Posts (page 2)
A couple pretty neat features this time around --
So as you may know, Logic supports sessions -- which allow you to save and restore every last detail of your sessions -- and even send them to colleges over email (they are compressed) -- but as of 1.0.15 you can have a bunch of Logic windows open at once, so you can easily compare. By the way, in case you didn't know, you can just drag your session files into the Logic software instead of choosing Options->Load Session. You can also double click the session files and they will open in a new window.
Second I've added an interesting feature where you can marquee-select a part of the window you want to take screenshot of. Thanks to Dirk in Australia for both of these suggestions.
Also, I need to thank the following heroes for suggesting things that have been or will be added:
-- Jason in CA
-- Mark in AZ
-- Chip in IL
-- Mike in PA
-- Dirk in Australia
-- John in MD
-- Mark in Australia
-- Richard in TX
Thanks!!
Tonight I re-tooled the application so that it's much more SDK friendly. I'm not exactly sure when yet but I'm thinking of releasing it so people can make their own analyzers. It's pretty powerful, you have total access to the data and can draw whatever you like to the screen. It uses a plugin architecture -- you implement a Class Library that implements the IAnalyzer interface. I'd provide the SerialAnalyzer project as a template to start from.
A quick word on my inventory woes. (and, indirectly the woes of all the heroes that want their Logic NOW, damit). It all started with the wire bundles for Logic. I originally got them from E-Z Hook, for an amazingly high price (over 30$ each). So once it looked like Logic was going to pick up I ordered up a batch of cables to be made from my cable assembler (same exact quality, btw) – so that was all well and good until I got the bundles – which were flawless except that for some inexplicable reason they wouldn’t plug into the E-Z Hook XKM probes. Turns out these probes have a pin on them that’s kind of weird and blunt and otherwise non standard. So I have to order new parts, test them out myself, send the kit back to the assembler for rework, then all the way back to me, etc, and so that’s one reason why we’ve been backordered.
Another reason is that digi-key (both digi-key and mouser are both something like 4-5 day UPS ground days away from me, which sucks!) sends me this order early last week, and they accidently replace the crystals with some weird capacitor. Ok, that’s cool right, I call them up and they send me out the replacement parts 2nd day air which were supposed to arrive this last Thursday – when I was going to ship out a BUNCH of Logic units – except they send them – randomly – to some really old address of mine where I don’t know the people there and its on the other side of the bay, etc – so there that went… So unless I want to drive over there a few times knocking on the door hoping someone is home there’s no fast way to recover them.
Then I order -- from mouser a bunch of the same crystals and some other stuff via 2nd day air (overnight costs $50+) – and despite what is says on their site they don’t ship them until Friday! (meaning a Tuesday delivery) and I had JUST sent out emails apologizing for the delay and that they would be shipping out Monday, which now they wouldn’t be.
And we’re still not out of the woods because I’m now out of the original cable bundle order and it’ll be at least another week before I get another (this time pretty large) batch of those in. At least on Tuesday I’ll be able to ship all but one of my backorders.
I’m am SO looking forward to having these things in stock so
I can ship them out to people the same or next day!! Luckily for me Logic customers (aka the heroes)
are pretty cool people and seem to be taking it in stride.
Update: Thanks to my friend Theresa I was able to get a hold of the people at my old place and get the parts that were delivered there! Which means at least some Logics are going out Monday, hooray!
Now, maybe you're not all that interested in an announcement about a shopping cart. I get that. But it's still really cool, if only to me. First off this cart uses css pretty well, and I really like how that made it clean and pretty out-of-the-box browser compliant (as opposed to trying and mess with non-css table settings) It uses cool new tooltips to reduce clutter while at the same time answering questions people have. I've gotten several emails about how much shipping costs, so now there's a nice little tooltip that pops up a chart of the different shipping options. It's also a step up in terms of how legitimate it looks. The last one was a bit too free form, this one is pretty tight. It's modeled off the apple shopping cart more or less. Most importantly -- and really the major reason I wanted to upgrade the cart -- is because I wanted to be able to add new features to it, things like "let me know when this item is in stock" -- things that there really was no clean/esthetic way to do with the old cart. I'm also considering allowing people to check out with paypal. However I don't yet have a since about how many people are put off by the google checkout as apposed to some other possible options: pay on site, paypal, amazon, etc.
I'm very happy to announce that Logic is up on Microsoft's WPF Showcase! Woo!
My machinist Nick kindly sent these pictures. Cool!!
There's a little feature in Logic (and all Saleae software) where if the software crashes, under most circumstances it'll pop up a dialog box that allows you to send us the exception report. This is basically a little stack trace showing where the exception happened in the application. There's a simple web service on the saleae.com website that makes this possible.
So anyway over the last 2 days I got this exception report coming in about how the "save screenshot" menu item was throwing an exception. Today I had time to look at it, found the blatant problem, and pushed out an update. It's not a perfect system because right now I'm not properly branching my SVN repository but it works well enough for now -- I just have to remove unfinished features from the release and check over the behavior fairly carefully to make sure nothing half-working is included.
Anyway hopefully with this system I can catch issues that are annoying users right away and get fixes in place pretty quickly.
Also I should mention that a companion feature exists in Saleae software which non-invasively informs users when new versions are available. It's a pretty simple feature, and doesn't yet tell you what's included in the new release which would be nice, but it's great how seamless it is to get updates out there.
Just wanted to pass this along:
Sweet Logic Analyzer! This is the best money I have ever spent on e-bay! Thanks!
Woo!
Update: he then writes to tell me this:
I have to say that after 15 years in the electronics industry as an engineering level electronics tech.... This is a fantastic product!!!! THANKS!!!! I am 100% satisfied!
Oh yah, that's good stuff. Thanks Marvin!!
Logic Ad in Circuit Cellar
I'm happy to announce that our first ad has been submitted for publication in the August issue of Circuit Cellar. (sample issue zipped PDF here.) This is a tiny 2" x 3" 1/9 page full color ad. ~$450. I went back and forth on how to best use our initial 6 square inches of ad space and decided on a pretty conservative route. We'll get more creative a little later on, and when we have more real estate to work with.
Logic on Google
Try searching for "logic analyzer" on google and our ad should come up on the first page, along with the little Google Checkout badge. This avenue is still to be proven effective financially, but for now I'm quite happy to fund the experiment and plus it makes us much, much easier to find which should come in handy as we get more press.
Logic Distribution Update
I'm having Logic's wire bundle made at a cable assembler in New York now and after some issues with the wire sourcing (this stuff isn't very common) we've got it figured out and I should have the first batch in 1-2 weeks. That is the only thing holding back shipping to our new distribution partner whom I will announce with much fanfare as soon as that launches.
If you haven’t yet, check out our first video!
I'm excited that the first of what I hope will be many videos is now posted for Logic. It's not perfect, but I'm not going to wait until I have a polished series of videos to get this one out there. Release early and often! http://www.saleae.com/logic/videos
