Cloud Computing Services

Hi Friends! Hope you’re well today. I welcome you on board. In this post today, I’ll walk you through Cloud Computing Services.

The requirement to process and store data varies from business to business. Some organizations can handle data in on-site data centers. They have a team of experts who handle IT infrastructure and install, maintain and upgrade hardware based on the availability of data. This approach is expensive, no doubt. Some companies, however, don’t accept this model. They prefer cloud computing which is the availability of on-demand IT infrastructure over the internet. This model sets them free from handling and managing on-site data centers, instead, everything is managed and controlled by the cloud service providers. End users only pay for the computing services they use. This IT solution is not only cost-effective but also reliable and secure as your data is managed and stored over the cloud with globally managed data center.

I suggest you read this entire post as I’ll cover cloud computing services and how they can improve the efficiency of any business.

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Cloud Computing Services

Cloud services are the availability of software, platform, and infrastructure by the cloud service providers over the internet. Cloud computing services come with the following features:

Cloud computing services are maintained and hosted by cloud service providers. The end users don’t have to purchase or install software or hardware on-site since the service providers host, maintain and purchase the necessary IT infrastructure on their premises.

Service providers offer these services with the pay-as-you-go model which means the end-users only pay for the services and computing resources they use. This is the most economical approach for businesses since they don’t have to install and maintain the entire hardware and software system instead they only pay for the computing resources they use.

Cloud computing offers unlimited storage capacity. The virtual office you create with cloud computing gives you accessibility to almost limitless data to store and manage. This is very difficult to incorporate into traditional data centers since the more storage capacity and bandwidth you need the more hardware and software setup you have to install.

Cloud computing services are mainly divided into three types:

  • SaaS (Software as a Service)
  • IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)
  • PaaS (Platform as a Service)

No matter the service model businesses opt for, the cloud service providers host and manage the entire IT infrastructure in their onsite facility. The end users only get only IT resources as a service instead of businesses using them directly.

All three services are different in terms of resource pooling and storage though, they can form a comprehensive model of cloud computing by interacting with each other.

In the following, we’ll discuss these services one by one.

1: SaaS (Software as a Service)

In this service model, the service providers host the software on their own IT system and offer it to organizations based on the subscription fees. This way software is not installed in an individual’s system, instead, users can access the software installed on the cloud data centers over the internet with log-in usernames and passwords.

The services in this SaaS model include calendaring, email, and collaboration. Other business applications that enterprises can get on rent from the service providers include document management, ERP (enterprise resource planning), and CRM (customer relationship management).

Know that cloud software or SaaS is a full web application that requires huge capital investment since cloud service providers offer the full-fledge online app dedicated to the customers of an enterprise. The organizations get these services with a pay-as-you-go plan and more often this type of application or cloud software can be accessed directly from the web browsers without any installation or downloads. The reason, it is commonly called on-demand software, web-based software, or hosted software.

Advantages of SaaS

 

Economical: It works on the pay-as-you-go model which means you only pay for the computing resources you use.

Reduced time: Most SaaS apps can be accessed directly from the web browser. No downloads or installations are required. This means less time is required to run this app which you would otherwise spend on the installation and configuration of apps on an individual system.

Mobility: You can access this cloud software from anywhere in the world.

Automatic Updates: You don’t purchase the entire software. Only the services from that software on rent. This sets you free from manual updates, instead service providers will automatically update the software to avoid any potential threats.

Disadvantages of SaaS

  • SaaS comes with a limited range of solutions.
  • To access SaaS service internet connectivity is necessary.
  • End users have less control over the data and service providers act as the main authority.

2: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

IaaS service is the availability of on-demand IT infrastructure to businesses over the internet. This infrastructure includes operating systems, networks, storage, virtual machines, and servers. The cloud service provider offers this service to the organizations on a pay-as-you-go model.

The IaaS is an ideal solution for small and medium-sized businesses looking for an economical approach for their business growth. This gives them better control over the computing services and removes the need for intricate hardware installation as companies can access this model over the internet.

3: PaaS (Platform as a Service)

PaaS is the availability of on-demand IT platforms to businesses over the internet. With PaaS, cloud service providers create an online environment by incorporating multiple technologies including orchestration, containerization, security, routing, management, automation, and application programming interfaces.

Using this service, developers can develop, test, manage and deploy software applications without the need for the underlying infrastructure of the network, storage, servers, and databases required for the development.

Common Cloud Service Examples

Many cloud computing services we already use regularly. Common PaaS services include OpenShift, Apache Stratos, Google App Engine. Similarly Cisco WebEx, DropBox, SalesForce fall under the SaaS service model. And Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Cisco Metapod belong to the IaaS service model. End users don’t need hardware and software installation on-premises instead they can access these services with a computer and a strong internet connection.

