Ar..Ar..Arduino! What the heck?!

I love microcontroller. Why? The reason is simple. Because they're amazing. They are a complete set of computer but in a very tiny package. They can do many wonderful things and projects. But most importantly, they are cheap and very easy to use and to program with. They're very useful too, versatile, flexible and fully customize for any electronic-geek like me.


There are many kind of microcontrollers out there, some are just plain simple and some are really sophisticated-kind of controller. The one that I'll be using for most of my project can be both, depends on how you using it.

So guys, this is the Arduino, the open-source electronic prototyping platform (just as it says in the official site :-P ). This means that it is a single-board integrated microcontroller unit with lot of features. Arduino was born in Italy by a group of brilliant guys who's experimenting with physical computing.

I will not explaining every detail about this Arduino thing. You can read it in their website. Its a good place to start for every beginners to explore the wonderful world of Arduino. They provide very detail explanation and step-by-step guide for anyone who interested to start with Arduino. I really like their playground site, kind of wiki to Arduino. Here you can find a lot of information for everything about Arduino and this is the place where the Arduino community sharing their ideas and work. Recommended place to go if you want to get your hand on Arduino. It really helps me a lot.

By the way, as you can see in the picture above, it is an Arduino-clone board actually, which I bought it from China for only USD 20 (through eBay, of course) :-P ...Obviously you can't see the 'Arduino Duemilanove' and 'Made In Italy' or even the 'www.arduino.cc' words printed on the board (here is the original board). But because of its open-source license, it is not illegal to clone the Arduino board. Most important to me, it is cheap and works just like the original board 'Made In Italy'... Haha!

Lastly, I just want to show you guys how small this Arduino board is. As you can see, it is smaller than a size of standard credit card. Damn! It is small.. Haha!

All right then...See ya' in the next post!

What's up with Gadget Officer?!!

So, what's up with Gadget Officer? Are there any latest gadget reviews, gadget testing, gadget updates, gadget sales, gadget there, gadget here, gadget, gadget, gadget in this blog?? Is it all about gadgets only in this blog? Of course its not. I'm not going to post everything about gadgets in my blog, because surely I'm not some highly-tech and sponsored gadget review website like the others out there. 

My blog here is just to share anything which I think interesting and worthy to share with you guys, especially about my DIY projects.

Besides gadget, I also love to build and make things, the do-it-yourself kind of things. Build and modify things. Mechanical and electronic things. Especially electronic DIY projects which mostly related to microcontroller, PCBs, components, soldering, wiring, programming etc. Its really my interest actually. And I'm NOT an amateur anymore in this field because I have started to build things a long way during my school time (while I'm in form 2 as I remembered) where I'm so excited at that time to build the small blinking LED project for the Kemahiran Hidup (Life Skills) subject at my school.Haha! Still remembered how nice I've done with that little project. After that moment, I know that electronics and building things is going to be my way of life!

Back to this blog, I have a lot of projects in mind actually. Many of them was already in my mind a long time ago, but due to work commitment, I'm still don't have the time to build one. But now with my new job (and a lots of free times :-P) I hope that I can start build more and more projects from time to time (hopefully, if those project succeed).. haha!

For the time being, I'm still in the learning curve on my new microcontroller baby, the Arduino (more into Arduino on my next post) and after that, will concentrate on my Auto Door Locking System and Auto-refill Water Filter System. The door locking system will use Arduino as its main controller and I have just finished sketching the system overall diagram.

So, thats all for this time. Stay tuned for more updates on my current project.

Chaoww!

Gadget there, gadget here.

I just love gadgets. There's no argue about that, even my wife admit it. But that doesn't mean that I like to spent a lot of money just to buy every kind of gadgets out there in the market. I'm not a rich guy by the way. Just a normal guy with a normal job and being paid every end of the month by the government. Not even a businessman with 5 or 6 digits income from the business profit. So to accept the truth that I'm not rich, I just love to read everything about gadget, even though I know that I can't get it... haha!

Everyone in this modern world love gadget, right? They makes our lives easier and more fun, especially those electronic gadget such as iPhone, laptops, cameras or even a digital watch. But most of them are not cheap. You need to pay a lot amount of money just to have them and to use them. But nowadays most people are willing to pay as much as they can get the gadget that they want, especially the latest technological product. 

The latest iPhone 4 for example, in my country, you need to pay at least RM 2k just to get the phone plus the lowest  call plan with 24-month contract. For people like me (I'm not a rich guy, remember? :-P) with that 2k you can get a new laptop with latest hardware in it plus you can do many other multimedia stuff using that laptop. Damn! Its very expensive man!

I don't know what other people thinks, but those sentence 'the most affordable iPhone' from Digi's website, isn't really that 'affordable'. Unless, of course, if I am a rich guy! Haha.

See ya' in my next post!

Gadget Officer??

So, if you're wondering, why  'Gadget Officer' anyway?

GO. There is a post here at my workplace called GO, stand for Gunnery Officer. His work is all related to guns and weapons thing, or as you know gunnery.

One day my friend called me GO. But instead of 'gunnery', he refers the 'G' as 'Gadget' and that is how the idea of gadget officer comes in. Its really funny though to hear it for the first time he calling me that, but because of all my friends knows me well as the gadget guy (even before I join Maritime Agency), I think its not a bad nickname after all. Haha! 

I don't even know why he calls me that name because I don't actually have a lot of gadget around. Just my own Macbook, my Nokia phone, my submersible Olympus camera and my iPod. Thats all. But maybe because I know a lot about latest gadget makes him keep calling me that.

But one thing as a reminder, this gadget officer is NOT THE SAME as the 'Inspector Gadget' the cartoon character. That's a way hell different kind of 'gadget' guy! huhu..

Welcome to Gadget Officer!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my very own blog page. My first ever. It has been a long time ago where I wanted to have my own blog, instead of reading other's and admire their story about life, interest, hobby, comment, reviews and everything that they wanted to share with others in the world. I love reading their stories, especially those who have the same interest as mine. So I think its about time for me to share whatever I have and whatever I do in my life. Anyway its not going to be an interesting blog as me not very good at writing essay or journal. My intention of this blog is just want to share with you guys, but if you're not like it, then I make my apology for wasting your time. 


So thats all about my introduction of this blog. It is still very new and I'm still in the process of learning to use this bloggers website. But nowadays it is very easy actually, how to setup your own blog. Everything is ready for you, just wait for you to post your story in it. Other than that, your story is ready to be shared.


I wish I had my own blog a long time ago. Haha. Peace!