Optical Cense update

During research internship in summer, I and Vedang tested MCP2120 which improved the IR communication speed between the nodes. After summer, we became Research Assistants and continued working on this project.

So this is the latest update of the project: We have made the circuit and the layout and our PCB is ready. We made the pcb smaller and now its size is just 6 cm x 6 cm. We are currently testing various sensors and will now start working on the protocol part soon.

The images of he new PCB are below:

Front View

Top View

Bottom View

My first Field Testing experience

Today I went for my first field test with my senior who is doing is Phd. I tested stuff sitting in lab but to go out and sweat it out is a totally crazy experience.

We were testing a multi-hop protocol using Xbee on the nodes for communication. The specified range for Xbee is about 1 Km but we don’t have that much open space. So we kept the nodes at some hidden places to have some obstruction and so to test the multihop capability.

Node having Xbee

One node acted as a receiver and was connected to the laptop and was constantly giving out the received values on the ts.erminal. The intermediate node was a router which router traffic to the receiver. The transmitter node broadcasted “hello” and flooded the network. More explanation about the setup in given in the video below.

There is one more video which I will upload soon. The first field test experience was awesome and I hope I can enjoy some more of these in coming month.

AVR Dragon and STK500

Just came to know that I had taken a video on how to use AVR Dragon to program STK500. But the video is on youtube and so in continuation with last post, the video from youtube is posted here.

Debugging AVR Dragon

AVR Dragon is one of those rare commodities which everyone wants to have. Rare as in that the dragon is one of the best resource used for programming/debugging the atmel chips via JTAG or ISP.

AVR Dragon

I think I had a post about using AVR Dragon for programming STK500 but this post is about a peculiar experiment which I did which saved my research group some good amount of money. While browsing the inventory, I found a box containing around 12 dragons which were labeled as faulty. On inquiring I got to know that the guys who tested these devices used Windows and so some software update did some weird thing to the dragon. So, I embarked on a mission to find the working dragons from this stack.

Setup

So here is the procedure:

Connect the AVR Dragon to any one of the nodes which you want to program. Now type the following code in the terminal:

avrdude –v –P usb –c dragon_jtag – p atmega1281  

I had a board which had atmega1281 and used jtag for programming.

If the dragon is alive i.e. working properly, it will output the fuses of the controller.

Fuses are read if it works correctly

Out of 12 , I found 3 in a perfect working condition and saved 3 x 6000 = 18,000 INR  J

Animations !!

The most interesting thing which I did this semester was to take up a course in animation. Though I suck in designing, I thought I can learn some animation and make some short movies for fun.

But the real fun started when we were given various assignments during the lab sessions. Firstly, it took some time to familiarize myself with Adobe CS5.5 and then started making some short clips like jumping, punching, walking, etc.

The video below shows my final project. It is a bit amateurish but at the end, I learnt something new J

Btw, below are the link of other animations which I made:

Stickman Punch

Jump

Weightlifting

Walking Stickman

Whip

NI sbRIO + LabView

In my robotics course, we got a chance to play with National Instruments sbRIO robotic starter kit. It is an awesome piece of hardware having a controller and an FPGA along with heavy wheels. The image is shown below. The eyes are the ultrasonic sensor which measures the distance from the object.

Front View

The best thing about the robot is that it is coded in LabView graphical coding language and is programmed via Ethernet. LabView 

is amazing in a sense that it allows to easily run a complex code without writing a single line of code. The power of visualization which it provides is one of the best I have even seen. There are lot of inbuilt modules which represent functionality of various components like motors, encodes, sensors, etc. So just place them and connect them and voila, the code is ready.

Chassis

This post is just an overview of the hardware and software which I have been using and will write a separate post on LabView coding soon.

I have done a project on controlling this robot using IR and will share it soon.

Top View

Line Follower Robot v2 + Obstacle detector

The robotic course was offered for the first time at my institute and it was a great learning experience for both the students as well as the professor. As always the first project of any robotics course is to build a line follower robot.

LFR is like a 101 project of robotics. I had made a lfr 2 years ago but it was for fun and was very easy. This time, we made a robot using prebuilt components and it was a project worth doing.

