subject: Uses For The Ethernet Shield In Hobbyist Electronics [print this page] The Ethernet shield is used to allow a hobbyist project to talk to the internet. That can be an up or a down transaction that is to say, it can be a server, uploading pages to the net and providing the power for users to interact with those pages; or it can be a client, taking information from other servers and interrogating it.
The actual uses to which you put the Ethernet shield are bounded really only by your imagination. What do you want your project to do? If you would like, for example, to be able to search out the information you need from a specific website, you can build a simple program for an Arduino Ethernet shield that does exactly that.
The great thing about Arduino is that its open source, so if you go onto the Arduino site or just spend a little time surfing for forums, youll find loads of pre-written code to help you do the kinds of things you want. In general, the open source community actively encourages you to use its pre-existing programs and will even provide extra lines of code so you can tweak them to do what you want them to do.
Overall, though, the clear beauty of o[pen source is that you can imagine what you want your Ethernet shield to do and then do it, If that means starting with someone elses code, thats not a problem over time you can simply begin to learn more programming for yourself and take the first steps to creating your own bespoke open source routines for connecting an Arduino board to the web. The only thing youre honour bound to do is share your results with the world. Someone, somewhere, will be scratching his or her head trying to get his or her project to do what you have already done.
The open source revolution has by now pretty much completed. That is to say, open source programming is now accepted and welcomed by the big guns in computer software, the people whose names shall not be mentioned (it means the same as the thing you open to let the air into your house, or the slick garment you put on to protect yourself from rain) who have learned that its better to embrace freelance programmers than it is to have them create stuff outside the corporate mould. These days, open source contests are held every year by the biggest names in operating systems for PC, tablet and phone and anyone with a bright open source idea can end up winning and having his or her program syndicated and distributed all over the world!
The Ethernet shield allows you to write routines that make all sorts of cool applications possible. With mobile phones and other handheld devices becoming total communications hubs, the key to the whole world of the net no matter where the user is, there is a lot of scope out there for applications that make use of permanent connections. What will yours do?