Know that the cloud computing service models are different from the cloud computing types. The four cloud computing types include Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and Community Cloud. While cloud computing services, on the other hand, include IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS service models. In the public cloud, services are delivered to the general public. For instance, several organizations can use the public cloud. While in a private cloud, services are delivered to a single organization.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. Feel free to reach out in the section below about any questions regarding cloud computing. I’m willing to help in the best way possible. Thank you for reading this post.

Installing Thonny IDE for Raspberry Pi Pico Programming

Hello readers, I hope you all are doing great. In our previous tutorial, we discussed the installation procedure of Visual Studio Code for programming Raspberry Pi Pico.

We have already mentioned in our previous tutorials that RP2040 or Raspberry Pi Pico supports multiple programming languages like C/C++, Circuit python, MicroPython cross-platform development environments. Raspberry Pi Pico module consists of a built-in UF2 bootloader enabling programs to be loaded by drag and drop and floating-point routines are baked into the chip to achieve ultra-fast performance.

There are multiple development environments to program a Raspberry Pi Pico board like Visual Studio Code, Thonny Python IDE, Arduino IDE etc.

So, in this tutorial, we will learn how to install Thonny Python IDE to program the Raspberry Pi Pico board using Micropython programming language.

Downloading Thonny Python IDE for Windows

Thonny Python IDE (Integrated development environment) is a development tool designed for beginners. The major feature of using Thonny is that it is easy to operate and this development environment also provides a faithful representation of function calls. The Thonny IDE is compatible with Linux, MacOS and Windows OS.

  • To download the Thonny Python IDE follow the given link: https://thonny.org/
  • This is the official website of Thonny where we have different download versions for different OS.
  • Click on ‘Windows’ to download the installation setup for Windows OS (as shown below).

Fig. 1 Download thonny

Installing Thonny Python IDE

  • Once the installation setup is downloaded successfully for Windows next step is the installation of the IDE.
  • To install the Thonny Python IDE in your system, double-click on the downloaded file.
  • Select “Install for all users”.

Fig. 2 Choose Installation Mode

  • Follow the basic installation procedure.
  • Accept the license agreement and press next.

Fig. 3 Accept the agreement

  • Select the installation/destination location.
  • You can keep the default location or you can also change the location by clicking on

Fig. 4 installation location

  • Now, select the “Start menu folder” and press ‘Next’.
  • If you want to create a desktop icon for Thonny then check the respective icon and press Next (as shown below).

Fig. 5 Desktop icon

  • Finally, press Install to install the setup.

Configuring the Raspberry Pi Pico for programming with MicroPython

MicroPython is a programming language that runs directly on embedded hardware, for example, ESP and Raspberry Pi Pico. It is a full implementation of the Python (3) programming language.

Programming Raspberry Pi Pico is a very easy process. Users can program the board by connecting it via USB port, and then just drag and drop the file into Raspberry Pi Pico.

Download the MicroPython UF2 file

    • To download the micropython UF2 file for raspberry Pi Pico programming follow the given link :

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/microcontrollers/micropython.html

  • Scroll down the page for MicroPython UF2 file and download the file to your system, as shown below:

Fig. 6 Download Micropython UF2 file

Connecting Raspberry Pi Pico board with laptop/computer

  • Press and hold the BOOTSEL button from the Raspberry Pi Pico development board.
  • Connect or plug the Raspberry Pi Pico board to your system/computer via USB cable and release the BOOTSEL button once the Pico is connected to the computer.
  • Now you should see a new volume in your system i.e., RPI-RP2.
  • Drag and drop the downloaded MicroPython UF2 file into RPI-RP2 This UF2 file will reboot your system.
 

Select Interpreter and Install MicroPython Firmware

  • Open the Thonny IDE.
  • Go to Run >> Select Interpreter.

Fig. 7 Select Interpreter

  • Select the necessary/required interpreter which is MicroPython (Raspberry Pi Pico) as shown below:

Fig. 8 MicroPython for Raspberry Pi Pico

  • Press “Install or update firmware”.
  • Again press Install.
  • Make sure that your system is connected to internet.

How to check whether Micropython firmware is installed successfully or not and whether it is working or not?

  • Go to View >>
  • In the file list (on left side of the screen) a complete list of all the local files and document saved on your system will be displayed and along with that your should see Raspberry Pi Pico file in the same list (this is the file saved in Pico).
  • Again go to View >> Shell.
  • In shell type some command like printing a message as shown below:

Fig. 9 Printing a message with MicroPython (Pi Pico)

  • If the command is executed successfully means the firmware is successfully installed or updated and we are ready to program our Raspberry Pi Pico with Thonny integrated development environment.

Conclusion

So, this concludes the tutorial and the installation procedure of Thonny Python IDE (Windows) for raspberry Pi Pico programming.

