Tag Archives: recreate

Manufacturing Astro Pi case replicas

Post Syndicated from Janina Ander original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/astro-pi-case-guest-post/

Tim Rowledge produces and sells wonderful replicas of the cases which our Astro Pis live in aboard the International Space Station. Here is the story of how he came to do this. Over to you, Tim!

When the Astro Pi case was first revealed a couple of years ago, the collective outpouring of ‘Squee!’ it elicited may have been heard on board the ISS itself. People wanted to buy it or build it at home, and someone wanted to know whether it would blend. (There’s always one.)

The complete Astro Pi

The Sense HAT and its Pi tucked snugly in the original Astro Pi flight case — gorgeous, isn’t it?

Replicating the Astro Pi case

Some months later the STL files for printing your own Astro Pi case were released, and people jumped at the chance to use them. Soon reports appeared saying you had to make quite a few attempts before getting a good print — normal for any complex 3D-printing project. A fellow member of my local makerspace successfully made a couple of cases, but it took a lot of time, filament, and post-print finishing work. And of course, a plastic Astro Pi case simply doesn’t look or feel like the original made of machined aluminium — or ‘aluminum’, as they tend to say over here in North America.

Batch of tops of Astro Pi case replicas by Tim Rowledge

A batch of tops designed by Tim

I wanted to build an Astro Pi case which would more closely match the original. Fortunately, someone else at my makerspace happens to have some serious CNC machining equipment at his small manufacturing company. Therefore, I focused on creating a case design that could be produced with his three-axis device. This meant simplifying some parts to avoid expensive, slow, complex multi-fixture work. It took us a while, but we ended up with a design we can efficiently make using his machine.

Lasered Astro Pi case replica by Tim Rowledge

Tim’s first lasered case

And the resulting case looks really, really like the original — in fact, upon receiving one of the final prototypes, Eben commented:

“I have to say, at first glance they look spectacular: unless you hold them side by side with the originals, it’s hard to pinpoint what’s changed. I’m looking forward to seeing one built up and then seeing them in the wild.”

Inside the Astro Pi case

Making just the bare case is nice, but there are other parts required to recreate a complete Astro Pi unit. Thus I got my local electronics company to design a small HAT to provide much the same support the mezzanine board offers: an RTC and nice, clean connections to the six buttons. We also added well-labelled, grouped pads for all the other GPIO lines, along with space for an ADC. If you’re making your own Astro Pi replica, you might like the Switchboard.

The electronics supply industry just loves to offer *some* of what you need, so that one supplier never has everything: we had to obtain the required stand-offs, screws, spacers, and JST wires from assorted other sources. Jeff at my nearby Industrial Paint & Plastics took on the laser engraving of our cases, leaving out copyrighted logos etcetera.

Lasering the top of an Astro Pi case replica by Tim Rowledge

Lasering the top of a case

Get your own Astro Pi case

Should you like to buy one of our Astro Pi case kits, pop over to www.astropicase.com, and we’ll get it on its way to you pronto. If you’re an institutional or corporate customer, the fully built option might make more sense for you — ordering the Pi and other components, and having a staff member assemble it all, may well be more work than is sensible.

Astro Pi case replica Tim Rowledge

Tim’s first full Astro Pi case replica, complete with shiny APEM buttons

To put the kit together yourself, all you need to do is add a Pi, Sense HAT, Camera Module, and RTC battery, and choose your buttons. An illustrated manual explains the process step by step. Our version of the Astro Pi case uses the same APEM buttons as the units in orbit, and whilst they are expensive, just clicking them is a source of great joy. It comes in a nice travel case too.

Tim Rowledge holding up a PCB

This is Tim. Thanks, Tim!

Take part in Astro Pi

If having an Astro Pi replica is not enough for you, this is your chance: the 2017-18 Astro Pi challenge is open! Do you know a teenager who might be keen to design a experiment to run on the Astro Pis in space? Are you one yourself? You have until 29 October to send us your Mission Space Lab entry and become part of the next generation of space scientists? Head over to the Astro Pi website to find out more.

The post Manufacturing Astro Pi case replicas appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

BrailleBox: Android Things Braille news display

Post Syndicated from Janina Ander original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/braillebox-android-things/

Joe Birch has built a simple device that converts online news stories to Braille, inspired by his family’s predisposition to loss of eyesight. He has based his BrailleBox on Android Things, News API, and a Raspberry Pi 3.

Demonstation of Joe Birch's BrailleBox

The background

Braille is a symbol system for people with visual impairment which represents letters and numbers as raised points. Commercial devices that dynamically produce Braille are very expensive, so Joe decided to build a low-cost alternative that is simple to recreate.

Braille alphabet

Image by DIPF CC BY-SA 3.0

News API is a tool for fetching JSON metadata from over 70 online news sources. You can use it to integrate headlines or articles into websites and text-based applications.

The BrailleBox

To create the six nubs necessary to form Braille symbols, Joe topped solenoids with wooden balls. He then wired them up to GPIO pins of the Pi 3 via a breadboard.

One of the solenoids of Joe Birch's BrailleBox

One of the solenoids Joe built into the BrailleBox

Next, he took control of the solenoids using Android Things. He set up the BrailleBox software to start running on boot, and added a push button. When he presses the button, the program fetches a news story using News API, and the solenoids start moving.

BrailleBox Demo

Uploaded by Joe Birch on 2017-06-20.

Since Joe is an Android Engineer, looking through his write-up and code for BrailleBox might be useful for anyone interested in Android Things.

If you like this project, make sure you keep an eye on Joe’s Twitter, since he has plans to update the BrailleBox design. His next step is to move on from the prototyping stage and house all the hardware inside the box. Moreover, he is thinking about adding a potentiometer so that users can choose their preferred reading speed.

Accessibility

If you want to find our community’s conversation about accessibility and assistive technology, head to the forums. And if you’re working to make computing more accessible, or if you’ve built an assistive project, let us know in the comments or on social media, so that we can boost the signal!

The post BrailleBox: Android Things Braille news display appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

How to Automatically Revert and Receive Notifications About Changes to Your Amazon VPC Security Groups

Post Syndicated from Rob Barnes original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-automatically-revert-and-receive-notifications-about-changes-to-your-amazon-vpc-security-groups/

In a previous AWS Security Blog post, Jeff Levine showed how you can monitor changes to your Amazon EC2 security groups. The methods he describes in that post are examples of detective controls, which can help you determine when changes are made to security controls on your AWS resources.

In this post, I take that approach a step further by introducing an example of a responsive control, which you can use to automatically respond to a detected security event by applying a chosen security mitigation. I demonstrate a solution that continuously monitors changes made to an Amazon VPC security group, and if a new ingress rule (the same as an inbound rule) is added to that security group, the solution removes the rule and then sends you a notification after the changes have been automatically reverted.

The scenario

Let’s say you want to reduce your infrastructure complexity by replacing your Secure Shell (SSH) bastion hosts with Amazon EC2 Systems Manager (SSM). SSM allows you to run commands on your hosts remotely, removing the need to manage bastion hosts or rely on SSH to execute commands. To support this objective, you must prevent your staff members from opening SSH ports to your web server’s Amazon VPC security group. If one of your staff members does modify the VPC security group to allow SSH access, you want the change to be automatically reverted and then receive a notification that the change to the security group was automatically reverted. If you are not yet familiar with security groups, see Security Groups for Your VPC before reading the rest of this post.

