The value of an over-exuberant penchant for experimentation and fiddling should never be underestimated, if only because it helps measure the onset of age-associated mental debilitation. In other words, everyone needs a hobby. Or two. Or ten.
Yearly Archives: 2016
I’ll be covering the PiBox Development System and PiBox Media Center in overview, explaining what these are, how to use them and where they are going. I’ve got a set of slides and will demo the media center along with all the new features I added late this year. Basically […]
PiBox @ Colorado Springs Open Source Meetup
Themes with Cairo were always a goal, but never implemented. Now, with PiClock, they are a reality.
PiBox: PiClock themes using Cairo
Back in October I started work on a new app for PiBox: an XM radio player. The hardware is an XMPCR, a device sold in the early 2000’s that connected over USB to a PC. The device didn’t last long. I think there was some concern that people would steal […]
PiBox: XM radio app (PiXM) and wifi scanning in PNC
I don’t enter many contests. I see little value in getting something for free. It’s far more interesting to earn them. But every now and then something catches my eye that seems worth the minor effort of a big reward. So a while back, perhaps back in September or so, […]
Halloween haul from Arrow
I just found out that I’ll be demo’ing PiBox at the Mini Maker Faire at Barnes and Noble, on Briargate Blvd just south of Chapel Hills mall on Saturday November 5th from 3-5pm. It’s the same demo I did for the larger CS Maker Faire but with less signage. I […]
PiBox @ Mini Maker Faire @ Barnes and Noble
PiBox Media Center v0.11.0 Release 2016-10-11 The PiBox Media Center v0.11.0 binary releases are now available for download. This release represents the first public release that will be demo’d at this weeks Maker Faire in Colorado Springs. It’s focus has been on performance, usability and developer functionality. Additional Information Meetup […]
PiBox 0.11.0 release
PiBox has a new project web site: https://www.piboxproject.com. I created this to help give the project a more professional appearance in order to entice new developers to the project. The wiki remains the location of meaningful developer information. And I created a Meetup group too: http://www.meetup.com/PiBox-Embedded-Developers My goal is to […]
New PiBox web site and Meetup group
It’s official: PiBox will be at the Colorado Springs Maker Faire on October 15th. The Maker Faire will be held at Library 21c which is just North of the Northeast corner of the Chapel Hills Mall. Last year saw around 6300 attendees and turnout is expected to be even better […]
PiBox @ CS Maker Faire, Oct 15th
So here’s my use case: I need a camera that is easily positioned away from the Raspberry Pi and can stream via mjpeg-streamer. Not huge requirements. Here is why the Raspicam doesn’t fit that use case. I’ve received a camera with the wrong cable from a Chinese distributor via Amazon. […]
Why a Raspicam isn’t better than a USB webcam.
Programming the ESP8266 is rather easy. I’m using the Arduino libraries and the makeEspArduino build system because I like to use the command line, not IDEs. Stock libraries provide everything you’d expect: Wifi setup, web servers, DNS support, etc. There’s even a library that allows you to boot into the […]
ESP8266: its’ all about power
I’ve been fiddling with an ESP8266 this week that is being powered by an FTDIBasic board from SparkFun. The setup is simple enough and it’s easy enough to get a simple web server running on it but I don’t have a power switch so the whole thing is powered through […]