phineus

Just an update to anyone reading this thread from the beginning - the prices quoted at the beginning are long gone. This low price was a one-time deal. Now the price to me is higher (due to some shenanigans on another site) and the final price to the buyer is $16.95 USD each for a 170mm softpot. I wish it was cheaper. :(

http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=18.0 I am also a distributer for the softpots. Get in touch!

Thanks for the great feedback, Prof! I understand the pain of shelling out for Max/MSP. One thing to keep in mind is that the Runtime of Max/MSP is free and you can run existing patches on it, they jsut turn off Edit view. I am working on modifying my main "howto" patch so there's no need to go into Edit view to say, specify the COM port and so on. Changes should be posted this week. I'm also very interested to see if the Max patches will port over to Pd, and to what extent. I've posted .pat versions of the main patch in the Stribe code repository. * Any of you other guys who are building Arduino-less versions make any progress? I'm really excited to see how the Stribe hardware will translate to another uC platform.

14 left...

:) 10 kits and 10 built stribes are now available for pre-order here: http://soundwidgets.com/smf/index.php?topic=18.msg19#msg19 To learn more about the Stribe go here: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/02/18/hands-on-interview-stribe-multi-touch-controller/#comment-402689 Note that this is a development platform, not a finished product. It is of most interest to developers at this point.

Yes you just need to detect when it suddenly goes to zero and that is a release. You can interpret that however you like in firmware or software. Keep track of the cycles and set threshholds.

Check out some video of the stribe working with the monome + mlr: Next round of kits is coming up, and I'm working with SpectraSymbol to design a custom touch-sheet. http://www.stribe.org <- stribe builder's guide in progress

Sold out! ;D Contact me to get on the waiting list for the next round of kits, or if you're interested in a Group Order of Stribe circuit boards.

2 left!

I have used my personal PP account for 8 years to buy and sell stuff on eBay and never had a problem of any kind until this bulk order, so I don't think that's necessarily true.

I now realize I could have potentially avoided the problem with PayPal limiting my account in a few ways: a) by upgrading to a Business account before doing the bulk order. The limits are higher and it doesn't seem as suspicious if you suddenly start getting many payments. It may also be possible to increase your limits with a Personal account but I didn't explore this. b) by using the PayPal "print shipping label" system. I bypassed this because there were various international shipments and I wanted to go to the Post Office and talk to "my guy" and find out the best way to ship to each country - what forms I would need, etc, so I just did everything there. What PayPal saw was that I had accepted a whole series of payments from other countries, but then never generated any mailing labels or tracking #'s within the system - so maybe I was up to something fishy, hence the red flag. (I think also if I had manually entered the shipping information after the fact it still would have helped.) Basically, if I had just done everything through the PayPal system the whole audit trail would have been there for them to check out and they wouldn't have needed proof of anything.

Any players besides Google and PayPal who might be worth investigating?

3 left. (PayPal crisis averted) :)

;D Restored! After finally getting an e-mail address out of one of the phone reps I spoke with today (PayPal provides no place to actually type in an explanation, you can only upload images, or fax them. Literally, there's no place to type anything in.... I wonder why) I sent an impassioned note explaining my situation and some other stuff about integrity, trust, justice blah blah blah. In my e-mail, I mentioned (truthfully) that I am presently involved in evaluating on-line donation solutions for a mega non-profit. I wonder if that explains the sudden-ness of the restoration? FYI if you ever need it the e-mail address you write to is: appeal@paypal.com Now I'm trying to decide if I should switch to Google Checkout. Any thoughts? @Wilba: it's interesting, among the things I read about today was PayPal sucking money out of people's bank accounts for questionable reasons, then tying it all up in red tape. Also, apparently there is a feature you can get turned on (it is un-advertised) that does a "sweep" of your PayPal account each night and moves the cash to your bank account. You have to have your limits set high and get the right person on the phone, apparently. Sheesh, I was really worried. I was thinking I'd have to sell the dog or something to pay everyone back.

:( Well, PayPal "limited" my account, right in the middle of my first round of Stribe kit orders. Apparently something about how I did the group buy for the softpots struck them as "suspicious" and they froze my account, pending... god knows what, they won't tell me. I have uploaded every form of information I can think of and faxed them a bank statement and written a long e-mail explaining of what I'm doing. Apparently they will review my case within the next 3-5 days and let me know if they need more information. In scouring the web I have come across dozens of sites filled with scary stories about people getting screwed out of their money for good, in exactly the way I just described. Apparently PayPal just keeps asking for more information over and over and won't tell you why until you give up or hire a lawyer. They figure no-one will hire a lawyer over a couple grand, so they just keep the money and everyone goes home. A few of these are anonymous testimonials from people who apparently worked for PayPal. If this turns out to be true I will be very very sad. Anyone been through this? Should I start saving up to buy the kit parts out-of-pocket? Just hold tight? The timing couldn't be worse. I really just can't believe it.