Solution overview

This solution begins with a directive control to mandate that no web server should be accessible using SSH. The directive control is enforced using a preventive control, which is implemented using a security group rule that prevents ingress from port 22 (typically used for SSH). The detective control is a “listener” that identifies any changes made to your security group. Finally, the responsive control reverts changes made to the security group and then sends a notification of this security mitigation.

The detective control, in this case, is an Amazon CloudWatch event that detects changes to your security group and triggers the responsive control, which in this case is an AWS Lambda function. I use AWS CloudFormation to simplify the deployment.

The following diagram shows the architecture of this solution.

Solution architecture diagram

Here is how the process works:

  1. Someone on your staff adds a new ingress rule to your security group.
  2. A CloudWatch event that continually monitors changes to your security groups detects the new ingress rule and invokes a designated Lambda function (with Lambda, you can run code without provisioning or managing servers).
  3. The Lambda function evaluates the event to determine whether you are monitoring this security group and reverts the new security group ingress rule.
  4. Finally, the Lambda function sends you an email to let you know what the change was, who made it, and that the change was reverted.

Deploy the solution by using CloudFormation

In this section, you will click the Launch Stack button shown below to launch the CloudFormation stack and deploy the solution.

Prerequisites

  • You must have AWS CloudTrail already enabled in the AWS Region where you will be deploying the solution. CloudTrail lets you log, continuously monitor, and retain events related to API calls across your AWS infrastructure. See Getting Started with CloudTrail for more information.
  • You must have a default VPC in the region in which you will be deploying the solution. AWS accounts have one default VPC per AWS Region. If you’ve deleted your VPC, see Creating a Default VPC to recreate it.

Resources that this solution creates

When you launch the CloudFormation stack, it creates the following resources:

  • A sample VPC security group in your default VPC, which is used as the target for reverting ingress rule changes.
  • A CloudWatch event rule that monitors changes to your AWS infrastructure.
  • A Lambda function that reverts changes to the security group and sends you email notifications.
  • A permission that allows CloudWatch to invoke your Lambda function.
  • An AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role with limited privileges that the Lambda function assumes when it is executed.
  • An Amazon SNS topic to which the Lambda function publishes notifications.

Launch the CloudFormation stack

The link in this section uses the us-east-1 Region (the US East [N. Virginia] Region). Change the region if you want to use this solution in a different region. See Selecting a Region for more information about changing the region.

To deploy the solution, click the following Launch Stack button to launch the stack. After you click the button, you must sign in to the AWS Management Console if you have not already done so.

Click this "Launch Stack" button

Then:

  1. Choose Next to proceed to the Specify Details page.
  2. On the Specify Details page, type your email address in the Send notifications to box. This is the email address to which change notifications will be sent. (After the stack is launched, you will receive a confirmation email that you must accept before you can receive notifications.)
  3. Choose Next until you get to the Review page, and then choose the I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources check box. This confirms that you are aware that the CloudFormation template includes an IAM resource.
  4. Choose Create. CloudFormation displays the stack status, CREATE_COMPLETE, when the stack has launched completely, which should take less than two minutes.Screenshot showing that the stack has launched completely

Testing the solution

  1. Check your email for the SNS confirmation email. You must confirm this subscription to receive future notification emails. If you don’t confirm the subscription, your security group ingress rules still will be automatically reverted, but you will not receive notification emails.
  2. Navigate to the EC2 console and choose Security Groups in the navigation pane.
  3. Choose the security group created by CloudFormation. Its name is Web Server Security Group.
  4. Choose the Inbound tab in the bottom pane of the page. Note that only one rule allows HTTPS ingress on port 443 from 0.0.0.0/0 (from anywhere).Screenshot showing the "Inbound" tab in the bottom pane of the page
  1. Choose Edit to display the Edit inbound rules dialog box (again, an inbound rule and an ingress rule are the same thing).
  2. Choose Add Rule.
  3. Choose SSH from the Type drop-down list.
  4. Choose My IP from the Source drop-down list. Your IP address is populated for you. By adding this rule, you are simulating one of your staff members violating your organization’s policy (in this blog post’s hypothetical example) against allowing SSH access to your EC2 servers. You are testing the solution created when you launched the CloudFormation stack in the previous section. The solution should remove this newly created SSH rule automatically.
    Screenshot of editing inbound rules
  5. Choose Save.

Adding this rule creates an EC2 AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress service event, which triggers the Lambda function created in the CloudFormation stack. After a few moments, choose the refresh button ( The "refresh" icon ) to see that the new SSH ingress rule that you just created has been removed by the solution you deployed earlier with the CloudFormation stack. If the rule is still there, wait a few more moments and choose the refresh button again.

Screenshot of refreshing the page to see that the SSH ingress rule has been removed

You should also receive an email to notify you that the ingress rule was added and subsequently reverted.

Screenshot of the notification email

Cleaning up

If you want to remove the resources created by this CloudFormation stack, you can delete the CloudFormation stack:

  1. Navigate to the CloudFormation console.
  2. Choose the stack that you created earlier.
  3. Choose the Actions drop-down list.
  4. Choose Delete Stack, and then choose Yes, Delete.
  5. CloudFormation will display a status of DELETE_IN_PROGRESS while it deletes the resources created with the stack. After a few moments, the stack should no longer appear in the list of completed stacks.
    Screenshot of stack "DELETE_IN_PROGRESS"

Other applications of this solution

I have shown one way to use multiple AWS services to help continuously ensure that your security controls haven’t deviated from your security baseline. However, you also could use the CIS Amazon Web Services Foundations Benchmarks, for example, to establish a governance baseline across your AWS accounts and then use the principles in this blog post to automatically mitigate changes to that baseline.

To scale this solution, you can create a framework that uses resource tags to identify particular resources for monitoring. You also can use a consolidated monitoring approach by using cross-account event delivery. See Sending and Receiving Events Between AWS Accounts for more information. You also can extend the principle of automatic mitigation to detect and revert changes to other resources such as IAM policies and Amazon S3 bucket policies.

Summary

In this blog post, I demonstrated how you can automatically revert changes to a VPC security group and have a notification sent about the changes. You can use this solution in your own AWS accounts to enforce your security requirements continuously.

If you have comments about this blog post or other ideas for ways to use this solution, submit a comment in the “Comments” section below. If you have implementation questions, start a new thread in the EC2 forum or contact AWS Support.

– Rob

Spooky Halloween Video Contest

Post Syndicated from Yev original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/spooky-halloween-video-contest/

Would You LIke to Play a Game? Let's make a scary movie or at least a silly one.

Think you can create a really spooky Halloween video?

We’re giving out $100 Visa gift cards just in time for the holidays. Want a chance to win? You’ll need to make a spooky 30-second Halloween-themed video. We had a lot of fun with this the last time we did it a few years back so we’re doing it again this year.

