Most UK companies will show you one price to bring in the customers, then show that the price advertised was only if you commit to 5 years or buy 10 domains, then some administrative fees get added on, followed by VAT on top, and by the time you hit the checkout you’re paying almost double the figure you saw to get you interested! Our price structure is simple: £3.49/year for .uk domains, and £9.99 for .com (and similar) domains. No further charges, no further taxes – it’s simply the all-inclusive final price! Find out if your domain is available to register today!

Furthermore, we are again offering all customers a MASSIVE 25% discount as a Spring Offer – using voucher code AS0411 – for the first year of all new hosting accounts on top of our already fantastic low prices! Hurry and get your hosting now as the offer ends 30 April 2011.

Make 2011 a great year by saving money on your domains and hosting costs with Atgram Systems.

Everyone’s lives consist of good times and bad times, and some of us are “luckier” than others – but we all have ups and downs. It’s important to always keep our heads held up high, and face the difficulties head on! Become close friends with those who do good; those that others in society look up to and trust. Learn from them, pick up on their good characterises, and share your good times and bad times with them. A person is judged by the company that he/she keeps.

For more than a decade, engineers and scientists from across the UK & Ireland have attended NIDays to learn how the latest developments in computer-based measurement and automation increase productivity and lower cost through graphical system design and virtual instrumentation.

Here’s why you should join National Instruments at NIDays 2010:

1. Keynotes from Professor Brian Cox OBE and top NI executives | See live demonstrations and discover the latest NI technologies and hear the CERN researcher and BBC TV and radio presenter explain his vision for understanding the wonders of the universe
2. More than 50 technical sessions | Learn about NI products, user applications, industry trends and more in these interactive sessions
3. 36 hours of hands-on technical training | Get up close and personal with NI hardware and software through a variety of hands-on workshops
4. Exciting new product demos | See demos of the latest new products and innovative applications in the keynote and throughout the day
5. Academic Summit | Learn more about what’s new in NI hardware and software for academia and discuss new ideas for STEM education
6. Free Certification Exams and Preparation Classes | Take your CLAD Exam for free during the conference and attend the CLD preparation class to learn how to avoid the common exam pitfalls – Pre-register now!
7. Hear from Industry Engineers | Companies including The Met Office, ARM, EADS Astrium, NAREC and Diamond Light Synchrotron talk about their applications and the challenges they faced
8. Leading industry exhibitors | Visit exhibitor and NI Alliance Partners in the exhibition halls as they demonstrate new products, services and solutions
9. Grand Prize Draw | Prizes include LEGO MINDSTORMS NEXT 2.0 plus Red Letter Day vouchers
10. IET Savoy Place, London | Visit Savoy Place, home of the IET, which combines a historic building with state-of-the-art facilities, conveniently located on the Thames Embankment

Register for NIDays 2010 here.

Atgram Systems, Quality Coder, Team Test & National Instruments Logos

It seems like forever has passed since the last time I posted to my blog. It certainly has been a very busy time, but this detailed entry should cover for a lot of silence!

It has been a busy start to the year for Atgram Systems, setting up a new subsidiary called Quality Coder. We have head-hunted some talented developers with growing knowledge and experience utilising the latest web technologies to create unique, good looking, rich, and multi-functional websites. Quality Coder will look to provide high quality web solutions to a variety of clients – commercial, government, public sector, individuals, and non-profit organisations.

Quality Coder is constantly growing in size and technical expertise, building on industrial experience. We continuously invest in the latest technology, research and design trends so that we can help our clients maximise their return on investment. Our highly motivated, ambitious and skilled professionals aim to serve clients with fast, friendly, reliable and quality service. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.

At National Instruments, I have taught the four most popular LabVIEW™ series of courses; LabVIEW Core 1, Core 2, Core 3, and Connectivity (previously Basics I&II + Intermediate I&II). It was a great experience to be the course instructor, for which I employed the confidence and knowledge to teach engineers in the industry, university professors and PhD students. As well as the usual after-sales technical support and hosting marketing events, all the Applications Engineers were put in teams and asked to create a demo to show off to customers and at marketing events.

I am one of four members of Team Test, along with Rob Warham, Philip Krejov and Mark Barnes. Over the last few months, we worked on a very interesting project to demonstrate the power of NI LabVIEW™ and TestStand™. We were asked to create an automated test system that would be capable of testing a well-known device under test: Nintendo® Wii® remote controllers – much like a post-production test to verify functionality.

NI LabVIEW is a graphical programming language that was created with hardware in mind. It is the perfect programming language to work with in combination with Data Acquisition (DAQ). For more than 20 years, LabVIEW graphical programming has revolutionised the development of test, measurement, and control applications. Regardless of experience, engineers and scientists can rapidly and cost-effectively interface with measurement and control hardware, analyse data, share results, and distribute systems.

NI TestStand is a powerful ready-to-run test management software that allows you to develop your automated test and validation systems faster than traditional methods. You can use TestStand to develop test executive software, which manages and executes test sequences written in any programming language, and integrates with enterprise systems.

Traditionally, demos for test systems have been fairly mundane and always specifically targeted at a niche market; those who are interested in Automated Test. They were simply not capable of drawing in an interest from a generic crowd, excited to find out more about what is in front of them. Our goal was to turn this all around; bring automated test to the masses, build up some excitement, and throw in some flashing lights to draw anyone’s attention!

