Mark Gibbs
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Mark Gibbs
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The Gearhead Toolbox: Raspberry Pi tools
I opened the Gearhead Toolbox to see what I hadn’t covered and, wow, there’s a lot in here so, today, let’s pick out a few Raspberry Pi-oriented goodies … Mark Gibbs Tonido Personal Cloud Server: Create a Pi cloudTonido Server is one of those gems that’s been around for a long time but doesn't seems to have got the love it deserves. Using this feature rich system you can build your own personal cloud service running on various Linux distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE, as well as macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Windows Phone, and on multiple architectures including x86, PowerPC, MIPS, and, for your Raspberry Pi pleasure, ARM.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The Gearhead Toolbox: Dashboards and visualizations
In this issue of the Gearhead Toolbox I’m covering dashboards and visualizations. There are an incredible number of products and services in this domain and today I've chosen three particularly interesting projects ... Mark Gibbs Cachet: A Status Page SystemTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The Gearhead Toolbox, second opening. Tools for diagrams and gauges.
Web-based information displays such as dashboards, have become a popular way to present summaries of complex data and in this issue of the Gearhead Toolbox I have two killer JavaScript libraries for creating and editing diagrams, and another equally great library for creating gauge displays. Enjoy ... Mark Gibbs GOJSTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The Gearhead Toolbox, first opening, and look! Static web sites!
Welcome to the first opening of The Gearhead Toolbox. There are so many really amazing tools and services appearing these days I’m going to start regularly posting a selection from the Toolbox to make sure you know what’s hot. In this, the first installment, we focus on static web site generators and hosting.StaticGen, choosing a static web site generatorThere are lots of web publishing frameworks and a design that’s become extremely popular is static web sites. The rationale for sites built this way is that they are simple to host (there’s little or no server side configuration required) and compared to products like WordPress they present no attack surface making it trivially easy to secure your content from hackers. On top of that, without the overhead of running databases and tons of supporting backend code, static web sites are really fast so you’ll get better SEO ratings!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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A reader asks: How can I create an autoblog?
Long time reader and old friend, Jim Sterne, recently wrote to me with a question: Dear Gearhead,I'd like to start publishing a newsletter about a specific area of interest, using the latest in feeds, bots, scrapers and content management organizers to make things as automated as possible but still being able to keep my eye on what gets posted, emailed, tweeted and projected directly into the corneas of avid, would-be readers.What’s out there at the moment?Many thanks,Jim Sterne One more publisher on the InterWebsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Uber and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month
On February 19th, this year, Susan J. Fowler, a software engineer who left Uber (I don’t have to explain what Uber is, do I?) to work for Stripe (okay, I’ll outline what they are: Stripe has been described as “the PayPal of the mobile era”) blogged about her experience of working at Uber. She outlined a nightmarish corporate culture of poor management, backstabbing, dirty politics, and negligent human resources, along with apparently endemic and rampant sexual discrimination and harassment. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Enough with “the Cyber”!
Email is great; it’s transformed business, enabled geographically dispersed families and friends to stay in touch, redefined news distribution, transformed sales pipelines … the list of good stuff about email is endless. But, as many people have discovered to their cost, keeping control of your email account requires effort, effort like not using dumb, easy-to-guess passwords, and making sure your email hosting service is reliable and not, for example, Yahoo or AOL. And these issues aren’t anything like new, recent discoveries; we’ve all known for over a decade where the risks lie … well, all of us except, apparently, for the government.I don’t know about you, but during the 2016 election I was fairly surprised when the Democratic National Committee email system was hacked after which the email account of John Podesta, the DNC chairperson, was hacked. You’d have thought that the folks who manage IT for these people would have known the risks and done more to minimize exposure but when simple phishing and malware intrusions that should never of happened and which went undetected were successful, then you have to wonder where the disconnect lies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, Continue reading
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Enough with “the Cyber”!
