Running Raspbian OS natively on your Mac / PC

If you haven't read up on the newest blog article from Raspberry Pi, Raspbian OS now supports natively on your Mac / PC / Linux machine!

I have created a short how-to video on how you can get started with running the Raspbian OS on your Mac using VMWare Player.

MySQLTips: Raspberry Pi MySQL Workbench Refusing to Accept Remote Connections

Ever had this problem when you set up a MySQL database on your Raspberry Pi and you are trying to remotely connect to your database from another client but the connection refuses to establish? This problem to many people seems to be a frustrating problem. However, please do not confuse this article with remote connections from a client outside of your own network. For that, you will have to perform port forwarding (Port: 3306) on your router to enable access from clients outside of your network.

In this article, I will show you a simple fix for this problem! I will be using a Raspberry Pi as my MySQL server and NANO as my text editor. The version of NOOBS I'm using is 1.9.2 and I believe that this article will work for previous versions of the operating system.

Thanks to the following articles for helping solve my problems:

http://serverfault.com/questions/586651/mysql-refuses-to-accept-remote-connections

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14779104/how-to-allow-remote-connection-to-mysql

Step 1:
$ sudo nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

Modify the bind-address section under the [mysqld] header from

bind-address = 127.0.0.1

to

bind-address = 0.0.0.0

Step 2:
$ sudo service mysql restart

Step 3:
On your MySQL Workbench on your server, create the following queries:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password' WITH GRANT OPTION;

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Select on APPLY.

Step 4:
Now you should be able to access your MySQL database remotely from your local clients.

IoT Article on Code Magazine

Recently, I've co-authored an article together with Wei-Meng Lee about the Internet-of-Things on Code Magazine. I will leave the link to this article at the bottom of this post. In the article, you will get a quick jump start into the world of IoT, what are the devices available to get started with, and what are some of the simple Python applications you can write to communicate with various sensors, such as a PIR motion sensor.

An application that we included in the article allows you to detect motion on your Raspberry Pi and sending a push notification to your Android devices programmatically.


Link to Code Magazine's IoT article : http://www.codemag.com/Article/1607071

IOT 101 now comes with more sensors and a 7" Touch Display!

Past participants for the IOT101 course were deluged with the various sensors and equipment; it is now going to be worse! We are adding a large number of sensors as well as the official Raspberry Pi 7" Touch Screen Display (with 10 Finger Capacitive Touch) to the IOT Kit. That is to say, you are going to get a box of gadgets that are going to keep you busy for the next one week after the course!

What's more, we are using the latest Raspberry Pi 3, which comes with Bluetooth LE and WiFi built in.

Here are the additional sensors you will get on top of the standard IOT Kit:

• Small passive buzzer module
• 2-color LED module
• Hit sensor module
• Vibration switch module
• Photo resistor module
• Key switch module
• Tilt switch module
• 3-color full-color LED SMD modules
• Infrared emission sensor module
• 3-color LED module 
• Mercury open optical module
• Yin Yi 2-color LED module 3MM
• Active buzzer module 
• Temperature sensor module
• Automatic flashing colorful LED module
• Mini magnetic reed modules
• Hall magnetic sensor module
• Infrared sensor receiver module
• Class Bihor magnetic sensor
• Magic light cup module
• Rotary encoder module
• Optical broken module
• Detect the heartbeat module
• Reed module
• Obstacle avoidance sensor module
• Hunt sensor module
• Microphone sound sensor module
• Laser sensor module
• 5V relay module
• Temperature sensor modules
• Linear magnetic Hall sensors
• Flame sensor module
• Sensitive microphone sensor module
• Temperature and humidity sensor module
• XY-axis joystick module
• Metal touch sensor module

Tip: Installing Windows 10 on a PC with SSD & HDD configuration

Just a tip to all Windows users trying to install/reinstall windows on your PC. If your PC has a SSD and a HDD and you plan to use your SSD as its primary boot drive and HDD for your secondary files storage, please ensure that you remove your HDD during Windows installation. A problem I had was a normal regular installation of Windows with both my SSD and HDD connected and Windows worked fine for the past few months, until my HDD crashed. Like any normal user would react, my reaction to that was to simply remove the HDD and replace it with another drive and I would only lose the files I had on the HDD. 

No. It turned out that Windows would not even boot on the standalone SSD even it contained the primary Windows boot files. Through an intensive search online, I got to know that Windows will automatically set a small partition on your secondary drive (my HDD in this case) for System Reserved Partition instead of partitioning it on your primary drive (my SSD) during the initial Windows installation. This small partition is an important partition and your computer would not boot up Windows if this partition is missing! That was what happened and in the end, I had to reinstall my entire computer, but this time round, I removed the HDD during the installation process. This allows Windows to set the System Reserved Partition locally on the SSD instead of any other drives.

