May 24

Friday Post: More Neat Things!

Hey all,

Another long week over here.  I’m glad we have a 3 day weekend, because I could use it.  Going to sleep until Monday I think 🙂  Anyways, onto the fun stuff!

Book

So, I’ve been waiting ages to announce this.  I have been tapped by a publishing company to write a book about a computer that means a lot to me (hint hint).  That’s really all the details I can announce at this time, but I’m very excited and eager to work on this project.

BarCamp Orlando

Last week I talked about BarCamp Orlando.  It was a lot of fun.  There were a lot of great talks given by members of the Orlando tech community.  I met a lot of cool people, and networked with some fellow educators.  It was also nice to see a big turnout of my coworkers and friends from FamiLAB show their support of this conference.

I did a talk about gaming on the Raspberry Pi, and I have to say it went fairly well.  I have grown to really like public speaking, and I am very interested in doing more.  I did about 15 minutes of explanations and demos of the Raspberry Pi’s capabilities, and another 10 minutes of QA from the audience members.

330173_4699890302737_534318985_o

Thermal Imaged Pi

I received an email from Bux (from the forums) the other day.  He acquired a thermal scanner, so he used it to take a picture of the Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi - Thermal Image

Weston  Accelerated X

A very exciting development in the continuing optimization of the Raspberry Pi has been released.  A release of the Weston software that allows accelerated X windows to be displayed on the Raspberry Pi.  This should help with the sluggish feeling that is encountered when using the GUI.  I will be testing this out over the weekend.  The instructions to install it are available here: http://fooishbar.org/tell-me-about/wayland-on-raspberry-pi/ and below:

echo deb http://raspberrypi.collabora.com wheezy rpi >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install weston

Stickers

I think I have sent out all the stickers.  If anyone hasn’t received theirs, please contact me again!


Have a great weekend everyone!

-Shea

Apr 17

PiMAME 0.6 Beta 5 – Now with PlayStation support!

Hey all,

PiMAME 0.6 Beta 5 Available

Sorry to release another image so quickly but I figure this is a good reason.  PCSX_ReARMed is working beautifully on the command line, with sound, and at 99% speed.  So I added it to PiMAME.  You can now play PlayStation games on your Raspberry Pi.

I’ve tested Gran Turismo 2, Syphon Filter, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.  They worked really well.

I also added the fix for the slow menu in AdvMENU.

The next version of PiMAME (0.7) will have an updater so that you don’t need to keep downloading new images.

Download Now

Enjoy everyone!

-Shea

Mar 16

Friday Post: PyCon 2013!

Apparently the wireless at PyCon ate my post  and it didn’t actually get saved or posted last night 🙁  This is what I could recover:

———–

Hey All,

I’m sorry for the late post.  This time change is killer.  I am in California right now attending PyCon for my University.  It was a whole day of flying yesterday, and the first day of the conference has gone amazingly well.  Eben from the Raspberry Pi Foundation gave the keynote.  It was great.

Mar 11

PiMAME code on GitHub

Hey All,

I’ve put my PiMAME code and configurations on GitHub for anyone to look at, check out, fork, make improvements, etc, etc.

If you check out menu.py,  you will see that I have a new line item for RetroPie / EmulationStation.

I am testing it out in addition to AdvanceMAME.

Enjoy!

https://github.com/ssilverm/PiMAME

-Shea

Feb 24

Book Review: Python For Kids

Hey All,

I met No Starch Press at PyCon 2012 where they were showing off chapters of their then upcoming book, Python For Kids by Jason R. Briggs.  I was talking to them and expressed interest in getting a copy for the students in my department at the University.  At the end of December the book started shipping and No Starch was kind enough to contact me and send me a copy.

I have to say that I think the book is great.  It has 18 chapters and is around 300 pages, with the book split up into 3 parts.  The first part is an introduction to Python 3, the syntax, as well as standard programming conventions like loops and variables and functions.  It also goes into modules, turtle graphics (like the LOGO language of old), objects, classes, and the tkinter GUI library.

The second part gets to the fun activities you can do with Python like programming games!  All the chapters in this part of the book are about using tkinter and Python to make a pong / arkanoid like game and it walks you through every step of the process.

The third part of the books builds upon the previous game, and teaches the reader how to make a simple platforming game, complete with sprites, animations, and events.

I REALLY liked this book.  I tried to read a chapter a day, and I kept having to stop myself because I would say just one more chapter tonight… (I like to pace myself).  I feel the author really captures what a kid would like to learn about and presents it in a manner that will keep them entertained, motivated, and interested.

I do have two very minor nitpicks about the book that stayed with me while I was reading it.  The first one was the lack of explaining types.  The author dives right into strings, and ints, and floats, but doesn’t explain what the difference is between them, or why you would use one over the other.  I think a simple introduction and type chart  would have made the first part a much easier read for a beginner.  The second nitpick* is that the last part of the book ramps up the difficulty.  You do get a finished game out of it, so the challenge isn’t for nothing, but I still found it to be a bit jarring after breezing through my reading of the earlier chapters.

Barring those two very minor issues, I think this is a fabulous book.  For a programming book, it is on the inexpensive side, at around $20, and packs a good amount of material for the price.  I recommend it.

-Shea

*A good friend of mine told me that I’m not looking at this one through kid glasses.  They would probably have no issue with the difficulty ramp up, and would in fact welcome the challenge.

 

Feb 21

3Doodler and Raspberry Pi On-Off Switch

Hey All,

You all know I’m a huge Kickstarter fan.  This week has proved to be an awesome time for projects (and a sad day for my wallet).  Two projects caught my eye, the first one is the 3Doodler.

The 3Doodler is a hot-glue-gun like device that uses a plastic extruder to create 3D shapes in air.  The plastic extruder is one that you would normally see in a 3D printer like the Makerbot, but has been adapted to be handheld.  Because the plastic cools rapidly, it can create sturdy shapes that can be drawn anywhere.

It already surpassed the million dollar mark, so I have high hopes for this project.  I backed it at the $75 October level, so I hope to get mine then and be able to do a review of it.  If you are into 3D Printing and artwork, you may want to consider backing this project!

Another Kickstarter I backed this week is a project for the Raspberry Pi.  It’s an on/off switch that talks to the Pi via GPIO and activates a safe software shutdown before cutting power.

I’ve talked to the creator, he’s a member of the Raspberry Pi forums, and is quite excited about this project.  It’s $22 for this batch of boards.  If you are looking for a power switch for your Pi, this may be it.

I have a cool piece of hardware to show tomorrow.  Looking forward to sharing it with you all!

-Shea

Feb 08

Friday Post: Warm Bodies and Instamorph

Hey All,

Happy Friday!  I am going to spend most of tomorrow in bed.  I’m beat.  Grad School is great, but exhausting.  Working full time, school, and hobbies (plus my upcoming wedding) is insane.  And yet, I LOVE every second of it.

Warm Bodies

Tonight I had a well deserved date night with the fiancee.  We went and saw the movie Warm Bodies.  It’s a Zom-Rom-Com, like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead.  I highly recommend it.

Instamorph

I forget where I saw this product initially, but once I started reading up on it, I had to have it.  Instamorph is mold-able  reusable, quick setting plastic.  The product comes as plastic pellets which you pour into just below boiling water.  When the plastic becomes clear, you can take it out and mold it into any shape you want.  As it cools, it hardens and turns white.

instamorphcat

Kristene made that in about 5 minutes.  I’m going to use it to make standoffs for my Raspberry Pi within the DeskCade.

Have a great weekend!

-Shea