We were given a chassis with 4 wheels and 2 motors. We had a microcontroller board with us. We had a line detecting sensor which was built using IR. An obstacle detector sensor was a Sharp distance sensor. So we had all the components ready. But the real task was how to assemble it properly. It took around a week to gel all those things together and come up with a working prototype but the time was worth investing.

I learnt about many important issues like power consumptions and sourcing which are often neglected. How to counteract the slip of the wheels, how to make motors move slowing or faster and lots of other smalls things which are very important for the proper working of the robot.

Bit untidy but it works :)

RF Controlled Robot

During my robotics course this semester, my team was given a task to build a Radio Frequency (RF) controlled robot. Many may call it a remote controlled robot. But it is one and the same thing.

So what we did: We took up a chassis with 4 wheels and 2 motors and hooked up a microcontroller board on it.  We bought a 315MHz RF transmitter and receiver module from a hobby shop. The receiver was connected to a decoder chip called HT12D and the output was HT12D was given to the microcontroller.

The remote had 4 push button switches which were connected to the HT12E Encoder chip. The encoder chip can encode up to 256 different messages. We had just 4. So the 4 push button switches were 4 logic levels and the Data out of the encoder was connected to the 315MHz transmitter module. So if none of the switches are pressed, the data out was 0000. If 2^nd switch was pressed, then 0100 and so on. Hence these messages were decoded and the robot moved according to the pattern transmitted.

Both the receiver and transmitter modules had antennas and the system worked perfectly without any lag.

Got the Job :D

Finally after a hectic schedule, time to update something..

Recently, a well known company called Qualcomm came to my university for campus placements. I have heard that campus placements are a rarity in Europe but in India, almost all well known engineering institutes have a campus placement system.

So luckily, I sat for Qualcomm. Qualcomm is one of the best technology company currently and is well known for CDMA technology. When Qualcomm came to campus for placement, we had only around 50 eligible people sitting for the interviews. I qualified for second round after passing the aptitude and technical test in the first round.

The interviews were fun altogether. I went through two rigorous rounds of interviews which lasted for 2 hours combined. The interviewer had a tremendous amount of knowledge and were grilling in on all the topics irrespective of whether it was listed on my resume or not.

So at the end of the day, 6 people qualified for the HR interview. HR interviews are pretty notorious as the kind of questions fired at you are uneasy to answer. We were told that the interviews will happen within few days. And then waiting, the days became week and finally I received the 'call'.

The interview was smooth and the next day when the results were declared, I was very elated as I got selected for the company. 'I have a job' and this feeling was very difficult to subside for some coming days.

But truly, it was a lifetime of experience to give 3 tests and 3 interviews and getting selected for one of the best companies in the world.

I am looking forward to join and waiting for that day to begin a new experience of my life :)

PS: Really thankful to my family and friends who stood by me during the whole process and gave me encouragement throughout it.

TinyOS and Meshbean

In one of my courses taken up this semester, I have to work on TinyOS and Meshbean platform. These can be considered as a part of Sensor Networks.

The Meshbean node is from Meshnetics which is now taken over by Atmel

The kit which I experimented on was given to me by my professor. The picture of one of the node is below.

One of the Meshbean nodes

The whole package which I have is

MeshBean development board is based on the 2.4 GHz ZigBit OEM Module with dual chip antenna. The board supports standard extension connectors and includes temperature, light sensors and other peripheral devices.


The ZigBit module featuring ultra small size and superior rf performance enables the board’s wireless connectivity and makes it function as a node in the ZigBee network. The MeshBean board can be configured to operate as a network coordinator or a router either by DIP-switch settings or via AT-commands. Powered by two AA batteries, the MeshBean development board comes preset with 2 frequently used sensors – temperature and illumination. The board features PCB antenna, three Status LEDs, power on/off button and two programmable buttons. (Courtesy: Internet)


So, to use these nodes for wireless communication, I needed a OS to burn into it. I chose TinyOS as it is one of the leading OS used by researchers around the world. (Another major OS is Contiki)

To learn more about TinyOS, visit http://www.tinyos.net/. It has all the latest information and an active community of developers.

