Chromebook on Camping Coder

Maxing out the Mini Delta 3D printer

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 -0500

It’s been a bit since the last post as we’ve been adventuring a lot lately. We’re getting ready for Halloween by printing out ghost decorations on the Monoprice Mini Delta and we’re maxing out the build volume in the process. Follow along and check out how to get the most out of the little printer.

With Halloween around the corner, I was feeling a little behind the curve when it came to all the cool stuff that I could print out for the holiday found on Thingiverse. I looked at dozens of spooky items, but kept coming back to the same will it be big enough thought. This is mainly because the Mini Delta can only print 110mm (4.33") in diameter, but I typically only go to 90mm (3.54") just so I have a little give. About the time I was going to give up the search I found it - a PacMan Ghost Lantern!

Scaling woes with 3D Printing

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0500

Overall

If you’ve been following along with the 3D printing series you’ll know that it’s fairly easy to use a Chromebook to print to your 3D printer using an AstroBox Gateway Raspberry Pi 3 Kit. For a while now it’s been perfect while learning the ropes of 3D printing, but now I’ve moved into an area where I want pre-existing parts to integrate into my projects and that’s where the problem is. With the current setup of a Monoprice Mini Delta and the Astrobox there is no easy way to adjust for your machine’s particulars. Follow along to see how I’ve mitigated the issue for myself and you can leverage the same solution too!

3D Printing with Astroprint

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0500

If you read any of the other posts in the 3D printing series you’ll know that after reading The MagPi issue 69 I think that the itch of 3D printing had solidly re-emerged in me. Additionally, if you’ve looked around Camping Coder you’ll also know that I’m a huge fan of Chromebooks in general. That’s where the AstroBox Gateway Raspberry Pi 3 Kit comes into play. It’s an awesome little tool which will allow you to easily print to your Monoprice Mini Delta from your Chromebook.

Monoprice Mini Delta

Wed, 06 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0500

After reading The MagPi issue 69 I think that the itch of 3D printing had solidly re-emerged in me. About five years ago, I was very close to building one from scratch, but cost really kept me away. In the issue, MagPi shows off a $100 kit printer, and lets face it - for $100 you really can’t go wrong.

Like any good nerd I started learning everything that I could about that one. Two of the major barriers were that it was on a multi month back order, which I really don’t have patience for and the other was the eight plus hour build time - between all of the other things in this season of life there really isn’t eight hours to build a printer to be had.

3D Printing from a Chromebook

Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 -0500

If you’ve been following us for any length of time you probably already noticed that we huge fans of Chrome OS. With that there are often issues that need to be worked around or dealt with when working with a highly secured OS, with a semi limited app ecosystem. One of them is that you cannot simply go install an application to run your 3D printer. With restrictions though sometimes better more innovative processes can flourish. Follow along with us as we show you how we got into 3D printing for only a few hundred dollars and a Chromebook!

Hugo and droppy, Chromebook friends

Wed, 16 May 2018 00:00:00 -0500

droppy logo

If you read the post on Hugo + gulp = Chromebook awesomeness then you know that there are a lot of steps in it, and a lot of parts moving to make the solution work. While it does meet the need I noticed that it’s a little much for daily use. That’s really where droppy comes into the picture. It runs on Raspberry Pi’s, so its light weight, and has a great interface - best of all it has a code editor built right in!

Hugo + SHH - gulp = a new workflow

Thu, 03 May 2018 00:00:00 -0500

If you ready the post on Hugo + gulp = Chromebook awesomeness you’ll know that I’ve been adjusting my workflow to get Hugo to live reload on Chrome OS. While that solution worked okay, there were a few issues with it.

First off, the process required that a gulp task be setup to sync the files with the Termux. This isn’t a big deal, but as a project grows there’s more to sync, which causes the process to slow down. Additionally, it stores a duplicate of the files, which digs into the precious limited space on many Chromebooks.

