the 200ok weblog

A new venue, side shows, main shows, amazing talks and a good time had by all...

Raspberry Pis are awesome little machines. Even with the Aussie Tax™ increasing the price, for about $50 you get a surprisingly capable computer in a tiny form factor.

There are a few gotchas getting up and running, though – particularly if you haven’t used Linux before. For example I didn’t know the right terminology for packages and using apt-get, which made searching for help a bit annoying at first.

This post is basically a list of things I’d have liked to know when I bought my first Pi, just to get up and running faster. Hopefully these tips will save someone some time…

Jeremy's post about independent publication got me thinking... While not everyone's about to abandon the silos and self-publish everything, it should at least prompt you to consider where your data is living - and whether you can even get a copy of it.

(This post is essentially an expanded transcript of a short talk given at Sydjs.)

Web Directions South 2013 is done and dusted, as ever seeming to pass in a blur and be over in an instant.

Here are my notes, hammered out quickly for my own recall. The usual notes: they're done in a hurry, if you need exact quotes check the recordings later. Presume everything is a paraphrase rather than a quote. Jump menu is old school but hey it's a big post…

Much as I know the technology is simple, I still think there is something compelling and slightly magical about bridging the digital and physical worlds.

So on saturday I joined a crew of slightly bleary-eyed nodejs and hardware enthusiasts at Web Directions HQ for Nodebots Sydney 2013.

Sometimes bugfixing is a near-zen demonstration of your mad l33t skillz. You stare at the problem for a few seconds, nod sagely and deliver a short flurry of keystrokes. The bug is squashed and the crowd goes wild.

Sometimes.