Finally, I had the hardware and the OS. Now, we require a program which will help in burning the OS into the hardware. To solve this purpose, I used Meshprog. I downloaded Meshprog from here.

So with all the components ready, I successfully ran a demo application in TinyOS on Meshbean Node.

I made a small video explaining the steps to be followed and a made a working demo and uploaded it on Youtube. 

After this demo, I also configured two nodes and sent data packets at 2.4 GHz. Now, I am learning NesC, a programming language for TinyOS. With this knowledge, I can built better programs and use the nodes for various new things with an aim to create 'Internet of Things'.

On the final note, it was amazing to play with new hardware and learn something new :)

Network Simulator 2 (NS 2)

As I am doing my research in Wireless Sensor Networks, it was like a prerequisite for me to opt for a course on Network Protocols when it was offered this semester. Though the sensor nodes are easy to make and configure, the standalone nodes make no sense. It is a necessity for them to talk and this talk is controlled by some protocol. The object of a network protocol is to make these nodes efficiently talk within themselves and to the outside world.

Networks is not all about theory. And so there exists a powerful simulator to simulate protocols. This simulator is called 'Network Simulator 2'. It is one of the most used simulator among researchers in the world.

To start with NS-2, the only suitable source according to me is to read Marc Greis tutorials. (http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/tutorial/). It is an excellent source of information and has helped me to understand the simulator over past few weeks. I am using NS 2.4 but the latest version NS-3.12.1 has arrived. You can download it from here.

A snapshot of the simulator is given below. The example is taken from Marc Greis tutorial.

Now to install NS in your system, use the following commands (I am using Ubuntu 10.10 and NS 2.4)
Please note that these commands are run inside the ns folder.

./configure
make
make install

The NS-2 is an interesting tool and it has many other functionality. So to understand the power of NS-2, make sure to read Marc's tutorial.

I am working on a project in this domain and will simulate my new protocol using NS-2. When I am successful in doing that, I will share it with you guys !

Optical Cense Post Summer Update

The project on which I was working on in my summer vacation as a research internship was optical cense. I remember that I had written a post about the same at the starting of summer when this was done as a course project. I and Vedang continued this project in summer and also working on it now. We have been assigned as Research Assistants for this project.

Work progress

Previously, we tested the IrDA chip which worked at 115.2 kbps. We tested the nodes for different parameters like angular displacement, distance between nodes, vertical displacement and other parameters. Over the summer, we have improved the speed of transmission from 115.2 kbps to 312.5 kbps. The MCP2120 transmit data at 312.5 kbps. We made a circuit on a general purpose PCB to test it. We made a transmitter and receiver and tested for the same parameters while using the new chip. The image of our transmitter and receiver is below.

Transmitter node

What took us long time is ordering and receiving of the ICs. We took a week to design the new circuit and then ordered the ICs. The IC took 15 days to arrive. Then we soldered on a PCB. One thing I learned properly through my RI is how to solder properly. I also tried my hands at SMD soldering. After soldering the circuits, we tested them. As everyone knows, an electronic circuit doesn’t work at the first time. Same happened with us. Then we debugged the circuit and finally we made it working. During the summer, we also took some detours and did fun things apart from this project.

Receiver node

Overall significant work was done as the speed was doubled. Now, we are in process of making a PCB and writing a protocol for communication between multiple nodes. More updates as the work progresses. 

IELTS Experience

International English Language Testing System (http://ielts.org/) is an exam required for admission in U.K., Germany, Canada and Australia. Some US universities also accept IELTS score. I also gave my IELTS exam recently. The scoring is pretty simple. You get a band score out of 9. Nine means you are expert user. IELTS is paper based test and is administered by British Council and IDP.


I gave my exam from the IDP center (www.ieltsidpindia.com). Personally I felts that IELTS is simpler than TOEFL. I prepared for IELTS for only 1 week. Exam takes around 3 hours.


