Using Beaglebone Black with Mavericks

Grrr. I have spent so much time knocking my head against a wall, when the whole time it was just a simple fix.  I even got so frustrated switched over briefly to using my android tablet with a USB OTG, but that was a time-sink because it takes my a long time to program on a tiny keyboard. Anyway, here's the story.

I started using the Beaglebone Black about two months ago. Everything worked perfectly, and I was impressed with its out of the box functionality. I flashed the latest Debian image, SSH'd into the Beaglebone, installed Python, etc. The world was beautiful.

Then,  a couple days later, I tried to SSH into my Beaglebone, and I couldn't. Just to check, I went through the getting started steps on the Beaglebone page again. None of them worked! The steps didn't even turn green. I wondered if the drivers might be the problem, so I tried reinstalling them.

I tried the steps here. They were a little outdated, but I thought they might work. When I went through the beaglebone getting started steps, the first two turned green, but I still couldn't start the web server. I was about to reset the Pram and SMC, when I saw the fine print on the Beaglebone site:

"Older software images require you to EJECT the BEAGLE_BONE drive to start the network. With the latest software image, that step is no longer required."

I ejected the beaglebone. I started the network. It worked.

Micro Controller Library

Oh man, I’m getting excited just writing about this. So, last week I got a grant from the Awesome Foundation to make a Micro Controller Library and it’s finally coming together. What the hell is a Micro Controller Library? It’s basically a giant package of awesome that turns ordinary people into gods of technology.

Library might be a misleading term, since there aren’t any books involved (although I’m currently trying to figure out licensing so that I can make some ebooks about physical computing available to you on your computer or kindle). What makes it a library is that it’s free (except for a $5 startup fee when we process you into the member database) and you can check electronics out and bring them home for up to two weeks. It’s based on the West Seattle Tool Library’s make-your-own tool library kit. Local Tools even got me set up with an inventory site so I can track tools and members and you can see what’s available for checkout and reserve items. The library will have a home in the Maker Space Jigsaw Renaissance located at 821 Seattle Boulevard South.

So far I’ve ordered eight Arduino Unos, a pair of Arduino Megas, and a Raspberry Pi. I’ve also ordered 6 different starter kits, which come with a ton of different sensors, power sources, breadboards, jumper cables, and various shields to connect different components to.

Have you ever wanted to build an autonomous wheeled robot? I ordered a chassis and sensors so you can build one using a micro controller. And if you want your autonomous wheeled robot to take photos and upload them to you Facebook, I’ve also ordered a couple of Wi-Fi shields. Do you want to prototype a self-watering plant? There’s a soil moisture sensor that plugs directly into an Arduino.

You can even make your own interactive, digital games using buttons, LED screens and joysticks that plug into a breadboard.

So how do you become a library member? You don’t have to wait until the library is set up. Stop by Jigsaw Renaissance or the Seattle Arduino Meetup at The Easy next week. Bring an ID and $5 (or $10 if you want to help sponsor membership for a low income geek. Technology access for everyone!) Be prepared to spend about 20 minutes since you’ll have to read a short article about safety and not blowing things up and whatnot. Then I add your name to the database and you’re a member!

If you have any electronics sitting around that might make a good addition to the library, please let me know! Also, donations of money and time are more than welcome. As the packages start coming in I’m going to need people to help with sorting, labeling and inventorying parts. Plus, you’ll get to be first to play with all the new electronics!

Beginning CSS (for free!)

Hopefully you've finished a couple of HTML tutorials on Codeacademy by now and you're on your way to becoming an HTML expert. Maybe you've already built a social media profile (HTML Basics II) or a clickable photo page (HTML Basics III). Now it's time to get into CSS. What is CSS? CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheets," although knowing that probably won't help you much. The best way to understand CSS is to head over to CSS Zen Garden. As you can see, there are thousands of different themes for this website. Try clicking on a few. The only things that change are the layout, color, and style. All of the text and the basic format stay the same because the HTML hasn't changed. CSS is what determines most of how the page looks. If HTML is the skeleton, CSS is the skin.

CSS Zen Garden has a link to a great collection of CSS resources right here: http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/resources

Although they only accept the best designs, getting your theme accepted to Zen Garden is something to work towards. First off though, we want to style our own website.

There are already several CSS courses on Codacademy. It's probably a good idea to start off with the three CSS courses in the Web Fundamentals Section.

After that, you can move on to this course: http://www.codecademy.com/courses/create-a-personal-webpage/0#!/exercises/0

Wow, that was easy! You can already build a nice looking web page!