The Techno-Creative World

Book Review:- Working Hard is Not Good Enough by T.G.C. Prasad

2014-03-19T20:04:00.000+05:30

When you’ve put in the hours, burnt the midnight oil, there’s still more you can do to get ahead at work, according to T.G.C. Prasad, managing partner of Bangalore-headquartered human capital consulting company TGC Consulting and author of Unusual People Do Things Differently, From the Eye of My Mind and Along the Way. In his new book, Working Hard Is Not Good Enough, he uses examples to drive home points like playing to your strengths, unlearning some lessons to make room for new learnings, and really listening to employees and co-workers.

It is a book on what is actually needed to succeed and what makes people rise above their peers and make a difference. The book is filled numerous such examples which help us in understanding the concept in a better way. The book inspires you to do things in a different and a better way rather than just doing them blindly. The easy language of the book in tandem with the striking examples makes it an interesting read for everyone, be it students or professionals

The examples given in the book are very rational and as they connect to all known people,it is very convincing and we can relate to it very easily.

This book is so captivating till it's last page that it's difficult to express in words.You just need to get hold of one and start reading to experience the joy cited through interesting examples.I am damn sure that anyone will relish it till its end.

What all can you do with a Pen Drive

2012-10-26T12:08:00.005+05:30

Nowadays, we all carry a pen drive to transfer our documents, photos, videos, and music anywhere we want. The way it works is very simple and fast. But do you know it can do much more than that. Here, I am going to outline several ways how you can put your pen drive to good use.

Increase System Performance

You can increase the performance of your PC by using the feature ReadyBoost which allows your external usb drive to works as an extra RAM.

For more details click here

Encrypt Your Data

You can secure your data from stealing with advanced AES-256bit encryption. You can assign a password to selected folders or entire Drive.

These are some of the links which provide this kind of protection:-

Pen Drive as Key to lock your PC

Some applications Like Predator lock your system when you are not there, even if your Windows session is still opened. It uses a regular USB flash drive as an access control device. With the USB drive plugged in, you can continue to work, but as soon as it is removed, the screen darkens, the PC locks, and keyboard/mouse input is disabled. Plug it back in and normal usage is restored.

PC on Pen Drive

There are several versions of Linux, such as Xubuntu, puppy Linux are so light that they can run entirely on a pen drive. They have very minimal hardware requirement, which makes them blazing fast, even on older machines.

This gives you an advantage that you can carry your computer with you in your pocket.

Currently, Windows don’t have support for this, but Microsoft will soon be launching a new version called ‘Windows 8 On The Go’.

You can download these OSes from following links:-

Portable Applications

You can carry many portable applications in your pen drive just like the portable OS. For example Mozilla Thunderbird, Google Chrome Portable, Word web, etc. The Obvious advantage of letting you run your favorite programs off your pen drive when you don’t have administrator privileges on your office PC to install them. You will find a large collection of such free software on www.pendriveapps.com.

Recycle Bin for Pen Drive

In your pc, you have a recycle bin. So when you delete a file it goes into recycle bin instead go completely removing it so it lets you recover a file if you accidentally deleted it. But on a pen drive, when you click delete, you cannot recover it.

iBin is an exact solution for this. It continuously monitors your removable drive; if you try to delete any file, iBin will ask if you want to erase it or ‘Dump it to iBin’. This way, your file stays on your drive for now.

If you know any other great use of it then feel free to drop comments.

How to check the 'Value' of a Resistor

2012-10-23T13:54:00.001+05:30

A resistor is the most basic component used in most of electronic circuits. These are use to control the flow of current and voltage in different portions of a circuit. The resistor resists the flow of electrons from it and hence, the flow of current is controlled. The value of a resistor (or resistance) is determined in 'ohms'. The unit ohm is named after George Simon Ohm who purposed the Ohm's Law giving the fundamental relation between resistance(R), voltage(V) and current(I).

V=I.R

The symbol of resistance is the Greek letter omega (Ω).

The symbol for resistor can be represented in an electronic circuit in one of the following ways:-

The resistors may be classified into 4 categories according to their composition:-

Carbon Composition Resistor - Made of carbon dust or graphite paste, low wattage values
Film or Cermet Resistor - Made from conductive metal oxide paste, very low wattage values
Wire-wound Resistor - Metallic bodies for heatsink mounting, very high wattage ratings
Semiconductor Resistor - High frequency/precision surface mount thin film technology

The most of the resistor used are in axial form with a pattern of color stripes to indicate value of resistance. And the surface mount or SMD resistors are marked with numerals to determine the value.

