Of Tablets and Phones and Raspberry Pis

Of Tablets and Phones and Raspberry Pis

Byrichard

This morning when driving back from the shops I heard someone in a podcast say that his fourteen year old niece was disgusted at the thought of using a laptop rather than a mobile phone and it made me think of something. In the age of iOS and Android devices replacing computers it makes sense to setup Raspberry Pi as Nextcloud servers, photoprism servers, Pi Holes and more. It makes sense becaue if we move away from the laptop and the desktop then we come across a serious limitation. Storage.

Apple Cost of Storage

There is a 160 CHF difference between a 64GB iPhone SE and a 256GB iPhone SE for example. With the Mac Book Air 13″ you pay a minimum of 1100 CHF for 256GB of storage and 1900 CHF for 2TB of storage. With the iPad Mini you range from 64 GB for 571 CHF to 256GB for 741.70CHF.

A Cheaper shared Option

A Raspberry Pi 4 8GB will cost 110 CHF at the time of writing and a one TB SDXC card will cost 106 CHF. For 200 CHF and Nextcloud you have a low wattage storage solution that is always on and always available when you are on the home network.

Cloud backup

With such a solution you can take one hundreds of pictures during a hike or night out, and back them up to your home nextcloud instance. You can then either link two nextcloud intances in different buildings, or find the cheapest cloud storage solution. iCloud is 120 CHF per year, Google One is 100 CHF per year and Kdrive is just 67 CHF per year.

By having a full backup in your home you can slide between cloud storage solutions more easily because you don’t need to wait for days while all the files download.

NextCloud and Mobile Devices

With Nextcloud you have time tracking options so you can keep track of the projects you’re working on as well as how much you’re owed, if the time tracked has monetary value. With the Passwords plugin for nextcloud you can replace onepass, lastpass and other password solutions.

With the memories add on you can view photos and videos as moments in time, by people, and more. It also logs locations and more, but rather than Google or Apple knowing about this, your own server does.

It has word processors, project management tools, task tools, Kanban boards and more. It’s versatile.

Pi Hole

When you’re surfing the web adverts can become really annoying, either by auto-playing, or by just taking a lot of space on a screen. By routing DNS requests from your server to Pi Hole you can reduce the amount of bandwidth used by ads on mobile devices.

CUPS Server

Although quite boring you can setup a Pi to work as a CUPS print server. Plug a Pi running CUPS into a printer and you can set it up. With this move you don’t need to plug in a laptop every time you want to print. Since Apple went to USB C this has become especially annoying because you need to find the USB dongle each time.

PhotoPrism

PhotoPrism is an interesting photo management tool that allows you to import photos that have been exported from Google Takout. It also has two apps, PhotoPrismUpload and Photosync. It automatically organises photos according to EXIF data and machine learning models.

Immich is similar and offers more control of users but feels less complete, for now.

HomeAssistant

Home Assistant, like Google Home and Apple Home is a home automation tool where you can add aranet devices, netatmo devices, your Apple TV and mobile phones. With this device you can keep track of your steps via the iphone and other devices.

It can detect when you leave home, and when you return, as well as whether you’ve been walking, stationary and more.

It also provides you with monitoring of Nextcloud instances, to see if they are under heavy loads, or light loads, but also, via the history feature, to see how things are changing over time.

Tailscale

With the free tier of Tailscale you can have up to three people and 100 devices connected to a single VPN. With Tailscale VPN active on your Pi devices and mobile devices you can access your instances of Nextcloud, Pi Hole, Home Assistant, Photoprism and more, whether you’re at home, or using the 4g network. Image backup and sharing doesn’t have to wait until you’re home to happen. This gives you the flexibility and freedom of iCloud and Google Drive, without going through their servers. Everything stays within your own reality, if you so desire.

And Finally

In a Pi home you can almost do away with laptops, to replace them with Raspberry Pi. These devices can serve as video servers via apps like Plex, or photo sharing tools via Photoprism. They can also keep your other files safe, and accessible, as long as you’re on the Tailscale VPN. You can even print from your mobile device to a CUPS accessible printer, at least in theory.

