Raspberry Pi on Routine Revelations

XTEInk X4

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:06:48 -0400

The XTEInk X4 is a small open eReader that has a 4.3" screen and costs $69. It is based on the ESP32-C3 micro controller, which is becoming popular amongst makers because it is more affordable than Single Board Computers like the Raspberry Pi. I had seen ads for it on my socials but after Rui Carmo posted about it and and learning there is an active community using and supporting it, I decided to buy one.

Upon recommendation from the community I flashed the CrossPoint Reader software on the device. CrossPoint provides more options, like additional fonts and being able to read in landscape, than the default software.

Despite having a small screen, I find one can read very comfortably even with the smallest font size, although I am using the medium size font. Above is a screenshot of how the text looks with the medium font. The display does not have a front light, so requires a well lit room and will work very well outdoors in the sun.

Reading on the X4 reminds me of before smartphones using a Pocket PC to read books. Back then, before there were larger screen eReaders like the Kindles, we could read books using an app called Mobi Reader, which had it’s own file format that was later acquired by Amazon. I remember reading several books during the time that I used Pocket PCs.

You cannot read eBooks that are protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM) like those sold by Amazon. You can read books that are in the EPUB format and to find books to read search for “EPUB books.” The lack of support for DRM means you probably won’t be able to read the latest on the New York Times best sellers list but you will find many classics.

Right now I do not know how I will use the X4, I bought it mostly to tinker. For reading, I am thinking short stories or poetry might be more useful than novels. An idea I have is to use it for review of the highlights I create while reading books that I have stored in Obsidian via Readwise.

Notes in Obsidian are in markdown, so I searched for a way to generate EPUB files from markdown and found md_to_epub, which is a Python app that is very straight forward to use. The script uses pandoc to create the EPUB version of the file, so it needs to be installed on the computer. I cloned the repo, created a virtual environment and ran the installation.

To transfer files from my Macbook to the X4 turn on the Hotspot feature on the X4, connect the Macbook to the Crosspoint Reader network and then use a web browser to open the page using the IP address provided on the device. When I exit the Hotspot mode on the X4 the Macbook reconnects to my home network.

I can connect the X4 to my home Wifi and then browse to the IP addressed assigned to it, but I have found that connectivity to be slower and less stable, which is why I am using the hotspot.

Everything is stored on the micro SD card in the X4 and I can pop that out and put that in a card reader to copy files, but the network method is more convenient. What I wish I could do is connect the X4 to the Macbook with USB and mount the storage card so that I could simply copy files using the Finder but Claude tells me that is not possible because the ESP32-C3 chip lacks native USB hardware.

Raspberry Pi USB Gadget

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:37:54 -0400

Back in 2019 I learned about and testing using a Raspberry Pi as an accessory to an iPad. The idea is useful for people who want a local Linux terminal on an iPad rather than making a remote connection to one on a server. People who use terminal apps like vi or emacs and developer tools are the ones who find this the most useful.

The process involves connecting a Raspberry Pi to an iPad via USB-C cable, and software on the Raspberry Pi make the USB-C connection function like an ethernet network connection. You get an IP address that you can use to login to the Pi using SSH, at which point then have access to all the tools available in the Raspberry Pi OS. If a VNC Server is running on the Pi you can even get a desktop connect using a VNC Viewer.

The instructions for setting this all up,, in which is called USB Gadget Mode, are not daunting but take a little bit of work. Today I learned that the functionality for USB Gadget Mode is now available directly in the Raspberry PI OS.

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 11:30:18 -0400

I’ve written before about how the then low cost Timex Sinclair 1000 personal computer was so influential on my life. Today’s equivalent to the Timex Sinclair is the Raspberry Pi, and I don’t think it’s coincident it also originates from England. In my opinion a Raspberry Pi should be provided to every young kid, particularly if they have any interest with computers. The newest model has just been announced and will start shipping at the end of October, you can pick up an 8 GB model with case and power supply for just over $102.

Sat, 12 Nov 2022 13:10:46 -0400

Reading an article written by the folks at raspberrypi.com about why they set up their own Mastodon instance, and I find the following statement interesting and compelling. It goes on to state how their DNS registrar effectively provides verification that they are who they are.

We’ve opted to host our own instance. We’ve done this because, with multiple instances out there, we had to decide how to make sure people following us knew that our Raspberry Pi account was the “real” one.