In our next tutorial we will discuss how to write a program for raspberry Pi Pico programming to control GPIOs using MicroPython programming language.

Selecting Payment Gateways for eCommerce Websites

The eCommerce industry, which has already experienced year-over-growth for the past five years, gained a monumental boost after the pandemic made online shopping mainstream. Today, there are more than 20 million eCommerce businesses operating worldwide, and new companies open shops every day.

The majority of these companies need skilled developers and engineers to build safe and robust eCommerce sites to house their businesses. If you are interested in specializing in eCommerce development, you would be remiss to ignore the advantages and disadvantages of each payment gateway option.

Payment gateways allow online customers to purchase products seamlessly and securely. However, they are not all created equal. As an engineer or site developer, you should understand the technical and practical implications of each payment gateway type.

What is a Payment Gateway?

All businesses need a way to collect money from their customers. While a brick-and-mortar shop uses a cash register and payment terminals to manage its transactions, online retailers must use web-based options.

To protect customer information from being hacked during the transaction, eCommerce shops use payment gateways to encrypt user data and authorize the transaction.

Gateways can also perform functions that you may have encountered when paying with a credit card. For example, gateways can automatically calculate tax, shipping costs, and custom fees based on the customer’s location and accept payments in multiple currencies.

Since the first payment gateway came online in 1996, there have been numerous innovations in technology and software. Today, customers and retailers can choose from dozens of options, including providers that operate in specific regions of the world. Many gateways do not even interact with banks, and instead, draw and deposit money from virtual wallets or accounts.

Classes of Payment Gateway

When integrating a payment system for a client, you must consider how each gateway type will impact the customer experience and the retailer’s bottom line.

Systems that are flawed, appear unprofessional, or constantly crash can put off customers and lower sales. Relatedly, while customers prefer to select from multiple payment options, having too many integrated into one shop can also make customers wary.  It is essential to understand your client’s business and end clients to select the best class of payment gateway for their eCommerce site.

Hosted

This payment gateway moves customers from the eCommerce site to the payment service provider’s web page to complete the transaction. If the provider is widely-known and trusted, such as PayPal, this can increase customer confidence. However, this will have the opposite effect if the provider is not a household name.

Further, while leveraging the name recognition and secure infrastructure of a large payment service provider can help boost sales, retailers are reliant on a third party to handle transactions. Customers will have to go through the payment service provider to handle issues with payment processing, refunds, and other transactions. If the third party does a poor job, it can affect your clients’ businesses.

Onsite

Clients can also maintain a payment gateway directly on their website. When a customer pays, the transaction through an embedded payment gateway is connected directly to the retailer’s account.

Many invoicing and bookkeeping software offer this type of payment gateway. Onsite providers give retailers more control over the customer’s experience, but there is no outside support for handling issues.

API

Retailers who want complete oversight of their payment gateway may prefer an Application Programming Interface hosted system. The look and feel of the system can be designed to fit the company’s branding and culture.

However, if you build this type of gateway, you are also responsible for ensuring it meets all of the security requirements for handling customer financial data. You can ensure compliance under the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard by following a PCI DSS compliance checklist.

Bank Integration

Finally, small-scale vendors may opt for the security, ease, and reputation of a bank-integrated payment gateway. These systems are integrated within the banking system to facilitate virtual bank-to-bank transactions. Zelle, one of the largest such gateways in the U.S., is compatible with more than 30 national banks, including Bank of America and Chase.

While bank integrated payments are instant and often incur no fees, they are only accessible to customers with an account at a participating bank. This can greatly reduce accessibility, especially on the international market.  Also, many of these gateways cannot handle high-volume transactions.

Keeping Gateways Secure

If you are working with an established payment service provider like PayPal, Apple Pay, or a bank integrated gateway, you can rest assured that the system is compliant and secure.

However, if your client is interested in an API-hosted gateway, you will need to be much more diligent. In addition to adhering to the PCI DSS, you will need to install a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate to ensure the website can transmit and receive encrypted data securely. The highest quality SSL certificate runs about $1,000 per year, but affordable and secure options cost around $60 per year.

Types of IoT(Internet of Things)

Hi Guys! Glad to have you on board. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today, I’ll walk you through the Types of Internet of Things (IoT).

IoT has been around for a while and has started making the headlines over the past couple of years. Some people experience IoT in their everyday life but are not aware of what it actually is. When physical objects “things” interact with the digital world, IoT is born. In simple words, it’s the network of connected devices integrated with sensors that work to exchange and share data over the internet. It is a rapidly growing technology with more than 18 billion connected IoT devices today and with the inception and boost of 5G technology this figure is expected to touch 125 billion by 2030. Experts say we may witness the stage when everything around us will be a thing in IoT. This is crazy.

