Using GRAMPS for your Genealogy Project

Tonight I gave a presentation on Using GRAMPS for your Genealogy Project at the Merrimack Public Library. (and internet in general)

Here are the slides:

• 
  2-Using-GRAMPS-for-your-genealogy-project.odp (OpenOffice format)


• 
  2-Using-GRAMPS-for-your-genealogy-project.pdf (PDF)

They are available under the Creative Commons' Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Getting started with your Genealogy Research talk

Tonight I gave a presentation on getting started with your genealogy research at the Merrimack Public Library.

Here are the slides:

• 1-Getting-Started-Merrimack-Public-Library-June-2013.odp (OpenOffice format)


• 1-Getting-Started-Merrimack-Public-Library-June-2013.pdf (PDF)

They are available under the Creative Commons' Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Over the next two weeks I'll give a talk on using GRAMPS for managing your genealogy information and one on using genealogy resources at the Merrimack Public Library such as the 'Library Edition' of Ancestry.com, other databases at the library and internet resources.

HOWTO get your Raspberry Pi running owncloud, tt-rss and thinkup

Today a case for my Raspberry Pi arrived from Adafruit arrived and it is time for some spring cleaning.

I was running the XBMC distro on the pi, but found it cumbersome to listen to music in the home office that way. So time to start with a fresh Raspbian install.

Here are my notes:

• Get the current Raspbian release from Raspbian.org and install it on a
  4GB flash disk.


• Boot the new disk and make the following configurations using
  raspi-config which is run the first time it starts up.
  
  - Use only 16M for GPU since I'm not running an X desktop
  - set appropriate timezone
  - set appropriate locale
  - expand fs to use entire 4GB disk
  - change pi passwd
  - enable ssh access
  - update
  - reboot
  


• Now some miscellaneous setup to make life easier later on. Both tt-rss and thinkup require MySQL, but I'll also want to use it for
  owncloud too. So install MySQL server:
  
  sudo apt-get install mysql-server
  
  Avahi (aka bonjour) is a very nice network tool that is a DNS-less way
  to announcing your hostname on the local network. Most (all) linux
  tools support it, but you'll need Apple's Bonjour kit for Windows.
  That means you can just 'ssh raspberrypi.local' or browse to
  http://raspberrypi.local/

sudo apt-get install avahi-utils
  
  I like emacs and screen is useful.
  
  sudo apt-get install emacs23-nox screen
  
  At this point I stop using the keyboard/monitor connected to the Raspberry Pi and use an ssh session from my laptop to do the rest.
  
  


• First install ownCloud by taking a look here: http://software.opensuse.org/download/package?project=isv:ownCloud:community&package=owncloud. Then connect to your Raspberry Pi:
  
  ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
sudo -i
  
  Now run this script which I slightly modified from their page:
  
  wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:ownCloud:community/Debian_6.0/Release.key
apt-key add - < Release.key

echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/isv:ownCloud:community/Debian_6.0/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/owncloud.list
apt-get update
apt-get install owncloud
  
  At this point you'll have all the required packages are installed. Now point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/owncloud
  
  You will need to create an owncloud admin account and will want to then expand the Advanced tab and to use a MySQL server instead of SQLite. Fill in root, mysql root password (I didn't bother to set an mysql admin password, so null in my case). For the database, use owncloud and database host localhost. It may take a couple minutes to be complete, so be patient.
  



