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So, over the weekend I decided to try and get my Bluetooth keyboard working on the Raspberry Pi. It was originally brought to go with my iPad, however I feel that pairing it with my Raspberry Pi would give it some actual use. Requirements: - USB Bluetooth adaptor that works with the Raspberry Pi, - Raspbian Wheezy (should work on most other Pi distros), - The bluetooth, bluez-utils, blueman and bluez-compat packages installed via apt-get, or your chosen package management tool. Disclaimer The following steps are the steps I used to pair and subsequently connect a bluetooth keyboard to my Pi. Your mileage may vary. Instructions 1. Put the keyboard in pairing mode. Refer to your manual on how to do this. 2. Scan for your Bluetooth keyboard with hcitool scan. This allows you to scan for bluetooth devices. If it works, you should see an output similar to this: pi@raspberrypi ~ $ hcitool scan Scanning ... DC:2C:26:03:C0:30       Bluetooth keyboard In order to pair it, you need the 'DC:2C:26:03:C0:30' secion of that output. This differs for each device, as it is a unique device identifier known as a MAC Address. 3. Pair it with sudo bluez-simple-agent hci0 . It should give you a pin to enter on the keyboard. Enter it in using the keyboard keys, then press enter on the bluetooth keyboard. If it doesn't give you a pin, then refer to your manual on what to do. Your keyboard is paired! But it isn't connected yet. Here’s how to do that. 1. (Might be optional with your keyboard). Put your keyboard into pairing mode again. I had to do this because otherwise the keyboard wasn’t found. 2. Run the command sudo hidd -i hci0 --connect . This connects the keyboard to the Pi. 3. (Optional) Edit /etc/rc.local with a text editor of your choice, and put that command in the file to automatically connect to the keyboard at startup! If everything went according to plan, you should now be able to use your bluetooth keyboard with your Pi! Any questions? Ask in the comments!

This is a small post with my thought of the iPad mini having used it for about 4 hours. I’ll write a fully fledged review when I get the time. The hardware The iPad has very good build quality. The screen is large for its size. Charger port is quite good as it can be inserted either way. Initial Setup Thankfully, you don’t need a computer to set the device up, as mine is broken. Just turn it on, wait about a minute and you’re greeted with a 5 to 10 minute setup wizard. This wizard was easy to use and follow, and it setup all the basics, such as my iTunes account and wii details. It also managed to restore all the apps, plus settings, from my old iPod touch, via he iCloud service. This, I thought, was useful. The interface This thing is very easy to use. Launching an app is a simple as tapping the icon on the home screen. Going back to the home screen is as easy as pressing the circular button on the front of it. You can see open apps by double pressing the home button. The interface is also very smooth. Launching apps is reasonably quick, and there is no lag when scrolling web pages, unlike on my budget android. Using it The apps available for the iPad are very good quality. Unlike Android, the apps seem to have very good quality. They are also very easy to use. Typing on the iPad is also decent. The keyboard is big enough for me to type comfortably on for long periods of time, such as for writing this blog post. It is also reasonably accurate. Conclusion Seems like a reasonable device. It is quick, and easy to use. If you have the money, buy it. Or get a nexus.

So I’m working on a WordPress theme. I’m basing it off the default one, and I’m hoping it’ll be an improved version of the default. You can see an early version of it on this site! I’m hoping it’ll include the following features! - Two or Three different layouts: a traditional blog layout, a windows 8 style layout, and a combination of both of those. - Colour schemes! - Animations! - More! If people have suggestions, feel free to contact me.

Anyone got any ideas on what to blog about? Or has anyone got some ideas for a piece of software that I could make. Otherwise, this blog is gonna die.

I have installed the Disqus commenting system onto the blog! This will greatly improve the comments from the WordPress default. I hope this might encourage people to actually comment on the site.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been concentrating more on my exams than I have on the website. So, some quick updates: – Exams nearly over! (yay) – New site theme and I updated everything on my site – My custom theme is postponed for a while. Sorry if anyone actually wanted it. That’s it really. I’ll start posting again once I have stuff to post about.

Exactly what the title says – I’m making a custom theme for the website. You can view a preview of it at http://rymate.co.uk/test/ (it’s far from completion)

Well, it turns out a lot of people who visit the website don’t actually get past the home page (and read this blog). So I’ve changed the theme.  I hope you like the new theme! 🙂

Summary – Not the full review Bad

• Poorly implemented web browser / email.

• Display is very hard to see in bright daylight

• No 3G

Good - Very Cheap - Good keyboard and touch screen - Touchscreen is very well done The Orange Rio is a good mobile for the price, with a good keyboard and easy to navigate menus. But it is let down by the web browser and the email functionality. Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars. So, this is my first review ever! (please don’t hurt me) Today, I shall be reviewing the Orange Rio. Its a cheap budget phone that has since been suceeded by the Orange Rio II. Sadly, I don’t have the second version, so this’ll have to do. Read on for the rest of the review. The Hardware The phone itself has got some reasonable components. The keyboard is reasonably ok, but the keys are a bit small, so you may find yourself correcting lots of typo’s if you have very large fingers. The navigation keys are okay, just remember that this isn’t a blackberry, so you can’t just slide your finger over it to control the phone. Its also quite obvious that the phone has been made to look like a much more expensive phone, as it has a chrome trim around the phone, and its styled much like a blackberry phone. The glossy finish is however a huge trap for fingerprints, so it gets dirty quite quickly. The back of the phone has a rather pathetic speaker, so I recommend getting some external speakers if you plan on using it for music. It also has a 2MP camera, which is alright, but you won’t win any awards with it. The interface Home Screen of the phone The home screen of the phone is reminiscent of a modern smartphone. It has customizable home screen widgets, and it has 3 home screen areas. The widgets are accessed by pulling out the drawer at the left side of the screen. There are also shortcuts that are accessed by pulling out the drawer at the bottom of the screen. Main menu The main menu of the phone is easy to navigate, and has all the options you’d expect from a phone, such as contacts, messaging and the browser. Menu items are big enough so you don’t click the wrong one when navigating. There is also some menu screen animations for people using the buttons. The Programs The phone come with some built in apps, most of which are rather poor. It has 2 web browsers built in – a really bad wap browser and Opera Mini 4.2, which cannot be upgraded to the latest version. I feel Orange/ZTE could’ve at leas made the Opera browser upgradable, as that would’ve improved the browsing experience greatly. Also the built in email functionality is very disappointing. Although it did sucessfully setup automatically for my gmail account, it had limits on how many emails it could store at a time, and send/recieve was broken for me. It also came with something called Orange Widgets. It was good in theory, but due to the lack of 3G connectivity, it was too slow to be of any use. Everything else that came with it however worked fine. Downloaded java apps didn’t work nearly as well as the built in apps. They tend to crash a lot, and there is a bug whereby forced text entries (i.e. text popups that have no cancel button) don’t work properly, and the app has to be terminated by pressing the end call button. Conclusion The orange Rio is a pretty good phone. It’s not the best, although it isn’t gonna be the best for only £40. However it is a really good value phone, and I would’ve recommended it to a friend had the Orange Rio II not come out. Although it has its flaws, it is still good. I will therefore give this phone 3.5 out of 5.

As I’m not always gonna have software to release or random news to blog about, I might start doing software/hardware reviews on this blog. Maybe it’ll even attract more readers! I’ll try to do at least one review a month, that way people won’t wonder off.