Cyberpunk Librarian

By Daniel Messer

High tech, low budget. Library technology, FOSS, and cyberpunk.... more

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FAQs about Cyberpunk Librarian:

How many episodes does Cyberpunk Librarian have?

The podcast currently has 107 episodes available.

Cyberpunk Librarian episodes:

January 26, 2015 Cyberpunk Librarian – Episode 28 – Buildin’ Blocks, Killin’ Creepers
On this episode of Cyberpunk Librarian, Dan talks Minecraft and how you can do some cool stuff with it at your library! Links Minecraft – Buy...
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30min
January 26, 2015Episode 28 – Buildin’ Blocks, Killin’ Creepers
On this episode of Cyberpunk Librarian, Dan talks Minecraft and how you can do some cool stuff with it at your library!
Links
Minecraft – Buy and download the game!
Minecraft Server – Because you can have your own world.
Install Minecraft Server on Linux
Install Minecraft Server on OS X
Minecraft Wiki – Everything you need to know and far more that you probably don’t.
Server.Properties – Configure your Minecraft Server.
The Hunger Games… in Minecraft – See? I told you it was a thing.
Coe’s Quest – Absolute loveliness and relaxation while playing Minecraft. (Season One, there are nine seasons.)
Muse Farms – A build based Minecraft let’s play.
Music
Minecraft – The Song by Bobby Yarsulik
Minecraft Everyday by Viktor Cepeda
Bellydance at Ebisu by Ryo Miyashita
Minecraft music from C418. Beautiful stuff!
Support the show! Buy yourself a copy of my EP of space music!
Or just download the music for free from my SoundCloud.
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30min
January 12, 2015 Cyberpunk Librarian – Episode 27 – Pretty Pictures, Better Design
Join Dan for an episode full of tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for creating better graphic design! After all, you don’t want a dumb looking sign...
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33min
January 12, 2015Episode 27 – Pretty Pictures, Better Design
Join Dan for an episode full of tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for creating better graphic design! After all, you don’t want a dumb looking sign in your library! Put some thought into your design and it’ll show in the end result!
Links
Books worth checking out
Thou Shall Not Use Comic Sans – Amazon | WorldCat
Graphic Design: The New Basics – Amazon | WorldCat
Websites worth clicking
Have a look at some beautiful examples of De Stijl.
Behance Graphic Design Portfolios are great places for some ideas and inspiration!
Smashing Magazine goes in-depth about design tips and tools.
Hack Design will teach you about graphic and web design via email!
The Design Blog is another fantastic place for ideas.
Identifont will help you discover great fonts and replacements for fonts you don’t have.
Library Signage gives you the good, the bad, and the OMG of library sign design.
Software worth your while
Office 365 Personal and/or Home editions will get you the latest versions of Microsoft Office direct from the source. Always updated and always available via the cloud.
Scribus – The graphic design studio for the rest of us. Also available in a Portable Apps edition.
LibreOffice – The FOSS solution for your office suite. Also available in a Portable Apps edition.
Pixelmator – The best, most affordable image editor for OS X. Highly recommended.
GIMP – Cross platform, free and open source image editing. Also available in a Portable Apps edition.
PaintShop Pro – A sadly underused bit of kit that is just as useful as Photoshop for 90% of the population at a tiny fraction of the price!
Music and Audio
Woman in Blue by Cafe Del Chillia
Ivana Kupala Night by Crosswords
Gravitational Slingshot by Daniel Messer. Download for free on SoundCloud or buy yourself a copy of The View From Amalthea which includes this song and a few others.
Printer sound courtesy of FreeSound.org.
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33min
December 08, 2014 Cyberpunk Librarian – Episode 26 – Busy Hands
Projects at work and projects at home! Join Daniel Messer, the Cyberpunk Librarian, for a look at some of the things he’s working on for money...
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56min
December 08, 2014Episode 26 – Busy Hands
Projects at work and projects at home! Join Daniel Messer, the Cyberpunk Librarian, for a look at some of the things he’s working on for money and for fun. Raspberry Pis, LAMPs, Minecraft, and more. After all, busy hands are happy hands!
Links
KnightWise.com community on Google+
Raspberry Pi Kiosk Screen Tutorial
Cherokee Web Server – an easy to set up and use webserver managed through the browser
PhraseExpress – an excellent text expansion app for Windows
AutoHotkey – powerful scripting made easier
Slide Code Generator for Polaris – my AutoHotkey script to generate slide codes for the Polaris PowerPAC
Install LAMP stack on Ubuntu based systems
Installing phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu based systems – Because I don’t speak SQL very well
Coppermine – a fantastic, FOSS image gallery app for the web
WordPress – my CMS of choice
Anchor CMS – beautiful, simple blogging and content management
Setting up a Minecraft server on Linux
