Here’s a fun multicultural post to hit CrackBerry on a Friday afternoon for the weekend…  two weeks back when I was in Indonesia for DevCon Asia I spent a day in Jakarta, and while there checked out a few of the electronics malls (that might as well be called BlackBerry malls as that’s honestly what they are filled with). I’ve always considered New York City to be BlackBerry capital of world, but after seeing Jakarta with my own eyes I’m not sure even NYC at its all-time BB using prime could trump where Jakarta is at right now. To quote what one local told me… "it’s social suicide to live here and not have a BlackBerry."

Check out the video above – I pieced together a bunch of the clips I grabbed while roaming around. BlackBerry Smartphones are simply for sale everywhere. I hit the shops early morning before they got too crowded, but it was pretty amazing to see the number of places (both unofficial and official) that are selling BlackBerry phones. And I barely scratched the surface in Jakarta… places like ROXY are even crazier than what’s shown in the video. In some places I went, the penetration of BlackBerry had me thinking I was at a WES (now BlackBerry World) conference. I went to one restaurant where I swear every single person had a BlackBerry sitting on the table or in hand, or both (as if they owned two BlackBerrys – in Indonesia it’s not uncommon for a person to carry two or three phones around at all times). It was definitely an experience to remember. Enjoy the video!

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. BlackBerry in Indonesia – A day in the electronics malls of Jakarta! (video)

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

When it comes to gadgets, I tend to be a late adopter, usually due to a combination of (1) being too cheap to spend money on the newest gizmo and (2) being overwhelmed with the number of options when it comes to gizmos and succumbing to analysis paralysis and putting off the decision. I finally bought a used Xbox (original) on eBay shortly before the X360 was released. I bought myself a shiny new iMac … three years ago. That was also about the time I last purchased a cell phone, a Motorola RAZR which was already outdated. One of these days I want to get a DSLR camera, an iPad, maybe upgrade my computer.

I tell you this to explain that my reasons for not having lots of gadgets isn’t always—or even usually—altruistic. Yes, I’m all for conservation and being green, which gets on the nerves of many of my Midwestern neighbors who don’t understand why I would choose to ride my bike when I have a perfectly good minivan. Let’s face it—environmental concerns aren’t really the reason I don’t own an X360 yet.

But maybe they should be.

Annie Leonard of the Story of Stuff Project has a new cartoon on the Story of Electronics. The Story of Stuff isn’t all environemental, but it talks about the lifecycle of products—where things come from and where they go, how companies lower prices by externalizing costs (i.e., passing costs along to the cheap labor and exploited nations where we get resources). It’s a thought-provoking story and if you haven’t seen the original I encourage you to visit the site and check it out. Watch it with your kids!

For those of us who deal with gadget lust, though, this new entry is particularly significant. Yeah, maybe it’ll make you feel a little guilty but that’s a good thing from time to time, right? While I think the problems Leonard raises don’t have any easy solutions, it is certainly worth considering and starting a conversation about these issues.

Or, at the very least, you can use this next time your teenagers ask why you won’t buy them new cell phones.

[via TreeHugger]

View full post on GeekDad

Jacky’s Electronics sees 15% sales jump in the first four days of Gitex Shopper
The first four days of Gitex Shopper proved to be positive for Jacky’s Electronics Jacky’s Electronics , the UAE’s number one multi-brand electronics retailer, after experiencing a 15 percent increase in sales as compared to the same period last year.

Read more on Zawya

Have you ever cracked open that broken gadget or toy and looked at the cool components inside, and wondered what they did and how? Have you ever thought about perhaps figuring out which component has burned out and replacing it or turning that gadget into something else? If so, you really need to check out Make: Electronics, the ultimate guide to learning about electronics.

I’ve read a bunch of how-to books on the subject and most of them start easy for the noobs, but then quickly ramp up to EE-level complexity, causing the reader’s eyes to glaze over — it’s no longer fun. By contrast, Make: Electronics starts the easiest, and while the projects likewise become more and more challenging, the book never stops being fun.

Case in point: author Charles Platt guides the reader through the silly-sounding but absolutely necessary process of blowing up, wrecking, shorting out and otherwise destroying electronic components. Think about it, how can you truly know your way around a soldering iron unless you know what a fried LED, a blown fuse, or a hosed capacitor look and act like? And the best way to learn is by doing.

The core of the book, however, is the collection of 36 experiments, each more challenging than the last. As mentioned, the beginning experiments are truly inclusive — the first one simply involves sticking the leads of a 9-volt battery onto your tongue. Bzzt. Nothing easier. You don’t even solder until Experiment 12 fer goshsake… of course the author includes a lengthy tutorial on the subject.

Here are some sample experiments:

#10: Transistor Switching. I liked this one because it is a very basic experiment that gets you using a transistor, the most basic form of semiconductor. It’s a simple project: just turning on a LED, but it’s the sort of thing that prepares you for much more challenging projects: it’s the transistor, not the switch, that turns on the LED.

#16 is the first that deals with an integrated circuit chip, a 555 timer. This is a great chip to start with — over a billion 555s are produced every year and they have a million uses including timekeeping as well as precise oscillations such as one might find in a music-making device.

#23 uses 3 IC chips to create a random die roller. As a gamer, this topic is near and dear to my heart. I especially like it because it has a (relatively) practical purpose. You might really need to roll a d6 and not have one around.