We created a custom chassis to hold four Nintendo® Wii® remote controllers, connected up to an NI PXIe-1062Q chassis. The PXI system has a PXIe-8108 controller, PXI-7841R FPGA card, PXI-2529 high-density matrix card, PXI-4110 DC power card, and a PXI-4130 SMU card. The NI kit cost us just under £15,000. We built the custom chassis out of x-frame, with two SCB-68 terminal blocks secured inside, hosting 8 powerful LEDs with 12 LED drivers – each providing Red, Green or Blue for one LED. The chassis is finished with a unique pearl white acrylic, with a laser-etched National Instruments logo at the front, illuminated with dual UV cold cathode fluorescent lights. There is a 12V 60W PSU powering all the components in the custom chassis. The cost to build the custom chassis was just under £1,200 – mostly thanks to our special pearl white acrylic! Approximately 450 working hours were invested into the creation of this demo. So if you wish to replicate what we have done, it should cost around £25,000 for parts and labour.

With LabVIEW, we have created an intuitive easy to use Wii®-like interface, controlled via a Nunchuk® – which is wired into our custom chassis. The user can use the Nunchuk® to smoothly scroll through the menu icons. As they are hovered over, each of the icons are labelled and its functionality is summarised in the main view. The first 3 options are the most important; connect the remote controllers’ Bluetooth®, the main automated test sequence, and the TestStand sequence view.

The first thing to do is pair up the remote controllers’ Bluetooth® to the Automated Test System – which only has to be done once after starting Windows® 7. You can then go into the main automated test sequence, which will fully automate the verification of the remote controllers’ Bluetooth®, accelerometer, rumble, speaker, infrared camera and current draw. It runs the test twice; once sequentially for the 4 Wii® remotes, and then a parallel test where it uses the least possible time to perform all the required tests. During the tests, the user is shown a graphical representation of exactly what is being tested, along with a traffic light system lighting up the custom chassis itself. Under the Wii® remotes, a yellow light indicates the Wii® remote is In Test, a green light indicates a Pass, and a red light indicates a Fail. At the end of the complete automated test, each of the Wii® remotes will be highlighted either green for Pass or red for Fail. The third menu option allows you to open up the TestStand sequence file being used behind the scene, and run the automated test in the TestStand interface.

The most expensive part of the Automated Test System is the PXI-4130 SMU card. This is why we only have one SMU card, and use the PXI-2529 high-density switching matrix to switch between the SMU card and the PXI-4110 DC power card. The DC power card powers the 3 Wii® remotes that are not undergoing testing for current draw.

The other options of the user interface allows you to select each of the individual tests that make up the full automated test sequence. There is also an option to find out more information about the system itself, and a not-so-secret Easter Eggs section!

Click through to view the photo gallery of our demo. I hope you return to leave me some comments and feedback! Towards the end of June 2010, I will be posting a link to a 3-minute official promotion video for our demo.

Update: Link to short YouTube promotion video.

LabVIEW and TestStand are registered trademarks of National Instruments Corporation. Nintendo, Wii, and Nunchuk are registered trademarks of Nintendo of America Inc. Bluetooth is a registered trademark of the Bluetooth Sig, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

National Instruments Logo

On Wednesday 22 July 2009 I went to an assessment day hosted by National Instruments, offering a great kick start to my career.

Established in 1976, National Instruments (NI) is a technology company based in Austin, Texas. The UK & Ireland headquarters, now based in Newbury, have been around for almost 20 years. They specialise in creating hardware and software to assist design, prototyping, and system deployment for test, control and embedded applications. NI has over 30,000 customers that buy from them every year and work with a wide range of audiences, from students and universities to industry and military. NI is a market leader in this field, due to the high quality products and services they provide, and continuously investing 16% of their annual revenue in Research & Development.

The assessment day made NI stand out from the crowd. The day began with a presentation on the company; its history, aims, beliefs, and ethics. The group of candidates were then split and my group was given a tour of the company building. While on tour, we spent 15 minutes talking one-to-one with two current employees. It was an excellent opportunity to understand what the day-to-day life would be like at the company.

We then went on to write a first-year-level engineering test, followed by two interviews, one technical and the other, general. After lunch, all the candidates did a 15 minute presentation on a technical topic of their choice; this was the final assessment of the day. After the presentations we were given another opportunity to talk to more graduates/employees about anything we wanted to know. To conclude the day, we were taken out for dinner, and we got to socialise with our fellow candidates, and the interviewing staff in an informal and relaxed way.

There are so many things I took away from that day. The working culture at NI is very elegant. Everyone loves the job they do, and every day brings new challenges. The current employees were extremely welcoming and optimistic about their experiences with the company. Technology is always improving, and similarly all the jobs are very dynamic. NI has set up their company so that there are fantastic career development opportunities for its employees.

The entire day was a very positive experience, including a great deal of socialising with the fellow candidates, the interviewing staff, and other employees. The company encourages its staff to be social and to think ‘green’ by being friendly to the environment. All the candidates had such a great experience, that we did not even have any constructive criticism on ways to improve the experience for the following year!

Last week National Instruments posted me a written offer to work for them as an Applications Engineer, starting Tuesday 1 September 2009. I am very excited at the prospect of working for NI and being part of a growing success story for them. I shall post an update on my new experiences in October 2009.

Sony PSP2 Mockup

Even after the recently released Sony PSPgo, there’s a new rumour that a PSP2 is coming up with the SGX543MP PowerVR graphics processor (identical to the one in the new iPhone 3GS). The PSP2 is apparently close to the original Xbox in performance power, with some technology borrowed from the Sega Dreamcast.

Furthermore, Imagination Technologies refers to this processing chip as a GP-GPU, meant to be capable of normal computing tasks in addition to graphics. This means the PSP2 would not require an additional CPU, which increase battery life.

Via Engadget article.

Read the rest of my blog post on the Atgram Systems blog.

Read the rest of my blog post on the Atgram Systems blog.

Read the rest of my blog post on the Atgram Systems blog.