added a specific post lesson list to the Lesson Plan.

I tried to use the slides themselves to organise my lessons, but this failed, I got so mixed up, so now I keep them is generic folders, and use the lesson plans to list my slides, its so much cleaner.
My next question is do I issue it to my students, so far my lesson plan has been my own aid, but having shown it to a few past students, I got great feedback, so for my next lecture I will add a link to Moodle.
I am a massive fan of Google Slides and Docs, the way it works and how I can share docs without actually sending pdf copies is great. I can update add items and know the next time they look at it, its the latest version.

This latest lesson plan is written in a spreadsheet, I like the way I can organise, but it adds its own problems to formatting, specifically bullet point lists, so I have added a link at the bottom to a way to fix this. But I have plans to revise it, make it better, and currently I am looking at a new format, thats simpler and more specific.

If you want a copy let me know, but the photo today is of a complete day

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Is Planning in a Digital Stoneage

I recently read an excellent set of White papers issued by the RIBA re planning, and its almost antiquated approach to both the application method and its use of digital drawings and the data it contain.

Its not the first time I have approached this subject, but I was so pleased to see the article in the Vol 25 issue 2 issue of TcT magazine.

The White paper which the link above takes you to, consists of several different papers all loosely linked on the subject of digital planning.

Quite rightly the author takes a look at the actual application process and takes it a little further to look at the file naming structure, and the ability for search engines to find and load the application, not so simple in current planning sites.

The use of Digital applications at planning will encourage Smart City's a reality, the video below I think shows a way forward.

They mention City GML, and IFC, GML an open city standard, together with IFC and its open standard between the different CAD packages, allowing standard readers like Solibri.

Understanding just what is meant by "Smart City"

In my last post, I took a quick look at Smart Cities, I have had a long time research project going on this subject, collecting articles and general web pages, to try and understand just what is meant by Smart City, believe me when I say it's not a clear subject, there are a lot of variables, and differing opinions.

This video I have just come across, I think spells out a lot of my thoughts on the subject, interestingly one of the participants is the Ordinance Survey, OS, who I feel have a lot to give on this subject, from flood zones, paths, and marking interesting places and sights,

I will be continuing this research, because I don't think its solved yet, but I like what I see and hear in this short video.