Exam Format


1. Listening
2. Reading
3. Writing
4. Speaking (On a different day)


Listening is easy and the recording is played for 30 min.  You get time to read the questions and hence you know what to listen in the recording. Also, the answers can be written on a paper and then additional time of 10 min is given to transfer the answers to the answer sheet. Listening is quite simple but concentration is needed. If you get stuck at one answer, then skip.  Utilize the time given for reading the questions judiciously. Note down what the answer requires and search for the answer when the recording plays. 10 mins are enough for transferring the answers, so don’t waste time to transfer answers during the 30 min period. Be careful about the tense, plural/singular, etc while answering. Also use a/the wherever required i.e. answer whatever is spoken.  Recording will not be played again, so write when you listen.


Reading is similar to TOEFL reading. 3 passages and 60 min are given. Practice for accuracy. Different question types are there and so practice sample examples for mastering them. Take your time and answer. As it is a paper based test, you can move back and forward. Also, you can underline the passage and so it is helpful in reading. Summarizing and paraphrasing are important questions and you should practice them more. 


Writing has 2 tasks. One independent where we have to write on topic and other task is to summarize a chart/graph or some given statistics. You should practice the latter one as they are a bit tricky. Also minimum words are required in each task. The former has minimum 250 words and latter has minimum 150 words. So keep the word limit in mind while writing. Total 1 hour is provided, so you can balance accordingly. One thing to note is that we have to write it on a paper. So your writing should be legible. Also, use a pencil so that you can erase when you find a typo mistake. Practice this section for getting a good score.


Speaking is done with an interviewer on a separate day. It is a 15 min task. The interviewer will ask you questions and will give you a topic to speak on. To crack this section, you should speak confidently. You should have a good vocab. Accent doesn’t matter but the pronunciation does. So, speak clearly without fumbling and repeating the same ideas/lines. The topics are easy so you don’t need a huge IQ. Common general knowledge will suffice. Keep a good body language. Speak while looking at the person in front of you. Don’t talk unless asked. Practice in front of mirror or with your friends to get a good score.


My IELTS was exactly a week after my TOEFL and so, I didn’t prepare rigorously for IELTS as I had prepared well for TOEFL. I just gave 5 practice tests and did speaking practice with my sister. 


The above is my experience for IELTS and hope it helps you. All the best !!

TOEFL: Tips and Tricks

As I am aiming for my masters in USA in the coming year, I gave my TOEFL (http://www.ets.org/toefl) which is compulsory for admission in US universities. TOEFL stands for Test Of English as a Foreign Language. It is an easy exam and one can prepare for it in 15 days (if GRE already given). I gave my exam recently and wanted to share my experience with you.

Test Format

TOEFL is generally around 4 hour’s exam. The test has 4 sections. 

1. Reading 

2. Listening 

3. Speaking 

4. Writing

30 marks for each section. Hence total exam is out of 120 marks. 

I am going to explain the sections in detail below along with how to prepare and some tips.

Reading section is relatively easy one. If you have aced your GRE Verbal part, then Reading section is easy to deal with. But beware about the questions types. They are different varieties and you need to practice examples to get familiar with it. Reading section gets over very fast, but I feel that you should utilize all your time and aim for accuracy instead of speed.  Normally you will encounter 3-5 passages.

Listening section is a bit difficult according to some people. There are 6 listening passages which have different scenarios related to academic setting. The important thing to remember is to write notes as the recording will not be played again. I first tried to memorize the conversation but then after listening to 4-5, I got mentally tired and hence note making is an important technique according to me. Don’t write each and every word.  Just scribble the gist of the sentence. Don’t be so focused on writing that you miss the recording. 

Speaking section is the difficult task according to me. I am not as fluent as I thought and I found out that while I was preparing for the exam. For effective speaking, try to speak on some topics daily as a practice. Take care that you don’t repeat the same lines, fumble with words, and mispronounce them as marks are deducted for it. Also long pauses are bad. How quick you can think on the given topic in 15 seconds is the key. So practice, practice and practice. Be confident in your speech. One approach which I took was to just speak about 2 points on a given topic. So I quickly thought of an introduction, then 2 topics' justification with examples and then a conclusion. Take care to complete in the given time or marks will be deducted. I think practice is the only key to crack this section.

Writing section is the simple for those who got a good score in their AWAs. You have to write on two topics, one integrated task and other independent task. Practicing how to write will help on the exam day. Independent writing is easy as you must have written these kinds of things in school or college. But, you should practice integrated task as it is quite difficult. 

