It’s almost my turn to present my video this year on December 13th, for the 2023 Festive Tech Calendar. I chose to do something fun vs. something about the cloud or databases, etc. This blog post has all the support info on the spinning Xmas tree, along with the RPI playing Xmas music and flashing Xmas colored lights, while the video goes into everything about the Raspberry Pi, why contribute to this year’s event donation and my project demo. Project Goal To use a Lego Xmas tree, attach it to a DC motor and use code with a Raspberry PI…
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After returning from KSCOPE two weeks ago, I was again approached to be a judge this year on the Geekathon 2017. I was thrilled when the option was left open to me to compete this year. instead of be a judge. As much as I love to offer my insight and expertise in a judging capacity, I really do love a great maker opportunity, which I haven’t had much time to allocate to with all the work I’m doing at Delphix. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to this year’s competition, so look out maker’s, there’s a new…err, old gun….old…
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I make some odd New Year’s Resolutions and mine for 2017 was to add some smart home solutions to our home that made sense. I’ve seen what can happen if you don’t plan these types of projects out well, (looking at you, Mark Rittman!) and the insanity that ensues! The following smart home goals were made: Main lights Prime power outlets thermostat music center Roku/TV The following technology would be used to accomplish the goals: Echo Dot, (3) Phillips Hue Bridge, (2) and lightbulbs, (8) TP-link smart plugs, (2) Ecobee Lite 3 Thermostat Raspberry Pi and Python Code The Echo…
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With me traveling to Redwood City next week to visit HQ and then Oracle Open World the week after, I’m busy during many of my off hours preparing a new Raspberry Pi STEAM setup for a maker’s faire the beginning of October. I’d heard that many were having challenges with installing different HATs on their new RPI 3, especially older ones like the Pibrella. This is still one of my favorite accessories for my RPI due to the button, speaker and three LEDs, but also since I can hot swap jump wires without risk of shorting out the unit like…
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The following issues in this post are common challenges experienced by Raspberry Pi, (RPI) owners and I’m consistently frustrated with the ridiculous answers out on the internet for them! No fear, trusty Raspains! I’m here to offer you the correct and [pretty easy] answers that will actually fix the problems and won’t lead you to searching for hours on the internet. We techies know that no matter what, going back to the configuration at the OS, (operating system) level is just the best way to fix problems. Raspberry Pi issues are no different, so read on… Keyboard Set To A Different Language If…
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So there are some cool features that are built into the GPIOZero library/module. One of the challenges I think many of us that have a lot of projects that we want to work on, is that we end up having to translate it to the version of RPI that we just happen to be working on or have available. This can be frustrating when the code is available without us having to rewrite it all in the libraries available for the hardware we just happen to plug-in. So GPIO the old way with photocells is a bit involved: GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) def…
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This morning, after someone added SQL Developer to a Raspberry Pi 3, Jeff Smith pinged me and the question was posed, as it often is, can you run Oracle database server on a Raspberry Pi, (RPI)? The answer is no, you can’t, as there are no binaries for the ARM processor platform that you can compile, so its nothing to do with power, (although it is low powered for a very good reason…) but really due to the processor type. Hopefully that’ll stop those of you building out massive RPI clusters in hopes of creating their own home servers with…
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Although the Raspberry Pi 3 is now available, many people are still interested in it’s cheaper, smaller version, the Raspberry Pi Zero. This version isn’t just smaller, it also requires a Wi-Fi dongle for internet access, (one of the new, great features on the 3 Model!) and one of my main reasons for not recommending it to newbies to the Raspberry Pi, (RPI) world, is that it doesn’t come with the GPIO pins pre-soldered. GPIO, The In and Out to the World GPIO, which stands for General Purpose Input and Output is an excellent feature on this single board computer, allowing…
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I’d had some difficulty with WiFi consistently staying connected on each of my Raspberry Pi units. I’d had a little time to look into it, but no research had offered an answer and the only fixes I’d come up with was a shell script I wrote to force a restart of the NIC, which helped some, but no improvement when I added an antenna, (I considered all the wires, sensors, etc. might be interfering with the signal.) Finally this weekend, started to dig around and noted that although in the user interface, it showed both connections to my home WiFi and…
