I want to give an update on the silence on the new incarnation of the blog since my last post. There has been a lot happening behind the scenes. I’ve been working on the continuation of the first series, Raspberry Pi 5 as an Edge Device for Robotics, and have been figuring out what else would be helpful. Some of the items I’d already planned on adding but wanted to flesh them out and learn from what others have been doing for so long now. Basically, I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel when so many have created amazing ways of producing and communicating rich wealths of information.
To that extent, I’ve added features to the blog that allow for privacy selections for cookies and personal data. I’ll be adding a Privacy Policy that outlines the goal of zero use of user data. I’m not going to have any ads nor will there be any monetization from this site.
I did add the ability to get statistics for the blog using a plugin that is very minimalist in what information is used and how it is used. Third-parties won’t have access to the information. The plugin describes itself as follows: “Get website traffic insights with GDPR/CCPA compliant, privacy-friendly analytics.”
I’ve added spam-blocking to the site to limit the types of comments that can be created and reCAPTCHA and 2FA capabilities for improved security. This is an area I will be tweaking and improving as time permits. I’m not sure if I will require registration to comment in the future as I don’t necessarily think anonymity is a bad thing. I’d rather have readers post what they feel and it’s on me to take the criticism or not, constructive or not (at least, as I might view it).
The last set of additions deal with posts. I’ve added a series manager to view and navigate series posts (longer, multi-part posts/articles) as opposed to a normal post, like this one. I’ve added some enhancements for YouTube videos as I’ve decided it would be best to organize all of the videos in one location. I’ve added some hardware and software to improve the videos. These include a video capture card to be able to get the external devices from boot-up through shutdown, OBS Studio which allows for having multiple sources for recording videos, and PRISMLens to apply effects to the video sources. The channel is located at KDFJeff YouTube Channel. We should see videos going live this week.
This week, I’ll be working on completing posts for Parts 2 & 3, their associated videos, and adding an introductory video for the first post I made on the blog, (Re)Starting My Blog Life. I’ll be pushing to release more posts in the first series as crunch mode is here. My hope is that it will force a pretty steady stream of posts until we get into the meat of the project where we’re actually setting up the software project and writing code.
There will be other posts and series as, with most of us, competing goals are rampant. One example is, I’ll be receiving the beta shipment for the Particle Tachyon board, in the near future (fingers crossed) and all that comes with it. I’ll be doing an unboxing and discussing how it will be used in robotics projects and how it relates to the Raspberry Pi 5 project. Once Particle releases their M-HAT, I’ll use that to add cellular capabilities to the Raspberry Pi 5 project.
Eventually, there should be another device shipment, the Immersed Visor headset, which adds another layer of complexity in my schedule. I will post on that and how I see these XR (VR/MR/AR) headsets fitting into our world other than just for gaming and social life. Immersed has already started down that route with their software for business users.
It will be an interesting and fulfilling rest of the year and, most likely, into next year. I hope to see you here and to read your feedback/questions/criticisms. There’s a lot to explore and uncover in technology these days and I hope to explore with you.