Spaghetti al Limone with Scallops

Sometimes I get these cravings, cravings for good Italian food. After fighting these cravings for a while I give up and decide to make some good food!

Today that something good is Spaghetti al Limone with Scallops, spaghetti in a lemon cream sauce with fresh nutmeg, Italian parsley, parmesan and seared Scallops!

If you want you can leave out the Scallops, the pasta is awesome even without the Scallops but if you do it "right"...

Anyway, this dish calls for the following ingredients:

• 2 pats of butter 
• Spaghetti 
• 1/3-1/2 cups of cream 
• Lemon Zest
• Lemon Juice
• grated nutmeg
• salt
• black pepper
• Parmesan cheese
• EVOO 
• 4-5 scallops 
• Parsley

As I said in a previous blog post, making a decent pasta is not that hard, just don't overcook the pasta, el dente is really the way to go!

So first grab a big pot and bring plenty of water with a little sea salt to a boil. Cook the pasta for about 8 to 10 minutes, about a cup of pasta per person should be enough, stir it regularly so it doesn't stick the pot and check regularly to make sure you are not over cooking it, as I said earlier, el dente is really they way to go.

Next melt 2 pats of butter in a pan and add the spaghetti.  Add 1/3-1/2 cup of cream a little bit of lemon zest,and a squirt of lemon Juice, the grated nutmeg, just a little salt and some black pepper and TOSS WELL!

Turn the heat to high and let it reduce until the sauce gets thick. If you are not doing the scalops you are now almost there, al there is left to do is ross the spaghetti with parmesan cheese and parsley and move everything from the pan with tongs into bowl, leaving any extra sauce behind in the pan. Just garnish your dish with some parmesan and Nutmeg and you are done!

But if you do it right you should start on the Scallops while the sauce for the pasta reduces. In a separate small hot pan, add EVOO and sear 4 or 5 scallops quickly on one side, then using a spatula, flip the scallops over and sear the other side.

Now quickly finish the lemon spaghetti by tossing it with some Parmesan cheese and parsley, remove it from the pan with tongs into bowl, and again leave any extra sauce behind in the pan.

Lay the seared scallops on top of spaghetti and garnish the dish with with some parsley and nutmeg, Done!

If you want something great to drink with that, try the Domain Carneros Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs. Le Rêve, which translates to “the dream” in French, is a luxury Blanc de Blancs cuvee originally inspired by Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne.  Blanc de Blancs means "white of whites" or white wine made from white grapes.  It goes amazingly well with this dish!

Moltosenso Silver an outstanding SDK for XBEE WSAN Systems

A few days ago I posted about the Moltosenso Network Manager™ Bronze, for the low, low introductory price of EURO €25.00 or about USD $32.00 Moltosenso offered the upgraded Bronze release of their Moltosenso Network Manager™ SDK, the Cross Platform XBEE™ configuration utility.

This Bronze version included the same features as the Iron version, basic X-CTU features, available cross-platform on Mac, Windows and Linux, Network Discovery, AT Commands Tab, RSSI Tab and Terminal, that I wrote about a week earlier and than some more.

After talking with Marco Francesco Urso, the CEO of Moltosenso I decided to also check out their competitively priced Silver Release (€150 or about USD $185).

The Silver release is an affordable and very effective tool that in additional to all the features from the cheaper versions lets you easily get and set long list of commands on local and remote Digi International® modules, has the ability to create scripts to get and set parameters of connected or networked module using their easy to use wizard and also, in real-time, debug commands remotely issued to the XBEE nodes in an easy step-by-step fashion!

Checkout the Moltosenso YouTube Channel for some videos of  Moltosenso Silver in action:

Because it introduces the idea of automatic monitoring and actuation the Moltosenso Network Manager™ Silver release is a complete toolkit that can be used to remotely manage your whole XBEE WSAN.

Later this year Moltesenso plans to release a Gold version of their software, adding even more features. I am looking forward to reviewing that once it is released but in the mean time, check it out one of their current releases and let me know what YOU think!

