MeanPC Weekly #4 - Crikey!, free schwag from TI and All About Circuits

Free schwag from Texas Instruments! A TI shirt, coffee mug,
electronic pen and more from the 'Make the Switch to TI MCU's'
contest.  I love free stuff!

1. I've been watching a very interesting video blog lately, the eevBlog.  It's hosted by a zany Australian electrical engineer, David Jones.  He was a full time design engineer until his YouTube videos, website and forum got so busy he was able to make a full time living from them.  This guy is funny, smart and entertaining.  If that wasn't enough, he often uses words likes Crikey, beauty!, mains and Yanks.

2. My free schwag from TI came in!  It was a BIC pen box chock full of goodies.  Everything in the box was branded with 'Make the Switch to TI MCU's', so this stuff is very exclusive.  I don't think you can buy it anywhere.  Texas Instruments sent me a T-Shirt, coffee mug, 3-mode LED flashing pen, notepad, badge lanyard and a PC case sticker.  Beauty!

The fine folks at Texas Instruments sent me the box-o-schwag because I won the 'Make the Switch to TI MCU's' contest for the month of February 2012.  I wrote a post detailing my experience with the MSP-430 MCU, in which I linked to my blog post detailing my first MSP-430 project.

I haven't used the MSP-430 as much as I would like yet, because the learning curve is certainly sharper than the Arduino's.  There's no doubt the TI offering is a good choice in many scenarios because of the low cost, extremely low power consumption, and ease of programming.  You can buy an MSP-430 development kit here for only $4.30, and that's including shipping.

3. AllAboutCircuits.com is a fantastic electronics resource I just found.  It's a complete e-text on electronics.  It's a complete lecture video series on electronics.  It's also a huge forum with over 150,000 members.  Definitely worth checking out!

Have a great week!