Archive for the ‘projects’ Category:
15 Nov
If the apk is not available for download yet, you can build it yourself with the fix from here.
Step 1 - Grab the source from svn -
svn checkout http://azilink.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ azilink-read-only
Step 2 - Update the UdpDriver.java per this azilink issue.
Step 3 - Build and install the apk
# this will give you a build.xml file
android update project --target 2 --path /path/to/your/azilinkdownload/
# after plugging in your device and from your azilink project directory
ant debug install
Step 4 - Install Open VPN
sudo apt-get install openvpn
Step 5 - Grab the azilnk.ovpn file from the downloads section.
Place somewhere you won't lose it.
Step 6 - Copy this resolv.azilink file to the same place as the azilink.ovpn
Step 7 - Copy this azilink script to somewhere you can get to it
Step 8 - Start azilink on your phone.
Step 9 - Run the script from step 7.
That's it.
24 Jan
It can't be a shock to any of you that after many months (wait - more like a full year) of running VIN API completely free and out-of-pocket, it is time to monetize. As I am sure most of you know, the back-end data is quite pricey. For example, a monthly subscription for a "lite" data set (your typical year, make, model, engine type, etc) at one of the better known distributors would run you about $260.00 a month for ~800 VIN decodings. This is some very expensive data at 32.5 cents a VIN. Some of you that use our API are running 50,000+ VINs through in a weekend, that is $16,000! Wow!
Ok, so what did we decide to do? Well first, and most importantly, we decided to keep the service up and running; for a while there it was looking pretty bleak and if you take a second to look at the numbers (financially) you can understand why. Anyway, to be as fair as possible, we did not feel this could be monetized as a subscription-based product, some months you need 500,000 VINs and some only a 1,000. Looking at the data for year, we had many questions - what plan would you pick? should the plan rollover it's unused decodings?
We discovered a lot of complexity in the subscription model, so we decided to setup the pay as you go plan, where you buy your decodings at various bulk levels. For instance, you could buy in groups of 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 such that you would realize savings on a price-per-VIN basis the larger the group you purchase. There is no use policy either, so you can sit on the VINs for as long as you want, or you can even buy decodings the day (even the minute) before you need them. No monthly credit card bill, no rollovers, just simple "buy what you need," and if you buy in bulk, you save.
Another consideration in doing this was having to maintain soft limits. For example, if the user purchases the 5,000 VINs per month plan, and the their site does well this month and they need 6000 VINs, should they have chosen the 10,000 VIN plan? We didn't think so, we figured no hard limit, just soft limits, and after the soft limit is hit, we would charge the additional VINs at the current rate per VIN to the user's next month's bill. We tried to explain this to a few current users that are helping us come up with reasonable rates and they were not all that thrilled about it. So we had a problem, we did not want users to pay for what they did not need, but at the same time we did not want to cut users off in the middle of a month when they hit their limit. That entire idea had to be scrapped and along with it went the idea behind the subscription plan itself. We like it though, it's simple now - buy your decodings and use your decodings, we will email you if you are getting low and may want to add decodings to your account.
Subscription models are great for static resources and static services, but not a single one of our customers decodes the same number of VINs each month, so it just won't work. So onward and upward, pay as you go and regardless of how the other API providers offer their service, we are excited to be a little different and lot cheaper as you will soon find out.
Enjoy!
17 Jan
Thanks go to Michael for sharing his hard work with the rest of you VIN API and PHP developers 
I hope this helps -
13 Jan
A few of our VIN API customers have been kind enough to take our Ruby and curl examples and come up with .NET and PHP implementations.
Here is a VB .NET example:
And for PHP, you have this:
Hope this helps and if you have examples for other programming languages, please let us know.
13 Jan
We've just finished adding A LOT more details to VIN API's result set. This time we've added things like MPG, MSRP, cargo room/volumn, etc. See the full list below, it is very comprehensive.
If you use ruby (look for a future post with .NET and PHP examples), and want the complete dataset, you would setup your ActiveResource like this:
And then call our API like this:
The only change (for those of you who have already implemented phase I) is to send in a "complete" parameter with value of "true" ... upon doing so, VIN API will send you the complete dataset versus the basic (and default) dataset.
The results would look like this (in XML) and be prepared because it is lengthy:
That's it, just thought I'd share VIN API's Phase II.
05 Jan
It was very strange, I got a new 2 TB external USB drive for Christmas and I noticed a number of windows (nautilus windows) opening up throughout the night. So I would wake up to find 20 - 30 windows opened to the media mount directory (/media). Overtime and watching the logs, I noticed that the new USB drive was disconnecting itself and then reconnecting. As it would reconnect and mount, the new mount point /media/<some long character string> would pop open in a nautilus window. When the drive would eventually disconnect, the opened nautilus window would no longer have access to the data and would display contents from one directory up (/media). After a couple days I finally found the answer and tried it and it worked as advertised.