I suggest you read this post all the way through as it aims to cover the types of Internet of Things.

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Types of Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is used to improve efficiency and services, making humans’ lives easy and productive. The connected IoT devices range from simple kitchen appliances and thermostats to heart monitors and cooling systems. And when used in sophisticated industrial tools, IoT can enhance the productivity of the manufacturing and production processes.

The Internet of Things is commonly divided into eight major types:

1: Internet of Things (IoT)

2: Internet of Everything (IoE)

3: Internet of Nano Things (IoNT)

4: Internet of Mobile Things (IoMT)

5: Internet of Mission-Critical Things (IoMT)

6: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

7: Infrastructure Internet of Things

8: Commercial Internet of Things

We’ll discuss each one in the section below.

1: Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT is a network of things embedded with sensors that connect to the internet for acquiring and sharing data with other connected devices. IoT is applied to make sure which data is important and which is useless to monitor the patterns and find out issues even before they occur. The main purpose of IoT technology is to automate processes, especially that are time-consuming, repetitive, and dangerous.

You might have heard the term “smart home” that has recently soared to popularity and is the main application of the IoT. A smart home is a home with a smart system that is mainly connected with the home appliances to automate certain tasks and can be remotely controlled. From commercial and domestic purposes to industrial and military use, you’ll find IoT everywhere.

2: Internet of Everything (IoE)

Internet of Everything (IoE) is the extension of the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things includes a connected network of things (physical objects) while the Internet of Everything, on the other hand, is about things, processes, data, and people. It covers the Internet for Everyone/Everything.

The IoE plays a key part to monitor and analyze real-time data obtained from a network of thousands of sensors connected to it. This data is then applied to accelerate people-based and automated processes. The IoE is beneficial to support modern business trends and can be incorporated into programs like m-learning and e-learning to allow students to learn new technologies.

3: Internet of Nano Things (IoNT)

Nanotechnology is on the rise. Big tech industries strive to make new devices compact, precise and small that can perform similar tasks to regular electronic devices.

The Internet of Nano Things is a network of Nanodevices connected with the internet to share and acquire information. The presence of Nano components in this technology makes it separable from the general Internet of Things technology.

4: Internet of Mobile Things (IoMT)

We are connected through smartphones. We use these devices to ease our lives and improve the way we communicate with each other. The IoMT is mainly geared towards the mobility of things where change occurs in connectivity, context, privacy, and energy availability.

The connectivity identifies how mobile device is connected using connectivity protocol either WiFi, 3G/4G or wired network. The context refers to the current location of the mobile. Energy availability means how a mobile phone is charged and the privacy issue may occur because of the wide use of cell phones thus the mobile phone locations are connected with the human possessors.

5: Internet of Mission-Critical Things (IoMT)

The Internet of Mission-Critical Things (IoMT) is used in critical missions like surveillance, critical structure monitoring, search and salvage, border patrol, battleground, etc. In simple words, it’s the use of IoT in battlefield situations or military settings. The main aim of this technology is to accelerate situational awareness, monitor surrounding risks, and improve response time. The main IoMT applications include tanks, planes, connecting ships, drones, and soldiers.

6: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

The IoT plays a vital role in industries. This technology is commonly used in industries to automate production and manufacturing processes.

Automation guarantees the accuracy of the processes and removes the possibility of error which is very difficult to attain by using traditional processes and human workforce. Common industries that deploy IIoT include automotive, agriculture, logistics, and healthcare.

7: Infrastructure Internet of Things

Infrastructure IoT is focused on the development of modern infrastructure that uses IoT for maintenance, cost-saving, and operational efficiency. It is concerned to analyze and monitor the operations occurring in rural and urban infrastructures including railway tracks, bridges, and wind farms.

8: Commercial Internet of Things

Commercial Internet of Things mainly focuses on the use of IoT in commercial settings including stores, supermarkets, buildings, entertainments venues, healthcare facilities, and hotels. The main purpose of this technology is to improve business conditions, boost customer experience and monitor environmental conditions.

Developing your own IoT device is a no-brainer. There are platforms out there that are open source and offer you the opportunity to create your own IoT devices. Common platforms include Arduino.cc which is open source which means the code is developed to be accessible for the general public – anyone can edit, modify and distribute the code as they like better. And the other platform is Raspberry Pi which comes with a built-in Ethernet port allowing network communications a walk in the park.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. If you’re unsure or have any questions regarding IoT, ask me in the section below. I’d love to assist you the best way I can. Thank you for reading this post.

Benefits of Employee Productivity Through Workflow Automation

Workflow automation is a topic that has been on the rise for many years now. With more and more companies switching to new technologies, this will become a bigger problem. It's time we take it seriously and find ways to improve employee productivity through workflow automation.

