Matthew D. Morey

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On this page you will find a list of personal and team projects I have contributed to in a meaningful way. They are organized by general areas of interest.

Engineering - Web Development - Other

engineering

NOTE: As a result of non-disclosure agreements that I hold with University of Florida Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory, SpinCore Technologies, Inc., and GE Energy not all of my engineering projects can be listed in a public fashion, such as this web site. Please contact me for more information.

Implementation and Performance Traits of Select Reconfigurable Computing Platforms

The purpose of this project was to implement and run performance benchmarks on various reconfigurable computing (RC) platforms. During the process of implementation and benchmarking, all results as well as lessons learned where documented. Comparisons against pure software implementations where also made. In this paper we presented the results for three RC platforms: DS1002 development system from DRC, PROCe development board from GiDEL, and the H101-PCIXM from Nallatech.

For more information on the details of this project please read my comprehensive report (about 5MB, right-click and save the document to your desktop).

Small8

My final project in my Digital Design class was to design a simple 8-bit computer (called Small8) using VHDL and an Altera's Cyclone FPGA. Small8 consists of an 8-bit processor (64K address space), RAM, and I/O ports.

The Small8's design is split into three sections: Overall Architecture, Central Processing Unit (CPU), and External Components. For more information on the details of this project please read my comprehensive report (about 8MB, right-click and save the document to your desktop).

IRAS

I built IRAS in my Junior Design class. IRAS is a small self-contained and self-powered unit that will monitor the climate and door status of a refrigerator or freezer. The climate monitoring component outputs the temperature in °F and the relative humidity as a percentage on a low power reflective LCD screen. The Intelligent Refrigerator Alarm System or IRAS (formally known as IRFCMDAS) monitors the opening and closing of the compartment's door with a reed (magnetic) switch and sounds an alarm if either the door is left open for too long or if climate conditions are not ideal. The device was implemented using the C programming language and the PIC microcontroller. For more information about this project please read the report (about 3.5MB, right-click and save the document to your desktop).

JControl

During my time at SpinCore I got the opportunity to do some real world software engineering. We were about to release our newest product, RadioProcessor, but we didn't have a user friendly way of controlling the PCI card. My task was to develop a graphical user interface that would make it very simple to control.

I decided to use Java to do the programming because of its cross platform abilities. The program isn't very pretty but it is highly functional. The code is released as open source.

Signal Generator

Although SpinCore's products are generally used for NMR spectrometry they can be used for other things. As the heading suggest, I developed software that behaved like a traditional signal generator. The software uses SpinCore's PulseBlasterDDS-III for the generation of the signals. The program can be run in two ways, interactively or by command line parameters.

NMR System

The most satisfying thing I did at SpinCore was developing a complete NMR system based on the PulseBlasterDDS-III PCI board. The image above to the far left shows a brief schematic of the arrangement.

Also above, you can see an NMR signal of some household cooking oil that was acquired on the system.

For more information please read the application note.

Application Notes

A major part of a product is the documentation that accompanies it. One thing SpinCore's PulseBlasterDDS board lacked was a proper manual and application notes. In addition to redoing the manual, I wrote a brief document which describes how to set up a simple NMR spectrometer system using the PulseBlasterDDS board.

MP3 Computer In Car

Long before the iPod and in the beginning years of the music file format MP3, there was a desire to bring ones music collection along with them in the car.

The solution I came up with was to throw a 300 MHz AMD processor with 32 MB of RAM into the trunk. The system ran a very stripped down version of Microsoft Windows 95 that I developed/hacked myself. The system had a whopping 2 GB of storage and held about 500 songs. The driver could interact with the system using a small numerical keypad and a 40x4 Character LCD. I installed the system on my first car, a 1989 Chevrolet Caviler.

Home Theater PC System

As long as I can remember I have always had an interest in interoperability between personal computers, media, and home entertainment. With the release of MythTV, Freevo, and Windows Media Center Edition the software to combine all of these things together was available. The hardware was always there but now there was decent software as well.