While the experiments are king, the non-experiment parts of the book are extremely robust. There are bios of famous inventors, historical explanations, as well as a heaping helping of theory: magnetism, desktop power generation, coils, motors, you name it, Platt covers it. He even goes into the basics of programming microcontrollers. However, he never lets you get bogged down with theory — it doesn’t get in the way of the book’s flow.

Other than the blowing-stuff-up aspect, the most fun in the book are Platt’s neat cartoons. The story goes that Platt drew the cartoons with the expectation that a professional illustrator would redo them for the book, but the editors found them too charming to merit a redo.

The last thing I want to write about is the cost and effort involved with buying the hardware you need to perform the experiments found in the book. Yes, you’d have to buy resistors, potentiometers, LEDs, and so on. The good news is that Platt provides an equipment list for every project, allowing you to buy just what you need so you don’t have to drop a bunch of bucks from the get-go. Conversely, if you do want to pick up everything you need in one fell swoop, you can grab the Make: Electronics Components Pack 1 and Components Pack 2 from the Maker Shed, which not only feature all the parts you’d need to do the experiments, but also include compartmentalized boxes for easy storage.

The bottom line is that Platt makes a difficult subject fun — between the goofy cartoons, the clear writing and blowing stuff up combined with incredible amounts of information and enjoyable experiments make Make: Electronics a must-have for anyone who wants to learn electronics.

[Full disclosure: I'm a contributor to Make: Online and write for MAKE Magazine, both of which are really excellently cool. Those folks are the cats behind this book, but I had nothing to do with it.]

View full post on GeekDad

Have you ever cracked open that broken gadget or toy and looked at the cool components inside, and wondered what they did and how? Have you ever thought about perhaps figuring out which component has burned out and replacing it or turning that gadget into something else? If so, you really need to check out Make: Electronics, the ultimate guide to learning about electronics.

I’ve read a bunch of how-to books on the subject and most of them start easy for the noobs, but then quickly ramp up to EE-level complexity, causing the reader’s eyes to glaze over — it’s no longer fun. By contrast, Make: Electronics starts the easiest, and while the projects likewise become more and more challenging, the book never stops being fun.

Case in point: author Charles Platt guides the reader through the silly-sounding but absolutely necessary process of blowing up, wrecking, shorting out and otherwise destroying electronic components. Think about it, how can you truly know your way around a soldering iron unless you know what a fried LED, a blown fuse, or a hosed capacitor look and act like? And the best way to learn is by doing.

The core of the book, however, is the collection of 36 experiments, each more challenging than the last. As mentioned, the beginning experiments are truly inclusive — the first one simply involves sticking the leads of a 9-volt battery onto your tongue. Bzzt. Nothing easier. You don’t even solder until Experiment 12 fer goshsake… of course the author includes a lengthy tutorial on the subject.

Here are some sample experiments:

#10: Transistor Switching. I liked this one because it is a very basic experiment that gets you using a transistor, the most basic form of semiconductor. It’s a simple project: just turning on a LED, but it’s the sort of thing that prepares you for much more challenging projects: it’s the transistor, not the switch, that turns on the LED.

#16 is the first that deals with an integrated circuit chip, a 555 timer. This is a great chip to start with — over a billion 555s are produced every year and they have a million uses including timekeeping as well as precise oscillations such as one might find in a music-making device.

#23 uses 3 IC chips to create a random die roller. As a gamer, this topic is near and dear to my heart. I especially like it because it has a (relatively) practical purpose. You might really need to roll a d6 and not have one around.

While the experiments are king, the non-experiment parts of the book are extremely robust. There are bios of famous inventors, historical explanations, as well as a heaping helping of theory: magnetism, desktop power generation, coils, motors, you name it, Platt covers it. He even goes into the basics of programming microcontrollers. However, he never lets you get bogged down with theory — it doesn’t get in the way of the book’s flow.

Other than the blowing-stuff-up aspect, the most fun in the book are Platt’s neat cartoons. The story goes that Platt drew the cartoons with the expectation that a professional illustrator would redo them for the book, but the editors found them too charming to merit a redo.

The last thing I want to write about is the cost and effort involved with buying the hardware you need to perform the experiments found in the book. Yes, you’d have to buy resistors, potentiometers, LEDs, and so on. The good news is that Platt provides an equipment list for every project, allowing you to buy just what you need so you don’t have to drop a bunch of bucks from the get-go. Conversely, if you do want to pick up everything you need in one fell swoop, you can grab the Make: Electronics Components Pack 1 and Components Pack 2 from the Maker Shed, which not only feature all the parts you’d need to do the experiments, but also include compartmentalized boxes for easy storage.

The bottom line is that Platt makes a difficult subject fun — between the goofy cartoons, the clear writing and blowing stuff up combined with incredible amounts of information and enjoyable experiments make Make: Electronics a must-have for anyone who wants to learn electronics.

[Full disclosure: I'm a contributor to Make: Online and write for MAKE Magazine, both of which are really excellently cool. Those folks are the cats behind this book, but I had nothing to do with it.]

View full post on GeekDad

EU Legislators Advise Review of PVC, BFR Use in Electronics
The safety of PVC, BRFs and other chemicals used by the electronics industry should be reviewed, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee says. European Union – European Parliament – Business – European Commission – Government

Read more on PC World