Meta Watch launches Bluetooth 4.0 SmartWatch for IOS & Android developers

Meta Watch™ launched its new SmartWatch Development System featuring bluetooth® 4.0 wireless technology for connectivity and compatibility with Apple’s iPhone® 4S, iPad 3, and Android platforms!

The Meta Watch Development system sells for USD $199 in the US & Europe and can be purchased directly from TI and from Meta Watch. It's available either with a stainless steel case with black mask & black leather strap or with a stainless steel case with white mask and white leather strap.

Leveraging the TI’s CC2564 “dual mode” solution, the Meta Watch development system supports both Bluetooth Smart technology and ‘classic’ Bluetooth wireless technology enabling it to function in many new applications.

“We are delighted to be the first company to ship a Bluetooth 4.0 smartwatch compatible with both iPhone and Android platforms” said Bill Geiser, CEO and co-founder of Meta Watch. “While our new development system will greatly expand opportunities for Meta Watch, our goal remains unchanged - to make it simple and profitable for developers to create smartwatch applications. To this end we offer a broad range of customization options for our customers. Embedded system developers can leverage our open source firmware, embedded SDK, and a free embedded programming IDE that runs on most Windows and Linux Operating Systems. Our remote protocol and API’s enable smart phone application developers to leverage their existing iOS or Android code base eliminating the need to create a new code base for a new platform. Last, but certainly not least, our supply chain and production infrastructure was created from the very beginning to scale and allow our ODM/OEM customers to get to market fast.”


Features of the Meta Watch Bluetooth 4.0 development include:

• Case / strap: 3 ATM water resistant stainless steel leather strap (in black or white)
• Colors: black or white
• Display: Mirror polymer network LCD; 96x96. Fully reflective for direct sunlight
• Lens: scratch-resistant mineral glass
• I/O: 6 fully programmable buttons, 3 axis accelerometer, vibrating motor & an ambient light sensor
• MCU: TI’s ultra-low-power MSP430™ microcontroller
• Radio: CC2564 Bluetooth 4.0 transceiver; with profile support for SPP and BLE-GATT

It takes a Village to raise a business

This morning I received an e-mail from George Bennett, the chairman of the Valley Innovators. George pointed out that starting your own business is not only about good ideas but also about building relationships.

Below is an excerpt from his e-mail:

"It takes a Village to raise a business" 
 More precisely, it takes a culture, a group of mutually supportive people willing to share their talents to make things happen. We know you want to start a business. It's a big job. 

If we work together, though, we can become much bigger than we are as individuals. As you work on your ideas, I ask you to think about the cost in time and effort it takes to find good people, set up contracts, negotiate terms, and settle problems that come up. 

If you help build the Village, the people you need will already be there. Their reputation will be known in the Village. Everybody benefits. 

I ask you to be a part of the startup culture. Come join us; see what we’re doing to grow great things in the valley.

And George is right you can't do it all on your own, you need a network of smart people around you, not only to help with the technical elements of your design but also with the business aspects of your new business.

By Starting Valley Innovators, George is creating a village of people that you can depend on, and a slew of services that can help you get ahead faster. To support the community the group will have their next get  together on June 13rd and are sporting some interesting speakers, Lloyd Roberts the brand new Director of Business for DeviceLab will be speaking about Turnkey Manufacturing and Jill Addison will be talking about Online Video's and how they can help you grow your business.

Besides all of that, just some good friends that help motivate you to do better, encourage you when you feel down and perhaps just take you out for a glass of wine at one of our beautiful wineries or a cup of coffee away from the office once in a while to relax, isn't a bad idea either. Because you can't always be working, right?

With that in mind every Saturday the Temecula Valley Software Developers Meetup organizes the Twin Cities Tech Coffee Meetup, an informal gathering of Temecula / Murrieta area Technology Entrepreneurs to share knowledge and experiences, for brainstorming and mentoring.