Email is great; it’s transformed business, enabled geographically dispersed families and friends to stay in touch, redefined news distribution, transformed sales pipelines … the list of good stuff about email is endless. But, as many people have discovered to their cost, keeping control of your email account requires effort, effort like not using dumb, easy-to-guess passwords, and making sure your email hosting service is reliable and not, for example, Yahoo or AOL. And these issues aren’t anything like new, recent discoveries; we’ve all known for over a decade where the risks lie … well, all of us except, apparently, for the government.I don’t know about you, but during the 2016 election I was fairly surprised when the Democratic National Committee email system was hacked after which the email account of John Podesta, the DNC chairperson, was hacked. You’d have thought that the folks who manage IT for these people would have known the risks and done more to minimize exposure but when simple phishing and malware intrusions that should never of happened and which went undetected were successful, then you have to wonder where the disconnect lies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, Continue reading
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10 killer Raspberry Pi projects (Collection 1)
Pi-ning for more air timeImage by NASA / Mark GibbsOne of the most remarkable things about the Raspberry Pi family of single board computers (other than the devices themselves) is the incredible creativity they’ve stimulated. School kids, makers, scientists, engineers, you name it, are building the most amazing digital machines and in this first round up I’ve collected some of notable and exciting examples of what people are making. If you know of a project that should be included in my next round up, drop me a line, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and Facebook and sign up for my newsletter!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Meet the newest member of the RPi family: The Raspberry Pi Zero W
The Raspberry Pi Zero, priced at $5, has been, to say the least, a hit. Launched in November 2015, the Zero is a tiny (65mm by 30mm by 5mm) stripped-down but well-featured single board computer with a 1GHz ARM11 core, 512MB of RAM, mini-HDMI with 1080p60 output, and a 40-pin GPIO header that's pin compatible with the A+, B+, and 2B models. The problem with the Zero was connectivity; with only a single micro USB port you had to add a USB hub to connect keyboad, mouse, Wi-Fi dongle, and so on making the total cost far less attractive.To answer this issue, the Raspberry Pi Foundation just released the latest member of the RPi family: The Raspberry Pi Zero W which adds 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 support. It also includes the CSI camera connector that was added to the revised Raspberry Pi Zero board. All this for just $10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Pre-crime, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and ethics
I just binge-listened to an outstanding podcast, LifeAfter, which, without giving too much away, is about artificial intelligence and its impact on people. Here's the show's synopsis: When you die in the digital age, pieces of you live on forever. In your emails, your social media posts and uploads, in the texts and videos you’ve messaged, and for some – even in their secret online lives few even know about. But what if that digital existence took on a life of its own? Ross, a low level FBI employee, faces that very question as he starts spending his days online talking to his wife Charlie, who died 8 months ago…To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The Gearhead Raspberry Pindex
I've been writing about the Raspberry Pi, the Internet of Things, and supporting technologies for some time and here, for all of you RPi aficionados, is my list of related Gearhead posts in reverse order. Enjoy ... and to get early warning of a new Gearhead post, sign up for my newsletter. Internet of Things Messaging, Part 3: Testing Mosquitto Internet of Things Messaging, Part 2: The Mosquitto MQTT broker Cluster HAT, the easiest way to build a Raspberry Pi Zero cluster 10 amazing Raspberry Pi clusters PIXEL, the latest Raspberry Pi OS ... for x86! Internet of Things Messaging, Part 1: Introducing MQTT Putting Alexa on a Raspberry Pi What's in a Raspberry Pi name? How to rename your RPi under Raspbian Using the Raspberry Pi to thwart the creepy clown menace Building a Raspberry Pi-powered Barkometer, Part 4 Building a Raspberry Pi-powered Barkometer, Part 3 Building a Raspberry Pi-powered Barkometer, Part 2 Building a Raspberry Pi-powered Barkometer, Part 1 The discerning nerd's guide to Raspberry Pi hardware (2016 mid-year edition) 9 Raspberry Pi programming tools bundled with Raspbian 7 ways to make your IoT-connected Raspberry Pi smarter Ultimate Guide to Raspberry Pi Operating Systems Part 1 Ultimate Guide to Raspberry Continue reading
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Aliens ate my laptop
To misquote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the Apple Genius Bar, but that's just peanuts to space.And out there, in the vast reaches of the cosmos, continuously streaming towards Earth are what are called cosmic rays which are protons and atomic nuclei theorized to come from both supernovae explosions and probably the centers of galaxies. The earth is continuously bombarded by these alien particles which, in turn, collide with the atmosphere and generate a whole range of secondary particles including neutrons, muons, pions and alpha particles. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Aliens ate my laptop