Important points (My opinion)

1. Take full time to complete each section.

2. Mugging words like GRE is not necessary but having a good vocab is always a boon.

3. Utilize the 10 min break given after listening section to relax.

4. Choose the test center properly and in advance. My test room was congested and I could hear what other candidates spoke.

5. Many people complete their reading and listening sections fast. So they start their speaking section early. Because of this, multiple people will be speaking at the same time. So to avoid this, be patient and take full time to complete each and every section.  By the time you start your speaking test, there will be silence as most of other candidates would have completed their speaking section.

6. Another advantage is that during the 10 min break, you can overhear people speaking and can get some hints for your own task.

7. Some candidates tend to keep their headphone volumes too loud and you can hear what your neighboring candidate is hearing. This was the case with me. So concentration and focus is important.

8. At last, practice. I took up Cambridge book and gave all the 7 tests. Giving test helps to boost confidence. 

Whenever you take up a date, try to plan out as people (including me) procrastinate and start the test prep just few days/weeks before the exam. Once your date is fixed, try hard to achieve your intended score and start preparing well in advance. Also speak in English with your friends as it will ultimately help you in your TOEFL test. 

The World Wide Web is flooded with articles on TOEFL and this post is just my experience of the test. Hope this helps !!

Back with a bang !!

Finally back :D

Its been a long break since June when I wrote my last post. Many things have changed and many things have occurred since that time. So expect a lot updates soon.

I miss writing and so I have promised myself to publish at least one post per month.

Below is the list of activities happened during this period:

Research Internship successfully completed. (till July end. Really busy completing the report and remaining work. Wrote a post but didn't publish it. (lazy?))

Successfully started my last year in hope that I pass out soon. (August 1st week)

Got a job :D (2nd week of August. Worked hard for getting a placement)

Temp Teaching Assistant for Embedded Hardware Design Course (mid August: 2 weeks)

Hunting for internships (please help !!!) (Currently)

Also I am learning 2 new tools: Network Simulator 2 (NS2) and TinyOS 2.1.1 + Meshbean.

NS2 is used for simulating a wired/wireless network. So, if someone makes a protocol, then NS2 will help in simulating the protocol and it helps in visualizing it. TinyOS is a operating system made for Wireless Sensor Networks. It has networking part in it. Meshbean is a kit from Meshnetics on which TinyOS can be ported.


So currently doing experiments while learning about the two new tools.

Also one exciting news is that this time I have taken a course called Robotics Lab and we are making all sorts of robots :) So more pictures and code in coming semester !!

Btw I am a super duper soccer fan and support Man City in EPL. So this post is dedicated to their awesome team and a glorious start to the season.

Adios

Using Modela MDX-20 PCB Milling Machine

Roland Modela MDX-20 PCB milling machine is an awesome piece of hardware. This machine can be found in any FabLab around the world. It can be used for scanning 3D objects, making 3D shapes and finally making Printed Circuit Boards (PCB). This machine was recently purchased by our professor Dr. Prabhat Ranjan. As we wanted to use this machine in one of our projects, we had been given the task to run the machine. I had once used this machine in COEP FabLab, but had never used it on my own.So heres how to do that.

Modela MDX-20 in the Lab

Searching for ‘Modela PCB’ gives numerous results and I too found out 4 different methods to do the same, One of the method was to use a .png image and generate a dxf and send it to the printer. Other method used the cad.py script to visually set the parameters and send the file to modela. It used Python Imaging Library.

I used Marc Boon’s method for sending the files to modela and it worked perfectly. The same method is described in http://mlab.taik.fi/paja/?p=1874

Links:

Marc Boon method: http://fablab.marcboon.com/pcb/index.html

Manchester Fablab: http://www.fablabmanchester.org/p66/Eagle-To-Modela-Program.html

MIT method: http://fab.cba.mit.edu/content/processes/PCB/modela.html

Today finally we tested and made a demo board using the above said method. I was happy as this will definitely 

help us in our project.