Non Responsive Task Bar in Windows 10 Build 10586

After recently updating to the Windows 10 Build 10586, my Windows Start Menu and Task Bar became unresponsive to mouse clicks. After researching on various forums, most users recommend a fix via the Powershell commands, but it did not work on my PC. However I managed to find a forum comment that recommended a simple fix by using the Command Prompt. This solution worked for me:

Step 1) Run Command Prompt as Administrator.

Step 2) Enter the following command: sfc /scannow

Step 3) Reboot your PC and after rebooting, you should see that the taskbar and start menu is now responding.

Early Bird Discount for IoT Courses in Feb and Mar 2016

Sign up for the following IOT classes in Feb and March 2016 before end of January and receive a $300 discount off the published course fee!

IOT101 Programming Internet of Things (IoT) using Raspberry Pi (S$1897; $1597 after discount)

• 16-17 Feb 2016
• 7-8 Mar 2016

IOT102 Programming Internet of Things (IoT) using Windows 10 IoT Core (S$1897; $1597 after discount)

• 18-19 Mar 2016
• 28-29 Mar 2016

For the IOT course, you will receive an IoT Kit* (which you can keep after the course). The kit includes:

• Raspberry Pi 2 
• Raspberry Pi Casing 
• Raspberry Pi Power Supply - 5V, 2A
• Micro-SD with Adapter 
• PiCam for Raspberry Pi 
• Bluetooth 4.0 dongle 
• WiPi Dongle for Raspberry Pi 
• Adafruit Pi Cobbler Plus Kit – Breakout Cable for Pi 2 
• NXP NFC Expansion board for Raspberry Pi 
• 16x2 LCD Panel with Backlight 
• PIR Sensor 
• Ultrasonic Sensor 
• Potentiometer 
• Breadboard 
• Jumper cables 
• Gas Sensor 
• Temperature Sensor 
• Breadboard 
• LEDs

* Items in the IOT kit may vary from time to time

New Course! - HRD001 - Introduction to Raspberry Pi (half-day)

Announcing a brand new half-day weekend course! - HRD001 Introduction to Raspberry Pi. This course provides a fundamental jump start and introduction on using the Raspberry Pi as well as some cool projects that you could get started with, without any programming experience! In this fun-filled 4 hour course, you will learn the followings:

   • Setting up the Raspberry Pi
   • Preparing the SD Card
      o Booting up the Raspberry Pi
   • Configuring the Raspberry Pi
      o Troubleshooting
   • Using Linux on the Raspberry Pi
      o Command Line
      o Built-in Utilities
   • Installing the Apache Web server on the Raspberry Pi
   • How to expose your Web server to the world – how to configure your router for port forwarding
   • Video Streaming from your Web cam

What is so cool about this course is that you can bring home your very own Raspberry Pi Jumpstart Kit!

The Raspberry Pi Jumpstart Kit contains the followings:

• Raspberry Pi 2
• 8GB Class 10 Micro-SD Card with Adapter
• 2 Amp Multi-National Micro-USB Power Adapter
• Raspberry Pi 2 Casing

Note: Participants are required to bring their own laptop for the course.

Click here to view the Course Information.

New Lineup of IOT Courses!

We are happy to launch a new series of IOT courses for 2015 & 2016! The following new additions to the current IOT 101 - Programming Internet of Things are:

IOT 102 - Programming Internet of Things using Windows IoT Core (2 days)

IOT 103 - Programming littleBits using Arduino (1 day)

IOT 104 - Programming Internet of Things using Arduino (1 day)

Visit courses.clarencechng.com or learn2develop.net for more details about the courses!

September Course Schedule for Programming Internet of Things (IoT) Course

Glad to confirm that the next 2 run of the Programming Internet of Things Course is on 8-9 September and 16 and 18 September!

Join us and you will get to bring home the Raspberry Pi IoT Kit!

UPDATE: The course date on 10 and 11 September has been pushed forward to 8 and 9 September due to Polling Day on 11th September 2015.

Course Fee

S$1897 (nett; no GST)

If your company is sponsoring you for the training, your company can enjoy 400% tax deductions/ allowances and/or 60% cash payout for investment in innovation and productivity improvements under the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme. For more details, check out the Productivity and Innovation Credit page.

Schedules

Start Date	End Date	Details	Category
Thu Sep 10 2015 CONFIRMED	Fri Sep 11 2015	PDF
Wed Sep 16 2015 CONFIRMED	Wed Sep 16 2015	PDF
Fri Sep 18 2015 CONFIRMED	Fri Sep 18 2015	PDF
Thu Oct 01 2015	Fri Oct 02 2015	PDF

Venue

Bayview Hotel Singapore
30 Bencoolen Street
Singapore 189621 

If your company requires in-house training, you can contact us to customize the topics to meet your training requirements. We train worldwide! We have conducted customized classes in the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand.