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7 <updatetime type="date">11.12.2013 13:30:46 CST</updatetime>
8 <uri>likecounter</uri>
9 <time type="date">11.12.2013 13:30:46 CST</time>
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11 <registrant>jkridner@gmail.com</registrant>
12 <pname>Facebook Like Counter</pname>
13 <user>jkridner@gmail.com</user>
14 <categories>demo</categories>
15 <body><p>From http://beagleboard.org/blog/2013-10-01-project+spotlight-facebook-like-counter/:</p>\r
16 <h1 style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #b4a279;">BeagleBone Black project spotlight:<br />Facebook &ldquo;Like&rdquo; Counter</h1>\r
17 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">By Tara Stratton</p>\r
18 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">Here&rsquo;s something we are sure you will &lsquo;Like.&rsquo; While at Maker Faire Bay Area this year, we gave away a few BeagleBone Black open-source computers to some lucky faire attendees. We heard back from one of the winners, Christopher Berg, about a creative but functional project he&rsquo;s created on the board over the past few months that would make Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg quite proud.</p>\r
19 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">Christopher made a Facebook &ldquo;Like&rdquo; Counter for his wife&mdash;an author who was in the middle of writing her first romance novel and was interested in tracking the number of &lsquo;Likes&rsquo; on her Facebook page. His device gives his wife a readout of Facebook Likes that is easily readable and constantly updating. According to Christopher, many of his projects are inspired by his family&mdash;his kids have been the beneficiaries of many of his projects. (Cool side note&mdash;check out the&nbsp;<a style="color: #de7224; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Childs-Quorra-Tron-Costume/">Quorra from Tron costume&nbsp;</a>he made his daughter for Halloween!)]</p>\r
20 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/LT9NDkB.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="272" /></p>\r
21 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">The Facebook Like Counter uses the JSON interface provided by Facebook to count the number of Likes for a page. Once it reads the value, the counter updates the display using a simple bit-bang SPI interface.</p>\r
22 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">&ldquo;It&rsquo;s currently a really simple setup, but I&rsquo;m planning on expanding it to provide more metrics, including books sold, Twitter followers, etc.,&rdquo; said Christopher.</p>\r
23 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">The part count for the project is really low. Christopher used the BeagleBone Black open-source computer (of course) as well as some jumper wires and a four-digit, seven-segment display that he found on eBay through some friends at&nbsp;<a style="color: #de7224; text-decoration: none;" href="http://forum.43oh.com/topic/2583-spi-4-digit-7-segment-displays/">43oh.com</a>. The display uses a PT6961 driver from Oasis. Christopher noted the display is &ldquo;dead-easy to control and has a low pin-count. A few simple SPI commands and you&rsquo;re good to go.&rdquo;</p>\r
24 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">But why BeagleBone Black? Christopher said he had his eye on BeagleBone for a while.</p>\r
25 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">&ldquo;When the new version came out, including a price drop &mdash; I had to have one,&rdquo; he said.</p>\r
26 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">After years of experience developing projects such as an electronic etch-a-sketch, a&nbsp;<em>Bluetooth</em>&reg;-controlled RC car and even a retro VFD tube clock on several of TI&rsquo;s development boards, including his favorite MSP430&trade; Value Line LaunchPad as well as the Tiva&trade; C Series LaunchPad and MSP430FR5739 FRAM Experimenter Board, he felt comfortable picking up the TI Sitara&trade; AM335x processor-based BeagleBone Black computer. In addition, the Ethernet on BeagleBone Black came in handy for this project.</p>\r
27 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">&ldquo;When you need a network-enabled board, there&rsquo;s really no easier way to go,&rdquo; Christopher said.</p>\r
28 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">With several years of experience developing on TI&rsquo;s microcontroller- based LaunchPads, Christopher admitted that he faced a challenge with this project since he knew almost nothing about Linux. However, he said that the &Aring;ngstr&ouml;m distribution that comes loaded on BeagleBone Black helped him get the project going without having too much to learn. He used the Cloud9 IDE that comes pre-installed and was able to use JavaScript&mdash;something he&rsquo;s already familiar with since he is a Web developer. Once he started working with the on- board software, he was able to get the project up and running fairly quickly.</p>\r
29 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">&ldquo;I have absolutely no electronics training, but I&rsquo;m a great example that with the right tools, almost anyone can create these types of projects,&rdquo; said Christopher.</p>\r
30 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">What&rsquo;s next on Christopher&rsquo;s list of DIY projects? He said he&rsquo;s always wanted to create a Hexapod using a BeagleBone Black and a 3D printer. Based on his track record, we can assume it will be awesome!</p>\r
31 <p style="font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.3em; color: #525252; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;">More details about Christopher&rsquo;s Facebook Like Counter are available at&nbsp;<a style="color: #de7224; text-decoration: none;" href="http://forum.beaglefu.com/topic/124-facebook-like-counter-7-segment-display-and-cloud9/">http://forum.beaglefu.com/topic/124-facebook-like-counter-7-segment-display-and-cloud9/</a>.</p></body>
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33 <homepage>http://forum.beaglefu.com/topic/124-facebook-like-counter-7-segment-display-and-cloud9/</homepage>
34 <render_skin>project</render_skin>
35 <shortdesc>Use Facebook JSON interface to count Likes for a page and update display using a simple bit-bang SPI interface</shortdesc>
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