Old Webcam Finds New Life

I have my  Raspberry Pi 400 connected to an old Samsung monitor but up until now I haven't had a webcam attached to it. However, I found an old Logitech webcam that I once used with my a Toshiba Satellite laptop that I bought in 2006. Amazingly this expensive and ultimately disappointing machine didn't have a webcam which is why I purchased the Logitech accessory in October of 2007. I bought the laptop in mid-2006 and had been using a UMax webcam prior to this. Here is a short YouTube video that I made at the time announcing my purchase.

After I started using Mac laptops in 2011, there was no need for the Logitech webcam and so it was left in a drawer in my study. However, today I dusted it off and plugged it into my Pi 400. After installing Cheese, I took this 640 x 480 photo:

Well, it does the job with a decidedly retro flair. Who would have thought that I'd be using this old webcam again a full 15 years later! Not that I have much use for it as I don't use Zoom or other such software but at least it's there if I need it.

Flatpak Installation Now Working

For whatever reason, my installation of flatpak is now working. I followed the terminal steps as outlined on this site, a screenshot of which is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

I went to flathub.org and practised installing a free software program called Plots.

Figure 2

It took quite some time for the installation to complete but it eventually did and the program is up and working now.  I described flatpak in my post of Friday, 11 March 2022 titled Installing Calibre and Other Software on Ubuntu. 

Unfortunately, the webcam is still not working despite trying out numerous suggestions from within and without the Ubuntu help community. It's not a deal breaker as I rarely ever used in my Mac OS anyway. It's still annoying and I'd eventually like to resolve the problem.

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.