BirdBox 2020: April...it's been a funny old month!

There has been a lot of traffic in our maple tree bird box during April.

 

We've seen trespassers, thieves, and changes of ownership.

So guess who our current tenants are?

Re-discover the Night Sky #2: stacking images in Gimp

Stacking time-lapse photos of the night sky allows you to create 'star-trail' images.

It is possible to get good results using Gimp by selecting the appropriate layer mode.

This post also describes how I hacked one of the existing Gimp scripts.

Re-discover the Night Sky: star trails

With an improvement in the weather, I thought I'd try a bit of night-sky photography.

One thing I've never attempted is taking time-lapse photos and then stacking them to produce star trails.

I used a RaspiCam for the photos and Gimp to stack and process them.

BirdBox2020: here we go again

Listen! ...I can hear the birds!

The Covid Crisis has resulted in an unexpected benefit...

...a dramatic drop in traffic noise.

Covid-19: there's a lot of it about

The world is currently gripped by fear as Covid-19 continues to spread across every continent, bar Antarctica.

We have just been suffering with 'the lurgy'...

...but was this Covid-19?

a WifiScanner written in Gambas Script

I've been looking for a suitable application to write using Gambas Script, as a means of demonstrating its possibilities.

10 years ago I created a Gambas GUI app called WifiScanner which fits the bill.

So I've just stripped it down and created a script version.

Geany Syntax Highlighter for Gambas Script

Gambas scripts can be written using any text editor in 'black & white'.

But I'm so used to seeing my code in colour that black text seems to slow down my comprehension.

Although this post shows how to add colour for your Gambas script files in Geany, it may be more widely useful for those trying to add syntax highlighting for other languages to the Geany code editor.

Gambas Scripts

If you are familiar with Gambas (or Basic) you shouldn't have too much trouble writing Gambas scripts.

Although scripting is often used for small programming tasks, it can be used to create more ambitious projects.

It may also be useful on headless/GUI-less systems, like the Raspberry Pi.

Feeding the Rats (...and hedgehogs) part 1

We are all encouraged to feed garden birds and look after our local hedgehogs.

But its difficult to do this without boosting the population of pests, such as rats.

So is there anything we can do to get the balance right?