The intention of this meetup series is to "cowork" in a collaborative environment. There is no agenda, or round table, no formal introductions or preset discussion topics, but sharing knowledge and experiences and brainstorming & mentoring is encouraged.

Bring your laptops or iPads, have a cup of coffee or two and talk about topics that interest you, perhaps even while getting some work done! This Meetup is be held each Saturday from 9am to about 11.30am at It's a Grind in on Murrieta Hot Springs.

Want even more opportunity to cowork in a collaborative environment? Check out "The Coworking Connection" in Murrieta.

Although coworking has many benefits, people often times have a hard time understanding exactly what it is. Wikipedia defines “coworking” as "a style of work which involves a shared working environment, sometimes an office, yet independent activity. Unlike in a typical office environment, those coworking are usually not employed by the same organization.

Dione Moser the founder of The Coworking Connections explains it as follows "Coworking is most closely related to purchasing a membership at the local gym: you have a pass for the plan you purchased and use the facility according to your plan terms and needs. People workout side by side, not necessarily with each other but can benefit from each other when the need arises… it’s the same scenario for those in a coworking environment".

SoCal CodeCamp Rocks and so does Bluetooth Smart

SoCal Code Camp session on Bluetooth Smart Development for IOS and Android 

If you are interested in Bluetooth Smart,  Low Power Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy - BLE - or Bluetooth 4.0 and building iOS or Android Apps to read Bluetooth sensors or create Bluetooth sensor networks check out my upcoming session at SoCal Code Camp in San Diego at UC San Diego on June 23rd and 24th.



This session is presented by Muhammad Ulislam from Bluetooth.org, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and myself! Muhammad and I will be talking about:

• The differences between the different Bluetooth version.
• The currently available Bluetooth Smart modules and Development kits, (we will have several kits on site).
• How to build a simple Android or iOS App to discover, connect to and read from a Bluetooth Smart sensor using an iPhone 4s, iPad3 or Android devices.
• Connecting to cloud platforms to store, retrieve manage & maintain and share sensor readings & related data and information.

New Bluetooth 4.0 Development Kit from Rowdy Robot on Kickstarter.com

A successfully funded project on Kickstarter, now in it's final week, is focusing on bringing Bluetooth 4.0 development to the masses. We've covered BT4 kits before including the Bluegiga BLE112 Bluetooth^® 4.0 single mode Development Kit but Rowdy Robot, the team behind the projects Smart Beacon electronics, is promising a Bluetooth 4.0 device that uses the BLE112-A module with all of the pins exposed for easy development including the debugger pins. This makes it easy to quickly prototype your project and program your own firmware profiles that can be flashed onto their device. 

To make things easy for you, if you don't already have your own TI CC-Debugger, they are providing two development kits. The first runs about $95 and includes the TI debugger unit and one beacon. This really is all you would need to be able to program and flash the device. However, for developers wanting to dive even deeper, they are offering a kit for $155 that includes the TI debugger, a 'limited edition' device, one of BlueGiga's BLED112 USB dongles, and some parts to integrate your own board to their provided data pins. These add-on boards or modules as they call them could be anything from sensors, displays or haptic feedback electronics.

If you already own the TI CC-Debugger, then all you need is the $32 Smart Beacon to get started. The Rowdy Robot team has mentioned that they will begin manufacturing the minute they have funds in their hand and that these beacons should be ready to ship by late July to developers interested in getting a head start coming up with brilliant ways to expand their beacons functionality. 

Although they have not released any detailed specifications it would appear that they are simply exposing all 21 of the configurable pins provided by the BLE112-A module.  Rowdy Robot will be shipping their beacons with BlueGiga's EULA to allow for the open development using the BlueGiga SDK which includes BGScript and their single mode BLE stack API. To get a better idea of how you can utilize the BlueGiga module on their board, here's the link to the BLE112 datasheet. 

