Pre-requisites to get started with Raspberry Pi

If you have not come across Raspberry Pi and like to know about it, visit Raspberry Pi website and you can also know my view via my blog "Raspberry Pi & DIY IoT".

When I wanted to try IoT Experiments, I found "Raspberry Pi" to be a naive choice. I got the latest version of Raspberry Pi - The Raspberry Pi 2. I did not realize that Raspberry Pi alone will not be sufficient to get started with IoT. We actually require more items in our hands to get started with Raspberry Pi & IoT. This blog address the initial need of various devices & connector cables to get started with Raspberry Pi and connects with other required links already present to get started.


What are the peripheral devices required for Raspberry Pi?
1. Mouse which can connect with USB
2. Keyboard which can connect with USB
3. Monitor with HDMI port / VGA port

Tips: 
1. If you have a personal computer, the keyboard & mouse of personal computers are enough, but make sure that they connect to your CPU via USB.
2. Personal Computer Monitor or Smart TV Monitor with HDMI port is enough for initial setup. Most of the personal computer monitor only comes with VGA port, in such case you will require HDMI to VGA adapter to act as Raspberry Pi Monitor.

Experience:
In my case,
I had Keyboard which can connect with USB.
I had a Mouse with PS/2 Connector. Hence, I was in a requirement to buy a PS/2 to USB Adapter.
I had a Smart TV with HDMI connector.

What are the connector cables required for Raspberry Pi?
1. HDMI cable / HDMI to VGA Cable - To connect to Monitor Display.
2. Ethernet Cable - To connect with Broadband MODEM.
3. PS/2 to USB cable, if you only have a PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse with you - To Connect to Keyboard & Mouse

Tips:
1. Raspberry Pi can connect to Monitor only via HDMI port. so it is inevitable to do without any HDMI connectors. Either purchase one or borrow one as it is going to be required only for your initial setup and connectivity.
2. Ethernet Cable - Only required if you only have a Wired Internet connection and no WiFi.

Experience:
In my case,
I bought an HDMI cable from amazon.
I bought a PS/2 to USB Adapter from local store like one in amazon but at a very cheap price.
I did not get any Ethernet cable, I had one, but i never used it for Raspberry Pi, instead used Mobile WiFi hotspot.

What other component is required to kick start with Raspberry Pi?
1. SD Card 8GB or 16GB with loaded OS.
2. 5V, 2A Power Supply.
3. SD card Holder / SD card to USB Adapter.
4. Raspberry Pi enclosure
5. Ethernet Cable

Tips:
1. 8 GB or 16 GB SD it does not matter. Buy a class 10 SD card. At least have a minimum of 8 GB SD card. here is were the Raspberry Pi's OS sits, you cannot have any alternative.
2. If you have Apple Mobile charger with Micro USB, reuse the same as a power supply for Raspberry Pi as their specification matches. In case if you have Samsung or other Micro USB charger, mostly it does not supply 2A double check the supply specifications and reuse them accordingly.
3. Buy a Raspberry Pi enclosure to avoid any static electricity contact.
4. Despite Raspberry Pi comes with Ethernet Connector, We may never require Ethernet Cable.

Experience:
1. I bought one Class 10 SD card as it is a better fit for Raspberry Pi and works at a faster frequency.
2. I bought a separate power supply as all Micro USB charger that I had 5V and 2.5A as the specification.
3. I had one SD card Holder.
4. I bought one Raspberry Pi enclosure.

5. I did not required any Ethernet Cable so far.

What type of Internet Source is required?
Wired Broadband / 3G or 2G Internet connection which can be shared with WiFi. If you have any phone or tablet which can act as WiFi Hotspot, it should be sufficient at later stages after initial setup.

Experience:
1. I used my tablet for Internet connectivity. Even without 3G (real internet), I was able to connect my TV, Raspberry Pi and my tablet via WiFi Hotspot, it created a LAN.

I recommend you to either purchase or borrow all the connectors depending upon your choice either to depend upon them or not after your initial setup.

After you have the pre-requisite hardwares you can now start with your software setups.

How to set up the OS in SD card?
You can look for the solution here and here.

Experience:
I downloaded NOOBS Offline and network install and had setup my 8GB SD card with Raspbian.

How to connect Raspberry Pi & Peripheral devices? How to boot the OS?
1. Plug in NOOBS installed SD card in Raspberry Pi.
2. Connect your keyboard & Mouse to Raspberry Pi via USBs. If required via a PS/2 to USB adapter.
3. Connect your Smart TV / Computer Monitor to Raspberry Pi via HDMI port with a HDMI cable. If required via VGA to HDMI adapter.
4. Plugin in power supply cord and switch on both your monitor & Raspberry Pi.
5. Change the Mode of Monitor to take signal from HDMI port
6. Check "FIRST BOOT" section to start your first Boot of Raspberry Pi. If anything goes wrong with booting, you can always format your SD card and start afresh.

Once you have setup Raspberry Pi, now your tiny computer is ready to conquer IoT world.

Visualizations for a Greater Career Path

Few Visualization which made great Impacts & directed me and directs me on my Career Path are as follows

Basic need of any individual can be put down with below visualization. Individual/Self is centric for anyone, hence this visualization becomes important than any other visualization not only for me but anyone whomever it is.

I have already posted a blog on the Garters Visualization which I consider as very Important as it really gives me a jolt and brings me alive. Yes Garters visualization is what I would prefer to put forth for anyone to look at, as it is important for any one who aspires to become leader or to attain self actualization.

The Garters Visualization though shows how one can define a Leader, It also Questions how to set up a Vision and how to increase ability. In my earlier post I did mentioned that collaboration happens between challengers and visionaries to define new Leaders in a niche. One has to note that Collaboration is the key to success to tread leader's path. Though easily said, it is hard to achieve. The Visualization of Collaboration is as follows,

During Collaboration Conflict is normal, the win-win Situation is what anyone would prefer, that is the only reason Challengers do collaborate with Visionaries to become leaders - a win-win Situation. Some time a leader could accommodate an another leader who is in same line of thought to become super leader or a leader with same line of thought could compete with a better leader aspiring to become a Super Leader. Though the picture above depicts that during accommodation and competition there will be lose in one player, the lose can be calculated to avoid future natural risk of player moving out of field.

Intellectual Knowledge drives Vision, Challenging nature and Collaboration, similar to the fact that a networked multi-core processor is better than a single core processor, the below visualization of Zohari's window depicts the same. Collaboration helps us to provide both processing capability and acts to increase knowledge store and thus increases our capability.

Collaboration requires "need", "purpose" and "trust", needs/purpose has been already depicted in first visualization. Trust is something hard to come by, it requires continuous collaboration and continuous wins for all players collaborating. Gartner's hype visualization depicts the trust changes happening over a period of time incorporating the kano's phenomenon of increased expectation over a period of time on exciters, delighters and performers. kano's visualization is depicted further below in this blog

Communication & Networking ability drives Collaboration. Opening Communication channels and networking ports is very Important without which you can never participate in the game of Collaboration. It can be achieved by increasing visibility as depicted in Zohari's window. Engage, Enable and Excel.

Communication can be effectively done considering everyone as Customers, With the Voice of Customer, Kano's Visualization gives a better picture, it is also depicted that over a period of time, any thing which excited customer become a basic need. Knowing the need of Customer can be achieved by knowing others which can happen as depicted in Zohari's window

Ability depends on our Strength, SWOT Visualization can help us to convert Opportunities, Weakness, threats into Strengths.

Evolving Schools and Pedagogy

The Gurukula Education has never waned and has never lost it importance, at the same moment we have never dared to introduce new learning methodologies through Technology. Every child starts to learn by imitating, mimicking their parents and their relatives and they are further put up at schools with teachers to make them enter a systematic way of learning, to make them succeed in their lives by the way directed by wisdom and knowledge. Schools, Colleges, Universities, Institutions, Research Centers and we can go on to add the ways the educational systems being put up in myriad number of ways.

In my school, I happen to read a Science fiction lesson. The lesson expounded that in the future children will not be send to schools rather, they will stay at home learning everything through personal computers. Yes, the future seems to have come now. Today most of us learn with Computers. Instead of stating in general as computers, i should state that we have started learning with our newly found electronic gadgets.

Schools and its facilities also has changed to a large extend. Schools have also become trendy. Smart Boards is an awesome invention, they can help both the tutors and the students to visualize many concepts in depth and any upcoming technologies to make the learning interesting.

New horizon has opened and people have started to hold newly opened position know as "Student Facilitators". Facilitators unlike teachers will help students only to guide them so that they could learn the syllabus with an incremental improvement. Students are tracked as they make progress in the virtual class rooms. Exams, tests, assignments, feedback, weak area identification, progress, motivation what not? everything happens in the virtual class rooms.

Emails, video conferencing, chats, mobile phones are the medium of communication for the learning students as well as the facilitators. Because of such changes in the pedagogy, the gap between the normal life outside school and life within the schools is getting thin.

Training at Corporate Industries, especially at software industries also takes places through shared resources via video conference. Live chats happens when a trainee wants to raise a questions to the trainer. Assignments are submitted through online and mails.

Such evolution in the educational system certainly could bring in, more changes than we anticipate, in our mere future. I could find many people adapting to these new changes to better evolve themselves to the new trend.

It seems that it is better to keep track of the changes happening in the education system with the new technology and its impact, in order to make our stance and to help our children. Future Parents should find out new ways to sort out the best way to put up their children so that they could better support themselves to learn and find a good position in the society. It seems that we could be made obsolete very quickly than we made our previous generations. But c'est la vie, we shall tackle it as it happens.

"Man had withstand many changes
and many generation have passed by.

This is just, an yet another change.

Every time the challenges are different,
yet man had withstood and has made his stance.

This is just, an yet another challenge.

Every change and challenge has its threats and difficulties
yet man had withstood to come out with flying colors

This is just, an yet another threat and difficulty
This is just, an yet another generation to take man to his next epoch."

Vision and Execution determines a Leader

I came across this Gartner's chart some time back.When I came in acquaintance with it, It is said to determine Leaders in a particular IT product. It segregates the players into 4 different categories based on their execution ability and their ability to complete their vision as seen below.



This chart can also be used to evaluate people belonging to any Niche to determine Leaders, Challengers and Visionaries. It helps any person to sort out good players.

The chart clearly shows that at some instance Challengers can join with Visionaries to become Leaders. I think IT giants like IBM, Google buys some small concerns to become Leaders in a particular field or technology. They have the "ability to execute" but remains as Challengers in a particular field or technology. In order to become Leaders, they sort out visionaries and acquire them.

One can also define a Leader based on this chart as, "Any Person or Industry having the outstanding ability to complete the vision with outstanding ability to execute further or the vice verse will be the leader of all time."

My Learning : Be a Visionary and sharpen the skill sets to gain the ability to execute in order to become a Leader.

My Art Gallery

Art works such as drawing and painting brings in a cherubic moment as there is nothing to target and all that is required is to bring one’s thoughts to draw a picture to paint. It does not imposes any limits but helps one to bring all kind of imaginations without rules.

I always had a bent towards drawing art works and painting right from my childhood. I still could remember my first drawing class in my upper kinder garden, the very first picture that I drew was the trace of my hand. The very first success in bringing out the plausible picture brought immense pleasure and joy. Though the picture was not so astounding to adore as a great achievement, It is heartening to recollect the first accomplishment which left me to heave a sign of completion with heavy breath. I think it is not only me, everyone gets such moments in life when they drop into the trip of unknown and turns it with conscious effort to a success. For me every picture I paint had brought such moment.

Here I am sharing some of my painting that I had paint and preserved.

Cartoons are something very easy to paint and here goes the first big picture that I painted on my 8^th grade. It is a full A2 size drawing made with colour pencil and a water colour touch been provided by smudging the pencil shades using water. The painting has been put up with utmost frivolity to rejoice all the cartoons that I enjoyed watching.                                                                                  

The Second painting is also a cartoon which was made on same grade, It is again a A2 sized painting. It was done with a posture colour. The victory in a social painting competition at poondi made me to come up with this painting. 

"Union of all religions" was the topic given to participants in the competition. I tried to depict conflagration of three religious worshipping places - temple, mosque and church and when some onlooker questioned the reason for my depiction, I replied "I find everyone has some inkling, unflagging religious belief, only such depiction would make them to realize that we are in requirement for a change to instigate peace." It won me a second prize when around  fifty to hundred participants also tried to compete by depicting their own perspectives.

In this cartoon, I tried to depict the importance to avail education. I titled it as "Education is the great treasure that a man should have" trying to make my fellow students to have a different look at the education they are availing. The theme and the cartoon has been taken from a chocolate cover (tiffin). A closer look would reveal that Mickey mouse and Donald duck are at awestruck to find their treasure of books and the books lying all around the treasure island. Thereby I try to state boundless and limitless knowledgeable things to be the found all around us and with a awe as we would have towards a treasure could bring in happiness and reverence in learning them.