"I love our software, I love our software."

I'm a HMIS Database Manager for a living.  It's a dream job--all the nerdy stuff, plus, there is a possibility I'm helping people.  Currently, one area our software really lacks is quickly generating complex reports. It has the ability, but the servers are laggy, it crashes often, and a project which should take 20 minutes will take 50 minutes to 40 hours depending on the "report weather."  These issues are probably caused by the reporting platform being web-based and calculations done server-side.  Regardless, given the amount of time the staff are eating ...

1. Unwrap SSOAuthToken.  Else, handle error.
2. Create request from webservice and SSOAuthToken.
3. Make a GET request.
4. Async-wait for response
5. Unwrap response data.
6. If GET request returned 200-299, request was success. If failed, handle.
7. When successful, convert the return JSON data.  If failed, handle.
8. Get Enterprise Names and enterpriseGUUID string from JSON data.
9. Add the enterpriseGUUID string to a Dictionary using the Enterprise Names as the Key
10. Call completion callback meothd with parameter "Success"

public func getListOfEnterprisesAvailable(currentSessionInfo: SessionInfo, completion: @escaping (_ response: ReturnInfoWithDictionary) -> Void){

    let SSOAuthToken = currentSessionInfo.SSOAuthToken!

    var returnInfo = ReturnInfoWithDictionary()
    var enterpriseDictionary = Dictionary<String, String>()

    let GetSSOEnterprisesService = "https://services.etosoftware ...

Logging in to ETO

This code base has become a bit of a pet project.  It uses Alamofire to create GET and POST requests against Efforts to Outcomes REST API. This enables native applications to interact with our Homeless Management Information System ( HMIS ) database.  I've been coding it to practice the craft.  Also, there are a few operations in our continuum of care which could be improved by creating native applications, as opposed to using webapplications.  For example, street outreach teams are often without their computer, given the bulk.  But rarely is a street outreach specialist without a mobile device ...

Some HTML

Why the Hell?

Wow, it's been awhile since I've actually written anything in Drupal based text editor.  Feels like home.

Honestly, I'm not going to go into the "Why" of building this site.  Maybe I'll do that later.  Let's just say, there was an impetus to recreate the home we were forced to leave.

How the Blink?

Spinning Up a Server:

The first thing was deciding on a server.  I didn't have much (um, any) experiencing in spinning up a server.  But after a bit of reading, checking the bank account, and finding what would work for Drupal ...

Update 3/29/2016

I've begun re-writing the entire program as a Windows App. Not really my choice. It seems the BluetoothLE API Microsoft has thrown together (for-real-doh, it's super bad) is most easily adopted under the Windows Universal App toolchain.

Anyway, here's the resting space of the new projects

Lumi

Lumi for Desktop

Where I come from they having a saying: "Video or it didn't happen." I've always liked that saying. It means we have to put our work where our typing is. Here is a video of the uploader I wrote to interface with the TinySafeBoot AVR two-wire ...

Revising Board

This is an extension of previous work. I had finished a LED driver for the lab, hooked it up, and found it was a fire hazard. For the amount of lumen I wanted out of them I was having to set the current resistor to .47ohm. This was pushing nearly 2amps of current through the little FQP40N06L . The LEDs were bright, but immediately the TO-220 became too hot to touch. Two choices, either redesign or use less current, resulting in dimmer LEDs. Easy choice, redesign.

The first thing I realized was I need a heat-sink. Ironically, I had ...

The Dream

I've dreamed of a PCB with everything: uC, H-bridges, PSU, Lipo charger, inductive power collector, and a wirelesss device which would allow wireless uploading to the uC. A platform I could use for robotics and wearable projectss alike. Most of these features I have solved, yet one which I believed to be ever elusive to a hacker is wireless uploading. I've had lot of failed attempts, some as painful as writing my own uploader for the LPC1114, others as "simple" as hacking away at the Arduino IDE source. However, I've found a combination which brings me a bit ...

I wanted to take a a moment and write out how I plan to document future Swift projectss.

Step One: Install

I found Jazzy . It's a command line utility for documenting Xcode projectss. Nifty thing is, it is one of the few which works with Swift 2+. Anyway, it is pretty painless to get up and going.

The one catch I found was Swift is changing versions often, so you may have to wait a bit for the developers to catch up. However, when the updates are released it is pretty easy to get things working again, simply run, sudo ...

Overview

Well, I've had the urge to hack. It's been strong for awhile now, sadly, with a more than fullt-time job and Bek in graduate school, I've just had no time. Until now! The new job I have (HMIS Database Manager) has actual vacation time. I've had almost two weeks off (combined with the Christmas holiday). The first few days were obviously spent working... But! After turning my phone and email I was able to...catch up on family time. Sigh. Then, clean house. Then, get bored. But with a few days left I actually got some hacking in.

I ...

Apple doesn't like robots.

It's strange, since they have some great hardware and some excellent software.  But alas, trying to get a robot to connect to any iOS product is like asking Steve Jobs to come to dinner; you'll get your hopes up, but, alas, he's dead.  So, short of a necromancy and some Frebreeze, it's not going to happen.

But, I've found the backdoor to getting your iOS device to help your robot, and my friend, I'm going to give you the key.

Those little HM-10 Bluetooth Low Energy PCBs that I've written about for so long.  Those combined ...