RFID Toys by Amal Graafstra
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RFID Toys contains step by step guides to building various RFID based projects, and stresses the concepts involved as well as the steps themselves.

RFID technologies covered include passive, low frequency 125KHz tags and readers, passive high frequency 13.56MHz, up to active, UHF 900Mhz tags and readers.

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Hey there. That guy up top is me. I'm just a guy who loves coming up with ideas and trying to make those ideas come true. I'm constantly amazed the power of a good idea has over people, the inspiration it can create, and the satisfaction you get to see it come to life, difficult and rare as that might be.

I love technology in all its forms, but for me nothing beats the power and mystery of computers and electronics. From the first day I took apart my parents' household appliances, to the day I got my first 1200 baud modem (yeah, 1.2k bps), up to today... I'm still fascinated by it.

Fascinated as I am, what drives me to tinker and code and solder things together these days has more to do with my dissatisfaction with things the way they are. I'm always thinking of ways to create or modify to make it work better (better for me). While I admire Nikola Tesla's ability to first think, then plan, and finally act, I'm more like Thomas Edison... stuck in my garage doing 10,000 trial and error runs. Sometimes though, other people might benefit from seeing those efforts and discussing some of the things I've gotten myself into. That's how I came to put up my blog, write a book called RFID Toys, and ultimately create this website. I've also put together a reader forum for RFID hobbyists, and a support site for people who use some of the software applications I've released.


Want a free RedBee Experimenter’s Kit?

Want a free RedBee Experimenter’s Kit?

August 18th, 2010

The guys over at Trossen Robotics are throwing a “not so official contest” and giving away 5 free RedBee Experimenter’s Kits. From the Trossen contest page; Here is what I’m thinking. Those of you who are interested and can pull yourselves away from your robots for a few hours can pitch for one of the [...]

Emergency SQL transaction log truncation procedure

July 22nd, 2010

Sometimes you find yourself with an MS-SQL transaction log that grows in size very rapidly, quickly out-pacing your scheduled backup/truncation routines. I found when such events occur, you can manually truncate the log file without doing a huge time/space consuming backup by issuing these commands in sequence; DBCC SHRINKFILE(‘LFLFLFLFLFLF‘,1) BACKUP LOG DDDDDDD WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY DBCC [...]

The RedBee RFID Kit is now available!!!

The RedBee RFID Kit is now available!!!

July 20th, 2010

The kit includes a RedBee RFID reader module, several RFID tags in various form factors, and a software CD with full source code for the following applications; RFID Logger – Learn programming techniques to communicate with the RedBee RFID reader. RFID Deadbolt – Enhance an electronic deadbolt to accept RFID authentication. RFID Login – Log [...]

Adjusting my dental implant

Australia Wrap-Up

June 14th, 2010

Overall the IEEE ISTAS 2010 was a great experience, but not without its challenges… more on that in a later post. For now, I just want to say my talk went off without a hitch. I had 45 minutes but I think I went through it in something like 20, which was good because stretching [...]

Me with some smart dudes!

Day 1 of the ISTAS Symposium

June 7th, 2010

I’m up early today ripping apart my lame powerpoint presentation and trying to put it back together so it seems more, well, intelligent. Yesterday was filled with really great presentations. I wasn’t sure what the crowd would be like here but I should have known it would be a small number of people with a [...]

Photo: Ben Rushton via Sydney Morning Herald

Sydney Morning Herald article

June 5th, 2010

I’ve spent almost a week in Sydney and I’ve noticed a few things. First, it’s very beautiful. It reminds me of all the best parts of Seattle and Vancouver BC mixed together. They have the “Sydney Tower”, but trust me it’s no Space Needle. Of course the Harbour Bridge and Opera House are amazing landmarks, [...]

Touchdown Sydney, Day 1

Touchdown Sydney, Day 1

June 1st, 2010

Flying from Seattle to LAX was fine, but the layover was horrible. Some airports are designed with layovers in mind, but not LAX. The place is so barren, and there are hardly any shops you can actually sit down in. I had an 8 hour layover at LAX before flying to Sydney (a 15 hour [...]

New RFID virus infects media more than it does computers

May 27th, 2010

Dr. Mark Gasson of the University of Reading in England shows the BBC that the storage space on his RFID implant could be used to house a specially crafted “virus” which could “infect” other systems. Technically this would be classified as a worm, not a virus, however the bottom line is quite simply this is [...]

Why is Ted Mosby kicking butt in District 13?

Why is Ted Mosby kicking butt in District 13?

May 18th, 2010

One of my current vices is watching a show called How I Met Your Mother. Aside from Neil Patrick Harris (oh yes, NPH would do that), the show also stars Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan, and Josh Radnor. The story centers around Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) as he tells his kids the story how [...]

Speaking at the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

May 14th, 2010

Several months ago I was asked to be a keynote speaker at the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society being held at University of Wollongong in Australia. The symposium is part of IEEE’s Society on Social Implications of Technology, and since being asked I have been working on a paper to be reviewed and [...]

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