As you'll learn in this article, there are various benefits of automating the workflows that can help you achieve higher levels of success!

What is Workflow Automation, and Why Is It Important?

Workflow automation uses technology to improve or replace manual work tasks. Automation can save time and money by reducing or eliminating the need for human intervention in repetitive or time-consuming tasks and thus reducing workforce management.

Most businesses can benefit from workflow automation in some way. Some common areas where companies typically automate their workflows include:

  • Sales and marketing processes include lead capture, routing, and nurturing.
  • Order processing and fulfillment.
  • Customer service and support.
  • Financial and accounting processes include invoicing, accounts payable, and accounts receivable.
  • Human resources processes include hiring and onboarding, time tracking, and payroll.

How Can Automation Help Employees Work More Productively?

There are many ways in which automation can help employees work more productively. Here are just a few:

Save Time

One of the most important benefits of automation is saving employees time. When tasks are automated, employees no longer have to complete those tasks manually. This allows employees to focus on more critical tasks and projects, leading to higher productivity levels.

Increased Productivity

By automating their workflows, businesses can help their employees to become more productive. When employees can focus on essential and relevant tasks, they can produce better results. Additionally, employees who can complete tasks quickly and efficiently will feel more satisfied with their job, leading to increased productivity in the long run.

Save Costs

Businesses that automate their workflows can save money by reducing or eliminating the need for human intervention in repetitive or time-consuming tasks. Automation can also help businesses to become more efficient, which can lead to cost savings in the long run.

When businesses can reduce the time to complete tasks, they can do more in less time. This can decrease labor costs, as companies no longer need as many employees to complete the same number of tasks.

Additionally, companies that automate their workflows can often improve their efficiency, leading to a decrease in overhead costs.

Overall, many benefits of automation can help businesses save money and become more productive.

Improved Communication

Workflow automation can help improve communication between employees. When tasks are automated, employees no longer have to rely on email or other forms of communication to share information. This can lead to a more efficient and productive workplace, as employees will communicate more easily and quickly.

Additionally, businesses that automate their workflows can improve communication between departments. When departments can work together more effectively, they can achieve better results. Automation can help to break down the barriers between departments and allow them to work together more efficiently.

Fewer Administrative Errors

One of the main benefits of automation is that it can help reduce or eliminate administrative errors made in the workplace. When tasks are automated, employees are less likely to make mistakes, as the technology will help to ensure accuracy.

Furthermore, organizations that automate their processes can enhance communication between employees. Employees are less likely to make errors when they can communicate more effectively.

Automation might assist staff in breaking down barriers and working together more effectively. This may lead to a drop in the number of workplace administrative mistakes.

Overall, automation can help businesses reduce or eliminate administrative errors made in the workplace. This can lead to a more efficient and productive workplace.

Actionable Data

When businesses automate their workflows, they are often able to collect data that is actionable. This means that the data can be used to make decisions and take action. When businesses have actionable data, they can improve their operations and become more successful.

Businesses that automate their workflows can collect data from a variety of sources. This data can include information from sensors, social media, or financial data. When this data is processed and organized, businesses can make better decisions about running their company.

Actionable data can help businesses improve several areas, including sales, marketing, and operations. By having access to actionable data, companies can make changes that will enhance their bottom line. Additionally, businesses can use actionable data to create a more successful long-term strategy.

Overall, businesses that automate their workflows can collect data that is actionable. This data can be used to make decisions and take action, which can help companies to improve their operations and become more successful.

Efficient Task Management

Task management is an integral part of any business. When tasks are managed efficiently, companies can achieve better results. Automation can help improve task and project management workflows in several ways.

When tasks are automated, employees can complete them more quickly and efficiently. This can decrease the time it takes to complete tasks, which can free up employees' time to work on other projects.

How to Get Started With Workflow Automation?

When it comes to getting started with workflow automation, there are a few things you need to consider. Here are a few tips:

  • Evaluate your business processes: The first step in automating your workflows is to evaluate your business processes and identify areas where automation can be used. This can help you focus your efforts and get the most bang for your buck.
  • Choose the right tools: Many different tools are available for automating your workflows. It's essential to choose the right tool for the job. Each tool has its strengths and weaknesses, so you need to find one to fit your needs.
  • Train employees on how to use the tool: Once you've selected a tool, you need to train employees on how to use it. This will ensure that everyone is familiar with the tool and knows how to use it effectively.
  • Test the tool in a pilot project: It's always a good idea to test the tool in a pilot project before rolling it out company-wide. This will help you identify potential problems and fix them before they become more significant issues.
  • Keep track of results: Once you've implemented a workflow automation system, it's essential to keep track of the results. This will help you determine whether or not the tool is working and whether or not it is worth continuing to use.

The Future of Workflow Automation

The future of workflow automation is very promising. With the help of technology, businesses will automate more and more processes, making the workplace more efficient and productive. Additionally, automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks will free employees to focus on higher-level work requiring creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

As workflow automation becomes more commonplace, organizations will need to invest in tools and training to ensure that they effectively use these new technologies.

The Bottom Line

In conclusion, there are many benefits of employee productivity through workflow automation. Automation can speed up tasks, eliminate errors, and improve communication between employees. By automating your workflows, you can help your team work more efficiently and productively, which will lead to a more successful business!

How Cloud Computing Can Benefit Small Businesses?

Hi there! Happy to see you around. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today, I’ll cover how cloud computing can benefit small businesses.

Cloud computing is the new normal. Many small and medium-sized businesses use cloud computing to handle and store a large amount of data. But what does cloud computing mean? Even if they are using it, some people don’t understand this term. Don’t worry. I’m here to make it clear for you.

Cloud computing is the availability of computing resources over the internet; these resources include databases, servers, storage, processing power, and more. In simple words, it’s the process of storing, hosting, managing, and processing data on third-party hardware over the internet. The common third-party service providers include AWS (Amazon Web Service), Alibaba Cloud, and Google Cloud.

Earlier companies used to install and manage local data centers to store data. They would buy the software and host it on the local servers. In cloud computing, they can do the same on the online servers. Everything is managed and handled online and you can access computing resources from anywhere in the world. This removes the need for intricate hardware installation which would otherwise require capital investment and a team of experts to maintain it.

Curious to know more about how cloud computing can benefit small businesses?

Keep reading.

How Cloud Computing Can Benefit Small Businesses?

Cloud computing is a combination of hardware and software where your data stays. If you’re binge-watching Netflix, storing files on DropBox, or leveraging Facebook or Instagram, that’s all because of cloud computing. From data storage and disaster recovery to automatic software updates and mobility, cloud computing covers all.

The following are the 7 reasons how cloud computing can benefit small businesses.

1: Flexibility

Cloud computing gives companies the flexibility to improve their operational efficiencies. They can scale up or scale down the demand for computing resources as per their needs and requirement. Cloud service providers offer pay-as-you-go services which mean organizations only pay for the computing resources they use. Small businesses no longer need to spend huge capital investments on buying the entire hardware and software combination, instead, they can opt for subscription-based services and can customize computing resources as per their business needs.

2: Back-up and Disaster Recovery

Losing sensitive files can be devastating to small businesses. If they are using local servers they require time and money to recover files from the on-site servers. With cloud computing, recovering lost files is quick and easy. Since cloud service providers store the company data at multiple data centers from multiple locations. And if the sensitive file is lost from one location, companies can demand a copy of that file mirrored at different locations.

3: Automatic Updates

Based on a large amount of data to be stored and managed, picking cloud computing is a no-brainer. One of the top benefits that come with cloud computing is automatic software updates. If you’re managing data on local servers, you require an IT professional to manually update the system. While with cloud computing, everything is taken care of by the service providers and they do regular updates to ward off potential security threats.

4: Mobility

Mobility is another great benefit that comes with cloud computing. No matter the device (desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone) you’ve got on hand, you can access cloud computing services from anywhere, anytime if you have a strong internet connection. This feature gives organizations offer their employees a work-life balance so they can do work from the comfort of their homes or remote locations.

5: Collaboration

Cloud computing streamlines collaboration. Every member of the team using cloud computing can edit, share and access documents from anywhere in the world. This gives employees opportunities to work as a team where they can update documents in real-time with seamless communication. The slack app is a great example of cloud computing.

6: Security

Data security is a talk of mainstream conversation. Especially for small businesses that want to create a footing in the competitive market. They want to convince customers that their data is in safe hands and they can share their information with confidence. The cloud service providers ensure and monitor the security of data of end-users which is practically very difficult to achieve for small businesses if they carry their workloads on their local servers. The service providers always strive to look for new threats, create modern encryption solutions, and monitor the potential intrusions into their servers, all to keep the data safe and secure from malicious actors.

7: Cost-Effective

Cloud computing offers a cost-effective solution to your business needs. And if you’re a small business looking to leave a footprint in the competitive market, you cannot compromise on your capital investment. Setting up local servers needs huge investment and a team of experts to install, manage, and upgrade data centers. With cloud computing, you only pay for the services you need to manage and store your company data. You no longer need to host the business data on the local servers, instead, you can host data on the online cloud servers which saves both time and money required to set up local data centers.

Conclusion

Whether you’re an established enterprise or are just starting, it’s wise to switch to a cloud model instead of funneling tons of money on building local data centers and a team of experts to properly maintain them.

Cloud computing secures your data, creates backup and data recovery, and is the most economical solution to meet your business needs. Since you don’t have physical data centers to maintain and upgrade, instead everything is maintained and hosted by the service providers.

As per the requirement of data storage, you can opt for customized computing resources that you can scale up or down as your business grows.

With cloud computing, you can access data from anywhere in the world. This remote access offers better productivity and helps employees create a work-life balance.

Taking more of your data to the cloud means you have a solid plan to properly function in a time of crisis and a team that can make educated decisions to handle and store your sensitive data.

That’s all for today. Hope you find this article helpful. If you’re unsure or have any questions, you can approach me in the section below. I’ll assist you the best way I can. Thank you for reading this post.

How to Control Raspberry Pi 4 from Laptop using VNC

This is the third tutorial in our Raspberry Pi programming course. In the previous chapter, we learned how to install Raspbian on our Raspberry Pi mini-computer. In this chapter, we'll learn how to use a VNC server to remotely control and see its desktop from our computer.

Where To Buy?
No.ComponentsDistributorLink To Buy
1Raspberry Pi 4AmazonBuy Now

What is VNC?

Computing over a network is known as "virtual network computing," or "VNC." To remotely control another computer, you can use this screen-sharing technology, which works on all major operating systems. As a result, a remote user can interact with a computer's display (screen, keyboard, and mouse) as if they were sitting right in front of it.

VNC takes advantage of the client/server concept. Rather than installing a VNC server on the distant device, users will instead use a VNC viewer or client on the device they wish to control. Use a tablet or a smartphone in place of one of the previously mentioned computers. As soon as a viewer and a server are connected, the server gives the viewer a screen copy of the computer on the other side of the world.

Thanks to the application, both the remote user and the connected user can see and control everything on the distant computer's screen using keyboard and mouse instructions from afar.

What’s a VNC Server?

Other programs (referred to as "clients") can access the resources on a computer server. The server can provide services to one or more clients, such as data or resource sharing, in what is known as the "client-server model." The advantage of this strategy is that a single server can service many clients, while a single client can make use of several servers. A server will respond to a request from a client by sending back a response.

When a computer has VNC Server software installed, it can be accessed and controlled remotely from another device. The software makes it possible to stream the device's desktop to another computer running VNC Viewer. Once a connection is established, users using VNC Viewer can view exactly what a person seated in front of the remote computer sees (with permission).

What’s a VNC Viewer?

A viewer is a piece of software that allows you to see the contents of a digital file in its entirety.

Remote control of local PCs and mobile devices is made possible through the usage of VNC Viewer. Using VNC Viewer software, a user can access and operate a machine from another place using a device such as a computer, tablet, or smartphone.

As a desktop sharing system, it delivers keystrokes, mouse clicks, and other input events to a remote computer running VNC Server so that you may control it from your mobile device once connected. It's as if you're sitting directly in front of the computer that you've accessed remotely.

What protocol is used by VNC?

VNC uses a protocol called remote framebuffer to share data between the client and server, which determines the type of data exchanged. Using this, clients can access and control another machine from afar. Because it's compatible with all windowing apps and systems, it may be used on any mainstream operating system, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and others.

User access to a computer's monitor, mouse and keyboard is provided via the RFB client or viewer (also known as a client). Framebuffer updates originate on the RFB server (as in the windowing system). A key goal of Remote Framebuffer is to run on a wide range of hardware and to simplify the process of building a client by requiring as little input from the client as possible.

File transmission, more advanced compression, and stricter security procedures have all been added to RFB since its inception as a basic protocol. When using VNC, clients and servers can agree on the appropriate RFB version to use, as well as the security and compression options that are supported by both parties. Cross-platform interoperability is made possible as a result of this.

Why use VNC?

There are times when you won't be able to use your Raspberry Pi. For instance, you might have forgotten about your Raspberry Pi while away, or it may be buried beneath your TV or other devices. Using Raspbian and the free VNC software, you can connect to your Raspberry Pi wirelessly from any other device running Raspbian. You have the option of connecting to the internet or to your home network.

Prerequisites

  • Raspberry Pi running Raspbian
  • A network connection
  • A VNC server and viewer

Configuring VNC on a local network

Enable VNC

Begin by ensuring that both computers involved are on the same local network.

Select Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration from the apps menu icon (raspberry) at the top-left of the screen.

The default password for Raspbian is 'raspberry,' which you should change right away. By clicking the Change Password option, you can set a new password. Select the Enabled radio button next to VNC on the Interfaces tab. OK when you're finished. Menu bar in upper right corner of screen has VNC button at end of menu bar VNC Server will be launched as soon as you click on it.

Note your Ip address for the next steps.

Open VNC Viewer

You can now link your Raspberry Pi to another computer. Instead of a Windows computer, you might use a Mac or Linux computer on the same network or even another Raspberry Pi.

