Raspberry Pi 400 Mouse and Bardi Smart Outdoor Static IP Camera

I've had to abandon the mouse that came with the Raspberry Pi 400 that I purchased some months ago. It was never quite right, especially when it came to copying and pasting, and proved absolutely hopeless when playing online chess because it led to frequent mouse slips. I guess they added the cheapest mouse available to the package. "DESIGNED BY XIAOMI" is printed on the top cover of the mouse, not that it means anything.

It not a big deal as a wireless mouse, especially with its own proprietary dongle, can be bought very cheaply nowadays. Overall, I'm quite happy so far with the performance of this particular Raspberry Pi model. My only complaints have been directed at the deficiencies of the Chromium web browser.

Yesterday a package arrived containing a SMART OUTDOOR STATIC IP CAMERA. It had sent by relatives and today I set it up and have it running, the sound and video feed being accessible via an iPhone app. The feed can be accessed from remotely and data can be stored to an SD card although I haven't set that up yet. The maximum card size is 128 GB. The camera connects to the local WiFi network using the 2.4 GHz wavelength.

Here is a description of the product taken from the manufacturer's website:

This camera is now the only device that makes the home router accessible to the outside world. This is something to ponder and it raises security issues as the IP address is indeed static. It doesn't change, allocated presumably by the BARDI company during the registration process and built into the price of the device.

Mouse, Trackpad and Keyboard Freeze in Ubuntu

Life with Ubuntu is never dull and predictable. Last night I discovered that my mouse, trackpad and keyboard on my Mac laptop had all frozen. This had happened a few days earlier and the problem had been resolved with a reboot. However, as I was tired, I simply shut it down and planned to restart it in the morning.

That proved to be overly optimistic. After the morning reboot, the problem persisted. I tried a couple more times. I removed the USB receiver for my Logitech mouse and tried again. Still no change. I searched online but most help involved using the terminal and I had no keyboard. It was looking like a reinstallation would be necessary but, if that were needed, I would not be installing Ubuntu again but another version of Linux.

However, I decided to reboot while pressing the option key which brings up the boot menu. When I did this the mouse, trackpad and keyboard all worked. There was only the Ubuntu on the hard drive to boot from so I chose this and hoped for the best. With the OS loaded, everything worked and life was back to normal.

It was certainly odd that all input options failed at the same time and I felt that I should investigate further to try to get to the bottom of the problem as it is likely to recur. I remembered that I had been initially frustrated that Command+C for copy and Command+V for paste no longer worked. Instead Control+C and Control+V had to be used instead. 

With this problem in mind I installed an app called Kinto that supposedly remapped the keyboard. However, I never got the program to work properly but the icon continued to display on my list of apps. It was only after installing Stacer that I found that Kinto was loading at Startup. I was then able to delete it and I suspect that this was the source of the problem. See Figure 1.

Figure 1

I came across Stacer in a 2017 post titled The 10 Easiest Ways to Keep Ubuntu System Clean that has quite a few good tips including:

• $ sudo apt-get autoremove (to remove unnecessary packages and dependencies)
• $ sudo rm -rf ~/.cache/thumbnails/* (the number of thumbnails can build up over time)
• $ sudo apt-get clean (remove all cache files)

The Price of Mainstream Divergence

Having replaced the Mac OS on my Mac Book with OS Chrome Flex and Windows 10 on my granddaughter's HP Pavilion x360 with Ubuntu 20.04, the consequences are now being felt but it's OK, I'm retired and have plenty of time to deal with these problems. For a working person, who needs his or her laptop to be fully functional so as to maintain productivity, I wouldn't recommend my course of action.

On Ubuntu, I decided to install Calibre that I use to organise my collection of ebooks. However, once installed it wouldn't launch. Apparently, there are problems getting Calibre to run on the latest version of Ubuntu.

To add to my frustrations, I wrote in my Astrology blog about a similar problem:

... the Astrolog website links to openastro.org that has an Ubuntu repository that I'm keen to test out. Figure 1 shows a screenshot.

Figure 1

Unfortunately, I get the following error message:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:

openastro.org : Depends :  imagemagick

E: unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Given that Ubuntu is a far more mature OS than the beta Chrome OS Flex, these failures are disappointing. 

Meanwhile the problems with the latter OS are many. The webcam doesn't work on my Mac Book and the touchpad is all but useless. I had to resort to using a mouse again, a practice that I abandoned over a decade ago. Fortunately the mouse works fine unless I connect an external monitor in which case the mouse becomes unstable.

While I seem to have successfully installed the Linux development environment in Chrome OS Flex, I get the following error message when opening the terminal:

Starting the virtual machine Error starting penguin container: 5

Launching vmshell failed: Error starting crostini for terminal: 5

This of course means that no installations of Linux applications are possible. None of these things are game changers but there's also the temptation to go out and buy the M2 Mac Book Air when it comes out later this year and have all these frustrations disappear.

On the positive side, it's interesting with Chrome OS Flex to be actively involved in the ongoing development and testing of the operating system.

Chrome OS Flex Update

Having installed Chrome OS Flex on my 2103 Mac Book and replacing the Mac operating system, I've been using it successively to carry out my everyday tasks. On the plus side, the WiFi glitch that so bedeviled my Mac with the old operating system has gone. The problem arose when I tried to access the WiFi from a repeater. I would get an IP conflict error message. Not anymore.

On the negative side, the touch pad remains problematic. The pointer works but sometimes is not responsive for a few seconds and this makes it impossible to use for sustained periods of time. Fortunately the mouse works just fine. However, when connected to an external monitor, the mouse becomes "twitchy" and suddenly jumps from the laptop screen to the external monitor. This becomes quite an irritation when using dual screens for extended periods of time.

I've tried to download Linux but so far I've not been successful. Figure 1 shows what happens.

Figure 1

Setting up a recovery image on my USB drive also fails as can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2

I don't print anything so I've no idea what problems there are with printing. I would suppose many but fortunately that's not an issue for me. I've learned about PWAs or Progressive Web Apps, defined by Wikipedia as:

A progressive web application (PWA), commonly known as a progressive web app, is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly. It is intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser, including both desktop and mobile devices.

I've set one up for Twitter so that I'm saved from needing to open it via the browser. Here is some additional information from Wikipedia:

In 2017, Twitter released Twitter Lite, a PWA alternative to the official native Android and iOS apps. According to Twitter, Twitter Lite consumed only 1-3% of the size of the native apps. In July 2019 Twitter started serving all website users to Twitter Lite by default. On June 1, 2020, Twitter deactivated the legacy website layout, leaving the progressive web app version as the only option.

Starbucks provides a PWA that is 99.84% smaller than its equivalent iOS app. After deploying its PWA, Starbucks doubled the number of online orders, with desktop users ordering at about the same rate as mobile app users.

Several businesses highlight significant improvements in a wide variety of key performance indicators after PWA implementation, like increased time spent on page, conversions, or revenue.

As I take many screenshots, I was relieved to discover the following keyboard shortcuts:

• Take a screenshot: Press Ctrl + Show windows 
• Take a partial screenshot: Press Shift + Ctrl + Show windows , then click and drag.

Another issue is that my poor quality webcam does not work which is unfortunate but it's something that I never use so it's no great loss to me. Obviously, it could be a deal breaker for some who need to use the device on a regular basis. 

Additionally, my Express VPN does not support Chrome OS which seems odd but I'll investigate the matter further and will consult with the company's technical support if I can't resolve the issue.

Overall I'm happy with my new operating system that is still in unstable beta release. I'll look forward to some of my existing problems disappearing during future updates to the operating system.