In my post yesterday, I incorrectly assumed that the hotfix ID being used to query for the installation of PowerShell was wrong, probably due to an earlier release. The truth is there is a couple of hotfix IDs, depending on which operating system you’re on. If you’re on Windows XP, 2000 or 2003 you have one ID, if you’re on Vista or (presumably) 2008 it’s a completely different ID. I’ve since banged together a quick script to look for the OS version first, then to query for the proper fix. Hopefully you’ll find it useful!

Also, yesterday I got my Arduino starter kit! I haven’t gotten to play with it much at all, except for the hardware equivalent of “Hello World”, the blinking LED. I’m looking forward to using it when I get better and done with some work, especially since I have a few ideas kicking around.  And I love this starter kit, it contains everything I need to get through LadyAda’s first set of tutorials - no rummaging for an hour in the parts bin, then going to RadioShack to find out they don’t stock it instore¹

1. Yes, this happens to me, a lot. [↩]

I’ve always been a PIC¹ kinda guy. PIC² is a microcontroller made by Microchip. It’s fairly popular in the hobbyist market because they’re so widely available and so very cheap. They can do a lot, but they can be a pain to develop with unless you know all the parts you need to accomplish your goals, tough for a newbie. I use the PICKit 1 development kit because it has a lot of the extra basic bits you need to do anything useful, less hunting == more fun.

Over the past year or so³ I’ve been hearing more about more about the Arduino⁴ The Arduino is a physical computing platform based on a simple I/O board and a development environment that implements the Processing/Wiring language. It looks like a lot of fun, and it seems like overnight a mountain of interesting tips, tricks and projects have popped up revolving around this little guy. It’s design is also open and you can download both the hardware design reference documents as well as the source code for the IDE and on-board library. So I’m temporarily jumping over the fence and just ordered one online from Adafruit.com. At $65, it’s a bit more then the PICKit, but the wealth of information out there makes it promising - especially simple how-tos and projects, dwarfs the information you can find on the PIC, even though the PIC does have “123 PIC Microcontroller Experiments for the Evil Genius” on it’s side.

The Arduino really seems more aimed at the hobbyist market - which makes sense as that is what it was designed to for. You can create programs that will run stand alone or connect it to your computer to allow the virtual world to interact with the physical world. People have built a lot of interesting things with their Arduinos from clocks, POV machines, theremins to even a hitcounter that rings a bell when someone visits their site. They do make it look quite sexy, no?

So I’ve got a few simple projects I’d like to make⁵ , and I think they would be an excellent way to test out what that ATmega168 can do. I’ll make a little write up about it in a few months. Wish me luck!

1. Programmable Interface Computer [↩]
2. More about PIC: Official Site, Mailing List, Tools [↩]
3. Ever since I started reading MAKE magazine - you should subscribe too [↩]
4. More about the Arduino: Official Site, Wiki, Photos, Tutorial, Introduction To [↩]
5. Projects: External iPod display/control, Canvas project, Proximity Clock, My grandiose living clock, etc etc - I’ve talked about some of these back in the day, time to get ‘er done! [↩]