Like Gus said, it’s not everybody that can use a solder iron (I consider myself in that category). Not a lot of people, even .Net programmer, know about NETMF and even less about Gadgeteer. I do my part promoting Gadgeteer (http://www.dotnetmontreal.com/events/79136372/), don’t know if it will bring someone to Gadgeteer, but at least people will know about it…
I agree to find Microsoft very quiet about MF and Gadgeteer. Next week we have the Techdays in France. Over 300 sessions about Microsoft world. And only one session about MF and one about Gadgeteer.
If I worked for MS, I would feel uncomfortable than GHI looks more involved with the community than MS itself (that’s my feeling, because I come more often here to find news and answers than on MS sites)
GHI is more involved than MS! MS maybe has around 4 people involved with MF. GHI has a thriving business with many more people.
It’s simply a research project for MS, and an old one at that. The SPOT initiative that gave birth to NETMF died a long time ago.
I believe there still is a Gadgeteer research team at MS Cambridge and there is a .Net Gadgeteer station to play with on the third floor of that building as well, but certainly there are more Gadgeteer dudes outside of Microsoft then inside, but that is how it supposed to be, but some more help from Microsoft would be nice.
Some more advertising/marketing would be nice. After all, this is about getting more people using .NET & Visual Studio. From their standpoint, its about getting people on their tooling.
The downside, I guess, is that people may have an aversion to something that is too closely tied to the evil empire (as some see it).
@ andre.m - I think you are missing the point. It is the beauty of the platform - once you have discovered it you don’t really need much help. We are talking about initial discoverability. This is where MS can/should use their massive PR machine to promote it.
A little more help in promoting the technology, for example when was the last time http://www.netmf.com/gadgeteer/ was updated, when a site looks abandoned, it doesn’t bode well for the technology its associated with.
Twitter is another good comparison, the last tweet from @ netgadgeteer was last summer, if someone even farts at Raspberry Pi there is an instant tweet about how sweet it smells. Raspberry Pi’s marketing and branding is the Apple of registered charities, which is another reason I question its registered charity status.
ROFL !!!
Duke has it bang on. I’ve said it before and I will say it again all of us need to be posting tweeting plus 1ing everything gadgeteer related.
I’ve been really surprised by the response to my DSLR module with a few plus 1’s from people active in the arduino space.
Yes MS need to spread a little love on the gadgeteer main site. Maybe Gus can give Kerry H a nudge ? Hey we should encourage all makers of any .netmf hardware to do the same.
But we can’t rely on them and we must do our bit to evangelise.
You know when is the only time I saw raspberry pi in a project? It was someone who built a device with a display and some relays. He used the pi to connect a display but then controlling pins was too difficult so he added an arduino to handle the relays!
We all know that any gadgeteer board could have replaced both, pi and arduino, but he didn’t know.
What is sad is that when I started explaining how to do his project easier and I said .NET, he rolled his eyes and said no Microsoft thanks! This is very sad, even more sad that he couldn’t control the pins on his pi but he still rather use arduino hack and not do it the good way, simply because of some idea in his head.
Yes pi and duino have thier good uses but they are too popular that they are used where netmf and gadgeteer can do much better.
@ Gus
I have to laugh about the continued existence of the “I Hate Microsoft cult”. I thought that crap was over.
I think I need to organize a hate cult. What can we hate? …
I have it! Who would like to join a “I hate haters cult?”. Of course, we can not have any meetings, or
do anything productive, since we hate each other.
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[ul]Time-lapse photography controller rig: Electronics - RasPiLapse
Audiobook player (no music/mp3/wav module/shield required): The One Button Audiobook Player | Michael Clemens
Simpsons doorbell: https://conoroneill.net/2012/11/01/the-raspberrypi-doorbell-of-dooooooooommmmmmmm/
Pandora internet radio player: http://www.instructables.com/id/Pandoras-Box-An-Internet-Radio-player-made-with/?ALLSTEPS
Gmail inbox notifier: Raspberry Pi Physical Gmail Notifier - MitchTech | MitchTech
AirPlay receiver: Turn a Raspberry Pi Into an AirPlay Receiver for Streaming Music in Your Living Room
Moose that speaks your tweets: http://moose.torchbox.com/
Raspberry Pi embedded into a DSLR: http://davidhunt.ie/?p=2641
DeviantArt picture frame: Switching To Linux: Raspberry Pi - Daily Deviations Picture Frame
MAME coffee table: http://www.instructables.com/id/Coffee-Table-Pi/?ALLSTEPS[/ul]
(I’d link a webserver, but that’s kinda cheating… It runs Linux, after all…)
Yes, most/all of these could have been done with Gadgeteer, Arduino, or any other microcontroller, but generally not as cheaply (certainly not with Gadgeteer, which comes in as pretty much the MOST EXPENSIVE option).
Apart from the “I hate anything MS” camp, whats the REAL barrier for Gadgeteer? Devices like the PandaII and Netduino are comparible price wise. So is it that despite all the goodness that gadgeteer brings to the table it’s just too expensive? Or is it just a level of perception? Maybe we should do some comparisons.
Here is an example to build a Smoke monitoring station (i havent added an alarm here)
Cerberus $29.95
Power Module $9.95
Gas Sense module $14.95
time to put it together $1.75 (based on $35 per hour pay rate if thats any where close)
Time to do the coding $1.75
Done for a total of $58.35
Same on an RPi
Pi $35.00
Mq3 $4.95 Sparkfun
Gas Sense Breakout board $0.95
Time to put it together 35 mins $20 (based on 35 bucks an hour time cost for soldering and testing etc)
Time to do the coding (This is a guess but say 30 mins or someone who knows what they are doing) $17.50
Done Total $78.40
Now which is faster, easier and cheaper? Yes there is an argument against this (pi coding time and soldering) but if you are wanting to proto an idea with the minumum of fuss and cost. Gadgeteer is the best way to go. Even if you reduce the time for soldering eveerything together and coding its still highly comparable cost wise.
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I would like to know that Steve Ballmer will not wake up one morning and say that MF will never be anything else than a Microsoft Research Project for Microsoft. If so, why companies will invest into this technology ?
It’s like the mess they did with XNA. 4 years of hope to get just a “What ? You’re still using that ??”
They show us their new ecosystem with Win8/WinPhone8/Xbox3.
And they even talked about Home Automation. But… c’mon you already have your solution, what’s wrong with you !!?
(if I remember when MF was out some company made a TV remote controller with MF inside. Was it Logitech ?)
Anyways, I think MS is not smart with hardware. Look at Kinect, at the beginning they were thinking “huh! Why people will hack it, that’s stupid!” And now you have the great equation :
1 - Kinect
2 - School/home Projects
3 - ???
4 - Profit
(I think, talking about MS management make me always angry…)
No, he is comparing creating the same project with both platforms.
You also need to consider after I’m done a project I can quickly tear down my project and re-use the modules without having to unsolder them etc. More time and material advantages for Gadgeteer.
does it matter?
If it’s commercial then time = $$'s so if you can prototype faster you are winning
Well I’m not going the bother posting in this thread again for arguments sake.
For me Gadgeteer is what I want to use and I will be doing what I can to help promote it in the wider field.
So as the two Ronnies famously said:
So it’s “Goodnight” from me.
And it’s “Goodnight” from him.
Goodnight!