I run two pi-holes on my home network (details here). The older of the two was in need of a refresh. Here are some notes on how I did a reinstall. For those that don’t know, a pi-hole is a simple ad-blocking solution. You can donate to the project here. Problem The pi-hole itself can be easily updated over ssh using pihole -up however the OS also needs occasional updating for security.

If I struggle to find the answer to something, it must be worth a post to help out others. So, here’s where to find the php.ini file on a standard WordPress install on Raspberry Pi. I installed a LAMP stack and WordPress on a Raspberry Pi following these excellent instructions. The aim was to import our lab’s ELN onto a fresh WordPress install.

The Retropie project is a wonderful way to play retro games on a Raspberry Pi (see previous post). A number of handheld units are available to make a convincing retro gaming experience. One of these is the Retroflag GPi case, modelled on Nintendo’s Game Boy. It’s possible to order one of these pre-built and even loaded with games, but where is the fun in that? Here is a quick guide to building one.

I have a long-running project Raspberry Pi project to make time-lapse movies of a countryside view (see previous posts). It’s been running for over two years and the results are great. The camera takes images every ten minutes and by assembling movies with different time intervals, you can see seasons change, trees growing or the sun setting and snow melting. The sky is mesmerising to watch.

A while ago, I set up a couple of Raspberry Pi Zero cameras to make long-term time lapse movies. To recap: the idea was to take pictures every ten minutes and turn them into a movie. The process is totally automated so that every day, the photos from each Pi get saved to a server, and then processed into a movie that gradually gets longer and longer. At the end of the week, if the back up went OK, the photos get deleted from the Pi’s SD card.

I have been running a pi-hole to block ads on my home network for a while. It’s great! Not only are ads blocked, but it speeds up internet browsing because… the ads do not load. I wondered if it would be possible to use a pi-hole to make a child-safe internet experience to protect the little people in the house. Sure, there are ways to do this in most routers but they are not ideal.