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 09:40:31 -0400

Yesterday I had a Raspberry Pi crash after a system update and fail to boot. I figured out what went wrong and learned some things along the way. Breaking things is how one tends to learn.

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 09:21:00 -0400

Happy Windows 11 day! I’ve spent the last several days experimenting with the ARM Version of Windows 11 on a Raspberry Pi 4. The installation process is pretty easy thanks to the WoR-Flasher utility, which I used to “burn” an installation image to a SSD. At first I tried installing by simply using USB drive, and while that worked I wondered whether using a SSD would be better. I ended up buying an inexpensive Crucial SSD and a 3.1 USB enclosure, which isn’t going to be as fast a direct PCIe connection, but the combo does time out faster than the thumb drive. One challenge I had was making sure the power adapter of the Pi was providing enough power for the drive, which I resolved once I used the 3.5A USB C power adapter from CanaKit. One constraint is that the Windows 11 build does not work with the Pi 4’s WiFi. I don’t know how long this version of Windows 11 will last, from what I read the update process is not smooth and may require a re-build, which will wipe out a product activation.

During this process I learned about differences between SATA and NVME SSD drives and found a really helpful guide about the Pi 4 bootloader and USB mass storage. I also found a very extensive site of performance benchmarks of mass storage connected to Raspberry Pis.

Learning Computing

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:31:20 -0400

Back when there were several book store chains and plenty of stores I spent a fair amount of time in them and in particular looking through the computer magazine section. Magazines were a big part of my formative computing years, and I looked forward to each month’s issue of Byte. The magazines were not only a source of news about the latest hardware and software, they were also a means of software distribution containing pages of source code available to manually enter on a variety of computer platforms.

Physical book stores are nearly extinct and computer magazines shrank in to oblivion, replaced by the Internet, but I have found one corner of the Internet where computer magazines still live. You may have heard of the Raspberry Pi, which is an inexpensive “computer on a chip” popular amongst makers. What you might not know is that raspberrypi.org is more than just the computer hardware, it’s a foundation dedicated towards computer education. The foundation publishes tutorials and lesson plans for teachers and it has a publishing arm for books and magazines.

Four different magazines are published: HackSpace, Custom PC, Wireframe, and The MagPi, which you can subscribe to and purchase online and in stores in the United Kingdom. Better yet, the magazines and books are free to download in PDF format.

If you own a Raspberry Pi and have the full desktop version of the operating system installed you will find a Bookshelf app in the Help menu of the desktop’s application launcher. Bookshelf has tabs for each magazine and books that you can download and read on the Pi. If you don’t have a Pi you can browse through and download the PDFS using the web browser on your computer.

If you are not familiar with Raspberry Pi you will find everything you need to know about it on their web site, raspberrypi.org. Another great source for information is the Official Raspberry Pi Handbook, and the 2022 version has been just released and available to download.

If you are looking for an inexpensive starter computer for yourself or a child, I recommend the Raspberry Pi 400, which is an “all-in-one” computer you can buy for $70. I also think anyone considering a future in computing, or just interested to learn more, should buy a Raspberry Pi 4 kit, which you can assemble and use to learn more about computer hardware and software.

Home Computer Repairs

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 10:34:00 -0400

Given the number of Raspberry Pis I have, you might get the impression that I am a maker, but I am not. I’ve just been enamored by these small, inexpensive single board computers. The closest I’ve come so far to a real project is what I call my desk clock, which is a Pi installed behind a five inch monitor that displays Chromium kiosk mode with a screen I configure using Dakboard.

I originally built the desk clock using a Raspberry Pi 2 that stopped working a few weeks ago. This past weekend tried to troubleshoot the problem. First I built a new SD card and it seemed to boot fine, but after a few more tests I found that the USB WiFi dongle was not reliably connecting to the home network, so I decided to re-purpose a Pi 3 that was on my desk for the desk clock.

To retain the backup and archive functions that Pi 3 was performing, I moved it’s SD card to a Pi 3b+ and then built a new SD card for the desk clock, except this time I cheated by using a pre-built image that dakboard provides.

The net result is that I now have one less Raspberry Pi sitting on my desk. Last night as I was putting things away I found another Pi 3 I already had been storing, which if I had known about would have simplified things, but not resulted in one less Pi on my desk.

For a summary of my Raspberry Pis, expand the Every Day Tech branch of my Technology outline.

