Mobile Computing - The Car Computer (Carputer)

Want to access the internet internet on the go? Use bluetooth to tether your phone and get internet where ever you have signal. Lost? Use a bluetooth GPS module and GPS software to navigate your way out. Just want to play music and videos? No problem, install a front end like Centrafuse and have at it.

Hardware

The setup I have right now consists of an AMD Geode 1.4GHz processor with 256MB DDR RAM and a 30GB 2.5? hard drive. The screen is a 7? Liliput motorized touch screen and the power supply is a 120W Opus. The whole setup can also be mounted in my glove compartment. The motherboard is a mini-ITX form factor board and the dimensions are 7? x 7?. The power supply sits right next to the motherboard and hard drive power is supported by small angle into the slot. Then there is a USB 2.0 hub to connect your Bluetooth-powered, wireless keyboard, etc.

Operating System

The operating system is TinyXP Rev. 06thTinyXP is basically an inferred from Windows XP. The entire installation takes up only 400MB and uses only 40MB of RAM. Even with only 256 MB of memory, the computer still boots incredibly fast. From the post on the Windows desktop, it takes less than 15 seconds! Watch the video below for a demonstration.

Peripheral / Addons

To receive the internet, usually strap my phone to Carputer via Bluetooth. I am using a Treo 755p with PdaNet installed, connect to the Carputer.Throughput is pretty good while tethering using the Sprint EVDO network, but it's nothing close to spectacular. Web pages will take an extra 2-3 seconds to load, but nothing major.

For navigation, I use a bluetooth TomTom MKII receiver with the SirfStar III chipset. The software side includes iGuidance v4 which uses Navteq maps. The GPS navigation system is pretty accurate and comes with a ton of POI.

Wireless 802.11 communication is handled by a Zonet ZEW-2500P USB 2.0 card. It has a Ralink chipset which can inject packets and is therefore compatible with many of the wireless penetration tools available today. Eventually, I will replace that wireless card with a Fonera that will stay on 24/7 running in client-mode with AutoAP. That way, the Fonera will automatically find open wireless networks (there never fails to be a shortage of em), connect to them, and allow me to remote control the Fonera from the internet. I could then use wake on LAN (WOL) to turn on the carputer. Furthermore, I plan to use a USB switch module to control different functions of the car such as remote start, alarm arm/disarm, lock/unlock, etc. That means that the car can literally be controlled from the internet!

Want to listen to music or watch movies? No problemo. Front ends like Centrafuse present the user with a nice interface with big buttons that compliment the touchscreen and fat fingers :). Within the interface, you can play music, watch movies, check the weather, launch a web browser, and more.

Input is handled by a MadCatz wireless keyboard which is generally used with PS3s. However, there is nothing special about the setup and it works fine when used with a computer. I like it because I don't have to carry a bulky keyboard around and it can be hidden very easily.

Save Significant Cost on Development and Test Environments Using Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing which essentially postulates that you can pay for IT services as a utility, on a pay as you use basis hosted in a cloud. Essentially another form of outsourcing where this time you pay a provider to either use their software applications via the Internet (Google APPS is an example) and is known as Software as a service (SaaS). Or to use their Platform as a service (PasS) to build and host your web based application (Google Engine is an example). Or to use their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which essentially allows you to pay a provider to host an image of your application negating the need for you to own your own servers, (Amazon EC2 is an example of this kind of service).

Before signing up to any of the services, it is important that a company clearly understand the costs benefits, identify and implement an entry and exit strategy or plan capturing how to move to another vendor if it becomes necessary or to bring back the service in house.

Hosting sensitive data off site must also need to be considered very carefully and the need to ensure that no regulatory requirements are breached or the customer data act is adhered to in any such implementation. Non mission critical systems are probably the best ones to consider first to be implemented in the cloud.

Test and Development Environments

Of particular interest must be the IaaS, because companies spend a significant part of their yearly IT budget (sometimes as much 30 to 40%) on purchasing new hardware to host new applications, in response to new business requirements.

The cost of maintaining such hardware can also be quite expensive from software licensing to support costs etc.

Test and Development environments which are not necessarily mission critical, (since they are not live environments), can certainly be procured on a pay as you use basis with little or minimal risk, which could significantly reduce IT spending by as much as half or a quarter.

As proven with virtualisation, building test and development environments becomes an easily repeatable process and likened to a factory floor where environments are rolled out on demand.

The same principle will apply to having your development and test environments in the Cloud using the IaaS module and the benefits are as follows;

• Test and development environments tend to be required for fixed periods of time through the lifecycle of a Project and are left idle at other times. You only pay to use these environments when you need to, which can significantly reduce IT spending.

• The effort and time required to set up test and development environments is significantly reduced, as you only need to access your server via the cloud and create your own environments. There is no need to wait for three weeks for the server to be delivered, another two weeks to be set up in the data centre etc.

• The cost of support, from setting up the server in the data centre, configuring it, installing the operating system, installing other security and monitoring software, setting it up on your LAN etc

• The effort required to decommission and re-use these test environments is also minimal.

• Since live data (de - sensitised data can be used on the other hand) is normally not used for testing or development there are no regulatory requirements to adhere to.

• Most IaaS cloud computing vendors offer 99/100% up time, back up facilities, monitoring etc which ensures that once your environments are created, you only need to focus on carrying out your development and testing.

• A company can embark on several IT Projects at any one time, because there is no longer the constraint of available hardware (or rather the need to provision more hardware) to host test and development environments.

Efficiently provisioning, building, managing and scheduling your test/development Environment contributes significantly to the success or failure of IT software projects.

Pay for the infrastructure as a service, at least, it eliminates the hassle and the cost of providing installation and support of hardware for testing and development of host environments.

Author: Valentin Waturuocha - Freelance IT environments / Infrastructure Project Manager.