Here’s How to Enter

  1. Prepare a short, 30 seconds or less, video recreating your favorite horror movie scene using your computer or hard drive as the victim — or make something original!
  2. Insert the following image at the end of the video (right-click and save as):
    Backblaze cloud backup
  3. Upload your video to YouTube
  4. Post a link to your video on the Backblaze Facebook wall or on Twitter with the hashtag #Backblaze so we can see it and enter it into the contest. Or, link to it in the comments below!
  5. Share your video with friends

Common Questions
Q: How many people can be in the video?
A: However many you need in order to recreate the scene!
Q: Can I make it longer than 30 seconds?
A: Maybe 32 seconds, but that’s it. If you want to make a longer “director’s cut,” we’d love to see it, but the contest video should be close to 30 seconds. Please keep it short and spooky.
Q: Can I record it on an iPhone, Android, iPad, Camera, etc?
A: You can use whatever device you wish to record your video.
Q: Can I submit multiple videos?
A: If you have multiple favorite scenes, make a vignette! But please submit only one video.
Q: How many winners will there be?
A: We will select up to three winners total.

Contest Rules

  • To upload the video to YouTube, you must have a valid YouTube account and comply with all YouTube rules for age, content, copyright, etc.
  • To post a link to your video on the Backblaze Facebook wall, you must use a valid Facebook account and comply with all Facebook rules for age, content, copyrights, etc.
  • We reserve the right to remove and/or not consider as a valid entry, any videos which we deem inappropriate. We reserve the exclusive right to determine what is inappropriate.
  • Backblaze reserves the right to use your video for promotional purposes.
  • The contest will end on October 29, 2017 at 11:59:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time. The winners (up to three) will be selected by Backblaze and will be announced on October 31, 2017.
  • We will be giving away gift cards to the top winners. The prize will be mailed to the winner in a timely manner.
  • Please keep the content of the post PG rated — no cursing or extreme gore/violence.
  • By submitting a video you agree to all of these rules.

Need an example?

The post Spooky Halloween Video Contest appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Backing Up WordPress

Post Syndicated from Roderick Bauer original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backing-up-wordpress/

WordPress cloud backup
WordPress logo

WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) for websites, with almost 30% of all websites in the world using WordPress. That’s a lot of sites — over 350 million!

In this post we’ll talk about the different approaches to keeping the data on your WordPress website safe.

Stop the Presses! (Or the Internet!)

As we were getting ready to publish this post, we received news from UpdraftPlus, one of the biggest WordPress plugin developers, that they are supporting Backblaze B2 as a storage solution for their backup plugin. They shipped the update (1.13.9) this week. This is great news for Backblaze customers! UpdraftPlus is also offering a 20% discount to Backblaze customers wishing to purchase or upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium. The complete information is below.

UpdraftPlus joins backup plugin developer XCloner — Backup and Restore in supporting Backblaze B2. A third developer, BlogVault, also announced their intent to support Backblaze B2. Contact your favorite WordPress backup plugin developer and urge them to support Backblaze B2, as well.

Now, back to our post…

Your WordPress website data is on a web server that’s most likely located in a large data center. You might wonder why it is necessary to have a backup of your website if it’s in a data center. Website data can be lost in a number of ways, including mistakes by the website owner (been there), hacking, or even domain ownership dispute (I’ve seen it happen more than once). A website backup also can provide a history of changes you’ve made to the website, which can be useful. As an overall strategy, it’s best to have a backup of any data that you can’t afford to lose for personal or business reasons.

Your web hosting company might provide backup services as part of your hosting plan. If you are using their service, you should know where and how often your data is being backed up. You don’t want to find out too late that your backup plan was not adequate.

Sites on WordPress.com are automatically backed up by VaultPress (Automattic), which also is available for self-hosted WordPress installations. If you don’t want the work or decisions involved in managing the hosting for your WordPress site, WordPress.com will handle it for you. You do, however, give up some customization abilities, such as the option to add plugins of your own choice.

Very large and active websites might consider WordPress VIP by Automattic, or another premium WordPress hosting service such as Pagely.com.

This post is about backing up self-hosted WordPress sites, so we’ll focus on those options.

WordPress Backup

Backup strategies for WordPress can be divided into broad categories depending on 1) what you back up, 2) when you back up, and 3) where the data is backed up.

With server data, such as with a WordPress installation, you should plan to have three copies of the data (the 3-2-1 backup strategy). The first is the active data on the WordPress web server, the second is a backup stored on the web server or downloaded to your local computer, and the third should be in another location, such as the cloud.

We’ll talk about the different approaches to backing up WordPress, but we recommend using a WordPress plugin to handle your backups. A backup plugin can automate the task, optimize your backup storage space, and alert you of problems with your backups or WordPress itself. We’ll cover plugins in more detail, below.

What to Back Up?

The main components of your WordPress installation are:

You should decide which of these elements you wish to back up. The database is the top priority, as it contains all your website posts and pages (exclusive of media). Your current theme is important, as it likely contains customizations you’ve made. Following those in priority are any other files you’ve customized or made changes to.

You can choose to back up the WordPress core installation and plugins, if you wish, but these files can be downloaded again if necessary from the source, so you might not wish to include them. You likely have all the media files you use on your website on your local computer (which should be backed up), so it is your choice whether to back these up from the server as well.

If you wish to be able to recreate your entire website easily in case of data loss or disaster, you might choose to back up everything, though on a large website this could be a lot of data.

Generally, you should 1) prioritize any file that you’ve customized that you can’t afford to lose, and 2) decide whether you need a copy of everything in order to get your site back up quickly. These choices will determine your backup method and the amount of storage you need.

A good backup plugin for WordPress enables you to specify which files you wish to back up, and even to create separate backups and schedules for different backup contents. That’s another good reason to use a plugin for backing up WordPress.

When to Back Up?

You can back up manually at any time by using the Export tool in WordPress. This is handy if you wish to do a quick backup of your site or parts of it. Since it is manual, however, it is not a part of a dependable backup plan that should be done regularly. If you wish to use this tool, go to Tools, Export, and select what you wish to back up. The output will be an XML file that uses the WordPress Extended RSS format, also known as WXR. You can create a WXR file that contains all of the information on your site or just portions of the site, such as posts or pages by selecting: All content, Posts, Pages, or Media.
Note: You can use WordPress’s Export tool for sites hosted on WordPress.com, as well.

Export instruction for WordPress

Many of the backup plugins we’ll be discussing later also let you do a manual backup on demand in addition to regularly scheduled or continuous backups.

Note:  Another use of the WordPress Export tool and the WXR file is to transfer or clone your website to another server. Once you have exported the WXR file from the website you wish to transfer from, you can import the WXR file from the Tools, Import menu on the new WordPress destination site. Be aware that there are file size limits depending on the settings on your web server. See the WordPress Codex entry for more information. To make this job easier, you may wish to use one of a number of WordPress plugins designed specifically for this task.

You also can manually back up the WordPress MySQL database using a number of tools or a plugin. The WordPress Codex has good information on this. All WordPress plugins will handle this for you and do it automatically. They also typically include tools for optimizing the database tables, which is just good housekeeping.

A dependable backup strategy doesn’t rely on manual backups, which means you should consider using one of the many backup plugins available either free or for purchase. We’ll talk more about them below.

Which Format To Back Up In?

In addition to the WordPress WXR format, plugins and server tools will use various file formats and compression algorithms to store and compress your backup. You may get to choose between zip, tar, tar.gz, tar.gz2, and others. See The Most Common Archive File Formats for more information on these formats.

