Ashish Patel

This past month has been busy working to finish off a long time project, known as the FinalFabric Framework. FinalFabric is a web-based application and service development framework that was built using open-source tooling, such as PHP and PostgreSQL. The framework’s plug-in architecture makes it very simple to throw support for other open-source technologies into the system as you need it, or even writing custom modules to extend the system.

I’ve been writing the engine for the framework for the past few years now, since March 2003, in my spare time. Over this time I decided to implement a real solution to show to true value of FinalFabric. So just like everyone else in the world we created a Content Management System (CMS). The CMS is a collection of specialized plug-ins written to do CMS-related functions. I primarily wanted this to ease my work of making websites and it has paid off. In a week I can throw up 10-20 websites easily, before that would take me atleast a month or two to do.

This website, pateltech.com, uses the lastest version of FinalFabric and the set of plug-ins that form the CMS. The company that helped push for this framework and contributed a lot of resources, BlueShift Innovations, is now using this framework too. You can view it on their website http://www.blueshiftsoftware.com.

We’re already getting several other people to run the system, and so far the feedback is great. You can tell which sites use the system by looking for the “powered by FinalFabric” logo.

If you would like to learn more about the system please email me at ashishp@blue-shift.ca

The ever so anticipated interview between Team Podbot and MAKE magazine was released today. Its great to see the publicity that the robot got in the past few days, and hey my name was on this article!

Mack D. Male and Dickson Wong – are the two guys that brought the robot to Gnomedex. Andrew Ng and Ashish Patel – the two guys that worked with them on the project in Edmonton, AB, Canada.

This article has some good pictures of the Podbot, even under the hatch. You can see the part of the robot I worked on. Here is a quick synopsis of how it works from a technical stand point:

The on-board tablet pc is a Toshiba Portege M200, and the controller tablet we’re using is a Compaq TC1000. The Podbot has a USB hub inside that connects the webcam, ground effects (neon lights) and the serial connector (that connects to the circuit board for controlling the motors). The two back wheels have a servo motor for each, and are powered by a 6V lead-acid battery. The circuit board is powered by a 5V battery and was built from scratch. The Podbot is controlled over wifi, and the communication protocol we’re using is SOAP messaging implemented by Microsoft’s Web Services Enhancements 2.0. Everything is written in C# and .NET.

You may have heard of some buzz words lately: “Blogging” and “Podcasting”. Although they are simple concepts they can be very addictive

Anyways, my good friends Mack Male and Dickson Wong are going to Gnomedex 5.0 in Seattle this week. The have been working with Podcasting for a while at www.blogosphereradio.com. A few months ago they came up with an idea to make podcasting more mobile! In doing so, they wanted to create a robot to display at the Gnomedex 5.0 conference to help in podcasting and promote some of their software tools.

I worked on the robot with the two of them and Andrew Ng. I build the embedded system, Andrew did the mechanical work, and Mack and Dickson worked on the tablet to tablet software and podcasting tools. Below are some pictures of the robot..yes i’m leaking them! haha No one but the four of us and Tod Maffin (CBC Radio) has seen it. There is a big buzz going on right now on many blogs of people anticipating the release of the robot at the conference…some excited…some skeptical.

The robot in my words is HOT! It handles like an RC car but has the capabilities to podcast over a wireless network! (I’m such a geek). Its got ground effects and metallic trims (…it looks like we took it to China town and supped it up)!

The Podbot has been getting quite a bit of publicity lately at Gnomedex 5.0. Check out the related links below for articles.