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 15:47:29 -0400

Recently I was describing the Raspberry Pi 400 to my wife by asking her if she remembered the Commodore 64 because the Pi 400 is basically a keyboard with a computer beneath. I told her that for nostalgia purposes I was interested in the Pi 400, but frankly I am not sure how I would use it. It really doesn’t make sense to use the Pi 400 headless like I do my other Raspberry Pis.

All this is preamble to point you to my retro computer that sells a case that looks nearly identical to the old C-64.

Overclocking A Raspberry Pi 4

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 11:15:00 -0400

I am using a Raspberry Pi 4 (daenerys) as my desktop personal computer during the work day, which I access from my work provided computer using VNC. By using this Pi 4 I can access the Internet from my desk without going through the corporate Internet proxy.

I built daenerys in a Flirc case, which looks really nice and provides passive cooling, and it boots from a SSD in an Inateck case. The SSD gets power from the Pi and so under normal load I would see temperatures hover around 55 degrees celcius, which is well below the 85 degree threshold that causes the CPU to throttle down.

Over the holiday I built another Raspberry Pi 4 (arya) in a MazerPi case that has a fan. The fan draws power from the GPIO pins and has two modes, high speed if plugged in to the 5v pin (PIN 2) and low speed if plugged in to the 3.3v pin (PIN1). To complete the picture, ground is plugged in th PIN 6.

The MazerPi fan just stays on all the time, I am not aware of a way to control the fan so that it only comes on when a certain temperature threshold is past. I first plugged the fan in to one of the 5v pins and found it loud enough to be heard, although not terribly loud. When using high speed mode the CPU temperatures were in the mid to high 30 degree range under normal load. When I ran Octane 2 it then crossed 40 degrees.

I decided to try the low speed mode, which is quiet enough to not hear unless one concentrates. Temperatures where in the 40 to 45 degree range, which is plenty good.

At this point the thought occurred to me that it probably makes sense to use the case with the fan for the Pi that I am going to use every day rather than in one I am going to use as an accessory and thus I removed the SD card from arya and plugged in the SSD from daenerys and it booted right up. (BTW, note that in reality a computer host name is associated with the boot drive and not the actual computer, so daenerys is really the 250 GB SSD drive while arya is a 256 GB SD card.)

Finally, I decided I wanted to try overclocking daenerys, which given the fan should be safe. Normal speed for this Pi4 board is 1.5 GHz, so I decided to overclock it to 2 GHz. Performance is noticably faster. At 1.5 Ghz daenery’s Octane 2 score is 8098 and at 2.0 Ghz the score is 9777. Neither score is fantastic, but good enough for the type of web browsing that I do.

When you overclock a CPU it will run hotter and that can cause failures. In the MazerPi, with the fan in low speed mode, and the Pi 4 booting from a SSD and overclocked to a max frequency of 2 GHz and a minimum frequency of 1 GHz I am seeing temperatures ranging from 46 degrees to 55 degress, which is about the same as well using the Pi in the Flirc case but not overclocked.

The net result is that have “upgraded” daenerys to a faster processing speed that provides better performance while maintaining a good CPU temperature and so far after one full working day it has been stable. The MazerPi case cost only $8 and is easy to assemble with help from a video I found on YouTube.

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 18:42:00 -0400

The official images of the Raspberry Pi OS are still 32-bit but there is a beta 64-bit version that I have been using on an SSD connected to a Raspberry Pi 4. When the 64-bit version was first released RealVNC Server was not available so I have been using x11vnc to remote connect to the Pi. Today I learned that RealVNC Server is now available for the beta but has to be enabled via the terminal using raspi-config, so I switched. I don’t know whether anyone else will find this useful, but it feels like RealVNC is faster than x11vnc.

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 14:11:58 -0400

I like to do little projects during my week long Christmas holiday so this year I did a redo of a project from last year and built a new Raspberry Pi 4 and configured it to attach to my iPad Air via a USB-C cable. I don’t intend this particular Pi to serve a role on our home network, so I will also use it for other projects. I had have created an outline for my tech experiments in which you can view my project notes.

Vivaldi Day 2

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 15:27:58 -0400

Today is the second day of using Vivaldi on the Raspberry Pi 4 desktop, and it continues to perform better for me than Chromium. I decided to run Octane 2 and Speedometer 2 to see how Vivaldi benchmarks against Chromium and I am surprised to find that it benchmarks slightly slower in both even though my practical use finds it faster. For example, Speedometer 2 scores 7.93 in Chromium and 7.614 in Vivaldi. For comparison, the Speedometer 2 score on the iPad Air is 201, fastest in the house.