• Now install tt-rss doing the following steps:
  
  cd /var/www/

wget -c https://github.com/gothfox/Tiny-Tiny-RSS/archive/1.7.4.tar.gz
  
  And follow the instructions here http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki/InstallationNotes which are essentially:
  
  tar zxvf 1.7.4.tar.gz
mv Tiny-Tiny-RSS-1.7.4 tt-rss

chown -R www-data:www-data tt-rss
  
  You will have to manually create a mysql database and import the schema
  
  mysql -u root
  mysql> create database ttrss;
  mysql> quit
  
  Now import the database schema (a fancy way to say the database tables and some initial data)
  
  cd tt-rss/schema
mysql -u root ttrss < ttrss_schema_mysql.sql
  
  And a little editing the configuration file...
  
  cd /var/www/tt-rss

cp config.php-dist config.php

emacs config.php (or use vi, nano, etc)
  
  I made the following edits:
  
define('DB_TYPE', "mysql");
define('DB_HOST', "localhost");
define('DB_USER', "root");
define('DB_NAME', "ttrss");
define('DB_PASS', "");

define('SELF_URL_PATH', 'http://raspberrypi.local/tt-rss/');
define('SINGLE_USER_MODE', true);
  
  Point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/tt-rss
  
  From there login with default login/password of admin/password and you are done.
  



• Finally install http://www.thinkupapp.com/docs/install/quickstart.html
  
  The one package you'll need that isn't already installed at this point is php5-curl.
  
  apt-get install php5-curl
  
  Now get the kit. I used wget and the site provided the kit, but with an unusual name.
  
  
cd /var/www
wget -c http://thinkupapp.com/download/
mv index.html thinkup-1.3.1.zip
unzip thinkup-1.3.1
chown -R www-data:www-data thinkup
  
  Almost done. Point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/thinkup and complete the configuration.
  
  database host: localhost
  
  database name: thinkup
  
  user: root
  
  password: blank, in my case or whatever you set the mysql root password to.
  
  I (and probably you) don't have a smtp server configured, so in order to activate your account, you'll need to do this: http://www.thinkupapp.com/docs/troubleshoot/common/advanced/directdb.html
  
  # mysql -u root thinkup
  
  mysql> select id,full_name,is_activated from tu_owners;
  +----+-------------+--------------+
  | id | full_name | is_activated |
  +----+-------------+--------------+
  | 1 | Marc Nozell | 0 |
  +----+-------------+--------------+
  1 row in set (0.00 sec)
  
  mysql> update tu_owners set is_activated=1 where id=1;
  mysql> quit
  
  Done! Now go back to http://raspberrypi.local/thinkup and configure the plugins to your favorite social media sites.
  
  

Trevor @ NH Mens' Gymnastics Championships 2013

Back from the NH Mens' Gymnastics Championships -- Trevor placed 2nd All Around and 1st in Floor, Rings and PBars. Nice way to end his gymnastics career.

Except for the New England Regionals the beginning of April of course.

• 
  Still Rings
  



• 
  Pommel Horse


• 
  Floor


• 
  High Bar



• 
  Parallel Bars


• 
  Vault

7 hours of engineering pit from New Hampshire GSR FIRST Robotics competition compressed to 83 seconds

As soon as they opened the door at 8am this morning, I put the camera, tripod + arduino hack at the very top of the seating in the Verizon Wireless Center pointing down at the pit where the robots are prepped for competition.


*BEST* GSR (NH) FIRST Robotics time lapse in the pit (10fps)


GSR (NH) FIRST Robotics time lapse in the pit (5fps)


GSR (NH) FIRST Robotics time lapse in the pit (20fps)

After nearly seven hours (the length my camera's battery lasted taking photos every 30 seconds) there were 835 photos which were converted to an AVI using:

mencoder -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -o timelapse-10fps.avi -mf type=jpeg:fps=10 mf://*.JPG

and then converted to a much smaller M4V file using ghb aka the very handy Handbrake tool.

Sony Alpha-100 DSLR shutter control using an arduino and reed switches

This is a follow up to my "time lapse photography using an arduino to drive a Sony Alpha-100 DSLR" post -- basically I fixed it to 'do it right' instead of it being a horrible hack.

Here is the improved circuit diagram:



This uses two Reed Switches from Radio Shack for about $3 each -- sure I could have used other types of switches or a transitor, but they use magnetism which is cooler ;-)

1. Buy a cheap (~$7.00) shutter release cord to sacrifice to the project.



2. Carefully cut and strip the wires from release cord. Shorting the green and blue wires causes the camera to focus. Shorting the green, blue and red wires after focusing causes the camera to shoot.



