Raspberry Pi setup

Having bought the boys Raspberry Pi's for Christmas, we decided to try our first project. This is what we discovered:

1. It's important to get a Wifi dongle before you start - you'll need connectivity! These ones work very nicely - Edimax EW-7811UN 150Mbps Wireless Nano USB Adapter - and were only just over £7 each.

2. Also worth buying a powered USB hub - Amazon have the Raspberry Pi compatable (sic) Mains powered 7 Port USB Hub 2Amp(2000mA) with power cable for raspberry Pi Again, cheap at only £16

3. We referred frequently to Raspberry Pi for Kids

4. The actual Pi's we got were Model B's with a pre-loaded SD card.

5. Start up, install Raspbian

6. On reboot, attach the Wifi dongle

7. Choose Wifi Config, scan for network, and select (dynamic IP at present, may change later)

8. apt-get update

9. Install Chromium

10. Try Chromium and confirm connection to internet works!

11. Install Synaptic

12. Install tightvncserver

13. Attach the camera - we bought this one - Raspberry Pi Camera Module for just under £19

14. Try a sample shot - raspistill -o image.jpg

15. Try a sample video - raspivid -o video.h264 -t 10000

Both of these save in ~/home (not desktop)

16. How to play the video? Open with omxplayer and make this default

17. Next aim - to set up a remote record facility in line with this tutorial

18. We did have a problem though. We had two Pi's, both of which were working, and then suddenly one stopped. Well, it stopped in the sense of sending no signal to TV via HDMI. Trying various RCA cables brought no success, then - more to investigate possibilities than anything else, we swapped the SD card over. Vision restored. So the SD card was the issue.

19. We tried formatting the card using the details here but it kept insisting the card was locked (even when not).

20. Fortunately we had a spare SD card and were able to install NOOBS on it. Then repeated the steps above and now both are working fine.

Turning off annoying sounds in Mac

The pop pop pop sound when turning volume up or down:
System Preferences > Sound > Play feedback when volume is changed

The scrunch noise when emptying trash:
System Preferences > Sound > Play user interface sound effects

Fixing duplicate "Open with" entries in Mavericks

Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user;killall Finder;echo "Open With has been rebuilt, Finder will relaunch"

As seen on http://www.tuaw.com/2013/03/25/how-to-spring-clean-open-with-duplicates/

Recovering an Acer Aspire One from a black screen

After being left unplugged for a while, the AA1's battery was completely drained. Connecting it to a power supply showed the charging light coming on, and there were whirring sounds to suggest the disk was starting up, but there was no display on the screen at all.

Forums recommended running a recovery disk, but as the AA1 runs Ubuntu, and these are .exe files, it seemed to me this wouldn't work.

I was wrong! I followed the steps here and in no time the AA1 was giving me a display once more!

Nexus 7 repair

Dropping a Nexus 7 resulted in multiple cracks in the glass screen. So bad, in fact, that the unlock pattern could not be entered!

Much searching did not turn up anywhere that would repair it, so into a drawer it went until such time as a service became available.

Then, recently, I noticed screens and digitisers being offered on Amazon for around the £60 mark.

Having ordered screen and tape, I then turned to the guide on YouTube here which turned out to be an excellent step by step process.

Removing the back case was a little tricky at first, but getting to the stage of unscrewing the board from the screen and removing the various connections took at most 10 minutes.

Taking off the old bezel from the broken screen was much more troublesome. I didn't have a heat gun, and being winter there was no sun in which to warm the screen, so instead it sat on a radiator.

As I bent the glass, it shattered more, making the task more problematic. It's definitely true that the adhesive is extremely sticky!

Anyway, I got there in the end, and replacing with the new glass and then reversing all the earlier steps was straightforward too.

Phone restore steps

1. Password protect phone
2. Add Google account
3. Software updates
4. IP Manager
5. Set network prefs up for static IP
6. Download Astro
7. Download Dropbox
8 Set up Dropbox
9 Set up Dropsync
10 Access Play on Google Account on PC
11 Reinstall apps
12 Set backup directory on astro
13 backfill other apps from dropbox
14 backup again
15 Encrypt

Enforced Mac update

Four days ago, the screen on my MBP decided to not unlock when admin password was entered. Thought it was one of those instances where a reboot would solve everything, I did exactly that.