Select a format that you know you can access and unarchive should you need access to your backup. All of these formats are standard and supported across operating systems, though you might need to download a utility to access the file.

Where To Back Up?

Once you have your data in a suitable format for backup, where do you back it up to?

We want to have multiple copies of our active website data, so we’ll choose more than one destination for our backup data. The backup plugins we’ll discuss below enable you to specify one or more possible destinations for your backup. The possible destinations for your backup include:

A backup folder on your web server
A backup folder on your web server is an OK solution if you also have a copy elsewhere. Depending on your hosting plan, the size of your site, and what you include in the backup, you may or may not have sufficient disk space on the web server. Some backup plugins allow you to configure the plugin to keep only a certain number of recent backups and delete older ones, saving you disk space on the server.
Email to you
Because email servers have size limitations, the email option is not the best one to use unless you use it to specifically back up just the database or your main theme files.
FTP, SFTP, SCP, WebDAV
FTP, SFTP, SCP, and WebDAV are all widely-supported protocols for transferring files over the internet and can be used if you have access credentials to another server or supported storage device that is suitable for storing a backup.
Sync service (Dropbox, SugarSync, Google Drive, OneDrive)
A sync service is another possible server storage location though it can be a pricier choice depending on the plan you have and how much you wish to store.
Cloud storage (Backblaze B2, Amazon S3, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace)
A cloud storage service can be an inexpensive and flexible option with pay-as-you go pricing for storing backups and other data.

A good website backup strategy would be to have multiple backups of your website data: one in a backup folder on your web hosting server, one downloaded to your local computer, and one in the cloud, such as with Backblaze B2.

If I had to choose just one of these, I would choose backing up to the cloud because it is geographically separated from both your local computer and your web host, it uses fault-tolerant and redundant data storage technologies to protect your data, and it is available from anywhere if you need to restore your site.

Backup Plugins for WordPress

Probably the easiest and most common way to implement a solid backup strategy for WordPress is to use one of the many backup plugins available for WordPress. Fortunately, there are a number of good ones and are available free or in “freemium” plans in which you can use the free version and pay for more features and capabilities only if you need them. The premium options can give you more flexibility in configuring backups or have additional options for where you can store the backups.

How to Choose a WordPress Backup Plugin

screenshot of WordPress plugins search

When considering which plugin to use, you should take into account a number of factors in making your choice.

Is the plugin actively maintained and up-to-date? You can determine this from the listing in the WordPress Plugin Repository. You also can look at reviews and support comments to get an idea of user satisfaction and how well issues are resolved.

Does the plugin work with your web hosting provider? Generally, well-supported plugins do, but you might want to check to make sure there are no issues with your hosting provider.

Does it support the cloud service or protocol you wish to use? This can be determined from looking at the listing in the WordPress Plugin Repository or on the developer’s website. Developers often will add support for cloud services or other backup destinations based on user demand, so let the developer know if there is a feature or backup destination you’d like them to add to their plugin.

Other features and options to consider in choosing a backup plugin are:

  • Whether encryption of your backup data is available
  • What are the options for automatically deleting backups from the storage destination?
  • Can you globally exclude files, folders, and specific types of files from the backup?
  • Do the options for scheduling automatic backups meet your needs for frequency?
  • Can you exclude/include specific database tables (a good way to save space in your backup)?

WordPress Backup Plugins Review

Let’s review a few of the top choices for WordPress backup plugins.

UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular backup plugins for WordPress with over one million active installations. It is available in both free and Premium versions.

UpdraftPlus just released support for Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage in their 1.13.9 update on September 25. According to the developer, support for Backblaze B2 was the most frequent request for a new storage option for their plugin. B2 support is available in their Premium plugin and as a stand-alone update to their standard product.

Note: The developers of UpdraftPlus are offering a special 20% discount to Backblaze customers on the purchase of UpdraftPlus Premium by using the coupon code backblaze20. The discount is valid until the end of Friday, October 6th, 2017.

screenshot of Backblaze B2 cloud backup for WordPress in UpdraftPlus

XCloner — Backup and Restore

XCloner — Backup and Restore is a useful open-source plugin with many options for backing up WordPress.

XCloner supports B2 Cloud Storage in their free plugin.

screenshot of XCloner WordPress Backblaze B2 backup settings

BlogVault

BlogVault describes themselves as a “complete WordPress backup solution.” They offer a free trial of their paid WordPress backup subscription service that features real-time backups of changes to your WordPress site, as well as many other features.

BlogVault has announced their intent to support Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage in a future update.

screenshot of BlogValut WordPress Backup settings

BackWPup

BackWPup is a popular and free option for backing up WordPress. It supports a number of options for storing your backup, including the cloud, FTP, email, or on your local computer.

screenshot of BackWPup WordPress backup settings

WPBackItUp

WPBackItUp has been around since 2012 and is highly rated. It has both free and paid versions.

screenshot of WPBackItUp WordPress backup settings

VaultPress

VaultPress is part of Automattic’s well-known WordPress product, JetPack. You will need a JetPack subscription plan to use VaultPress. There are different pricing plans with different sets of features.

screenshot of VaultPress backup settings

Backup by Supsystic

Backup by Supsystic supports a number of options for backup destinations, encryption, and scheduling.

screenshot of Backup by Supsystic backup settings

BackupWordPress

BackUpWordPress is an open-source project on Github that has a popular and active following and many positive reviews.

screenshot of BackupWordPress WordPress backup settings

BackupBuddy

BackupBuddy, from iThemes, is the old-timer of backup plugins, having been around since 2010. iThemes knows a lot about WordPress, as they develop plugins, themes, utilities, and provide training in WordPress.

BackupBuddy’s backup includes all WordPress files, all files in the WordPress Media library, WordPress themes, and plugins. BackupBuddy generates a downloadable zip file of the entire WordPress website. Remote storage destinations also are supported.

screenshot of BackupBuddy settings

WordPress and the Cloud

Do you use WordPress and back up to the cloud? We’d like to hear about it. We’d also like to hear whether you are interested in using B2 Cloud Storage for storing media files served by WordPress. If you are, we’ll write about it in a future post.

In the meantime, keep your eye out for new plugins supporting Backblaze B2, or better yet, urge them to support B2 if they’re not already.

The Best Backup Strategy is the One You Use

There are other approaches and tools for backing up WordPress that you might use. If you have an approach that works for you, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.

The post Backing Up WordPress appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

The possibilities of the Sense HAT

Post Syndicated from Janina Ander original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/sense-hat-projects/

Did you realise the Sense HAT has been available for over two years now? Used by astronauts on the International Space Station, the exact same hardware is available to you on Earth. With a new Astro Pi challenge just launched, it’s time for a retrospective/roundup/inspiration post about this marvellous bit of kit.

Sense HAT attached to Pi and power cord

The Sense HAT on a Pi in full glory

The Sense HAT explained

We developed our scientific add-on board to be part of the Astro Pi computers we sent to the International Space Station with ESA astronaut Tim Peake. For a play-by-play of Astro Pi’s history, head to the blog archive.