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This Saturday I’ll be part of a nationwide event being put on by the Raspberry Pi Organization and Barnes and Noble book stores. Makers Faire’s have been gaining international attention as the place to see really cool tech and inventions “in the wild” by everyday people making a difference. Barnes and Noble Maker’s Faire Event I’ll be presenting at my local Westminster, CO store and am really looking forward to the event. I was approached by Matt Richardson from the Raspberry Pi organization to participate and I was really honored to be picked to be part of this. The event…
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So in honor of coaching a Python introduction class with Devoxx4Kids this weekend, I thought I would update my pass the pigs game and add in the scoring and just rewrite it a little. If you aren’t familiar with this fun little game, here’s the gist- It consists of two pigs that you roll like dice. Depending on how the pigs land, you get a particular score- I’ve simplified my original script even a bit more and added a function to set up the roll. I’ve added the scoring in, along with information on if you roll doubles and the…
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I’ve been a bit busy traveling and speaking, but I wanted to discuss the great events I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the last couple weeks. Indianapolis Oracle User Group I spoke at the INOUG back on September 17th. The user group in Indiana is incredibly welcoming and I had a great time with the wonderful attendees for my three back-to-back sessions. We discussed AWR Warehouse, ASH and AWR Mining and a new session on Optimization for EM12c and the Hybrid Cloud. East Coast Oracle Conference September 21st-23rd was my first visit to the great city of Raleigh,…
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So as I prepare for next week, coaching with some other great folks with the Oracle Education Foundation using the Raspberry Pi, I wanted to add some fun music into my code to work with our motor mascot project. To do so, you need a few things: A small speaker with a 3.5 plugin to the Raspberry Pi. I have a small, round, rechargeable one that I love. Have an FM radio station that streams music that you can use in your code. Install and use music libraries If you haven’t done so recently, run an update on your Rpi: sudo…
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So one of the things I like to do is test out a lot of my python gaming code, (as far as for the coding and syntax) on my Oracle Virtualbox image of my Raspberry Pi. Another great thing about building games on the Raspberry Pi, is a built in module called Pygame. Well, that doesn’t exist on the Raspberry Pi image and it really limits what we can do when it comes to the VNC build we play on the Oracle Virtualbox, (that’s a mouthful… :)) Get Outside Access The first step is to first get out to all…
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Back on August 7th, the RMOUG’s Quarterly Education Workshop, I walked everyone through using a Pibrella board to create an art or flyer project that was powered with a python script and a motor. Today, we’re going to take that same code and reuse it with a simple robotics kit to control power and rotation speeds/time to the Insectoid. This kit, puchased from the Go! store in Flat Irons Crossing mall, was $16 and can be built in less than an hour, even for a small child. If you’re interested, you can also purchase the kit online at Amazon, but…
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So I don’t doubt that many parents are bleeding out money for kid’s school fees, supplies, clothing and other demands this time of year. How many of you are in their local Target, Walmart or other store and after filling the cart with the necessary, the kids eye up the toy aisle and start to ask for something? Even teens are not immune and may be asking for games. If you could turn around and say to them, “If you want the game, then why don’t you build it instead of buying it?” Now as many of you have figured…
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There’s an old joke about the evolution of a programmer. It starts with the programmer in their infancy and typing: Print “Hello World” and so the output returns: The programmer continues to evolve. His coding knowledge increases and his code in the end of his evolution becomes a script of 5000 to 10,000 lines. What does the output return? You guessed it: I often joked that I’d make a terrible developer. I over think everything, but the truth is, I may have just evolved too much and need to devolve to improve. There used to be a sign up on…
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So I’m working on a lot of posts for Enterprise Manager, but I can’t post them just yet, so here’s some more Raspberry Pi love to keep you busy until then… 🙂 Why VBox Raspberry Pi? Many times I just want to write and test some code, but I want to do it while I’m taking a break from my day to day work- waiting for a download, in a meeting, a script is running in another window, etc., so it’s convenient to have a Virtualbox image to run Python scripts with all the libraries and modules installed. I can’t…