For future generations that prefer mobile phones, and tablets, to computers, the age of Pi makes sense. When discussions took place, that talked about the shift away from laptops and desktops, they didn’t mention that self-hosting would thrive as a result. Self-hosting is about setting up thin clients as servers to enable people to do things via web interfaces and apps. I got a few instances to work, over a period of weeks, so now I see how the thin client age requires static machines like Pi to provide services.

I think the age of Bare Bone PCs will be interesting.

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On the Pleasure of Small Machines/Laptops

Byrichard

For a while I had a mac book air and I used it for everything. I saw the mac book air as the machine to use for everything except for video editing. That’s what the mac book pro was for. Eventually I sold the Mac Book Air and then I took the MBP to an event and it was stolen and I found myself without a machine.


I regretted selling the mac book air then, because if I had kept the mac book air then I would not have taken the MBP and it would not have been stolen.


I have looked for cheap, low cost machines recently because I wanted to get a linux box to play with. As it is just to do some simple things I don’t need a top of the range machine. I came across the Acer Chromebook 311 so I decided to play with this machine.


So far I have tried chrome, gmail, the play store, and I took a few minutes to install atom.io, connect it to github and download a repository. I have not written code with this machine yet, but so far writing a blog post is fine. The machine is fast enough and the keyboard is comfortable.


The machine has twenty gigs of storage and it is connected to Google drive so I have plenty of storage. It has two USB c ports and two standard usb ports. These are one of each type on each side. Although internal storage is small it is easy to expand with external disks and drives.


In theory you can monitor aranet devices via the laptop but as my mobile phone and aranet devices are already paired it was buggy. If you pair them then I expect the interactivity to be flawless.


I chose this device for three reasons. The first is that it is the cheapest device they had. The second is that it was available the soonest. The third reason is that it is always good to have a light, portable machine, from which you can work and do things. This machine is easy to put in most bags, take to an event, use, and then return home. With a 15″ machine that is not possible. It gets heavy, fast. When my laptop was stolen a few years ago I had broken my own rule. Never take what you’re not ready to carry at all times, to a conference or event.


I am now at the end of this blog post and the keyboard was fine to type with. It’s quick and intuitive. No hunting and pecking, and few typos. This is a nice, and yet cheap machine. Better than the EEEpc and other options I played with in the past. This cheap machine is usable. I am happy with this purchase.

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Which do you take to bed, laptop, mobile phone, both or other

Byrichard

We’re living in a permantly more wired world and our conversations are no longer reserved to the workplace, bar or ski slope. As a result electronic devices are making their way into the bedroom more and more frequently. How many of you are on twitter. Is twitter the first person you say good morning to. Are you a Seesmic morning person or a seesmic goodnight person.

Here are the answers I got within a few minutes.

melissah melissah @warzabidul Laptop for me. 08:14 AM December 01, 2007 from twitterrific in reply to warzabidul Icon_star_full 

Rupert ruperthowe @warzabidul if i take a laptop to bed, i get threatened with a red card. phone just feels a bit creepy. so i just stay up through the night. 09:02 PM November 30, 2007 from web in reply to warzabidul

Documentally Podcast Documentally @warzabidul i am more a book/notebook and ipod touch in bed man. 09:02 PM November 30, 2007 from web in reply to warzabidul

sizemore sizemore @warzabidul: Every night I take to bed with me a girl, a laptop, an archos, a book and occasionally a cat. I don’t get much sleep. 

Maggie MaggieConv @warzabidul I take both! 03:56 PM November 30, 2007 from txt in reply to warzabidul Icon_star_full 

Neil Simmons dungeekin @warzabidul: laptop/WiFi devices don’t go upstairs with me. Phone does, but only as an alarm clock. 09:19 PM November 30, 2007 from web in reply to warzabidul Icon_star_full 

So if you thought you were the only one taking your laptop, ipod touch or mobile phone you’re not the only one. There are many of us doing the same.

