At it's best this classic gag is surprising, a bit embarrassing, and fun for the whole family. That would be a fairly accurate description for a completely unexpected gift. A friend who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty handed me a small box, with the odd turn of phrase, "This is not a gag gift". Being not entirely comfortable with receiving this little mystery box, it was quickly tucked into my pocket, with awkward thanks and banter about, and how I was allowed to open it trailed my foot steps out the door. A few hours later while comfortably ensconced back at home curiosity brought the little box now on my dresser back to the fore front of my attention. Not a gag gift huh, well lets find out. Obeying the instructions to not go easy on the paper, which I was sure to have confirmed by two witnesses, just incase. Lacking any projected desire, the new Raspberry Pi B+ in it's tiny box took me aback, by it's sheer thoughtfulness.
For the first time in decades there were visions of sugar plums dancing in my head from a holiday gift. Lets just say, there is grinch stuff in my room year round, and leave it at that. Now compelled to express the true gratitude this cool gift engendered, I did the only sensible thing modern convention allows, sent a text. Webpages flying by, visions of crazy creative fun, and $70 later the double edged nature of this gift prompted another text. Something more along the lines of "ok, this thing is so cool, but you just got me to spend $70, on a $35 gift, I won't be posting any basics on the Pi, there is already so much information available, there is little for me to add, To start it will just be a basic multifunction system, able to switch between, medi center, retro gaming system, and raspbian(linux distro designed for the pi). A couple of planned projects with practical application are a dedicated vpn server allowing secured access to the net over any wifi. An Onion Pi, to allow for less trackable internet access, and finally a private cloud storage server, to keep your data your data, yet still allowing you access to it from anywhere. These might not seem all that glamorous, but amazingly useful, a low power solution to several common security holes in most peoples digital experience.
The more fun, less practical ideas will more than likely make an appearance here, perhaps even video's with how too's. For those wanting some information on this fun, practical device, head on over to http://www.adafruit.com/ or http://www.raspberrypi.org/. If you have ideas for custom builds, or just comments please share.
Jack
aka
PanseyBard
For the first time in decades there were visions of sugar plums dancing in my head from a holiday gift. Lets just say, there is grinch stuff in my room year round, and leave it at that. Now compelled to express the true gratitude this cool gift engendered, I did the only sensible thing modern convention allows, sent a text. Webpages flying by, visions of crazy creative fun, and $70 later the double edged nature of this gift prompted another text. Something more along the lines of "ok, this thing is so cool, but you just got me to spend $70, on a $35 gift, I won't be posting any basics on the Pi, there is already so much information available, there is little for me to add, To start it will just be a basic multifunction system, able to switch between, medi center, retro gaming system, and raspbian(linux distro designed for the pi). A couple of planned projects with practical application are a dedicated vpn server allowing secured access to the net over any wifi. An Onion Pi, to allow for less trackable internet access, and finally a private cloud storage server, to keep your data your data, yet still allowing you access to it from anywhere. These might not seem all that glamorous, but amazingly useful, a low power solution to several common security holes in most peoples digital experience.
The more fun, less practical ideas will more than likely make an appearance here, perhaps even video's with how too's. For those wanting some information on this fun, practical device, head on over to http://www.adafruit.com/ or http://www.raspberrypi.org/. If you have ideas for custom builds, or just comments please share.
Jack
aka
PanseyBard
No comments:
Post a Comment