I started my adventure into home theater PC (HTPC) systems with MythTV and an older AMD based system. After many days of fidgeting with the linux based MythTV I got most everything to work and had a very impressive system up and running. But there was a problem; linux doesn't usually work to well for non techies. The lack of ease of use meant my friends and roommate would not be able to use it successfully. This led me to try out Windows Media Center Edition. Surprisingly, Microsoft did a very good job with this software. It is very easy to use and still powerful.

My HTPC has been running for about a year now with no problems. Here are my current system specification:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47 GHz)
RAM: 512 MB
Harddrive: 250 GB IDE 7200 rpm Seagate
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce4 MX 4000
TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV PVR 500 (Dual Tuner)
Sound Card: Sound Blaster 5.1! Live
Software: Windows Media Center Edition 2005
Case: SilverStone LC13

web development

Milcarsky's Appliance Center Web Site (http://www.milcarsky.com)

This site is one of the first professional web sites I did. The web site was developed with Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 and uses CSS extensively.

Just in case the actual site is down check out this mirror or this PDF version.

Date: Summer 2004
Length: 20 Hours

Apex Environmental Web Site (http://www.apexenvironmental.com)

I used the template feature in Dreamweaver to design this site. Most hard core web designer discredit WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver but in my experience they increase productivity by leaps and bounces. This site also has an administration backend developed with PHP. The backend allows the site owner to make changes to the content without knowing any coding. I really like they way this site came out.

Just in case the actual site is down check out this mirror or this PDF version.

Date: Summer 2005
Length: 40 Hours

UF Theta Tau Web Site (http://www.ufthetatau.org)

This site was completely done with PHP and MySQL. The visual design of the site is not the greatest but the database back end and members only section is rock solid. The members section serves over 250 members and is used for a calendar, contact information database, quote wall, photo gallery, etc...

Just in case the actual site is down check out this mirror or this PDF version.


Date: Summer 2005
Length: 40 Hours

other

Xzolian Technologies, Inc.

Xzolian Technologies was started while I was in high school. The company provided technical advice on web development, electronic commerce, networking, programming, and information storage. The business relied on my personal technical knowledge and experience and thus was not seen as creditable by the outside business world.

Would you hire a high school kid to set up your business network and web site?

About 99.9% of the market said no. I did make some profit, but not enough to have to file taxes. When I went to college I stopped the company; school became my major priority. The web site still exist if you would like to visit it http://www.xzolian.com

RateUFL.com

RateUFL.com was going to serve as a class and professor rating service for the University of Florida. Students would be able to log on and read or rate professors and classes. RateUFL.com was also going to serve as a way for me to learn about small businesses and entrepreneurship. I gathered about half a dozen of my friends to work on this project. We definitely had the man power to make it work. It was a good idea and would have been easily implemented except I lost time and interest in the project. I was about to leave for my first Co-Op rotation with GE Energy and quickly realized that if your heart is not into your work then you quickly will become dissatisfied. I still own the domain name http://www.rateufl.com; contact me if you're interested in buying it.

Kook Wear

Kook Wear is my latest and most grand adventure. Kook Wear is an environmentally friendly extreme sports clothing line. Everything from the supply chain to the letter head that we use is environmentally conscious. In addition to the earth centered aspect of the company; we have another side to the company. This other side centers around the term kook.

The term kook means: The word "kook" is one of the most hurtful words in surfing. To be called a "kook" means that you can't surf well, have a terrible style, talk trash, or even snake your fellow surfers. Maybe you do all these things at once. Kooks have been around since the birth of surfing. I'm sure even the Duke had to deal with couple of them over in Waikiki back in the day. The problem is that it seems that the worst kooks of them all don't realize the extent of their own kookdom. - from about.com

We use the term kook in a very light hearted and fun way. We are all about doing stupid things while participating in extreme sports and still being able to laugh about our self.

Our first set of products have dropped. Be sure to check out our web site.
http://www.kook-wear.com