Internet Radio example using Gambas cli

Now that I'm taking Gambas command-line programming more seriously, I thought I might rewrite the software on my internet radios.

As mentioned in a recent post, Gambas can be used to write cli programs (command-line interface) as well as the more usual gui (graphical) applications.

So this post just describes the software aspects of this project, while the other design details can be found in earlier posts.

BirdBox2017: a few problems

This system was deployed just over a month ago and has been visited by blue tits almost every day.

It is basically doing its job by recording lots of video clips of both the inside and outside views of the bird box, which is mounted on the side of our pergola.

However, it does have a couple of problems that are rather annoying.

Raspberry Pi: stuff I don't need in Jessie

They pack a lot of stuff into the current Raspbian Jessie Full distribution that I have no use for.

The down-side to this is two-fold: a lot of precious space is taken up on the SD card, and updates can take longer than necessary when any of these unused apps get updated.

So this post is just a place to save my list of packages that I'm happy to remove.

BlissFlixx on RaspberryPi

A few days ago I stumbled upon a video media application for the Raspberry Pi.

I've tried others in the past like XBMC, and I don't really like them. But BlissFlixx is different.

I have only been playing around with it for a couple of days, and I'm already hooked!

Linux: network OK, but no internet connection

I've performed the Raspberry Pi upgrade from Wheezy to Jessie a few times without any real issues.

But a recent attempt left me with an unusual networking problem.

I know I won't remember the details the next time I have this problem, so I need to write it down.

Raspberry Pi Serial Comms: Gambas + wiringPi

I've been playing around with serial comms on my Pi/Picaxe dev rig.

Using Gordon's wiringPi library makes it easy to open the gpio serial comms port on the Pi and write code with Gambas.

So this post involves writing a simple Picaxe program, and then using wiringPi and Gambas on the Pi to communicate with the Picaxe.

Picaxe Programming with Pi

You can write Picaxe programs, compile and download to the device using Windows or Linux x86/64.

And it is also possible to use a Raspberry Pi and a few cheap components to develop and load your programs to a Picaxe.

This brief post describes how.

BirdBoxPi2015: Jessie U-Turn & other troubles

Unfortunately I've had to abandon Raspbian Jessie and return to Wheezy.

But I'm now back on track, with both hardware and software performing as expected.

I started out using Jessie and had no problems with my Gambas applications, custom scripts and other applications that I rely on for my system, including VLC media player.

Wheezy & Jessie, more than just a Toy Story.

I've just updated Raspbian on a RaspberryPi....it took hours!

But this wasn't just a routine apt-get update & upgrade, it was a move from Debian Wheezy to Jessie.

So all of my applications where updated, in addition to the operating system and many configuration files.

How to Install Gambas on the Raspberry Pi

Gambas is a great visual programming environment for Linux, so if you've worked with Visual Basic on Windows, you will feel right at home with Gambas.

Although you can easily install Gambas from the repository using Synaptic, if you want the most recent stable release you will need to download the source files, compile and install manually.

Generally, installing applications from the repository is the best idea. After all, its easy, the package should be stable, and all dependent files should be included.