A regular point of confusion on the Creston programmers forum concerns numbers, serial strings and the relationship between the two.  This is one of those areas that highlights the potential problem of relying too heavily on experience (which may be extensive) when some basic academic work can smooth the way for the future.  I hope this mini-tip will whet the appetite of those who may have missed or skipped some of the basics on how to view serial data vs numbers vs ASCII.

As I reach the end of a couple of programming commissions - both different in many ways - I’ve found myself reflecting on how each piece of work has gone.  One conclusion is that they both would have benefited from a stronger programming specification.

Sky+ is rather more capable than you may think when it comes to integration with your intelligent home.  As well as being able to control the unit using IR over RF, it also has an RS232 port on the back - though sdaly - this only works one-way and spit out the information you'd see on screen when you press "info".  This mini-tip describes how to connect these two features: