So I built a SIM card reader. What’s next? Obviously, I want to test it by reading my SIM card. For Mac (and Linux), you can download PySimReader. It requires pySerial and wxPython to run. Unfortunately, I could not get wxPython to build and install via MacPorts (ticket 20952).

It did not look like there was a quick and easy fix for this issue. I decided to install Windows version of pySimReader. It is a standalone package (no additional software is required). I installed a driver for Trip Lite (formerly) USB Serial Adapter but that was all I needed to do.

Here’s a screenshot of pySimReader getting information from my SIM card reader.

I will look into getting the PySimReader working on my Mac soon.

This afternoon, I spent a few hours to build a SIM card reader. I bought this kit from Adafruit Industries awhile ago. It came with a good looking comic book.

I cannot remember when was the last time I actually soldered anything together but I found it rather easy. It was little difficult to solder a SIM card holder onto a PCB, but everything else went well.

Here is a picture of my new creation.

Today, I received Arduino-based microcontroller and other components from Carancho Engineering LLC. I am very excited to get started but I still need to buy more components and also some tools.

Just for a record, I bought these items from them.

Arduino MEGA w/Atmega 1280      ARDUINO-02  USD64.95
AeroQuad Shield v1.6            AQ1-006     USD24.95
IMU 5 Degrees of Freedom        SEN-09268   USD74.95
Dual Axis Gyro Breakout IXZ500  SEN-09510   USD39.95
Receiver Cables                 RCVR-001    USD 7.95
2 x Stackable Headers           CONN-001    USD 9.90

The components will be used as a flight controller for a quad-rotor helicopter. Receiver cables will link the flight controller and a receiver. I will be getting a set of transmitter and a receiver soon.

Here are some photos of flying display on last Saturday morning and afternoon. This was my first time taking photos of aircrafts and I wish I studied the techniques a bit more before this event.

I do not know if I am attending another one in 2012 but if I am, I’m going to take lots of sunblock cream. I got sunburned pretty bad last Saturday.

There are more aircraft photos at my Flickr photo set.

Actually, it’s not my bag (yet). I am seriously thinking about ordering a MacBook Pro 13″ and I thought it might be nice to get a bag to go with it. New fabrics from Timbuk2 are really nice and I just love trying different combinations of fabrics and customizing “my” bag.

This is my current design that I really like. Maybe I will place an order for it after I get my MacBook Pro. Until then, I will playing around with the customization options.

I recently got a new slice (512MB RAM, 20GB disk, 200GB bandwidth) from Slicehost. With the new slice, I decided to start from scratch and I am now in the process of importing my old blog posts.

Yes, I know I can do dump or import of old posts, but I want to start fresh so I will be uploading posts individually. You will see them by the end of this month.

This is just a note on installing/testing the Go Programming Language from Google.

I followed the instructions from IT戦記 (in Japanese). According to the article, 早速 Go 言語を試してみる！, amachang reported that HTTP test failed. I also had the same test failure, but after I disabled the firewall temporarily and ran the test again, HTTP test passed fine.

I have been using LaunchBar since version 3 (as of now, version 5 RC4) and one of the features I like is being able to run search from its simple interface.

After activating LaunchBar (with simple Control-Space key combination), I enter ‘goog’ (short for Google search) and press Enter key. Type your search terms and LaunchBar opens a search result in Safari (or your default web browser).

You can even add your own search template so that you can perform search on your favorite online forum.

For example, I added new search templates for Google Blog Search, MacPorts, Github and MSDN.

Search MacPorts

URL: http://trac.macports.org/search?q=*&noquickjump=1&portsummarysearch=on&ticket=on&changeset=on&milestone=on&wiki=on
Encoding: UTF-8

Search Github

URL = http://github.com/search?q=*&type=Everything&repo=&langOverride=&start_value=1
Encoding = UTF-8

Google Blog Search

URL = http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=*&btnG=Search+Blogs
Encoding = UTF-8

Search Objective Development Forum

URL = http://forums.obdev.at/search.php?keywords=*
Encoding = UTF-8

Search MSDN

URL = http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/search/en-us/?query=*
Encoding = UTF-8

To add your own search template:

1. Open your LaunchBar Index (select Index -> Show Index).
2. Select Search Templates (UTF-8) from left column.
3. Add a new search template by clicking ‘Add…’ button and enter name and URL.
4. Update index and you’ll start performing search faster immediately.

For more complete information on Search Templates and instructions, use LaunchBar Help. Also, for more search templates, go have a look at Objective Development Forums – LaunchBar Search Templates.

Just doing my part to inform and encourage other Wordpress users to upgrade their blog to the latest version of Wordpress.

According to Wordpress.org, there is a worm that affects older versions of Wordpress. A prevention is simple; Upgrade to the latest version. It’s so much more troublesome to clean up your blog after it is hacked, so why take a chance?

I used to be little slow to upgrading but I think I will be doing so as soon as the new one comes out. I’m already running version 2.8.4 so I’m lucky this time.

I receive my mobile phone bill through email every month. Despite several reminders through email and SMS, I still miss my due dates. Rather than relying on my own memory, I decided to create a To Do item in Things.

Things is a task management application on Mac and iPhone. On Mac, Things is scriptable via AppleScript and I use a Mail rule to run my script to create a new To Do item in Things.

I use this script to create a new To Do item in Things.

on create_todo(title, tag_list, desc, due_date)
    tell application "Things"
        set new_todo to make new to do with properties {name: title, tag names: tag_list, notes:desc, due date: due_date}
    end tell
end create_todo

After a bill arrives in my Inbox, I have a new To Do item in Things like this:

You can download my script here and feel free to modify it for your own need.

If you are interested in writing more script for Things, be sure to check out User Contributed Scripts – Things Wiki.