One of the weakest sides of raspberry Pi is its power supply. We only get micro-USB option for powering the device. In one hand this is great feature because micro-USB chargers are becoming standard for phone chargers, so most of us already have those near by. There is another option of powering Raspberry Pi – using PGIO where you can find power pins. The real problem is that you don’t have much of power control on board – even there is no power button. Once you plug the adapter it starts to work immediately and powers off once you plug it off.

Felix Rusu have designed small power controller for Raspberry Pi which gives some control. It is Attiny based board so called ATXRaspi that gives features like power button, status LED, and link to RasPi. This allows shutting down the board without need to log in. when you click the power button adapter sends command to Raspberry Pu through GPIO to initiate shutdown script and will safely turn it off. Practically you can place any commands to execute before turning off – saving data, cleanup, writing to log files and so on.

It seems that Raspberry Pi continuously is loosing the “cheapest Linux” board positions. After BeagleBoard black has been announced, you may thing twice before purchasing your next or first Linux based development board. Firs of all its price has been cut to $45 which makes it very attractive choice. It becomes even more attractive when looking at technical specs.

First of all it comes with AM335x 1GHz processor. We all now that clock cycle doesn’t determine the system performance. We will definitely see the comparison results soon. It also comes with 512MB of RAM. Then there is 2GB of onboard flash memory where angstrom Linux distribution is preloaded. Also you can always boot from uSD you own image. Among all other features you can find onboard JTAG, USB, serial port, Ethernet, HDMI, 65 GPIO that can be split in to several special function IOS like LCD, analog and so on. If you were keen to buy white BeagleBoard, then why not grabbing the black one.

Cats love when you take care of them. It is better not to forget feeding time. Another question is what cats do when we are not home? Tris found this interesting topic and so he started a PiPurr project. This is a Raspberry Pi based webserver which allows taking care of cat when you are away. Even more it gives a visual feedback of what’s going on around.

Python based webserver gives access to webcam. You can capture a picture at any time and see on your screen. This is achieved using OpenCV. Also it is possible to play sounds remotely. This gives cat some attention. And lastly treat. Cats love treats. So there is a stepper motor controlled treat dispenser. Tris developed a special Android client app which allows accessing all features in a handy form. The feature list of PiPurr isn’t over yet. There are plans to add laser pointer to entertain the cat and implement live video stream. And of course why limit yourself with a cat. I see this should also work with any domestic pet.

So you have your raspberry and already tried all basic stuff like installing Linux, running few basic commands and accessed GPIO using Python. The real fun always begins when building a project. But before you lean to the complex project, you can practice to interface few cool modules. This will give more confidence especially when you’re new to Linux thing. Matt posted a great list of things to try.

They are pretty simple like Ultrasonic transducer, PIR motion sensor, stepper motor, LCD, USB WiFi dongle, LEDs, buzzers, and Wii dongle. Some of them may be a starting point for your next project or just be fun to try. Of course you can find even more cool devices on your shelf. Just enjoy learning process.