What to expect when you are expecting a project.

Written by: Sherif Ali
Part of The ALYS Biz Talk Series

In today's business, it is very common to find yourself with a lot of free time on your hands when you are between projects, here are the top 6 things to do while waiting for your next assignment.

1. Update your CV

Even if you are not looking for a job, it is very useful to keep your CV up-to-date (besides, who knows), add the last project you were working on and the new skills, technologies or tools you have used. It is significantly easier to maintain your CV like that then trying to prepare it from scratch just before applying to a job.

2. Maintain your contacts

In business it all comes to this: your contacts. It doesn’t matter what you know, what matters is who you know that knows it. Join LinkedIn.com or Xing.com ,call your ex-colleagues and let people know you are around.

3. Clean up

Start categorizing your emails; move emails from old projects to folders other than your inbox. Same goes for you computer, organize your documents, put your old project files in a folder carrying the name of the project and clean that desktop of yours from the extra icons you won’t be using anymore.

This goes a long way when you start something new, you will find that it is much easier to find everything.

4. Smart up

This is a great time to catch up with your reading. Pick up that book that has been lying around for sometime now or go to the bookstore and buy a good book.

5. Know more

You don’t have to do some brain draining activity (at least not just after a long tiring project) just catch up with the world, go to YouTube.com and start looking for videos about new technologies, products or anything that interests you or use a search engine to look-up information over the internet, you never know what you will stumble upon.

6. Write your own blog

This is a great way to speak your mind, keep your blog professional and clean. It is an interface to your character and might be seen by any person including your managers and your colleagues.

OBDII : Read your car’s mind

ALYS TechTalk Series
written by: Sherif Aly

Introduction

The development of body electronics in modern cars is getting more and more ambitious, this is because the number of control units and the functionality included in the control units are both increasing and the innovation rate is speeding up.

Features that used to be found only in luxury cars are standard today in mid-range cars; this trend is bound to grow stronger because of shorter car life cycles and customers expecting innovations in low-end cars.

These engines need sophisticated test equipment to diagnose faults and system failures. Ineffective diagnostic work inevitably leads to vehicle problems, dissatisfied customers and labour costs.

To facilitate car diagnostics, car manufactures added an On Board Diagnostic (OBD) , a computer that captures information about how the car is running.

What is OBDII

On Board Diagnostic (OBD) is a computer that captures information about how the car is running. The data tracked by the OBD II system was originally intended to monitor the engine's emissions and track down problems that caused cars to pollute more than normal.

Today, however, manufacturers have extended the standard to contain a great deal of data about problems and performance, OBD II data is what causes your car's "check engine" light to go on when there is a problem

All vehicles released after 2005 contain OBDII. OBDII is version 2.0 of the standard for communicating this information.

The OBD connector must be located within 3 feet of the driver.

Pin 2 - J1850 Bus+
Pin 4 - Chassis Ground
Pin 5 - Signal Ground
Pin 6 - CAN High (J-2284)
Pin 7 - ISO 9141-2 K Line
Pin 10 - J1850 Bus
Pin 14 - CAN Low (J-2284)
Pin 15 - ISO 9141-2 L Line
Pin 16 - Battery Power

What is CAN

Controller Area Network (CAN) is a serial network that was originally designed for the automotive industry, but has also become a popular bus in industrial automation as well as other applications.

The CAN bus is primarily used in embedded systems, and as its name implies, is the network established among microcontrollers.

OBD through CAN

When connected to the CAN network thought the OBD connector, we can start receiving OBD data, the OBD II port allows your car to report three kinds of information: Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs), real-time data, and freeze frame data.

Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs) are simply error codes that can be looked up to determine what problem your car is experiencing.

– For example, the DTC P0302 means "cylinder 2 misfire detected".

Real-time data is the raw sensor data reported to the OBD computer.

– This data can be helpful for troubleshooting problems and monitoring engine performance.

Freeze frame data is a snapshot of the real-time sensor feeds at the time of a DTC condition.

- An auto mechanic can use this data to figure out what was going on at the time your car's "check engine" light went on.

For more information, inquires or comments, please add a comment to the post or contact me via mail.