Trying Vivaldi

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 17:13:00 -0400

I use a Raspberry Pi 4 as a personal remote computer that I access using VNC during the work day, which enables me to keep my personal web access from going through my employer’s Internet proxy. It’s also an excuse of me to fiddle with the Raspberry Pi.

I have been using Chromium for browing the web but grown frustrated with its performance on the Pi so this morning I decided to give Vivaldi a try. Vivaldi uses the same rendering engine as Chrome and I’ve found it uses the same extensions as Chrome, which is important because I need access to Lastpass.

Installation was a little tricky because I am running a beta 64-bit version of the Raspberry Pi OS and so I needed to find the arm64 version of the installation package.

So far I am finding that Vivaldi does run faster on the Pi4 than Chromium. One thing I did to speed things up is to turn off the drop-down, URL completion of the address bar so that I can quickly enter URLs. However, one function that I use to forage for new updates in the Federated Wiki verse does not work, for some reason, so for now I will need to use Chromium for that part of my daily flow.

Mon, 13 Jul 2020 21:48:25 -0400

Relive a part of Xerox PARC’s history: Smalltalk-80 on a Raspberry Pi

Instructions for running Smalltalk on a Raspberry Pi. I may have to try this out.

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 15:32:11 -0400

The Raspberry Pi org has released a SD card imager app that is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Ubuntu. I use balenaEtcher on my Macbook Air to create boot SD cards for my Pis, but the new app from the Raspberry Pi org has the benefit of automatically downloading the appropriate source files rather than my having to manually seek them out. These days I pretty much only drag out the Macbook, which is more than seven years old, when I need to flash a new card. I would rather be able to use of my newest computers to flash images, which is why I decided to try to install it on my Pixellbook. Unforutnately, the install failed, which has me wondering whether I should create a new Ubuntu container and try again.

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 12:45:49 -0400

The Pinebook Pro is an ARM-based laptop that you can buy for $200. You get a 14-inch IPS 1080p screen, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, and you can use SD cards for additional storage. Is it the Raspberry Pi of laptops?

Sat, 18 Jan 2020 13:11:18 -0400

If you want to host a web application or service on a home network, make it accessible from the Internet, but not create a DMZ or enable port forwarding on your home router, you can use GitHub - inlets/inlets: Reverse proxy and service tunnel written in Go. Instructions for how to use a Raspberry Pi as the Internet gateway are in Build a 10 USD Raspberry Pi Tunnel Gateway.

Configuring A Raspberry Pi as a WiFi Hotspot and WiFi client

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 22:25:00 -0400

In episode 308 of the MobileViews podcast Jon Westfall talked about a blog post describing how to configure a Raspberry Pi 4 as a USB-C accessory for the iPad Pro. The instructions configure the Pi so that you connect an iPad to the Pi using a USB-C cable. A video is also available that provides step-by-step instructions, and you can also watch another video in which the author answers questions that were left in the comments of the original video.

While I found the concept intriguing there is no way I could implement it because it only works if you have the latest iPad Pro that has a USB-C port, which I do not have.

Later I found another video done by the author of the original one showing how to install an application called RaspAP and configure it to be a WiFi hotspot AND a WiFi client at the same time. With this configuration you can connect any iPad, or any other device that has WiFi and then you can SSH in to the Pi from the iPad to have access to a Linux command prompt, from which you could run a number of different applications, programming environments, and utilities.

It’s actually not too difficult to configure a Raspberry Pi as a WiFi hotspot (access point) and I actually had done so to a small Raspberry Pi Zero W that I have been using as a portable backup for a wiki I maintain of home information. The problem with how I have been using the Pi Zero is that it can only be either a WiFi access point OR a WiFi client, so when configured as an access point the Pi Zero can’t connect to my home network or the Internet.

What makes RaspAP better is that it configures a Raspberry Pi so that it can be an access point AND WiFi client at the same time using the same wlan port! I am not sure how this is done because as you may know a “normal” WiFi access point must have a second wired Ethernet connection to connect to a cable modem and provide Internet access, in such instances the access point routes (or bridges) network traffic between two networks (different IP addressing), one being the WiFi network and the other being the wired network, each requiring one port.

The installation of RaspAP does require connecting the Raspberry Pi to a wired network connection because there is a step that requires resetting the wlan0 interface that will hang if the port is in use. However, after installation, the Pi will connect to your home network and act as an access point for another network at the same time.