Astro Pi logo with starry background

Just to remind you, this is all the cool stuff our engineers have managed to fit onto the HAT:

  • A gyroscope (sensing pitch, roll, and yaw)
  • An accelerometer
  • A magnetometer
  • Sensors for temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure
  • A joystick
  • An 8×8 LED matrix

You can find a roundup of the technical specs here on the blog.

How to Sense HAT

It’s easy to begin exploring this device: take a look at our free Getting started with the Sense HAT resource, or use one of our Code Club Sense HAT projects. You can also try out the emulator, available offline on Raspbian and online on Trinket.

Sense HAT emulator on Trinket

The Sense HAT emulator on trinket.io

Fun and games with the Sense HAT

Use the LED matrix and joystick to recreate games such as Pong or Flappy Bird. Of course, you could also add sensor input to your game: code an egg drop game or a Magic 8 Ball that reacts to how the device moves.

Sense HAT Random Sparkles

Create random sparkles on the Sense HAT

Once December rolls around, you could brighten up your home with a voice-controlled Christmas tree or an advent calendar on your Sense HAT.

If you like the great outdoors, you could also use your Sense HAT to recreate this Hiking Companion by Marcus Johnson. Take it with you on your next hike!

Art with the Sense HAT

The LED matrix is perfect for getting creative. To draw something basic without having to squint at a Python list, use this app by our very own Richard Hayler. Feeling more ambitious? The MagPi will teach you how to create magnificent pixel art. Ben Nuttall has created this neat little Python script for displaying a photo taken by the Raspberry Pi Camera Module on the Sense HAT.

Brett Haines Mathematica on the Sense HAT

It’s also possible to incorporate Sense HAT data into your digital art! The Python Turtle module and the Processing language are both useful tools for creating beautiful animations based on real-world information.

A Sense HAT project that also uses this principle is Giorgio Sancristoforo’s Tableau, a ‘generative music album’. This device creates music according to the sensor data:

Tableau Generative Album

“There is no doubt that, as music is removed by the phonographrecord from the realm of live production and from the imperative of artistic activity and becomes petrified, it absorbs into itself, in this process of petrification, the very life that would otherwise vanish.”

Science with the Sense HAT

This free Essentials book from The MagPi team covers all the Sense HAT science basics. You can, for example, learn how to measure gravity.

Cropped cover of Experiment with the Sense HAT book

Our online resource shows you how to record the information your HAT picks up. Next you can analyse and graph your data using Mathematica, which is included for free on Raspbian. This resource walks you through how this software works.

If you’re seeking inspiration for experiments you can do on our Astro Pis Izzy and Ed on the ISS, check out the winning entries of previous rounds of the Astro Pi challenge.

Thomas Pesquet with Ed and Izzy

Thomas Pesquet with Ed and Izzy

But you can also stick to terrestrial scientific investigations. For example, why not build a weather station and share its data on your own web server or via Weather Underground?

Your code in space!

If you’re a student or an educator in one of the 22 ESA member states, you can get a team together to enter our 2017-18 Astro Pi challenge. There are two missions to choose from, including Mission Zero: follow a few guidelines, and your code is guaranteed to run in space!

The post The possibilities of the Sense HAT appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Of Course Atlus Hit RPCS3’s Patreon Page Over Persona 5

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/of-course-atlus-hit-rpcs3s-patreon-page-over-persona-5-170927/

For the uninitiated, RPCS3 is an open-source Sony PlayStation 3 emulator for PC. This growing and brilliant piece of code was publicly released in 2012 and since then has been under constant development thanks to a decent-sized team of programmers and other contributors.

While all emulation has its challenges, emulating a relatively recent piece of hardware such as Playstation 3 is a massive undertaking. As a result, RPCS3 needs funding. This it achieves through its Patreon page, which currently receives support from 675 patrons to the tune of $3,000 per month.

There’s little doubt that there are plenty of people out there who want the project to succeed. Yesterday, however, things took a turn for the worse when RPCS3 attracted the negative attention of Atlus, the developer behind the utterly beautiful RPG, Persona 5.

According to the RPCS3 team, Atlus filed a DMCA takedown notice with Patreon requesting the removal of the entire RPCS3 page after the team promoted the fact that Persona 5 would be compatible with the under-development emulator.

“The PS3 emulator itself is not infringing on our copyrights and trademarks; however, no version of the P5 game should be playable on this platform; and [the RPCS3] developers are infringing on our IP by making such games playable,” Atlus told Patreon.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Patreon did not storm in and remove the entire page, not least since the page itself didn’t infringe on Atlus’ IP rights. However, Atlus was not happy with the response and attempted to negotiate with the fund-raising platform, noting that in order for Persona 5 to work, the user would have to circumvent the game’s DRM protections.

The RPCS3 team, on the other hand, believe they’re on solid ground, noting that where their main developers live, it is legal to make personal copies of legally purchased games. They concede it may not be legal for everyone, but in any event, that would be irrelevant to the DMCA notice filed against their Patreon page. Indeed, trying to take down an entire fundraiser with a DMCA notice was a significant overreach under the circumstances

According to a statement from the team, ultimately a decision was taken to proceed with caution. In order to avoid a full takedown of their Patreon page, all mentions of Persona 5 were removed from both the fund-raiser and main RPSC3 site yesterday.

The RPSC3 team noted that they had no idea why Atlus targeted their project but an announcement from the developer later shone a little light on the issue.

“We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don’t want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen,” Atlus explained.

While some gamers expressed negative opinions over Atlus’ undoubtedly overbroad actions yesterday, it’s difficult to argue with the developer’s main point. Emulators can be beautiful things but there is no doubt that in many instances they don’t recreate the gaming experience perfectly. Indeed, in some cases when things don’t go to plan, the results can be pretty horrible.

That being said, for whatever reason Atlus has chosen not to release a PC version of this popular title so, as many hardcore emulator fans will tell you (this one included), that’s a bit of a red rag to a bull. The company suggests that it might remedy that situation in the future though, so maybe that’s some consolation.

In the meantime, there’s a significant backlash against Atlus and what it attempted to do to the RPCS3 project and its fund-raising efforts. Some people are threatening never to buy an Atlus game ever again, for example, and that’s their prerogative.

But really – is anyone truly surprised that Atlus reacted in the way it did?

While Persona 5 isn’t available on PC yet, this isn’t an out-of-print game from 1982 that’s about to disappear into the black hole of time because there’s no hardware to play it on. This is a game created for relatively current hardware (bang up to date if you include the PS4 version) that was released April 2017 in the United States, just a handful of months ago.

As such, none of the usual ‘moral’ motivations for emulating games on other platforms exist for Persona 5 and for that reason alone, the decision to heavily mention it in RPCS3 fund-raising efforts was bound to backfire. It doesn’t matter whether emulation or dumping of ROMs is legal in some regions, any company can be expected to wade in when someone threatens their business model.

The stark reality is that when they do, entire projects can be put at risk. In this case, Patreon stepped in to save the day but it could’ve been a lot worse. Martyring the whole project for one game would’ve been a disaster for the team and the public. All that being said, Atlus is unlikely to come out of this on top.

“Whatever people may wish, there’s no way to stop any playable game from being executed on the emulator,” the RPCS3 team note.

“Blacklisting the game? RPCS3 is open-source, any attempt would easily be reversed. Attempting to take down the project? At the time of this post, this and many other games were already playable to their full extent, and again, RPCS3 is and will always be an open-source project.”

The bottom line here is that Atlus’ actions may have left a bit of a bad taste in the mouths of some gamers, but even the most hardcore emulator fan shouldn’t be surprised the company went for the throat on a game so fresh. That being said, there are lessons to be learned.

Atlus could’ve spoken quietly to RPCS3 first, but chose not to. RPCS3, on the other hand, will probably be a little bit more strategic with future game compatibility announcements, given what’s just happened. In the long term, that will help them, since it will ensure longevity for the project.

RPCS3 is needed, there’s no doubt about that, but its true value will only be felt when the PS3 has been consigned to history. At that point people will understand why it was worth all the effort – and the occasional hiccup.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Pioneers: only you can save us

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pioneers-third-challenge/

Pioneers, we just received this message through our network — have you seen it?

Can you see me? Only YOU can save us!

Uploaded by Raspberry Pi on 2017-09-14.

Only you can save us

We have no choice – we must help her! If things are as bad as she says they are, our only hope of survival is to work together.

We know you have the skills and imagination required to make something. We’ve seen that in previous Pioneers challenges. That’s why we’re coming directly to you with this: we know you won’t let her down.

What you need to do

We’ve watched back through the recording and pulled out as much information as we can:

  • To save us, you have ten weeks to create something using tech. This means you need to be done on 1 December, or it will be too late!
  • The build you will create needs to help her in the treacherous situation she’s in. What you decide to make is completely up to you.
  • Her call is for those of you aged between 11 and 16 who are based in the UK or Republic of Ireland. You need to work in groups of up to five, and you need to find someone aged 18 or over to act as a mentor and support your project.
  • Any tech will do. We work for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, but this doesn’t mean you need to use a Raspberry Pi. Use anything at all — from microcontrollers to repurposed devices such as laptops and cameras.

To keep in contact with you, it looks like she’s created a form for you to fill in and share your team name and details with her. In return she will trade some items with you — things that will help inspire you in your mission. We’ve managed to find the link to the form: you can fill it in here.

Only you can save us - Raspberry Pi Pioneers

In order to help her (and any others who might still be out there!) to recreate your project, you need to make sure you record your working process. Take photos and footage to document how you build your make, and put together a video to send to her when you’re done making.

If you manage to access social media, you could also share your progress as you go along! Make sure to use #MakeYourIdeas, so that other survivors can see your work.

We’ve assembled some more information on the Pioneers website to create a port of call for you. Check it out, and let us know if you have any questions. We will do whatever we can to help you protect the world.

Good luck, everybody! It’s up to you now.

Only you can save us.

The post Pioneers: only you can save us appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Strategies for Backing Up Windows Computers

Post Syndicated from Roderick Bauer original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/strategies-for-backing-up-windows-computers/

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 logos

There’s a little company called Apple making big announcements this week, but about 45% of you are on Windows machines, so we thought it would be a good idea to devote a blog post today to Windows users and the options they have for backing up Windows computers.

We’ll be talking about the various options for backing up Windows desktop OS’s 7, 8, and 10, and Windows servers. We’ve written previously about this topic in How to Back Up Windows, and Computer Backup Options, but we’ll be covering some new topics and ways to combine strategies in this post. So, if you’re a Windows user looking for shelter from all the Apple hoopla, welcome to our Apple Announcement Day Windows Backup Day post.

Windows laptop

First, Let’s Talk About What We Mean by Backup

This might seem to our readers like an unneeded appetizer on the way to the main course of our post, but we at Backblaze know that people often mean very different things when they use backup and related terms. Let’s start by defining what we mean when we say backup, cloud storage, sync, and archive.

Backup
A backup is an active copy of the system or files that you are using. It is distinguished from an archive, which is the storing of data that is no longer in active use. Backups fall into two main categories: file and image. File backup software will back up whichever files you designate by either letting you include files you wish backed up or by excluding files you don’t want backed up, or both. An image backup, sometimes called a disaster recovery backup or a system clone, is useful if you need to recreate your system on a new drive or computer.
The first backup generally will be a full backup of all files. After that, the backup will be incremental, meaning that only files that have been changed since the full backup will be added. Often, the software will keep changed versions of the files for some period of time, so you can maintain a number of previous revisions of your files in case you wish to return to something in an earlier version of your file.
The destination for your backup could be another drive on your computer, an attached drive, a network-attached drive (NAS), or the cloud.
Cloud Storage
Cloud storage vendors supply data storage just as a utility company supplies power, gas, or water. Cloud storage can be used for data backups, but it can also be used for data archives, application data, records, or libraries of photos, videos, and other media.
You contract with the service for storing any type of data, and the storage location is available to you via the internet. Cloud storage providers generally charge by some combination of data ingress, egress, and the amount of data stored.
Sync
File sync is useful for files that you wish to have access to from different places or computers, or for files that you wish to share with others. While sync has its uses, it has limitations for keeping files safe and how much it could cost you to store large amounts of data. As opposed to backup, which keeps revision of files, sync is designed to keep two or more locations exactly the same. Sync costs are based on how much data you sync and can get expensive for large amounts of data.
Archive
A data archive is for data that is no longer in active use but needs to be saved, and may or may not ever be retrieved again. In old-style storage parlance, it is called cold storage. An archive could be stored with a cloud storage provider, or put on a hard drive or flash drive that you disconnect and put in the closet, or mail to your brother in Idaho.

What’s the Best Strategy for Backing Up?

Now that we’ve got our terminology clear, let’s talk backup strategies for Windows.

At Backblaze, we advocate the 3-2-1 strategy for safeguarding your data, which means that you should maintain three copies of any valuable data — two copies stored locally and one stored remotely. I follow this strategy at home by working on the active data on my Windows 10 desktop computer (copy one), which is backed up to a Drobo RAID device attached via USB (copy two), and backing up the desktop to Backblaze’s Personal Backup in the cloud (copy three). I also keep an image of my primary disk on a separate drive and frequently update it using Windows 10’s image tool.

I use Dropbox for sharing specific files I am working on that I might wish to have access to when I am traveling or on another computer. Once my subscription with Dropbox expires, I’ll use the latest release of Backblaze that has individual file preview with sharing built-in.

Before you decide which backup strategy will work best for your situation, you’ll need to ask yourself a number of questions. These questions include where you wish to store your backups, whether you wish to supply your own storage media, whether the backups will be manual or automatic, and whether limited or unlimited data storage will work best for you.

Strategy 1 — Back Up to a Local or Attached Drive

The first copy of the data you are working on is often on your desktop or laptop. You can create a second copy of your data on another drive or directory on your computer, or copy the data to a drive directly attached to your computer, such as via USB.

external hard drive and RAID NAS devices

Windows has built-in tools for both file and image level backup. Depending on which version of Windows you use, these tools are called Backup and Restore, File History, or Image. These tools enable you to set a schedule for automatic backups, which ensures that it is done regularly. You also have the choice to use Windows Explorer (aka File Explorer) to manually copy files to another location. Some external disk drives and USB Flash Drives come with their own backup software, and other backup utilities are available for free or for purchase.

Windows Explorer File History screenshot

This is a supply-your-own media solution, meaning that you need to have a hard disk or other medium available of sufficient size to hold all your backup data. When a disk becomes full, you’ll need to add a disk or swap out the full disk to continue your backups.

We’ve written previously on this strategy at Should I use an external drive for backup?

Strategy 2 — Back Up to a Local Area Network (LAN)

Computers, servers, and network-attached-storage (NAS) on your local network all can be used for backing up data. Microsoft’s built-in backup tools can be used for this job, as can any utility that supports network protocols such as NFS or SMB/CIFS, which are common protocols that allow shared access to files on a network for Windows and other operatings systems. There are many third-party applications available as well that provide extensive options for managing and scheduling backups and restoring data when needed.

NAS cloud

Multiple computers can be backed up to a single network-shared computer, server, or NAS, which also could then be backed up to the cloud, which rounds out a nice backup strategy, because it covers both local and remote copies of your data. System images of multiple computers on the LAN can be included in these backups if desired.

Again, you are managing the backup media on the local network, so you’ll need to be sure you have sufficient room on the destination drives to store all your backup data.

Strategy 3 — Back Up to Detached Drive at Another Location

You may have have read our recent blog post, Getting Data Archives Out of Your Closet, in which we discuss the practice of filling hard drives and storing them in a closet. Of course, to satisfy the off-site backup guideline, these drives would need to be stored in a closet that’s in a different geographical location than your main computer. If you’re willing to do all the work of copying the data to drives and transporting them to another location, this is a viable option.

stack of hard drives

The only limitation to the amount of backup data is the number of hard drives you are willing to purchase — and maybe the size of your closet.

Strategy 4 — Back Up to the Cloud

Backing up to the cloud has become a popular option for a number of reasons. Internet speeds have made moving large amounts of data possible, and not having to worry about supplying the storage media simplifies choices for users. Additionally, cloud vendors implement features such as data protection, deduplication, and encryption as part of their services that make cloud storage reliable, secure, and efficient. Unlimited cloud storage for data from a single computer is a popular option.

A backup vendor likely will provide a software client that runs on your computer and backs up your data to the cloud in the background while you’re doing other things, such as Backblaze Personal Backup, which has clients for Windows computers, Macintosh computers, and mobile apps for both iOS and Android. For restores, Backblaze users can download one or all of their files for free from anywhere in the world. Optionally, a 128 GB flash drive or 4 TB drive can be overnighted to the customer, with a refund available if the drive is returned.

Storage Pod in the cloud

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage is an option for those who need capabilities beyond Backblaze’s Personal Backup. B2 provides cloud storage that is priced based on the amount of data the customer uses, and is suitable for long-term data storage. B2 supports integrations with NAS devices, as well as Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers and servers.

Services such as BackBlaze B2 are often called Cloud Object Storage or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), because they provide a complete solution for storing all types of data in partnership with vendors who integrate various solutions for working with B2. B2 has its own API (Application Programming Interface) and CLI (Command-line Interface) to work with B2, but B2 becomes even more powerful when paired with any one of a number of other solutions for data storage and management provided by third parties who offer both hardware and software solutions.

Backing Up Windows Servers

Windows Servers are popular workstations for some users, and provide needed network services for others. They also can be used to store backups from other computers on the network. They, in turn, can be backed up to attached drives or the cloud. While our Personal Backup client doesn’t support Windows servers, our B2 Cloud Storage has a number of integrations with vendors who supply software or hardware for storing data both locally and on B2. We’ve written a number of blog posts and articles that address these solutions, including How to Back Up your Windows Server with B2 and CloudBerry.

Sometimes the Best Strategy is to Mix and Match

The great thing about computers, software, and networks is that there is an endless number of ways to combine them. Our users and hardware and software partners are ingenious in configuring solutions that save data locally, copy it to an attached or network drive, and then store it to the cloud.

image of cloud backup

Among our B2 partners, Synology, CloudBerry Archiware, QNAP, Morro Data, and GoodSync have integrations that allow their NAS devices to store and retrieve data to and from B2 Cloud Storage. For a drag-and-drop experience on the desktop, take a look at CyberDuck, MountainDuck, and Dropshare, which provide users with an easy and interactive way to store and use data in B2.

If you’d like to explore more options for combining software, hardware, and cloud solutions, we invite you to browse the integrations for our many B2 partners.

Have Questions?

Windows versions, tools, and backup terminology all can be confusing, and we know how hard it can be to make sense of all of it. If there’s something we haven’t addressed here, or if you have a question or contribution, please let us know in the comments.

And happy Windows Backup Day! (Just don’t tell Apple.)

The post Strategies for Backing Up Windows Computers appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Affordable Raspberry Pi 3D Body Scanner

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/affordable-raspberry-pi-3d-body-scanner/

With a £1000 grant from Santander, Poppy Mosbacher set out to build a full-body 3D body scanner with the intention of creating an affordable setup for makespaces and similar community groups.

First Scan from DIY Raspberry Pi Scanner

Head and Shoulders Scan with 29 Raspberry Pi Cameras

Uses for full-body 3D scanning

Poppy herself wanted to use the scanner in her work as a fashion designer. With the help of 3D scans of her models, she would be able to create custom cardboard dressmakers dummy to ensure her designs fit perfectly. This is a brilliant way of incorporating digital tech into another industry – and it’s not the only application for this sort of build. Growing numbers of businesses use 3D body scanning, for example the stores around the world where customers can 3D scan and print themselves as action-figure-sized replicas.

Print your own family right on the high street!
image c/o Tom’s Guide and Shapify

We’ve also seen the same technology used in video games for more immersive virtual reality. Moreover, there are various uses for it in healthcare and fitness, such as monitoring the effect of exercise regimes or physiotherapy on body shape or posture.

Within a makespace environment, a 3D body scanner opens the door to including new groups of people in community make projects: imagine 3D printing miniatures of a theatrical cast to allow more realistic blocking of stage productions and better set design, or annually sending grandparents a print of their grandchild so they can compare the child’s year-on-year growth in a hands-on way.

Raspberry Pi 3d Body Scan

The Germany-based clothing business Outfittery uses full body scanners to take the stress out of finding clothes that fits well.
image c/o Outfittery

As cheesy as it sounds, the only limit for the use of 3D scanning is your imagination…and maybe storage space for miniature prints.

Poppy’s Raspberry Pi 3D Body Scanner

For her build, Poppy acquired 27 Raspberry Pi Zeros and 27 Raspberry Pi Camera Modules. With various other components, some 3D-printed or made of cardboard, Poppy got to work. She was helped by members of Build Brighton and by her friend Arthur Guy, who also wrote the code for the scanner.

Raspberry Pi 3D Body Scanner

The Pi Zeros run Raspbian Lite, and are connected to a main server running a node application. Each is fitted into its own laser-cut cardboard case, and secured to a structure of cardboard tubing and 3D-printed connectors.

Raspberry Pi 3D Body Scanner

In the finished build, the person to be scanned stands within the centre of the structure, and the press of a button sends the signal for all Pis to take a photo. The images are sent back to the server, and processed through Autocade ReMake, a freemium software available for the PC (Poppy discovered part-way through the project that the Mac version has recently lost support).

