Toes to the Edge

Voting is taking place now for the finalists in the Concept2 Video Contest. The contest started out slow, but the quality of videos has picked up over the last 3 weeks. The final videos are all pretty funny, but I thought ‘Erging, it’s the cool thing to do, ‘Row-Blots’, and ‘Concept2 Model D Montage’ were the best.

‘Tame the Erg’ gets an honorable mention too.

Take a break from that winter training and check out the videos.

Now that our local ergatta is over, I was able to work on and release a new Beta version of ErgMate.

The first official release will be soon. The program is stable and I am mostly tweaking it and the documentation.

Changes since the last release:
o tweaked power 10 timing – it now calls the stroke number just before the catch in a more reliable manner
o added power 10 / 20 clips that count down ( counting up was already present )
o added heart-rate monitor support
o added ability to select different voices for each status clip
o improved the quality of voice clips
o cleaned up MP3 tag display
o cross-fade works better when sampling clips
o added ability to change sound drivers

wxGlade has an option for ‘overwrite sources’ in the application dialog:

I normally have it off, but when doing some exploratory testing I enabled it. This morning I was working on my main application and regenerated the code. Guess what? Yes, it overwrote every gui class. Three things led to this:

1. I had assumed the overwrite setting was stored in the .wxg file (it is part of the configuration for a given application.)
2. My main wxsGlade window is sized so that option is not normally visible.
3. The value for ‘overwrite sources’ is actually a global configuration.

So BE CAREFUL with this option. Fortunately, a svn update brought the code back to where it was just a few minutes earlier minus a minor gui change.

I just noticed that my wxPython application looks different after creation of an exe with Py2Exe. The image on the left is the application running under the normal python interpreter. The one on the right is the same application after creation of an exe with Py2exe.

Notice:
1. The dark gray below the Music label instead of white.
2. The area around Music is inset in the exe version.
3. The splash handle separator is different, it looks more 3D in the Py2EXE version.

This is with wxPython 2.8.1.1.

I’d guess there is a simple solution, but I’m not finding it. Any ideas?

Edit:
Solution is at: http://wiki.wxpython.org/index.cgi/DistributingYourApplication

Just finished wrapping up the first Beta Version. A little more testing and a few additions to the help file this evening and ErgMate will go beta tomorrow morning. I am stoked. There is a preliminary screencast showing an overview of the application coming too.

Since the last update:
o simulated erg disconnects and closes when connecting to a real erg
o added reset that works with real erg and simulated erg
o updated MP3 tag reading to support ID3v2 tags
o names of state clips are now editable
o fixed README file viewing when setup runs
o cleaned up overall look and feel
o added help file and About box with credits and revision information
o created a screencast

A discussion over on the Business of Software about embedded firmware testers brought this software back to mind. I created this around 1998 to exercise the firmware (and hardware) of a steer-by-wire system for power boats I was working on. It was written using Tkinter for the GUI. It sent a simple command protocol over an RS-232 link to the system. It was amazing when I brought the system over from Windows NT to the Linux development box and did not have to change a line of code. Go Python!

The original page (which is long gone, thanks way-back machine) describing it said:

his is a screenshot of an application written in Python using the TK interpreter and the Python MegaWidgets Toolkit. It communicates with an embedded module via the RS-232 serial port. We use it to exercise new circuit boards and to debug hardware problems.

Most of the windows are generic, although they do have symbolic names for important microprocessor ports such as data I/O direction. One can also enter a numeric address to work with any memory location. The Motor Drive window presents high-level functionality specific to the product being tested.

I developed the application under Windows NT. The application ran with zero source-code changes when I later moved our development platform to Linux (the serial-port classes contained support for both Linux and NT).

Marcus McElhenney and Mary Whipple have started a podcast at Row Coach Media.

The podcast on handling and recovering from mistakes is a must hear for both coxswains and rowers.

The Daily Erg has an interview with Matt Roach of Oartec. The Oartec is a new rowing simulator coming out on the market. The elevator pitch is that it “… has been designed … as a training tool to help rowers improve and practice correct rowing technique.”

It is available in Australia, North American, UK, and European dealers are coming soon.

Good to see more ways for coaches to torture^H^H^H^H train rowers on the horizon.