Themeing gisty

Thu, 29 Mar 2018 00:00:00 -0500

gisty logo

Refactoring gisty~

When I initially wrote gisty~ it was a quickly put together application, and I even waited a bit to promote the application. Not to say that it was bad, but function was its primary goal. Ascetics was fairly low on the priority list at the time. At that time, it was all about the GitHub Application programming interface (API) calls to accurately pull the data needed, and to do it the same every time. Now six months later after using the application, some much needed attention has been given to the user interface (UI).

Running Tmux for Termux on a Chromebook

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 00:00:00 -0500

It’s the little things that make writing code much more enjoyable. While I have been extremely happy since resetting my Chromebook back to stock, since I can run all the applications that I need - I really wanted multi window for Termux. While Chrome OS will not let you run multiple copies of Termux there is an application called tmux which will allow you to split up the one window into many regions.

Hugo + gulp = Chromebook awesomeness

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 00:00:00 -0500

One of my favorite things about writing code is that you can learn or fail fast - typically the failures teach you a lot more too. The quick iterations really are fun and when they make your day just an increment better, you get a sense of accomplishment. If you’ve read my initial running Hugo on a Chromebook post which was followed by the Hugo on 100% stock Chromebook you’ll get a sense of how the little iterations make a difference.

Resetting My Chromebook Back to Stock

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0500

With all the news coverage of the Meltdown, Spectre and whatever name exploits in the media, when I received the chance to upgrade to the newest version of Chrome OS, I jumped on it. This particular version for my ThinkPad Chromebook also included a firmware upgrade, which to me meant something new - I have not seen a firmware update in Chrome OS until then. The downside of the update is that it required a ‘Power wash’ of Chrome OS, essentially resetting the machine back to stock. I thought about it for a little and decided to take it a step further and take the machine out of developer mode and see if with Android apps if I could mitigate the need for the elevated permissions on Chrome OS.

Introducing gisty

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0500

gisty logo

Over the years I’ve come to save snippets of code that solve my problems from my projects or the various places on the internet. Doing so has allowed me to be able to quickly reference a block of code from months or years ago. Not only does this save me time, but allows me to continuously update how I’m writing code and apply best practices in a consistent manner.

Automated code deployment with Bitbucket and Docker

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0500

You’ve probably heard of Docker, but don’t have the time needed to learn or implement it - you probably also want to start automating your builds, because who likes to deploy code? In this post, we’ll cover using Docker to deploy code using Bitbucket Pipelines. It will be high level on what docker is and enough to either use someone else’s Docker image or build your own - without needing to install Docker on your machine. We will then use that image to deploy our projects source code using Bitbucket Pipelines.

Thinkpad Chromebook a year later

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 05:00:00 -0500

Ratings
Link to product
Would we buy it again?	Yes
Value	High
Ease of use	Super Easy

I’ve been using my ThinkPad Chromebook 13 for a little over a year for multiple development activities. It all started with a an itch to try out Chrome OS and to get a half decent development machine. This is my second personal ThinkPad - the last one I actually ended up physically destroying the hard drive for because it had just become too old, but would not die. There have been ups and downs on this little experiment of mine and I hope to put out a little information for those whom might be looking at doing the same.

Running Hugo on Chromebook

Sun, 12 Nov 2017 14:00:00 -0500

Update: I’ve made a few adjustments to the process in my Resetting My Chromebook Back to Stock post. Mainly script cleanup and a way to do this without being in developer mode. This post still has the basics and a lot of good info not covered in the new post.

Termux and hugo

If you read any of my post on Android apps on on Thinkpad Chromebook then you know that my primary machine is a Thinkpad 13 Chromebook. This was an artificially imposed restriction on my end, to make me do more with less. While the experience has be very pleasant there have been a few places where a ’little’ more power or options would be welcomed - that’s where Termux comes into play.

Android Apps arrive on ThinkPad Chromebook 13

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 12:00:00 -0500

Finally…

Proof!

After about a year of waiting for Android Apps on my ThinkPad Chromebook 13 they finally arrived in last night’s update. I was overly excited because just earlier that day I had been on the ‘chat’ with Lenovo asking when this would happen. The answer that I had been given at noon was that the sales team did not know when they would be enabling the feature, but then that evening poof Android apps.