Sat Mar 9 2024 – Running AI at home on a Raspberry Pi

Craigs presentation notes are here. http://www.makikiweb.com/Pi/ai_on_the_pi.html

8:45-9:00a Coffee & Conversation
9:00a Presentation

PLEASE NOTE: earlier time for this meeting. There is another group who will be using the room at 10:45a.

AI is not just for the big guys any longer. It is possible to run an Artificial Intelligence program on your Pi 4 or Pi 5. In this presentation, we’ll learn about how to run an several AI models on the Pi, the advantages and disadvantages of each.

We’ll open the floor to ask the AI questions (via a web interface on the local network), so bring a laptop, all over IPv6!

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Sat Jan 27 2024 – heat sinks and pi irrigation controller.

An application of Blue Board in calculating heat sink cooling capability, measured in Watts

By measuring the interior chip temperature over a few seconds of a chip cooled by a heat sink, you can calculate the watts dissipated by the heat sink. The DS18B20 measures temperatures up to 125℃ at the interior of the chip.
This is a useful measurement If you are making your own heat sinks out of copper tubes or folded aluminum sheathing,  You can also compare the effectiveness of different heat sink compounds this way.

The presentation is at this bookmark in a longer presentation on how to set up a Raspberry Pi Pico as a Blue Board learning tool. Blue Boards are available for free from George at 250-893-7423

Sat.Nov 25, 2023 – Running Alpine Linux (with XFCE) on the Pi

Naturally, you can run PiOS on your Raspberry Pi, but are there other options, which have a full GUI (XFCE). Turns out, you can run Alpine Linux with full GUI on the Pi. A lighter-weight distro, which also doesn’t require systems.

Craig’s presentation notes are here: http://www.makikiweb.com/Pi/alpine_linux_installing_gui.html

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Nov 11 2023 – Intro to NextCloud on a Pi

Why just run your own video conferencing server, when you can simultaneously run that AND mail, calendaring, contacts, calls, IM, file sharing, remote backup, and a web-based office suite, all in one intimidating package. Get your own thrift-store Google G Suite going with the open source Nextcloud platform on a tiny Raspberry Pi! Great for the privacy-conscious, the independent, and masochists. We’ll do it the hard way and make configuring Jitsi look like recess at kindergarten (and then do it the easy way). Warning: the hard way will race through dependencies including Apache, PHP, MySQL/MariaDB and openSSL, so expect some mild suffering.

Richard’s Blog here:

Actual process including configuring a web server and database and installing from a source tarball:
https://tech.kosmokaryote.org/2023/11/technology-nextcloud-on-raspberry-pi_22.html

here are the pdfs

and here


Much briefer post using nextcloudpi via docker from my notes, as originally demoed:
https://tech.kosmokaryote.org/2023/11/technology-nextcloud-on-raspberry-pi.html

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Sat, May 13, 2023 – Projects Day

We will be having a discussion about Projects that we are working on, but haven’t shared with the group. These can be projects that are successful or ones that just didn’t work out and have been abandoned. We’ll enjoy hearing about other’s projects, and perhaps even offer to help.

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Small Boardroom @ Quality Foods, 27 Helmcken Rd #110 · View Royal

Join Us Online here:
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Thu. Apr. 27, 2023 – NetSIG: LXD Installing Pi-Hole in a Linux Container

NetSIG is a Special Interest Group focused on computer networking. Building networks for Today and Tomorrow!

Last month we did the InstallFest for Linux Containers (LXD). This month, we’ll install a popular application, Pi-Hole, in a container on YOUR Pi. With Linux Containers, there’s no need to dedicate a Pi to Apps like Pi-Hole.

This month, BRING YOUR PI, and the LXD 32 GB SD Card, and we’ll do a Linux Containers App installation on your Pi. Also bring a method to SSH to your Pi (e.g. laptop or screen + keyboard).

