Over on HowChoo, Jeremy has written a great tutorial which steps you through the process of linking your Raspberry Pi up to an Amazon Developer account and then installing the necessary software to create an Alexa device. These devices, which are normally purchased from Amazon, allow you to issue voice commands and get an AI-generated response. This can be anything from finding out the distance to another town or city to playing music. Read about how to do it yourself here.
Launched in 2016, the Vivaldi web browser has been available for Windows, Mac and Linux for some time. Now, it is available for the Raspberry Pi. It’s a bit different to other browsers and boasts the following ‘headline’ features:
I haven’t had a chance to have a play on the Pi yet, but I will and I’ll let you know if it’s worth trying. Bear in mind, this is an experimental build so it may not be totally stable yet, but if you’re tired of using Chromium or Web/Epiphany, I reckon it’s worth a try.
You can download Vivaldi here and then install it using the following command:
sudo apt install ./vivaldi-stable_1.13.1008.34-1_armhf.deb
Read a little more about the browser on Vivaldi’s press release.
Average Man (Richard Saville) has been continuing his resurgence into the world of Raspberry Pi. This time, he’s chosen to build a Plex server monitor out of a Raspberry Pi and a 20×4 LCD screen. He’s used the Plex API and a Python library to interrogate his Plex server and get vital pieces of information out and then displayed them on the LCD. It’s a bit of fun and you can read how he did it here.
Who doesn’t love a free Christmas giveaway? Not many people, I’m going to assume as this is normally very popular with my readers!
So, I am again running a Christmas giveaway this year. Enter your details on this page to enter. Full details, terms (such as they are) and (current) prize list is available here. Make sure to enter before 12 noon (GMT) on Monday, 11th December!
If you’re a Pi vendor and would like to donate some prizes to the competition, get in contact with me here, I can promise tweets and coverage on the competition page!
Young Archie Roques has recently set-up a company called Wonky Resistor. His first board for the company is called Score:Zero. Archie sent me one of the boards to assemble and try out, so that’s what I did and here’s what I think.
First of all, the Score:Zero is a kit. You have to put it together yourself. Using a soldering iron. The good news is, however, that it’s very well-designed and is a perfect project for those new to soldering, or even those who have never done it before. It is a white circuit board with silvered solder pads and holes. It comes with a selection of different buttons that need soldering onto the board, as well as a 40-way header which goes on the underside of the board and allows it to connect to your Pi.
Looking closely at the board, I can report that the traces are curvy rather than straight. This is likely to upset those who like their angles, but I think it gives the board a bit of ‘artistic’ flair.
A link is provided on the product page to a worksheet which tells you how to assemble it. There’s a little help with how to solder, although I would like to have seen more on that, even if it was a link to a video. The instructions are clear, although you do need to be careful which side of the board you solder the header onto – clue: The black part goes underneath with the pins poking through to the top. It’s a minor thing – perhaps future revisions of the board could have a note ‘header goes this side’ or something.
The soldering, as I’ve said before, is suitable for beginners and all you need to do is be careful, as you always should with soldering. I enjoyed the assembly process and could imagine it being used in schools, homes or clubs to teach the skill of soldering.
Software-wise, there is a GitHub repository to download which gives you three examples: detecting the button presses and separate scripts for turning the board into a keyboard or a mouse. The process for installing the software you need is all there, and I found it very easy to get it to do what I wanted. The best news is that the examples use the GPIO Zero library to make things super-simple and easy. It would make an ideal games controller for something like PyGame or even a robot controller/programmer.
Cost-wise, the price of the Score:Zero is £4.80 (plus postage). That’s less than a fiver. You know what? That’s just about right for the kit, perhaps even on the low side. It makes it a great ‘stocking filler’ and if you should mess up the soldering, it’s not the end of the world!
Above all, the Score:Zero is a bit of fun – it would be great to use this in a ‘learning to solder’ workshop, for example. Charge £5 for the workshop to cover use of tools and the board itself, ideal. And you end up with something you can really use with your Pi. Nice job, Archie – I look forward to seeing what you produce next!
Recommended for beginners and for those who want a (very) simple controller.
Buy the Score:Zero from Wonky Resistor’s online shop.
Gordon Hollingworth, over at Raspberry Pi, has just blogged an exciting new development that means you can now use a Raspberry Pi Zero’s GPIO pins from your PC or Mac. You’ll need to install Raspbian x86 Stretch on the non-Zero machine first. Now it looks like you don’t need an SD card in the Zero (which is cool), but the post on RPF doesn’t say that explicitly, but it does mention something about network boot, so try it without!
Install a new bit of software on the x86 machine to detect the Zero…
sudo apt install usbbootgui
Then, plug in your Zero using a USB cable (into the Zero’s USB data port rather than the power port) and the new GUI should pop up to tell you you’ve done it. You can then communicate with that Pi Zero using Scratch 2 GPIO or Python.