To misquote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the Apple Genius Bar, but that's just peanuts to space.And out there, in the vast reaches of the cosmos, continuously streaming towards Earth are what are called cosmic rays which are protons and atomic nuclei theorized to come from both supernovae explosions and probably the centers of galaxies. The earth is continuously bombarded by these alien particles which, in turn, collide with the atmosphere and generate a whole range of secondary particles including neutrons, muons, pions and alpha particles. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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12 steps to small business security
Swimming upstream?Image by ThinkstockIf you’re a small to midsized business and you wing it when it comes to network management and security then it’s not a question of if you will have a disaster, it’s merely a question of when. Why? Because malware, accidents and disasters are all waiting in the wings to pop out and make your life hell and cost you lots of money. Now I won’t lie to you, getting insulated from the bad stuff isn’t cheap, but if you think security and reliability is expensive, try fixing a disaster. Here are 12 steps that will, in the long run, make your business safer. Think you’ve got this covered? How many have you got in place?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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12 steps to small business security
Swimming upstream?Image by ThinkstockIf you’re a small to midsized business and you wing it when it comes to network management and security then it’s not a question of if you will have a disaster, it’s merely a question of when. Why? Because malware, accidents and disasters are all waiting in the wings to pop out and make your life hell and cost you lots of money. Now I won’t lie to you, getting insulated from the bad stuff isn’t cheap, but if you think security and reliability is expensive, try fixing a disaster. Here are 12 steps that will, in the long run, make your business safer. Think you’ve got this covered? How many have you got in place?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Netool network port configuration analyzer – good concept, needs polish
When you get involved in the actual wiring of networks, one of the things you find yourself checking over and over is whether Ethernet ports are actually live along with do they connect to DHCP, is the Internet visible, and so on. Typically you’ll grab your laptop, plug it in and run a few tests but while this works, you might describe it as “sub-optimal” because how often have you tried to do exactly this in a ceiling void? In a cramped comms cupboard? Somewhere in the bowels of a rack? In every one of those situations it’s just time consuming and annoying to have to fiddle around and juggle with your laptop. The Netool network port analyzer aims to be a better tool for doing exactly this.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Netool network port configuration analyzer – good concept, needs polish
When you get involved in the actual wiring of networks, one of the things you find yourself checking over and over is whether Ethernet ports are actually live along with do they connect to DHCP, is the Internet visible, and so on. Typically you’ll grab your laptop, plug it in and run a few tests but while this works, you might describe it as “sub-optimal” because how often have you tried to do exactly this in a ceiling void? In a cramped comms cupboard? Somewhere in the bowels of a rack? In every one of those situations it’s just time consuming and annoying to have to fiddle around and juggle with your laptop. The Netool network port analyzer aims to be a better tool for doing exactly this.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Netool network port configuration analyzer – good concept, needs polish
When you get involved in the actual wiring of networks, one of the things you find yourself checking over and over is whether Ethernet ports are actually live along with do they connect to DHCP, is the Internet visible, and so on. Typically you’ll grab your laptop, plug it in and run a few tests but while this works, you might describe it as “sub-optimal” because how often have you tried to do exactly this in a ceiling void? In a cramped comms cupboard? Somewhere in the bowels of a rack? In every one of those situations it’s just time consuming and annoying to have to fiddle around and juggle with your laptop. The Netool network port analyzer aims to be a better tool for doing exactly this.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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SkyBell HD, the best video doorbell so far
Some time ago I wrote about the Ring doorbell and concluded, as I wrote in a subsequent review of the company’s Stick Up Cam, that “While I liked the product conceptually, the startup lag (the time between detecting movement and when recording begins, usually a delay of a few seconds) is long enough that fast moving people like the Fedex guy can come and go before the device starts recording” and I lamented the so-so video quality. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here