For those having the same problem, this is where I found the solution you see below.
$ sudo sdparm --clear STANDBY -6 /dev/sdb
# note that your device could be something else, for example - /dev/sd<something>
And if you get an error, something like this:
change_mode_page: failed fetching page: Power condition
Then you should be able to use hdparm instead, like this:
sudo hdparm -S 0 /dev/sdb
07 Sep
Just a quick note about the Open Flash Chart II plugin for Rails and Rails 3. Rails 3 did a 180 with regards to ERB tags and security. Everything is now considered unsafe HTML. So where we used to be able to do <%= @graph %>, we have to now do <%= @graph.html_safe %>.
Thanks go to kendagriff.
19 Feb
UPDATES:
See Phase II details for complete dataset information.
Take a look at the PHP examples and the .NET examples.
And ... while it's been great being able to give this information away freely for about a year now, we have to share some of the cost with our users, so please read about our pricing model.
END UPDATES
VIN API came about through lots of work on a current project of ours - Mr. Quotey. We are dealing with auto insurance and wanted a way to decode VINs. The other solutions we found (API-wise) were too expensive for our small, unfunded startup. So like the way most great things come about, we decided to build our own VIN decoding API.
Using VIN API:
This is explained in detail at VIN API's site, but I will give you a look at what it does here.
If you use Ruby on Rails like I do, then you have the option to use ActiveResource:
Then you can use it like this:
Current Limitations:
Right now each account is limited to 20 VIN requests a month, we are looking to take it slow and prevent abuse. If you do need more VIN decodings a month, feel free to let us know at Mr. Quotey, we'd be happy to up the max for your account.
Where to next?:
It is too soon to really tell. We'd like your feedback and to know if this service is useful. If it gets enough buzz, we would probably pursue it a bit more and drop the monthly limitations.
06 Jan
I was asked recently (well sort of) to give an example of saving an image to the server. If you look at teethgrinder's example for this, you will see that he has made available an external interface to do just that - POST your graph as png raw data to your server for storage. This has many benefits such as saving the image for use in a PDF report or for printing, since we know at times it is a bit troublesome to print the embedded flash object.
I think the main problem people are having with this is the receiving of the image data post - see the upload_image method below. Also, teethgrinder's example never really says where to make the post_image() call. So I touch on both in the code below.
Here is an example of the png that is saved when I did this for the chart in the previous example:
Well, let's just get right in to the code.
The controller contains the same code as my last post with only a few minor changes to the index method and the addition of the upload_image method.
In the controller, I have this:
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class TestItController < ApplicationController
def index
# note the user of open_flash_chart_object_from_hash instead of just open_flash_chart_object
# this allows you to pass in the id of the div you want the the chart to be in
# this is useful for when we need to findSWF by this id
@graph = open_flash_chart_object_from_hash("/test_it/chart", :div_name => "my_chart")
end
# added to recieve the post data for the OFC png image of the OFC graph
def upload_image
name = "tmp_image.png" || params[:name]
# the save_image method that is provided by the OFC swf file sends raw post data, so get to it like this
data = request.raw_post
File.open("#{RAILS_ROOT}/tmp/#{name}", "wb") { |f| f.write(data) } if data
render :nothing => true
end
def chart
# same code from here - http://pullmonkey.com/2010/01/05/open-flash-chart-ii-x-axis-date-and-time/
...
end
end
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So just note the use of open_flash_chart_object_from_hash() in the index method, this way we can pass in the id of the div.
In the view, I have this:
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<%= javascript_include_tag 'swfobject.js' %>
<%= @graph %>
<%= save_as_image("http://localhost:3000/test_it/upload_image?name=tmp.png", :id => "my_chart") %>
<br/>
<%= button_to_function "Save Image", "post_image()" %>
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Really the only difference from what we would normally have in our view is that I am using the save image setup method that was added to the open flash chart ruby on rails plugin in the last couple hours (as of this post). The save_image method takes some arguments, mainly the url to post the image data to and the id of the chart we setup in the controller.
04 Jan
A long time overdue, but I've managed to get everything updated to the new version of Teethgrinder's open flash chart.
I've also started tagging everything, so if you notice any problems trying to do anything from Teethgrinder's examples, then first check that you are using the latest (as of now, that is Lug Wyrm Charmer) - http://github.com/pullmonkey/open_flash_chart/tree/LugWyrmCharmer.
Make sure you are using the latest swf either from the plugin assets directory or from Teethgrinder's downloads.
