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Les Pounder

Les Pounder

Tinkerer, maker, hacker, teacher, writer, learner, failure.

Blackpool •
309 posts •
microbit

micro:bit Monday - zbit:toolbelt

Welcome to Monday, new week, spring is here and I thought that I would try out something new. So micro:bit Monday, a semi regular series where I look at an add on,

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling - Create GUIs for BASH Scripts

This week a handy GUI creation tool for your BASH scripts ![] So what is it? Zenity is a tool that wraps BASH scripts and terminal commands in a lovely graphical user interface. So

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling - Python Webbrowser

This week a handy Python library that enables us to open a web browser! So what is it? Webbrowser is a Pythonic way to open a web browser on any operating system. Can't

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kits

All the gear...and lots of ideas!

In mid 2017 I was posed a unique challenge "Would you be interested in creating a Raspberry Pi Zero W based kit?" Obviously I jumped at the chance and here it

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fridayfun

Friday Fun: DIY Harry Potter Animated Frame

JK Rowling's Harry Potter is famous the world over, and in her world of wizards, witches and sorcery we have little details that make the world rich with magic and mystery. One of

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: Teeny Tiny ATtiny85

A hardware themed Tuesday Tooling this week! So what is it? A tiny microcontroller that is compatible with the Arduino IDE. It comes in many different forms, some connect via micro USB, some

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Linux

NTP FYI

NTP, Network Time Protocol is the theme of today's post! This isn't the be all and end all, font of all knowledge blog post. Rather an aide memoir. What is NTP? Network Time

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: Animated GIFs and Code Snippets FTW

Tuesday tooling is back! Sorry for the short break! Scenario 1: Everyone loves a cool animated GIF, and you need to record the steps taken to perform a certain task or action and

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microbit

Artists, makers, musicians...lend me your ears! Hackpool

Idea! In 2017 I had an idea, and I tried to make it real, but I encountered lots of obstacles. What was my original idea? I'd like to offer a FREE micro:bit

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pijuice

PiJuice Review

Recently (ok it was November 2017...end of the year is always busy for a magazine journalist) Pi Supply sent me a PiJuice to play with. Disclaimer Yes Pi Supply sent me this

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christmas

Traditional Christmas Neopixel Project 2017 Node-RED Edition!

Get a coffee, put your feet up as this is a long one! A short time ago...in a street not so far away.... For 2016 I decorated our window with lots of

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arduino

Friday Fun: Hacking a Toy Car With 4Duino

Disclaimer: These boards were provided by 4tronix for the purpose of the blog post. This isn't a "review" as such, but you can be assured that the comments that I make

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: Making Bluetooth Connections From The Terminal

Yes this is the late edition of Tuesday Tooling...I've been on holiday Scenario: You're connected to your Raspberry Pi / Pocket Chip / Single Board Computer via a terminal session, but you would really

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christmas

Invent:Advent

Ho Ho Ho Hacky Christmas! Invent:Advent is an accessible, fun and cost effective hack. Join us in creating new invention using components and stock from pound shops (such as Poundland or Poundworld)

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: Pastebinit

This week's Tuesday Tooling is a terminal application that can save you time and sanity by sending text to a pastebin. So what is it called? Pastebinit Where can I find it? It

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fridayfun

Friday Fun: Get Notifications On Your Desktop

Bit of a personal project this week, created to meet a specific need, but it contains some useful Python libraries for creating notifications and parsing RSS feeds. So I spend a lot of

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: Record / Replay Keystrokes With Python

For this weeks Tuesday Tooling we take a look at a Python library that offers to simulate and record keyboard input! So what is it called? Keyboard : Record and simulate keyboard events on

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fridayfun

Friday Fun: Bluedot Presentation Tool

Presentations...fun aren't they? For the serious presenter a "clicker" remote is a must! You know what I mean, the person at the front, wielding the power of the presentation using

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tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: MkDocs

Another Tuesday Tooling blog post, and this week a quick look at a handy tool to create great looking documentation, and best of all it uses Python! tl;dr MkDocs is a great

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microbit

Friday Fun: Radio Controlled micro:bit Pumpkin 🎃

It's nearly Halloween! The night when creatures of pure evil roam the land, seeking their next victim! No brains were harmed...or found during the creation of this photo So... How can we

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python

Tuesday Tooling: Custom Python Spinners

Tooling Tuesday is a new series of short, to the point blog posts that highlight a fun and useful tool for developers, coders, makers, hackers and of course system administrators. For the first

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friday fun

Friday Fun: Envirophat Colour Detector

I'm back at Picademy...yay!!! You may have seen that this week I was back at Picademy! Yay! Two days of learning, sharing and making. One of the projects caught my eye, and

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friday fun

Friday Fun: Intro to Node-RED

I've recently developed a love for Node-RED... At first I was afraid, I was petrified, of this language as it seemed so far removed from what I would normally use. But isn't it

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python

Log all teh data!

Log files, sys admins LOVE them. They can be used to look busy, or you can be busy looking through them for data. I remember setting an Asterisk server to show me very

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Linux

Quick Tip: Check the output of a running command

Have you ever wished to peek inside a running command with Linux? Well I did today, I had a Python project that should start on boot, and I wished to check it was

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