The axial resistors are coded either with 4 band or 5 band resistors.

Color Coding:-

The following table shows colors used to identify the value:-

The marking on different types resistors is as shown below:-

Four-band resistor, Five-band resistor, Cylindrical SMD resistor, Flat SMD resistor

Some SMD resistors are made in the shape of small cylinder while the most common type is flat. Cylindrical SMD resistors are marked with six bands - the first five are "read" as with common five-band resistors, while the sixth band determines the Temperature Coefficient (TC), which gives us a value of resistance change upon 1-degree temperature change.

The resistance of flat SMD resistors is marked with digits printed on their upper side. First two digits are the resistance value, while the third digit represents the number of zeros. For example, the printed number 683 stands for 68000Ω, that is 68kΩ.

The most popular and easy way to remember the color coding scheme for resistor is to remember the phrase:-

"B. B. Roy of Great Britain has a Very Good Wife"

B-Black, B-Brown, R-Red, G-Green, B-Blue, V-Voilet, G-Grey, W-White.

Wattage Rating:-

When current is passed through resistors, heat is produced due to resistivity and if the temperature rises beyond certain level the resistor may get damaged. The ability to dissipate this heat is know as wattage rating. The wattage rating of a resistor depends upon its size and dimensions, i.e., bigger the size of resistor greater is the wattage rating. The following figure gives an idea about size and wattage rating:-

Build Your First Wired RC Robo Car

2012-10-21T14:10:00.004+05:30

This article aims to present the steps to create the most basic remote controlled robot which is used in several robotics competitions.

Parts:-

The parts required for building this robot are:-

Chassis (For body to the robot)
DC Geared Motor (min. 100 rpm) - 4
Wheels - 4
DPDT(Joystick) Switch-2
General Purpose PCB-1
Ribbon wire or 6 core wire - 3meter or above
Connecting wires

The tools required are:-

Soldering wire and Soldering Iron
Screw Driver
Spanner
Wire Stripper

Procedure:-

1. Assemble the mechanical parts:

Fix the motors in the holes provided on the chassis and couple the wheels with each motor. (refer the following figures)

2. Creating remote:-

Before creating the remote we have to learn basic movements of robot which is shown in the following table:-

(NOTE:- The left and right referred above is for the Chassis Upside Down)

To make anti-clockwise motion of motor, the polarity of supply must be inverted of polarity of supply in clockwise motion. For "Polarity Reversal" DPDT Switches are generally used. This can be done by using following circuit.

DPDT stands for ‘Double Pole, Double Throw’.

The number of "poles" is the number of separate circuits which are controlled by a switch.
The number of "throws" is the number of separate positions that the switch can adopt.

There are several types of DPDT Switches available in the market. The one which I used is shown below:-

Now connections:-

Mount both the DPDT Switches on PCB.
As you can see each switch has 8 legs:- 4 on each side. For each side of a switch, solder the 2 legs in the middle (i.e. make a short b/w them).
Now make the connections as per the above figure. Please note for connections with the motor use ribbon or 6 core wire and for other connections you can any other wire(I would prefer thin single strand wires).
After these connections, the remote will have 4 outputs lines (for motors) and 2 input lines (for power supply).

3. Connections with motors:-

Carefully make series connection between two motor for each side (left or right).
Now connect the 4 outputs with the motors such left switch is connected to left motors and right switch is connected to the right motor.

(NOTE:- Before connecting the motors with the switch please check the polarities of motors on each side with the help of any battery.)

4. Power Supply:-

For Power supply you can use the rechargeable battery of rating 9 volts and 4.5 amperes or else i would prefer you to use power adapter which is used for charging the laptops (rating 18V-20V or 60W - 90W) because it gives constant voltage and required speed for your robo car.

Speed of Robot:-

Speed of robot can be calculate by following formula-
Velocity = circumference * rpmHere, the circumference of the wheel is to be taken.
The RPM of motor will perfect match with its specification if only is power rating of motor is provide by power supply.

(NOTE:- You can also make this robot by using 2 motors and a castor wheel but this will reduce the stability of car in fast tracks during a race.)