PiHut Vs. Edimax wifi dongles

A couple of weeks ago I swung by the PiHut website to order some bits & pieces.

While I was there I ordered one of their wifi dongles, just so I could try to evaluate its performance compared to my Edimax dumpy dongle.

So I've just spent a couple of hours this afternoon running a few tests.

Garmin eTrex 10: adding topo maps

If you believe what Garmin say, it shouldn't be possible to download topographical maps to the eTrex 10.

In fact the Garmin website doesn't give owners that option unless they have an eTrex 20 or 30 model.

But I've just discovered that it is indeed possible, and now have my eTrex 10 loaded with a nice map covering much of the south-east of England.

Scheme-ing with The Gimp: batch photo resizing

Gimp (a.k.a. The Gimp) is an image editor, very popular with Linux users and possibly a handful of Windows users.

It includes support for scripting tasks via Python (which most young programmers think is the bees-knees) and Scheme (which most Computer Science students think is the work of the devil).

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, this post focuses on Scheme.

Checking your internet connection: a simple Gambas project

A few weeks ago I noticed my internet radio was dropping out for a few moments at a time.

Further investigation showed I was sometimes losing the internet altogether.

So I decided to create a simple program to monitor internet availability.

Phone/broadband filter: using the BT Openreach MK3

I have just ditched my old broadband filter module for an ADSL filtered faceplate, as part of recent building work at home.

It was not delivered with any instructions, so I had to incorporate it into my new wiring scheme using (I dare say) non-standard wiring.

But hey! ...it seems to work, and here are some notes.

Raspberry Pi Audit via SSH

The Raspberry Pi only came into existence in 2012, but there are now quite a few models and variants.

I seem to be having problems keeping track of which Pi boards I've installed in which projects.

So I have created a reference list of Pi boards by serial number and version.

Spots on my photos

Although a few spots on a photo can be fixed by running the image through your favourite photo editing software, the source of the problem should be investigated.

If you use a DSLR, black spots are most likely caused by dirt directly on the surface of the cameras sensor.

I've noticed this problem with photos taken on my Pentax K-30 during the last few months, but only just found the time to take a closer look.

Raspberry Pi GPIO: Gambas + pigpio library

There are now a number of ways of controlling the Raspberry Pi general purpose I/O.

Libraries such as wiringPi and pigpio are written in the C programming language, but can also be used with other languages including Gambas.

I have covered wiringPi previously, and this short post is just a basic introduction to using the pigpio library with Gambas.

Raspberry Pi: headless, windowless file management

I have a number of Raspberry Pi music players that I need to add more tracks to from time to time.

As these players only boot to text (not a desktop) I can't use folder shares or VNC to access the file system.

Fortunately there is another very easy way. I can browse the file system by using secure shell file transfer protocol (sFTP).