Returning in the evening, I saw the MBP had booted into recovery mode. Recovery saw the external Time Machine backup, but not my HDD.

I therefore rebooted, disconnecting the Time Machine backup first (to see if this made any difference). It did. I now got three beeps, followed by a pause, then three beeps. So that suggested a RAM problem.

Back of machine removed, RAM reseated, reboot. Same problem.

Back of machine removed, RAM modules swapped around then reseated. Reboot. Same again.

Back of machine removed, original RAM modules replaced and reseated. Reboot. Same again.

Finally, back of machine removed, origina RAM modules taken back out again and reseated. Reboot. No three beeps!

Unfortunately this moved to the flashing grey question mark folder icon.

Slightly panicked now, as this could mean a motherboard problem - i.e. very expensive.

Took machine into work, kindly colleague took out current hard drive, replaced with another - it booted. Hooray - "just" a hard drive issue.

Decided to opt for an SSD this time. Ordered from Crucial.

SSD arrives. Easy process to remove existing hard drive and swap over.

Reboot. Go into Time Machine (now connected) to restore - hard drive not there to restore to. Uh-oh. Did I put it in correctly?

Quick search revealed it needs to be formatted first - so into Disk Utility, then choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Back into Time Machine. Not enough room to restore the backup. Bit odd, as it shows available space as 450GB compared to a stated size of 480GB. That's a lot missing.

Never mind. Let's reinstall Lion and then apply restore selectively.

Lion reinstalled. Then login and straight on to install Mavericks as well. May as well do a bare metal install!

Now connect Time Machine. It wants to use it as a new backup drive. How do I make sure it doesn't wipe everything? Off to http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html and take the "pink" route:

sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Old-MacBook-Pro/2013-10-21-053213/Macintosh\ HD

Time Machine now associated. And restoring.

Initial todo:

• Set dock preferences
• Set hot corner preferences
• Reinstall applications
• Add Status bar and Path bar in Finder
• Connect with bluetooth mouse
• Add secondary click option to mouse

Issues encountered (and solutions)

Can't view my own documents - https://discussions.apple.com/message/11050313#11050313

Mac HDD on desktop - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=444263

Server connection: smb//192.168.2.5

App can't be opened - http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Software-from-Unsigned-Developers-on-a-Mac

1 Install Dropbox
2 Install 1Password and link
3 Install Crashplan

Apple Quartz Filters - rename folder AS Filters

iTunes filters - show Library folder - http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/productivity/how-to-reveal-your-library-folder-in-lion-or-mountain-lion/

Copy back from Time Machine

Terminal commands to disable Resume in Preview and QuickTime Player X:

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

http://www.cultofmac.com/112179/personalize-your-lock-screen-with-new-text-display-feature-in-lion-os-x-tips/

Other initial installs:

Android File Transfer
Audacity
Cache Out
Calibre
Delicious Library
Disk Inventory X
ffmpegX
Firefox
Flux
Garageband
Get iPlayer Automator
GIMP
Google Chrome
Google Drive
Google Earth
Google+ Auto Backup
Music Manager
Open DNS Updater
Rename
Send to Kindle
Sonos
Sophos
Soundflower
SuperDuper!
The Unarchiver
Thunderbird
Transmission
VLC
WavTap
xACT

restore mailboxes:

quit mail and restore the entire folder home directory/library/mail AND the file home directory/library/preferences/com.apple.mail.plist. 

(https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2351593)

Chrome remote desktop

iTunes scripts, podcast refresh - http://dougscripts.com/itunes/2011/12/updated-update-expired-podcasts-v2-2-and-launchd-project/

Arrange by to None. Then, hold down the option key and press the Arrange button. 

Final Todo's

Printer set up (still not working)

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=66172&prodoid=63056499&infoType=Downloads&platform=Macintosh

Delicious Library

Sugar Sync