A few weeks back I decided to try out the Arduino platform for working with micrcontrollers. I've been using pic's for the last few years (mostly the 16f628a) but I just haven't been impressed with the software or the community. Arduino is fully open source, and so the hardware and software are both free to use and edit. There's nothing like this in the world of PIC microcontrollers.

if I had to describe PIC's I'd say it's like walking into a room and everyone inside the room stops talking the second you walk in and they all start giving you sideways looks.

Whereas with arduino the second you walk into the room everyone jumps and cheers and shakes your hand and throws piles of code at you. Here here! Look what I've made! You should make it to! here's how!

It's a completely different way of working and I'm loving it.

ANYWAYS, yesterday I managed to get an arduino connected to the internet AND sending a twitter to my account, and I have to say, it was pretty easy. where something like that with a PIC had me pulling my hair, it took me all of an hour on the arduino.

I have at least 20 projects on paper I've wanted to have Ethernet for and now I finally do.

My tools are almost where I want them for my next series. Just a few more purchases.....