Few important things to be kept in mind:

1. Give offsets correctly. The circuit is mirrored and so don’t mess up the PCB.

2. Set the Z point manually. i.e. Touch the tip of the drill bit on the PCB and then tighten the screw. 

3. Each drill size has different Design Rules (.dru) files. So, be sure of the drill bit. Also use proper bits.

4. Always use a sacrificial board beneath the PCB.

5. A particular problem we faced was that the buffer capacity of the machine was less. We were using USB to Serial converter(FTDI chip) and hence the whole file was not completely read. Hence, we had to send the data in small files.

More tips and tricks will be posted soon after we make our real project PCB.

Website up !

Today finally I bought my domain. I had initially some confusion on what to select, but finally settled for '.org'.

So, my website is at: darshshah.org

Blog: blog.darshshah.org

Email: darsh@darshshah.org

Blogger has a nice feature where we can provide our custom domain as the URL.

How to configure and start using GitHub in 10 mins

Version control systems are awesome piece of software and are really helpful in maintaining huge codes. I wanted to use such systems and even tried before, but never got any hang on it. Tortoise SVN, BitBucket, Bazaar and GitHub are some of the systems which I installed in my computer but never really used.

I recently came across an instance where I was in a desperate need to use GitHub. I had made account long ago but had never set up a repo before. This time it was essential to make a repo and push some files as I wanted to host my website on GitHub pages.  GitHub has an awesome help and support pages to get started. But the main problem is that SSH is blocked in my college because I am behind NAT (Network Address Translator). So, one of the way out was to use HTTPS for pushing to the GitHub.

Since, I was a beginner, I saw some youtube videos and googled crazily for the same but I didn’t get any accurate results and step by step technique to start with.  So this is my step wise list to start using GitHub and making pushes within 10 mins. I want to thank @viranch _mehta for helping me out.These steps are for Windows but I think it will equally work for Linux.

Right click and select Git Bash

1.       You probably must have made an account on GitHub and if not, make one!

2.       Follow the initial steps after making the account. Download cygwin and exe files for Windows.

3.       To make a repo, click on create repo and fill in the details.

4.       Now a page of settings would come. For the first timers, configure the global setting part.

Now instead of following the rest of the steps as they are for SSH, do the following:

5.       Go to the directory where you want your repo to be kept locally in your computer.

6.       Now right click and select “Git Bash”.

7.       You will get a cmd prompt window. 

8.       Now just clone the repository using https by writing:

           git clone https://path _of _repo      

          The path of the repo can be seen on the HTTP tab on the GitHub website.

HTTP address of repo

9.       Now a new folder has been created and has the name same as that of the repo in the current folder. To verify, you can see a hidden folder named .git in the repo folder. This means that git has been initialized.

10.   Now copy the files which you want to commit and push in the folder created in step 9.

11.   Now type the following on git bash

        cd  name_of_the repo

12.   Now, in this step, I have assumed that you have copied the files in the repo folder.

13.   Type:

        git add name_of_the_files

        This will add files locally.

14.   Now type:

        git commit –m “commit_msg”

        Message is required every time you commit something.

15.   Now type:

        git push origin master

       Provide the password. This will push your files to the Github servers and will be online within few seconds.

16.   Congratulations! You have successfully pushed files in your repo. You can verify the same by going to Github website.

First time push

Now the above steps are to be followed only during the first time when you clone a repo. Afterwards, just go to the folder (You can see .git hidden folder here) and right click to select “Git Bash”. Then do git add and  git commit which you did in step 13 and 14. For pushing, just write “ git push” and it will do the pushing stuff.

For later pushes

Hence this is a quick and simple way to start using GitHub within 10 mins 

Summer Saga

Summers are here. Actually they are about to get over.
I felt like writing something about myself as the blog is pretty dried up. So here's the "non-techno" post for the glorious summers.

Summer vacation provides me with some extra time to learn new things.. but alas, the summer also makes me a lazy person.

Staying in hostel with temp around 42 degree Celsius is some serious problem. Its too hot to do anything here. This is when the laziness creeps in. But altogether, I am having a time of my life. No more early morning lectures, no compulsory labs, and no more assignments. Just working on a project and then enjoying rest of the day. Sleeping late is in vogue for me and also the occasional sports sessions with the batch mates. Playing cards all night and watching an action movie on 2000 W speakers makes me a happy man. Apart from this, eating out daily and consuming non healthy junk food is on rise. But this is summer. Summer to enjoy. It feels that I have studied and worked hard for past 3 years so I am entitled to enjoy a good break in Summers.

