Tag archive for: system administration

How to make applications on your Windows 10 laptop use the camera and microphone of your webcam

One of the demo stations in my office needs to run applications that receive video and voice from the user. Since we have several Windows 10 laptop lying around, we decided to use one to run the applications.

Given that the Windows 10 laptop is to be hidden in a cabinet, I need to use an external webcam with microphone.

However, the integrated camera and microphone can be chosen by the applications that I run on that laptop.

So how can we make applications on a Windows 10 laptop to use the camera and microphone of your webcam?

This post shows how I made applications on my Windows 10 laptop use the camera and microphone of my Logitech C525 HD Webcam.

How to use NSSM to setup Jupyter Notebook as a Windows Service running its own Python 3 virtual environment

When you take Andrew Ng’s Deep Learning Coursera course, you can get a better understanding of deep learning. In addition, you will get many Jupyter Notebook documents that you can reference while building models that can solve interesting problems.

When you want to readily access those documents, you can setup Jupyter Notebook as a Windows Service on your Windows machine.

As I had mentioned in how to use NSSM to run a Python 3 application as a Windows Service in its own Python 3 virtual environment, NSSM is a very helpful tool for us to create Windows Services.

Since we can install Jupyter Notebook via pip, we can run Jupyter Notebook from its own virtual environment. In addition to that, since we can create a Python 3 virtual environment in Windows 10, we can setup Jupyter Notebook as a Windows Service running its own Python 3 virtual environment.

Given these points, let us look at how we can use NSSM to setup Jupyter Notebook as a Windows Service running its own Python 3 virtual environment.

How to prepare a virtual environment to run a gpiozero based project on Raspbian Stretch

When you use a virtual environment to run your application, you isolate the dependencies in its own container.

In such a situation, you can ensure that your application can run alongside other applications with incompatible dependencies.

Therefore, I always favour the use of virtual environment for running my Python applications.

With this in mind, this is a story about preparing a virtual environment to run a gpiozero based project on Raspbian Stretch.

Making sure that the password of your user account does not expire on Windows 10 IoT

Once upon a time, I was developing an IoT prototype on a Windows 10 IoT device that does not have any display port. Therefore, the only way to work with that device is to use Microsoft Remote Desktop. After using it for some time, I switched to another Raspberry Pi project of higher priority.

When I came back to this Windows based device, the password of the user account had expired. As a result of that, Windows Remote Desktop Connection Manager denied access to the device. Since that was the only user account for me to access the device, I had to start all over again with another device.

After this incident, I make it a point to configure my user account with a password that never expires.

In order to have a reference in the future, I created this post to document the steps to do so on Windows 10 IoT.

How to host a static website on your Raspberry Pi Zero W with Raspbian Stretch Lite and Nginx web server

After you capture the Northern Lights with an entry level DSLR, you may want include them in your personal portfolio. Until you find the time to setup a content management system for your personal portfolio, you want to keep it as a static website.

At this point in time, you saw that Raspberry Pi Zero W and cover lying on the table. In addition to that, you have a spare micro USB charger that you used for charging your old Android phone.

Since you do not have any other use for these items, you decided to host your personal portfolio on that Raspberry Pi Zero W.

With this intention, this is how you can host a static website on your Raspberry Pi Zero W with Raspbian Stretch Lite and Nginx web server.

How to setup a Raspberry Pi web server with Raspbian Stretch Lite, Nginx, MariaDB and PHP as the LEMP stack

When you want to deploy a PHP application that you wrote, you can first deploy it on a Raspberry Pi. Once your PHP application gets enough traction, you can then port it over to a computer with more horsepower.

When your PHP application employs MySQL or MariaDB as the backing database, we can put it up on a LEMP stack. In this situation, HTTP requests will first be directed to the Nginx reverse proxy server. Whenever the request is made to a php application, Nginx will then pass it on to the PHP7 Fast CGI Process Manager (PHP FPM) for generating the HTTP response.

Given these points, this post provides the steps to setup a Raspberry Pi web server with Raspbian Stretch Lite, Nginx, MariaDB and PHP as the LEMP stack.

How to enable VNC server on Raspbian Stretch with raspi-config

When you have a VNC server enabled on your Raspbian Stretch, you will be able to access your Raspberry Pi from another computer. Furthermore, you will be able to use your Raspberry Pi from a graphical user interface.

Therefore, if you want to enable SSH server on your Raspbian Stretch but is not really comfortable with a command line interface, a VNC server is what you should enable instead.

In such a situation, you can use raspi-config to enable VNC server on Raspbian Stretch. Let see how we can do so.

How to change the timezone on your Raspbian Stretch with raspi-config

When your Raspbian Stretch is reporting the wrong time, chances are it could be using a different timezone than what you expect.

In such a case, you will want to change the timezone on your Raspbian Stretch.

Let us look at how we can change the timezone on our Raspbian Stretch with raspi-config.

How to connect your Raspberry Pi to a WiFi network with raspi-config in Raspbian Stretch

When you own a Raspberry Pi with in-built WiFi or an attached USB WiFi adapter, you will be able to connect it to a WiFi network.

Given that WiFi connectivity, you can use then your Raspberry Pi as a HTTP server and/or a HTTP client on the Internet without using a network cable.

When you have installed Raspbian Stretch on your Raspberry Pi, you can use raspi-config to connect your Raspberry Pi to a WiFi network. For this purpose, you can follow the steps mentioned in this post.