Nothing new to report on the R2 front, so I thought I might share a little about my favorite droid in my life: Roomba
Over the years, I've had several Roomba that have worked without complaint. They have their faults, but for the most part they're great, especially for pet owners. When I used to have birds, the Roomba would dutifully go out every day and pick up bird seed and feathers and keep everything nice and tidy.
I have made some small software changes to make my Roomba more automated. First, I use a program called "EventGhost" to send out IR (infrared) commands to my Roomba. The hardware I use for this is a USB UIRT, this allows me to send and receive IR commands. With a combination of these two things, I have my Roomba automatically clean at 9AM every day.
Once I get home, I make a point to look to make sure Roomba has made it back to the docking station. If not, I look to find where it's gotten hung up and try to remedy the situation so that this doesn't happen again. It takes some time to make everything Roomba-proof, but it's usually very easy.
I also make sure to clean the hopper and filter every day or two. I used to do it every day, but since it cleans so well, there isn't much need to clean it every day.
So, that's my favorite droid, at the moment. I still have to sweep my hard wood floors from time to time by hand, but for daily cleaning and keeping dust down in your home, they're great.