Along the way I also found out that I can power the Raspberry Pi 3b+ using the Ravpower (Model RP-PB043) portable battery that I own, which means that I have a portable, wireless network between an iPad and and a Linux computer that will work anywhere.

How might I use this set up?

Let’s say I am working on a Nodejs program. I can have Nodejs installed on the Raspberry Pi and I can have all my code also on that Pi, perhaps cloned from a git repo. Let’s say I plan to be on a long flight and I want to carry a minimal amount of gear. I can pack my iPad Pro, Raspberry Pi, and the Ravpower in my carry on and when I am able, power up the Pi, leave it in the carry on, and connect to it via WiFi from the iPad. At this point I can then SSH into the Pi and use a text editor (emacs, nano, etc..) to work on my code and test it using nodejs. Of course, you can do this for any other programming environments or compilers that install on the Raspberry Pi and run via the command prompt. (Actually.. one should also be able to VNC into the graphical Raspbarian environment if you need to.)

While I could do the above via the airplane WiFi, doing so costs money and service can be spotty, this network connectivity once configured is available nearly the same way all the time. The “remote programmer” scenario is just one idea off the top of my head, I am sure there are other uses cases for a configuration such as this. The developer of RaspAP is working to include OpenVPN to make the Pi a VPN endpoint that will provide all secured network communication for all devices that connect to it. You can find more examples for using RaspAP in this Github repo.

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 21:17:03 -0400

I spent countless hours of my youth typing in programs and games from magazines in to my computer, which back then was the only way to get “free” software. Consequently, I find Code The Classics from Raspberry Pi appealing, so much so that I actually considering buying the printed version.

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 15:12:25 -0400

LinuxLinks.com currently has a series of blog posts about using the Raspberry Pi 4 as a desktop. Added to my RSS subscriptions.

Fri, 06 Dec 2019 18:30:08 -0400

I have completed the first week of using the Raspberry Pi 4 as a remote personal desktop computer during my work day. Call it an experiment of whether the Pi 4 can really serve as a desktop. The Pi4 is no where near as fast as my Pixelbook, but I find it good enough for the web browsing and reading that I have been doing.

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 14:34:42 -0400

Looks like I might be able to set up the Raspberry Pi Zero W to connect to a PC in a similar manner. as described in the iPad Pro/Raspberry Pi 4 articles below. I might have found myself a holiday project.

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 14:25:29 -0400

My computing muse, Jerry Pournelle, is credited for Pournelle’s law: “One user, one CPU” or “One user, at least one CPU.” The law is a statement about personal computers and the computers of the 60’s and 70’s that were time shared amongst multiple users.

Pournelle’s first law somewhat describes my interest in the Raspberry Pi. The Pi, along with most “Internet of Things” is a variation of Pournelle’s law to wit: “One application one CPU.”

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 14:11:00 -0400

While listening to the latest MobileViews Podcast I heard Jon Westfall describe using the Raspberry Pi 4 as an accessory to an iPad Pro. The key component of the solution is the USB-C ports on the iPad Pro and the Raspberry Pi 4 because they are used to power the Raspberry Pi and provide network communication between the iPad and the Raspberry Pi. I am surprised that the iPad’s USB-C power output meets the Pi 4’s higher power input requirements, however I learned that the latest firmware upgrade for the Pi 4 includes a low power option along with Ethernet over USB, which are key for this working.

I found a YouTube video that shows the configuration and a link to a web page that provides more details about the configuration.

I’ve been using a Raspberry Pi Zero W in a similar manner except that I power it using USB battery and access it via WiFi when the Pi Zero is configured as a wireless access point. The result provides me access to Linux terminal apps but does not provide simultaneous access to the Internet.

I like the idea of using the Raspberry Pi 4 as described, but in my case I would need to buy a new iPad Pro with the USB-C port. Capabilities such of this do make the idea of upgrading to the latest iPad Pros more compelling.

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 12:52:53 -0400

Previously I wrote that I have my Raspberry Pi4 in a Flirc case to provide passive cooling. Jeff Geerling has a great blog post that shows how the cooling provided by the case compares to other cooling methods.

A New Slice Of Raspberry Pi

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 23:18:00 -0400

I bought the Raspberry Pi4 this past week and I’ve installed it in a Flirc Raspberry Pi4 case. Beside the fact that the Flirc case looks really nice, the case provides passive cooling of the CPU. Reviews of the Pi4 when it first released indicated it ran hot enough under load to hit the 82’C threshold that causes the CPU speed to throttle down. The Raspberry Pi Foundation as released a firmware update that improves cooling and so far with the firmware and the Flirc case the top temp I’ve seen is 44’C.