Build your own

Obviously there’s a lot more to the process of building this full-body 3D scanner than what I’ve reported in these few paragraphs. And since it was Poppy’s goal to make a readily available and affordable scanner that anyone can recreate, she’s provided all the instructions and code for it on her Instructables page.

Projects like this, in which people use the Raspberry Pi to create affordable and interesting tech for communities, are exactly the type of thing we love to see. Always make sure to share your Pi-based projects with us on social media, so we can boost their visibility!

If you’re a member of a makespace, run a workshop in a school or club, or simply love to tinker and create, this build could be the perfect addition to your workshop. And if you recreate Poppy’s scanner, or build something similar, we’d love to see the results in the comments below.

The post Affordable Raspberry Pi 3D Body Scanner appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Ms. Haughs’ tote-ally awesome Raspberry Pi bag

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pi-tote-bag/

While planning her trips to upcoming educational events, Raspberry Pi Certified Educator Amanda Haughs decided to incorporate the Pi Zero W into a rather nifty accessory.

Final Pi Tote bag

Uploaded by Amanda Haughs on 2017-07-08.

The idea

Commenting on the convenient size of the Raspberry Pi Zero W, Amanda explains on her blog “I decided that I wanted to make something that would fully take advantage of the compact size of the Pi Zero, that was somewhat useful, and that I could take with me and share with my maker friends during my summer tech travels.”

Amanda Haughs Raspberry Pi Tote Bag

Awesome grandmothers and wearable tech are an instant recipe for success!

With access to her grandmother’s “high-tech embroidery machine”, Amanda was able to incorporate various maker skills into her project.

The Tech

Amanda used five clear white LEDs and the Raspberry Pi Zero for the project. Taking inspiration from the LED-adorned Babbage Bear her team created at Picademy, she decided to connect the LEDs using female-to-female jumper wires

Amanda Haughs Pi Tote Bag

Poor Babbage really does suffer at Picademy events

It’s worth noting that she could also have used conductive thread, though we wonder how this slightly less flexible thread would work in a sewing machine, so don’t try this at home. Or do, but don’t blame me if it goes wonky.

Having set the LEDs in place, Amanda worked on the code. Unsure about how she wanted the LEDs to blink, she finally settled on a random pulsing of the lights, and used the GPIO Zero library to achieve the effect.

Raspberry Pi Tote Bag

Check out the GPIO Zero library for some great LED effects

The GPIO Zero pulse effect allows users to easily fade an LED in and out without the need for long strings of code. Very handy.

The Bag

Inspiration for the bag’s final design came thanks to a YouTube video, and Amanda and her grandmother were able to recreate the make using their fabric of choice.

DIY Tote Bag – Beginner’s Sewing Tutorial

Learn how to make this cute tote bag. A great project for beginning seamstresses!

A small pocket was added on the outside of the bag to allow for the Raspberry Pi Zero to be snugly secured, and the pattern was stitched into the front, allowing spaces for the LEDs to pop through.

Raspberry Pi Tote Bag

Amanda shows off her bag to Philip at ISTE 2017

You can find more information on the project, including Amanda’s initial experimentation with the Sense HAT, on her blog. If you’re a maker, an educator or, (and here’s a word I’m pretty sure I’ve made up) an edumaker, be sure to keep her blog bookmarked!

Make your own wearable tech

Whether you use jumper leads, or conductive thread or paint, we’d love to see your wearable tech projects.

Getting started with wearables

To help you get started, we’ve created this Getting started with wearables free resource that allows you to get making with the Adafruit FLORA and and NeoPixel. Check it out!

The post Ms. Haughs’ tote-ally awesome Raspberry Pi bag appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

‘US Should Include Fair Use and Safe Harbors in NAFTA Negotiations’

Post Syndicated from Ernesto original https://torrentfreak.com/us-should-include-fair-use-and-safe-harbors-in-nafta-negotiations-170806/

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada, and Mexico was negotiated more than 25 years ago.

Over the past quarter century trade has changed drastically, especially online, so the United States is now planning to modernize the international deal.

Various copyright industry groups recognized this as an opportunity to demand tougher copyright enforcement. The MPAA and RIAA previously presented their demands, proposing various new limitations, including restrictions to the existing safe harbor protections against copyright infringement claims.

While no concrete plans have been made public yet, the U.S Trade Representative (USTR) recently gave an overview of its NAFTA renegotiation objectives. The language leaves plenty of wiggle room, but it’s clear that strong copyright enforcement takes a central role.

“Provide strong protection and enforcement for new and emerging technologies and new methods of transmitting and distributing products embodying intellectual property, including in a manner that facilitates legitimate digital trade,” one of the key points reads.

It is no surprise that copyright enforcement plays a central role in a possible extension of NAFTA. However, according to the Re:Create Coalition, which includes members such as the the Consumer Technology Association, the American Library Association and EFF, future proposals should be more balanced.

This means that if copyright enforcement is included, the US Government should also make sure that fair use, safe harbor protections and other copyright limitations and exceptions are added as well.

“The United States government should promote balance in copyright law to unlock the fullest potential of innovation and creativity globally, and to help U.S. innovators, creators, and small businesses reach foreign audiences.” Re:Create Executive Director Josh Lamel tells TorrentFreak.

“If a re-negotiated NAFTA includes a chapter on copyright, which seems likely, it must have mandatory language on copyright limitations and exceptions, including fair use and protections from intermediary liability.”

The USTR stressed that the NAFTA agreement should cover copyright protections similar to those found in US law. If that is the case, the coalition urges the US Government to ‘export’ fair use and other copyright limitations as well, to keep the balance.

Strong enforcement without balance could lead to all sorts of abuse, according to the Re:Create coalition. Just recently, a Colombian student faced a hefty prison sentence for sharing a research paper on Scribd, something which would be less likely with a proper fair use defense.

“Trade agreements should reflect the realities of the world we live in today. If strong intellectual property protections and enforcement measures are included in a trade agreement, so should exceptions and limitations to copyright law,” Lamel says.

“You can’t have one without the other. Furthermore, the copyright system cannot function effectively without fair use, and neither can the U.S. economy. 16 percent of the U.S. economy depends on fair use, and 18 million U.S. workers across the country are employed in fair use industries.”

In addition to fair use, Re:Create argues that DMCA-style safe harbor provisions are essential for Internet services to operate freely on the Internet. The RIAA wants to restrict safe harbor protection to limit copyright infringement and abuse, but the coalition believes that these proposals go too far.

If the RIAA had its way, many large Internet service providers wouldn’t be able to operate freely. This would result in a loss of American jobs, and innovation would be stifled, Re:Create notes.

“If you looked up excessive overreach in the dictionary, there would be a picture of the RIAA and MPAA submissions. Limiting safe harbors would be corporate cronyism at its worst,” Lamel tells TorrentFreak.

“The safe harbors are at the cornerstone of the Internet economy and consumer Internet experience. It would be an economic disaster. Recent economic analysis found that weakened safe harbors would result in the loss of 4.25 million American jobs and cost nearly half a trillion dollars over the next decade,” he adds.

While it’s still early days, it will be interesting to see what concrete proposals will come out of the negotiations and if fair use and other copyright protections are indeed going to be included. Re-Create promises to keep a close eye on the developments, and they’re certainly not alone.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.