3. 
   Remember that my soldering days are long ago (hey, it was only an EE minor) and have one of the kids at our FIRST Robotics do it for me. Here is the result. Note that blue->white.
   
   
   



4. 
   Then connected the wires from the shutter release cord to pins as follows: (see the above Fritzing image)
   Green -> First Reed Switch
   Red -> Second Reed Switch
   Blue/White -> shared line with the other side of the switches (not this isn't tied to ground or anything else)
   
   



5. Now the improved code: I call it BetterCamera.ino
   
   
/*
* A better camera control for a Sony A-100 DSLR
* marc@nozell.com
*/

// Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards.
// give it a name:
int led = 13;
int relayA = 2;
int relayB = 3;

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {

Serial.begin(9600);

if (Serial.available() )
Serial.println("-- Starting ---");

// initialize the digital pin as an output.
pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
pinMode(relayA, OUTPUT);
pinMode(relayB, OUTPUT);

}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {

Serial.println("-- Focusing ---");

// first focus -- short white & green

digitalWrite(relayA, HIGH);
delay(2000); // 2 sec
digitalWrite(relayA, LOW);
delay(1000); // 1 sec


Serial.println("-- Take Photo ---");

// then take a photo -- short white, green & red

digitalWrite(relayA, HIGH);
digitalWrite(relayB, HIGH);
delay(1000); // 1 sec
digitalWrite(relayA, LOW);
digitalWrite(relayB, LOW);

Serial.println("-- Sleep for 30s ---");
delay(23000); // 2 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 23

for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) { // 3seconds
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(500);
digitalWrite(led, LOW);
delay(500);
Serial.print(".");
}
Serial.println("!");
}

   
   
   
   



6. If you connect the release to the camera while the camera is on, even if here is no power to the arduino, it will take a couple photos. That is the kink. Just connect it up with the camera off and it will be fine.



7. Consider setting the photo size to 'standard' -- it saves a lot on disk space.



8. Now find something interesting to point your camera at and come back later. In my case it was our backyard the day after the Nemo Blizzard of 2013 (we got all the snow overnight, so it isn't riveting content).




9. Download all the photos to a directory and use this linux command to convert the JPG images to an AVI file.
   
mencoder -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -o timelapse-30fps.avi -mf type=jpeg:fps=30 mf://*.JPG

   



10. Before uploading to youtube, I ran it through Handbrake to knock down the size from 260M to less than 70MB.

Installing owncloud on a Raspberry Pi

Spoiler: Just follow the official installation guide and you'll be fine. Although you'll probably want to put owncloud data on external storage. Surprised? It is just another linux server!

Below are the commands I used. Those in bold are where I did something slightly different in order to change the location where files are stored. In my case I have a powered USB disk mounted on /mnt.


$ sudo -i
[sudo] password for marc:
# apt-get install apache2 php5 php5-gd php-xml-parser \
php5-intl php5-sqlite php5-mysql smbclient curl \
libcurl3 php5-curl
...a bunch of packages installed...
# cd /var/www/
# tar jxf ~marc/owncloud-4.5.5.tar.bz2
# chown -R www-data:www-data owncloud/apps
# chown -R www-data:www-data owncloud/config
# mkdir /mnt/owncloud-data
# chown www-data:www-data /mnt/owncloud-data
# ln -s /mnt/owncloud-data/ /var/www/owncloud/data


Then point a browser to http://raspberrypi.local/owncloud and take all the defaults. That is leave the file location as /var/www/owncloud/data

Finally go download the sync clients from http://owncloud.org/sync-clients/ and drag-n-drop files in your ~/owncloud.

For testing I had ~180M of files in my ~/owncloud directory and the apache2 process hammered the RPi cpu for a while for the first sync from my desktop.