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Four Reasons to be Happy

Byrichard

There are four reasons to be happy today. The first of these is that my MBP is finally in Geneva therefore it is a short matter of days before I get it into my hands and start playing with the computer and the new software.

The laptop will be used for all video editing and multimedia work I have whilst the iBook will be used for daily tasks such as surfing the web, mobility, and more. I’m going to have two apple laptops capable of video editing at my disposal which is quite a luxury.

The second reason I should be happy is that google Adsense, over the past week has doubled in income, meaning that I should get my next check twice as fast as the last one. I added a few more AdSense adverts on sections where advertising had not been and as a result, many more eyes are seeing and clicking on the advert. I’m still a long way from earning enough money to live off my website but any income is good.

The third reason is that my website is being migrated to Drupal, a database-driven CMS solution for web mastering rather than the outdated HTML pages that it has been over the past decade.

The advantage of the Content Management System (CMS) is that the layout is the same for every page whilst the content is held within a database. As a result, when you want to change something on multiple pages all you need to do is move blocks around. Blocks, when applied to drupal are how modules are manipulated to space them in specific areas on the website. As a result, whenever a website is re-worked it takes a matter of minutes rather than hours to change.

As a side note, I’ve also updated both the PHP and MySQL database to version 5 and it’s working smoothly for the time being.

The final reason to be happy is that a friend has received the edited DVD that I worked on a few weeks ago and finalised within the past few days. As a result, I’ve managed to finish what I had to do a matter of days rather than hours before it was due.

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It’s A Nice Upgrade

Byrichard

Today I passed an order through the online apple store and within a number of weeks I should get one of the top of the range machines and I’m really looking forward to it. The Ram isn’t maxed out but that’s because I’m going to upgrade that from an other distributor from whom I can get it cheaper.

I’m also getting final cut studio 2 and that should be a great convenience for learning how to use all the software I need for professional purposes. I’m impatient for it now but it’s going to take time to come so I have to be patient… need to find something to distract me for a period.

I’ve had an editing system at home which started with Adobe premiere 4.5 and the miro dc30+ and a hi8 camera, upgraded to a PC7 camera for a trip to Tanzania in 2000. That’s when I was editing on the DHR 1000 editing deck where I learned a great deal about tape to tape editing. From there I upgraded to Premiere 5.0, 5.1 and on before giving up on Windows editing. In 2003-4 I upgraded to the Ibook with FCP which worked far better than anticipated. Now I’m waiting for my most recent editing system.

Over the years I’ve seen a great change in equipment and the price. As I was at school working on Hi8 it took several years before I was able to edit the footage I had shot. Editing systems could cost thirty thousand swiss francs per BetaSP decks. Now it’s gone down in price and people get a nice home setup.

I’m looking forward to it.

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I’m A Martial Artist Typist.

Byrichard

Sometimes you hear about writers and how they fall in love with their machines. I think I’ve begun to love my laptop. I’ve just spent an extraordinary amount of time writing so many words over such a period that the laptop has use marks.

If you look at the trackpad you see that the right side is smoother. If you look at the keys they’re also smooth with use. The space bar has smoothed out where I always press with my thumb. There’s a dark mark where I rest both my hands when I’m typing. The monitor shows signs of degradation.

The repetitive motion of the fingers has developed muscle reflexes that mean that as I sit in one place from which I see people walk by I can observe people and continue writing at the same time. In effect I’ve been touch typing for a year and every computer develops a certain amount of time for the reflex to be perfect. I’m a martial artist at the art of typing 😉

Laptops are great because they become such a big part of your life. You use them every day, from the bad times to the good times, from nice locations to some of the worst. They’re there whatever the weather. They’ve got all your music, all your photographs, possibly some of your video projects and more.

They’ve also got all the software you need from day to day work practices. They’re reflective of the person that uses them.