If your unfamiliar with the BLE112-A module, here are the essential specs:

Key Features

Bluetooth 4.0, single mode compliant

- Supports master and slave modes

- 4+ simultaneous connection in master mode

Integrated Bluetooth low energy stack

- GAP, GATT, L2CAP, SMP

- Bluetooth low energy profiles

Flexible and simple in-module development:

BG Profile Toolkit™, BG Script™ or C language

Radio performance

- TX power: +4 dBm to -23dBm

- RX sensitivity: -87dBm to -93dBm

Ultra low current consumption

- Transmit: 27mA (0 dBm)

- Sleep mode 3: 0.4uA

Programmable 8051 processor for embedding full

applications

Bluetooth end product, CE, FCC and IC qualified

Bluetooth Low Energy Features

Bluetooth 4.0 single mode compliant radio

Master and slave mode support

L2CAP, GAP, ATT and GATT support

Security manager

Advertising, broadcasting, connections

Built-in profiles

Hardware Features

Bluetooth low energy radio

Integrated antenna, U.FL connector or RF pin

8051 microcontroller

- 8 KB RAM

- 128 KB flash

1-2 x UART

1-2 x SPI

USB 2.0 device

3 x PWM

3 x timer

Analog comparator

Integrated op-amp

Integrated battery monitor and temperature sensor

GPIO and AIO

Electrical Characteristics

Transmit : 27mA (0 dBm)

Receive: 19.6mA

Sleep (timer active): 1.5uA

Sleep (wake-up pin): 0.4uA

Operating voltage: 2.0-3.6V

What really attracts me to this project is the price point and that the tod Development Kit is a is a blank canvas. Other development kits include sensors and extras that are great and allow me to evaluate firmware for controlling those additions if my project uses them. However, kits with those included sensors and add on modules do not allow me to truly prototype my own electronics. 

The tod Development Kit is a solid foundation that allows me to add the sensors and electronics I am building my project around quickly and easily thanks to the three 2x5 headers. Being able to jump right into Bluetooth 4.0 firmware development at a fraction of the cost of any alternative is where the tod Development kit excels. With the tod Smart Beacon costing only a few dollars more than a single BLE112A chip, this is a very affordable way to connect your project to the web using Bluetooth 4 or to get started developing your own Bluetooth 4 solution.

  

The Kickstarter Project hit it's funding goal with 13 days left and as of today is almost 150% funded with 3 days to go until the project closes on June 3rd. There are several options for getting the tod Development Kit including a Supported Developer reward where the Rowdy Robot team will help you work out your own solution with Skype and Email support with their hardware and software engineers. The team has indicated that they will be launching a Development Community where for hardware and software developers can access spec sheets, white papers and interact with others to create, expand and hack the tod Smart Beacon.  

While they will most likely offer a retail solution down the road, it usually takes time for these projects to fulfill their commitments to backers so don't wait to get yours. I've spoken with the Rowdy Robot team and they are very enthusiastic about what the Kickstarter Crowd has helped them accomplish and to move into the next phase as the project comes to a close. With the first step being a launch of the official website at http://todhq.com and the release of the Development Community at http://opentod.org ahead of their initial product shipments.   

For more information and to Pre-Order your tod Development Kit visit the project page today.

Checking out the ConnectBlue Bluetooth Low Energy Platform Module OLP425 Development Kit

ConnectBlue recently released a Development Kit for their OLP425, Bluetooth Low Energy Platform Module. I ordered a few of them a few weeks ago and just received the shipping confirmation.

The OLP425 is a Bluetooth low energy single-mode platform module. It has a mounting options for a battery holder, a temperature sensor, accelerometers and other custom sensors, this combination makes the OLP425 a complete stand-alone product that requires no additional hardware other than a battery and a housing.

ConnectBlue has based the OLP425 on the Bluetooth low energy SoC TI CC2540 and is ready for the implementation of your own custom software using the Bluetooth low energy profiles, embedded in the module and as the module is fully radio type approved for Europe, US and Canada you don't have to deal with that.

I can't wait to get my hands on these modules this week, check back soon for an update!