The reason why the Raspberry Pi4 runs hotter is that it has a faster ARM Cortex-A72 CPU processor, as much as 4 GB of RAM, and a USB-C power supply. I am using daenerys (my name for this computer) to type this post and I am finding it surprisingly useful for web applications. Gmail, with its heavy use of Javascript is unbearable in older models, but is actually usable on the Pi4.

For a little under $100, the Pi4 is defintely worth being a child’s first computer. I think it can also be a very servicable Linux server, running Raspbian Buster Lite, a variant of Debian Buster, for home projects.

Right now I don’t any plans for daenerys but I’ll be keeping my eyes open for any opportunities. Daenerys is my fifth Raspberry Pi. The first model I bought was the Pi2, which I have connected to a seven inch screen and serves a desk clock that shows my schedule, CNN newsfeed, current weather, and four day weather forcase. I have a Pi3 running Tiddlyserver that I am using to for a family wiki, and another running Taiga, which is a project management app. I also have a Pi Zero W that use to host a portable copy of the family wiki.

Fri, 03 May 2019 13:45:53 -0400

Scripts that allow streaming audio between two Linux machines, for example, a laptop and a Raspberry Pi.

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 11:25:51 -0400

If you are at all in to computers and/or you like making things, then I strongly recommend that you get a Raspberry Pi. I have a couple of them running on my home network, one powers a custom desk clock and the other is the hub for backing up several of my web sites.

Sat, 21 Jul 2018 13:14:21 -0400

My first computer was the Timex Sinclair 1000 that my grandmother gave me as a birthday present in 1983. I got that computer because it was cheap enough for my grandmother to buy, and she somehow determined back then that computers where the future.

One of the unique things about the TS1000 is that it had a membrane keyboard and each key had multiple functions, most notably certain function key combinations produced BASIC reserve words geared towards making it easy to learn how to program. The TS1000’s keyboard could be seen today as a predecessor to today’s on-screen keyboards.

Back in the 80s and early 90s all personal computers came with an operating system and the BASIC programming language. While you could buy some pre-packaged software, the most common way to add programs to a computer was by either writing yourself or by typing one that was printed in a magazine.

The TS1000 was an educational computer and the forefather to the Raspberry Pi that you can buy today for as little as $30. I have several Raspberry Pis that I tinker with, and I think parents ought to buy them for any child who is at all interested in studying computers.

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 13:41:47 -0400

Well, that was interesting. I updated my Pi3 with the latest release of Raspbian and then decided to clone my new Jekyll repo and edit the about page on my Raspberry Pi. Just because I could. I committed and pushed the update to the repo and checked the about page on the new site, and the new edits did not appear. Went to the Netlify site, logged in, and found the deploy failed with some error relating to node. I think during deploy nodejs 8 was attempted to be installed and it failed.

Next, I tried a fresh re-deploy and selected clear cache and this time deployment was successful.

So, what I learned here is that it appears whenever Netlify sees and pulls an update from the repo it seems to rebuild the container/VM that is hosting the site that includes installing nodejs, installing ruby gems (Jekyll uses ruby) then does a Jekyll build and ultimately deploys the site from the site fielder.

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 17:50:30 -0400

Mugsy is a robotic coffee maker with a Raspberry Pi brain.

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 16:14:20 -0400

Here is a complete run down on the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ benchmarks.

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 21:04:10 -0400

I received the new Raspberry Pi 3 B+ that became available on Pi day. This new model has a faster processor and faster networking, and in my experience with it today I find it to be noticably faster as a desktop.

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 19:00:59 -0400

Real geeky discussion about why the Raspberry Pi is not affected by Meltdown and Spectre leads to explanation of the issue Meltdown and Spectre exploits.

Setting Up Pi Zero

Mon, 25 Dec 2017 17:15:38 -0400

I got a Raspberry Pi Zero W for Christmas that I am setting up, and so far not having much luck getting the OS to install. I think the file transfer is taking too long. I am regretting following the instructions literally, meaning I installed the Pi Zero in the case and there isn’t an easy way to remove the micro SD card without removing them Zero entirely.

Looks like I will have to remove the Zero and flash the card with a complete build on a PC. I hope that I can get the Zero out of he case without breaking it.