Notes
To disable screen blanking and screen savers on Raspbian for Raspberry Pi, you need to edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
Look for a section in the file labeled [SeatDefaults]. You’ll find several lines underneath it commented out with the # symbol. Remove the # symbol from the line xserver-command and change it to read
xserver-command=X -s 0 dpms
Save the file and reboot.
Music and Audio
Hypodemia by NeXuS
Destiny by Atomic Cat
Rocket by Kevin MacLeod
Bellydance at Ebisu by Ryo Miyashita
Sound effects courtesy of FreeSound.org
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56min
November 18, 2014 Cyberpunk Librarian – Episode 25 – The Cyberpunk Behind Big Hero 6
Let’s step back from the tech for a bit from something fun and different! Join Dan for a look at the cyberpunk technology and tones of...
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32min
November 18, 2014Episode 25 – The Cyberpunk Behind Big Hero 6
Let’s step back from the tech for a bit from something fun and different! Join Dan for a look at the cyberpunk technology and tones of the Disney animated film Big Hero 6!
Links
Hatsune Miku – Information about the virtual idol singer, or idoru, from Wikipedia.
Music
Lei#4 by Gilo
Robotomie by Tortue Super Sonic
Bellydance at Ebisu by Ryo Miyashita
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32min
November 03, 2014 Cyberpunk Librarian – Episode 24 – Delicious 3.14159
Raspberry Pis have taken the maker and geek world by storm! Little, inexpensive computers that can do so many great things? Yeah that has a lot...
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40min
November 03, 2014Episode 24 – Delicious 3.14159
Raspberry Pis have taken the maker and geek world by storm! Little, inexpensive computers that can do so many great things? Yeah that has a lot of possibilities within the library! Join Dan and discover a project he’s working on that involves a Raspberry Pi.
Notes
Outline for what I’ve done for a digital shelf talker unit powered by Raspberry Pi.
Raspberry Pi Model B – uses a MicroSD and has four USB ports
Using a kit I found on Amazon. Links in the shownotes
The great thing about this kit isn’t just the case and plugs but also the WiFi plug. That’s what you really need for a project like this.
Screenly OSE
Managed through web browser
Displays slides, MP4s, and websites as a digital signage solution
Easier to use and set up than Xibo. I love it!
OSE is the FOSS edition, there is a paid solution with more spiffs – check it out
Using the custom image found on Screenly OSEs website, I flashed that to the SD card using Win32DiskImager – an open source app that is excellent for this
The Screenly OSE custom image is just Raspbian with Screenly OSE pre-installed. Save yourself some time, just use it.
Flash that to the SD card, pop the card in your Raspberry Pi, hook everything up, and plug it in!
Plug into a live ethernet jack that allows access to the Internet. You’ll need that to get things going.
It’ll start up and go right into a demo display with a video. Let that play through and then hit CTRL ALT F1 to get to a login prompt.
The login is the default for Raspberry Pi and Raspbian, the user is pi and the password is raspberry – all lower case.
So the tricky part isn’t getting Screenly OSE to work it’s getting the Pi to automatically connect to WiFi. Over ethernet it’s great! Wifi needs a little tweaking
To do this, we need to install a better network manager. It’s spelled wicd, but to keep it straight in my head I call it “wicked” which will make more sense in a few moments.
Getting wicd installed is pretty easy. I’ll have this info listed in the show notes, so don’t feel like you have to write things down furiously.
Type sudo apt-get update and then sudo apt-get install wicd-curses. So I call the network manager wicked and the whole thing is wicked curses, see?
sudo wicd-curses
You’ll get a pretty simple interface to set up your wifi connection, link to more information in the show notes but I bet you’ll figure it out pretty quickly
Set up your wifi access (choose it, password if needed, etc) and make sure you set it up to connect automatically!
After that, hit F10 to save the setup and then SHIFT C to connect. If you did it all correctly, the wifi connects up! BRILLIANT!
Oh except for the fact that it won’t do this automatically upon boot, not yet
Okay so the trick is that we need to get the wicd service to start automatically. To do that, we need to edit the /etc/profile file to start the service on login.
When Screenly OSE starts, it logs in. Whenever someone logs in, /etc/profile is invoked
So let’s cd /etc and, just to be safe, make a copy with sudo cp profile profile.bak, then sudo nano profile
To start the service, add sudo service wicd start to the end of that profile
CTRL X and save
Moment of truth time. Disconnect your ethernet cable and reboot the Pi
When Screenly OSE comes up, it may or may not show you the IP for the Pi. Sometimes it doesn’t get the wifi connection in time to display it. To verify your wifi connection,
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40min

FAQs about Cyberpunk Librarian:

How many episodes does Cyberpunk Librarian have?

The podcast currently has 107 episodes available.