Are You a Geeky Driver?

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:34:02 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Have you ever been driving down the road at night and realized the car behind you forgot to turn on their headlights? How can you tell them to turn them on? You can gesticulate wildly in the mirror, which won’t work. Or, you can think about picking up a message sign. The Scrolling Digital Message System from RoadMaster plugs into a cigarette lighter in your car. It then mounts on the rear of your car and allows you to send personal messages from your driver’s seat with a remote control. You can program any messages you like into it, including telling people to turn on their lights, get off your bumper… or just advertise your business.

The Roadmaster Rear Deck Scrolling Digital Message System lets you program messages of up to 120 characters each, then display them in bright red letters for the whole world to see. Stores up to 5 messages and can scroll through them one after another or display them when you want.

So now I not only have glowing things in my office, I also have one in my car! How much cooler can it get? I don’t plan to run a message all the time. But once in awhile… oh yeah, baby. There are some funny sayings already programmed in, like “Please tailgate! I need the money”, or “Honk if you love peace and quiet”. I’m sure I’ll use some of these, but I have to think about what to program on my own.

At only $30.00 from Amazon, it’s definitely going to be worth the money. I’m going out in my car later and drive around, just to try this out.

FirstRSS ERROR: "http://shop.tagjag.com/products/%20Computer+Programming" NOT FOUND!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

Are You a Geeky Driver?

LED Sign Fun

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 19 May 2007 09:19:32 +0000

LED Sign Fun

Ponzi and I hit the local Office supply store to pick up a few home office odds and ends. As we walked through the “You Don’t Need These Things” aisle, I spotted something I haven’t had since I parted company with TechTV: a programmable LED sign. I left my old LED sign at my cubicle and never really cared to get it back (largely, because it wasn’t networkable).

I picked up the TruColorII box – it was at least $100 cheaper than my first scrolling LED sign was. Moreover, this one boasts several notable features:

Programmable through any PC in the LAN
Send Messages through Internet e-mail
Over 50 Trivia Questions and Answers Built In
Built-In User Programmable Graphics
10 Year Warranty on the LED with 160 Degree viewing angle

Yeah, I’m using the TruColorII in conjunction with my live video efforts. It’s sitting on the top of my hutch at the moment, not always visible to the viewer. I wasn’t doing much with it at first because the interface is serial (9-pin), so I had to purchase a Serial-to-USB adapter before I could connect it to my computer. Easy enough.

The software is absolute crap (it hasn’t been updated since long before Y2k). Not sure how they can get away with selling it? No matter, kizmut figured out how to send strings to the unit without really touching the software. The TruColorII is mapped to a COM port – so ECHO’ing a command to it is a snap:

ECHO ^^ live.pirillo.com - join the fun! > COM3

Bear’s thinking about how to make it Internet-writable – which will really be exciting. The wicket bot now responds to “what is ticker” with the following text:

What is that scrolling ticker? A Pro-Lite TruColorII LED Display – and it’s up to the community to determine what content scrolls on the sign. Download the editor and documentation – then email the .SGN file you create to chris@pirillo.com and he’ll add it to the ticker ASAP!

Scrolling LED signs aren’t just for businesses – they’re fun. :)

LED Sign Fun

Chris Pirillo » led-sign

Are You a Geeky Driver?

LED Sign Fun