Category: 2023 Presentations

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Sat. Dec 9 2023 – Pi Essentials + DNSMasq at home

A 2 part presentation, Pi Essentials, always good to know. And using DNSMasq to DNS-up your house (never think in numbers again)

Pi Essentials will be a beginner level introduction to some of the things you can (or maybe should) do when the Pi starts up. Nothing requires more than a few lines of code, and these are the sort of add-ons that can go with your main project. Included are buttons to put the Pi in standby mode, and start it running again, and pilot lights to show whether or not the Pi is running. A sound notification at start-up using simple text to speech, and how to put an icon on the desktop that can be clicked on to start your program are also included.
The way these utilities are organized and documented will illustrate one method of keeping track of your SD card contents.

The presentation is here

Readme.odtDownload

We are back at Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

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

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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

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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

Kosmokaryote_-TechDownload

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

Kosmokaryote_-Tech2Download

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

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Sat. Oct. 28, 2023 – Forgotten Pill Warning (Hybrid)

George gets a scolding from Alexa for not opening his pill box on time.  Technologies include 

  • A dollar store pill box,
  • ESP8266 micro-controller
  • PHP server page to receive message from ESP8266
  • Cron job to notice late opening and to send a scolding email and SMS
  • IF This Then That (IFTTT) to signal Alexa
  • Amazon Alexa Echo Show to further admonish George to open the damn pill box.

George’s presentation .pdf is here

For the meet and greet, George explains how this device can be shipped without the recipients SSID and wifi password, using only 20 bytes of code on the micro controller.

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

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Sat. Oct. 14, 2023 – IPv6 and Installing Galene, an Open Source video conf app (Hybrid)

I have been playing with Galene for over a year. And have been using it on a weekly basis to do video conferencing with some friends in Ottawa. It is much easier to install than Jitsi, but lacks some of the finer points of jitsi.

Still, you can install and run it on a Raspberry Pi (even a 3b+ !). In this presentation, I’ll show how easy it is to install on a Pi, and you can run your own personal video conferencing server.

Craig’s presentation is here: http://www.makikiweb.com/Pi/galene_installing.html

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

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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

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Sat. Apr 22, 2023 – Hydroponics and the esp32

Joel will be presenting a hydroponics controller based on the esp32 and connected to a raspberry pi using home assistant. Here are some links to home assistant and associated sites.

https://www.home-assistant.io/

https://esphome.io/

Joel’s presentation .pdf is here.

HydroponicsController

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

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Sat. Mar. 25, 2023 – Home IoT

home IoT wifi everywhere

This will be an open discussion of IoT with an introduction by Robert discussing his old IoT setup at home and the continuing process of his migration to Home Assistant.

Robert’s presentation pdf is here.

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

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NetSIG – Mar. 23, 2023

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

Last month we explored MACVLAN interfaces, and how it makes it easier for Linux Containers (LXD).

This month, BRING YOUR PI, and a 32 GB SD Card, and we’ll do a Linux Containers INSTALL FEST on your Pi.

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.

Quality Foods View Royal 6:30pm

27 Helmcken Rd #110 · Victoria, BC

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

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Sat. Mar 11, 2023 – Go-lang

In this session, we’ll demo the Go programming language. We’ll review the basics of the language, and how to get started with it. We’ll also look at some of the tools that are available to help you program in Go.

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

GitHub Repo – Includes presentation slides and code examples:

https://github.com/netserf/vicpimakers-presentation-go-learn-by-doing

Feedback:

https://forms.gle/EmtLgnfQWQb9q5v86

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Sat. Feb 11 2023 – Linux Containers on the Quadra

linux containers

After using Linux Containers (LXD) for a couple of years, Craig will share how to easily get your containers connected to the internet using a MACVLAN interface. No reconfiguration of the host is required. This technique can be used on Pi’s as well as other hosts.

We will set up containers using the MACVLAN network attachment, discuss limitations, and even run LXDware, a web-based GUI for LXD on a Pi.

We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).

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

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

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