10-Second $10 Upgrade to Triple Your Raspberry Pi 3 Network Speed

By Gabriel Staples
Written: 20 Jan. 2018
Last Updated: 20 Jan. 2018

Site Map/Table of Contents

tldr;

Buy one of these USB to Gigabit Ethernet adapters for $10, plug it in to your Raspberry Pi 3 and voilá! Your new Pi 3 Ethernet connection is now 3x faster than the built-in Ethernet port and 12x faster than the built-in WiFi adapter (source: see my test results below)!

This really matters when you're using your Pi 3 as a network device, server, router, hotspot, NAS, or remote development machine. Pretty much it really matters whenever you want it to work better on your local or wide area network, which includes ssh-ing or otherwise remoting into it.

Details:

WowGo 2 Electric Skateboard

Written: 30 Dec. 2017
Last Updated: 30 Dec. 2016

The WowGo Electric Skateboard is one of the greatest products I've ever had the privilege of owning. It's a thrill to ride, so much fun, and practical too! I've owned it now for 2 months and have probably already put close to 150 or 200 miles on it. When riding downhill at 22+mph, carving back and forth, I actually get the same sensation I feel when snowboarding--except in this case I can do it right outside my house in my local neighborhood, and all-year-round!

I recently moved to a big city and I have been using my WowGo electric skateboard for the last month to ride to and from the subway station to get to work each day. I also use it for city commuting down-town. The ride to the subway station is just over 3 miles but I can complete it in 9~15 minutes, depending on traffic lights.

Which Programming Language Should I Learn?

Investing time into learning a first (or new) programming language is a seriously-time-consuming endeavor. For me it wasn't something to take lightly, as I knew I'd be investing thousands of hours into any given single language when I began. When people ask which programming languages they should learn or use, a great way to make recommendations is to consider these 3 things:

1. Popularity
2. Is it a scripted (interpreted) or compiled language, and how does that affect what I want to do with it?
3. Which languages are most used in my industry or application?

1) Consider the popularity of languages. The more popular the language, the higher the priority it should be, within reason, since that's what industry uses and that's where you're going to find the most resources, help and support, compatibility with others, and jobs. The TIOBE index is the place to check:
"TIOBE programming community index is a measure of popularity of programming languages, created and maintained by the TIOBE Company based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.[1] TIOBE stands for 'The Importance of Being Earnest' which is taken from the name of a comedy play written by Oscar Wilde at the end of the nineteenth century.[2]" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIOBE_index).

Here's the index for 2017: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/. As shown above, the top 6, in this order, are:

1. Java
2. C
3. C++
4. C#
5. Python, and 
6. JavaScript. 

My top 3 recommendations are Java, C++, and Python, but not necessarily in that order. When it comes to you and your personal needs, goals, and desires, however, you need to choose for yourself! Here's some tips to help you make that decision.

Arduino sine wave siren code using a lookup table in flash memory (PROGMEM)

By Gabriel Staples
Posted: 30 Sept. 2017
Last Updated: 30 Sept. 2017

Related Articles:

• One of my current projects: Arduino police siren w/simple, custom transistor amplifier/speaker driver circuit

Other Articles:
(*Articles containing or linking to source code are marked with an asterisk)

• How to make a Linux Live USB with a 2nd, Windows-readable partition for storage
• Computa Pranksta USB Mouse & Keyboard Device User Manual
• *Arduino (ATmega328) Direct Register Manipulation for Custom PWM Output (ex: 1us HIGH followed by 99us LOW --> 1% Duty Cycle at 10kHz)
• *MAX5481 10-bit Digital Potentiometer Arduino Code
• Eagle PCB CAD - How to copy a part from one schematic to another
• *Arduino-like millisecond (ms) and microsecond (us)-resolution timestamps in Python: millis(), micros(), delay(), & delayMicroseconds()
• BattleBots Season 2 "Buzz" Fire Drone for Team Caustic Creations, with Team Interviews & fire-shooting Videos
• *The Power of Arduino
• Restoring/Recharging Over-discharged LiPo (Lithium Polymer) Batteries!
• Parallel Charging Your LiPo Batteries
• *Using the Arduino Uno’s built-in 10-bit to 16+-bit ADC (Analog to Digital Converter)--an Article on Oversampling
• Beginner RC Airplane Setup

Demo Video: 

How to make a Linux Live USB with a 2nd, Windows-readable partition for storage

This article is a "Notes to Self" article. That means I wrote it for my own personal reference and use, with myself as the target audience during drafting, but decided to post it here because I believe it is useful to others too, and I want to reach as many people as possible, not just me. 

Ever wanted to have a bootable Linux USB flash drive with a separate, Windows-readable partition for general file storage? Here's how.

By Gabriel Staples

Written: 26-27 May 2016

Posted online: 26 Aug 2017
Updated: 26 Aug 2017

The Gist of it/The super short version:

-for the experienced Linux user

1. Use gparted on a Linux computer to make 2 FAT32 partitions on the thumb drive. The partition created first must be for storage, while the 2^nd one must be for the Linux distro you are putting on the Live USB.
2. Use UNetbootin on a Linux computer to install your iso file for the Live USB onto the 2^nd partition you just made above.
3. Done. You can now boot from the USB thumb drive, from its 2^nd partition, while its 1^st partition only is readable and usable by Windows still (as well as by Linux or Mac too of course).