We will be meeting in-person at Quality Foods (small boardroom upstairs), bring a laptop and have Wireshark installed. This will be hands on. PLEASE BRING an ETHERNET dongle/port as we will be ssh-ing into your Pi, and configuring Linux Containers.

Afterword, we will go out for a beer/coffee.

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Small Boardroom @ Quality Foods, 27 Helmcken Rd #110 · View Royal

Join Us Online here:
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Sat., June 11, 2022 – Marine GPS on a Pi

Dave will share his work in running Marine Navigation on a Pi including:

  • hardware requirements
  • how the zero could be used, but there are drawbacks
  • I was unable to get a pi 4
  • at George’s suggestion, I decided to go with the pi 400
  • hardware modifications to integrate the GPS unit within the pi 400 case
  • introduction to and a brief overview of the OpenCPN Chart Plotter Navigation software
  • some ideas I have to make a more “system-critical” GPS solution (will implement if I have time)

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation (virtual)
10a Presentation


QCollege has welcomed us back to meet in-person. We thank them for their support.

Virtual…

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Sat. Oct. 24, 2020 Intro to Scratch (language)

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

Introduction to Scratch. Scratch is a block-based visual programming language.

See Eileen’s presentation .pdf here.

And Jim will introduce Programming Challenge 2. Download the challenge here.

Be sure to HAVE a LAPTOP, as these are hands on sessions.

QCollege has graciously offered to use their campus for our fall meetings. This will be a hybrid meeting (in-person & on Jitsi). Seating is limited, please indicate if you intend to attend in person (post to the event on meetup here).

QCollege
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

Jitsi
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

Intro to Pi and Others: Part 4

Light it up!

Tuesday, May 21, 2019
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

Intro to Pi & Others is a 4 part series of short monthly sessions to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is a structured hour-long session where you can ask questions.

Please bring in your Pi, HDMI cable, and power supply. All other equipment will be provided.

This is a four-part series with each session building on the previous sessions, where Pi basics of software and hardware will be explored. Read More

Intro to Pi & Others Part 3

Light it up!

Tuesday, May 7, 2019
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Q-College
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

Intro to Pi & Others is a 4 part series of short monthly sessions to help get you up and running with your Pi or Other (embedded device). It is a structured hour-long session where you can ask questions.

Please bring in your Pi, HDMI cable, and power supply. All other equipment will be provided.

This is a four-part series with each session building on the previous sessions, where Pi basics of software and hardware will be explored. Read More

March 23, 2019 Let’s Encrypt

“Let’s Encrypt” is a free, public usable Certificate Authority that makes encrypting your web server’s http traffic easy. All you need to know about setup up a Raspberry Pi to use Let’s Encrypt will be presented by Mark G.

Camosun College
Bldg: Technology Bldg, Room: Tech 177 – 4461 Interurban Rd, Victoria, BC (parking at lot 8 for park users)

Download: Using Let’s Encrypt As A Certificate Authority on a Raspberry Pi

letsencryptpresentation


Sat, May 11, 2019 – Useful Tools

Useful Tools (git, sshfs, bash, etc)

Over the years, we have found certain software tools, which not only make our life easier but make the project more fun to do. In this meeting, we’ll share some of these software tools, and ask the group for other tools that they have found useful.

Presentation Notes Here:
http://drsol.com/~deid/pi/gitCraig/index.html
Saturday, May 11, 2019
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Q-CollegeSuite
303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC

February 23, 2019 – Linux Containers on the Pi: A Server Farm in the Palm of your hand

Camosun College
Bldg: Technology Bldg, Room: Tech 177 – 4461 Interurban Rd, Victoria, BC (parking at lot 8 for park users)

Another container technology which can also run on SBCs is Linux Containers (LXC/LXD). Each LXC Container appears to have its own network stack. And therefore is much more flexible than Docker.

We’ll run 20 webservers all with individual addresses, all listening on port 80, on the Pi, something that can’t be done with Docker in its NAT-constrained world.

See Craig’s documentation here.