Apart from the above mentioned things, I also do my project work. Devoting minimum 2-3 hours a day is a necessity and I am able to keep up with the target.

I am also making a website and so learning HTML/CSS to code it. Site is almost complete but yet to buy a domain name.

This is a small to-do list for the summer and hopefully I may able to achieve this:
1. Complete project
2. Try for a paper
3. Complete website
4. Give TOFEL

Seems nice and easy but lets see how much I will be able to complete in the glorious summers. Lets see how fruitful is my Summer.

Btw I am finally and officially a senior undergrad and feeling imba about it :)

Different Android Apps which communicate with Computer

As a part of applying for GSoC this year in KomodoOpenLab, I did some research on some of the open source apps or softwares which can be useful in communication between mobile phone and PC/Laptop via Bluetooth and/or WiFi interface. 

The data is summarized below. I directly copy pasted the table from my wiki page on the site. (I am a bit lazy)

App	Source / License (important!)	Notes
Gmote	Open Source	(see details below)
RemoteDroid	Free version and Paid version	§  Mouse control via phone. §  Works over WiFi network
PRemoteDroid	Open	§  It has features like secure connection, screen capture and mouse and keyboard control on phone. §  Works over WiFi and Bluetooth network.
v.:mote	Open Source	§  vmote can be used as a gamepad, mouse or keyboard. §  Website not currently accessible. §  Works over Bluetooth and WiFi
mkRemoke	Free version and Paid version	§  The website suggests that it can be used for controlling slides. §  Mouse and Keyboard control on phone. §  Works on WiFi and Bluetooth.
PaDroid	Open Source	§  Cannot find the proper website. §  Video of app [Youtube link]. §  Works over WiFi.
Free PowerPoint OpenOffice Remote	Open source	§  Control presentations on Openoffice as well as Powerpoint. §  Works over WiFi.
GRemote	Free version and Paid version	§  Website mentions that it can control any application on PC. §  Demo is available for free on its website. §  Works over WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G.
myRemote	Open Source	§  Windows Media Center can be controlled by it. §  Special features are Snapshots and Voice Input. §  Works over WiFi.
PPT Remote	Open Source	§  Specially for controlling Power point presentations. §  Works on Bluetooth and WiFi.
PPT Controller	Open Source GNU gpl v2	§  Works with PowerPoint 2007 only. §  Works over Bluetooth and WiFi.
Remote Mouse	Open Source	§  Wireless Mouse/Trackpad and Keyboard. §  Works over WiFi and 3G
Unified Remote	Free and Paid version	§  Advanced Slide presenter(PowerPoint) along with other features. §  Mouse and keyboard control available. §  Works over WiFi
Swiftp	Open Source	§  Not Maintained now. §  Basically used for file sharing over FTP.
Google TV		§  Interesting app: makes your android/iphone work as a remote control for the Google TV. §  Works over WiFi
Phone Mouse	Open Source	§  You can control only the mouse. §  Works over Bluetooth and WiFi.
PcRemote Andvance	Open Source	§  You can control mouse, keyboard and also can control slides. Best feature is that it can map android phone's sensors to the Windows 7 system. §  Works over WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G.
i-Clickr PowerPoint Remote	Open Source	§  Slide presenter supporting PowerPoint 2010, OpenOffice on Windows and Office Mac also. §  Works over Bluetooth and WiFi.
RemoteSMS	Free version and Paid version	§  Sends and receives text from PC instead of phone. §  Works over Bluetooth, WiFi and USB.
android-notifier	Open Source	§  Sends notifications to PC when certain events happen on an Android device §  Works over Bluetooth, WiFi and USB(under development).
PrinterShare	Open Source	§  Print documents using phone by printer on nearby WiFi enabled printer or a remote printer via internet. §  Works over WiFi and Internet.
androidscreencast	Open Source	§  Desktop app to control an android device remotely using mouse and keyboard. §  Works through USB.

I have written some reviews which i will update in the coming posts.