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Issue #204 July 2007
A Look Back and Forward in Tech Time
by C.J. Abate
When did you start surfing the ’Net? I began using it years ago when I first started college. At the time, I was living in an old building and sharing a room with two other students who didn’t have much experience on the ’Net either. The building was pretty low-tech in comparison to many of today’s 21st-century setups. Our study room had one light, one phone jack, no cable, and our door actually had a lock and key. (I didn’t have one of those fancy access cards that students now carry on their key chains.) To keep sane during the first week of the semester, we took turns playing video games on a small TV. But, as you can imagine, that got old quickly. That’s when we began using the ’Net for entertainment during our late-night study breaks. We’d look for sports scores, the day’s news, and info about our favorite musicians—but that was about it.
When I went to London in 1998, I found myself shot back a few years in “tech time.” The room I was living in didn’t have phone or Internet access. To send an e-mail or browse the ’Net, I had to walk across the street to a hole-in-the-wall Internet café and pay about £1 for 30 minutes of online time. If I was in the library, I had to wait in line in the PC room for a workstation to free up. It wasn’t until a few years later when I was back in the U.S. that my daily online experience began to resemble what it is today.
In this issue, we present you with two interesting articles about Internet-related design projects. Both projects prove that with a little effort, you can use your design skills to create innovative solutions to common problems.
Ever need to check your e-mail when your PC was off? In “MiniEmail” (p. 14), Alexander Mann describes how he built a compact MCU-based mail client. The quiet system—which features an Atmel ATmega32 microcontroller and a Microchip Technology ENC28J60 Ethernet controller—continually checks for messages and enables you to read them as soon as they arrive.
On page 22, Carlos Cossio describes a handy password management system. You can use the system to enter, display, and securely store all of the passwords and usernames that you use for various web sites. An added bonus is that you can program the system to automatically complete username and password fields for you when you click on your favorite security-protected web site.
Finally, note that this issue is the perfect antidote for anyone who has design contest fever. On page 55, we provide photos and descriptions of the projects that placed in the Luminary Micro DesignStellaris2006 contest. Check out the descriptions of the winning projects and then go to www.circuitcellar.com/designstellaris2006/winners/winners.html to view the contest files and more. And if you’re gearing up to enter a project in the Microchip 16-Bit Embedded Control Design Contest, be sure to read through Jeff Bachiochi’s contest primer on page 76. Jeff covers everything you need to know about Microchip’s 16-bit microcontroller and DSC families.
It’s time to put your design skills to the test. Good luck! As usual, keep me posted on your progress.
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