Sarah Griffis

First of all, you will need to determine how much memory you wish to apportion to graphics. You can do this on the first boot of your Raspberry Pi or in the configuration menu later on, accessed by opening the command line and entering raspi-config where you should use the keys to navigate to memory_split . Alternatively, find the Raspberry Pi Configuration via the desktop menu in Preferenc

Recently, MakeUseOf covered similar applications for your webcam, such as Mark's article on two cool motion sensor applications , and a while back I also outlined how you could use webcams from all around the world to go ghost hunting with your browser . However, what I'm going to describe today is a combination of all of those things. We're going to create a remote surveillance system that could monitor your home, your camp, your apartment - or all of the above, all at the same time. In essence you can create a giant personal surveillance network without limitations. Sound cool? Let's r

I captured three snapshots of this student who had just walked into the room and stood at the table. Just imagine if this was your home or business security system. No need to rewind and review security tape - your wifi surveillance system will automatically capture and store the mugshots, and you'll know about it instantly over email or your ph

While upgrading a mechanical hard disk drive (HDDs) to a faster model (say 5400rpm to 7200rpm) might help, switching to an SSD is a better option. Solid-state drives are based on the same technology as USB thumb drives; as such they're far fas

The software defaults to the assumption that each song track filename is prefixed with unique "track number" digits. If your song filenames do not start with track number digits then no "valid" song files will be found. If this is the case, then simply go into the Options menu and under the "Misc(Page1)" section select "Assign numbers to all song tracks" then reload your library. This informs the software that the song filenames do NOT include track numbers and that the software should assign track numbers to each valid song file fo

Whatever the operating system, be sure that the software or process you're trying to close isn't vital. Run a web search to check what it is for and establish if it has any relevance to system stability or your game. If it is irrelevant, proceed to close

My first thought is a distributed surveillance system where you wire up a webcam at every remote location you want to monitor. This could be your elderly mother's house, your camp way up north or maybe even your office because you suspect someone's stealing your favorite multi-colored sticky notes. Whatever the reason, all you need to do is install your webcams with either their own Internet IP, or plugged into an Internet-connected PC running Active Webcam. For my global distributed network test, I visited Opentopia and selected three random webcams from several Universities around the United Sta

The next screen in the wizard lets you choose from the three standard methods of broadcasting your captured video. You can stream it all to an external web server, you can turn your PC itself into a web server, or you can upload via FTP. In my case, I'm hoping to receive an email with a nice snapshot of the intruders that I can take over to the police station, so on this step I'll select " None ." Once you're past the startup wizard and Pcbuildinsight.com you've set up your first device, go to settings and select " Motion Detectio

The next screen of the startup wizard helps you select which type of camera you want to connect to. Keep in mind that if you've set up a remote Wi-Fi webcam that has its own IP on your network, you can connect to it directly by selecting " Network IP Camer

However, just like a full desktop, a new PC build can be expensive. The best way to minimize the cost while focusing on the most suitable components is to upgrade your unit, rather than start from scratch. Various cost-saving options are open to anyone building a brand new computer or upgrading an existing dev

As an automation engineer, I often have to work with machinery or equipment where a central processor needs to read data from a number of distributed sensors. So, for starters I would distribute "sensors" - both wired and wireless web cams - in and around my property. The question still remains, what central processing software could handle all of those webcams and accomplish the "alert" scenario I want? After doing a lot of digging, I finally found a very cool software application called Active Webcam that lets you do just t

I have a ton of old machines with Windows 2000 and Windows XP on them. Some of them aren't even that old or slow. I see plenty of Pentium 4 machines in the bunch so I want to repurpose one of them as a music jukebox. A jukebox is something I grew up with in our pool hall and recreation rooms. The newer ones have CD's in them and the older ones played records. Ours is going to play MP3's. Are you excited to build your music jukebox? I