With a web-based interface, VNC Viewer may be used on a variety of platforms including macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. On the official website of realvnc, download VNC Viewer. To use the software, it must first be downloaded and then installed.

Connect to Raspberry Pi

In the "Enter a VNC Server address or search" box of the VNC Viewer, enter the Raspberry Pi's IP address (the four numbers displayed in VNC Server). RETURN is all that is needed to disconnect when a connection is established. If an error message appears, press the Enter key to proceed.

For security reasons, you'll need to log in with your Raspberry Pi's username and password. To remember your password and access Raspbian, select ‘Forgot Password’ and then OK.

Remote control

The Raspberry Pi window is shown on your windows computer. By dragging the mouse cursor around the screen, you can see the Raspberry Pi's mouse. Remote control of your Raspberry Pi is now possible thanks to this window.

When you hover your mouse over the top of the VNC Viewer window, a menu will appear. Enter The Full Screen option is located to the left of the Options and allows you to have the preview window take over your screen. Because your Raspberry Pi display may not be compatible with your PC display, choose Scale from the menu (such that it is set to Scale Automatically).

Your Raspberry Pi will provide you a desktop PC-like experience.

Looking at properties

Close the VNC preview window and use the VNC Connect menu bar to get to the properties. You can end a session from the drop-down menu.

To access your Raspberry Pi's desktop, simply open VNC Viewer from the Address Book. To reopen the connection, simply double-click on the icon and select Properties from the context menu that appears.

Enter 'Raspberry Pi' in the Name field. This will give your screen a more personal touch. After that, select Options. Automatic is the default setting for Picture Quality on your camera. The lower the setting, the better; if you have a fast connection, the higher it should be.

Make sure to check out the "Experts" section at the bottom. In this section, you'll find configuration options for pretty about everything on your computer. You can change the False to True option in the Fullscreen drop down box. In VNC Viewer, you can preview your Raspberry Pi in full-screen mode. After you've made your options, click OK to keep them.

Remote access in wide area network

You may access your Raspberry Pi from anywhere in the world with a RealVNC account.

Verify your identity in the upper left corner of VNC Viewer when it has been opened. Sign up if you don’t have an account. Set up a password for your account. Keep your password at least eight characters long and difficult to decipher. There is a RealVNC home page that you will be taken to. Verify your email address and you're done setting up.

Sign in

A single account must now be used to sign in to both of these applications.

You should be able to see the VNC Viewer Sign In window from the computer. Your Raspberry Pi must be running VNC Server before you can connect to the cloud.

Go back to the VNC Viewer application on your PC. In the Address Book area, you will find a Raspberry Pi Window, but you'll also notice a Team option immediately below it.

What exactly is the distinction between the two?

This account can be used from different networks and operates remotely.

Send files

Sending and receiving files is possible between the Pi and computer. We've created a new text file called test.txt in our Documents folder.

Connect to the Pi using VNC Viewer to send a file. An option to transfer files can be found in the VNC Viewer preview window's menu.

Sending files is as simple as clicking the Send Files button in the VNC Viewer's File Transfer window and the transfer will begin. Click Open after you've selected a file from your computer's file picker. On your Raspberry Pi's desktop, the file will be saved. The message "Download complete" will appear in the File Transfer window; close it.

Retrieve files

With VNC Viewer, it is possible to download files from your Raspberry Pi's SD card. VNC Server icon can be found in the Raspbian menu bar by right-clicking it. Select File Transfer from the VNC Server drop-down option to open the File Transfer window.

Your Raspberry Pi can now be accessed remotely. The screen and keyboard can now be removed from your Raspberry Pi and left connected to the network. The PC connection will be waiting for you when you're ready.

Connect with Android and iOS

Using your smartphone, you can also remotely connect to the Raspberry Pi. Download the VNC Viewer software from the app store, then, open your VNC Connect account and log in using your email address and password.

Your Raspberry Pi will be listed in the Team drop-down menu. Click it and input your Raspberry Pi's username and password.

On start up, you will have to go through the 'Control the computer' step. The 'How to control' window will open once you click Next. This screen shows you how to use movements like mouse clicks on the touchscreen. Start using Raspberry Pi from your phone by closing this window.

To move the cursor, make use of your smartphone's touchscreen. An on-screen keyboard can be accessed with a simple swipe of your finger on a key at the top of the app.

Even on your phone, you can now access your Raspberry Pi. Remote monitoring has never been easier.

Misconceptions about VNC and VNC Connect

When it comes to deploying new software and systems, there will always be some trepidation, and there is a lot of misinformation floating about that influences how people feel about doing so. However, this has the drawback of preventing individuals and organizations from reaping the full benefits of new technologies.

In this article, we'll debunk some of the most popular myths regarding VNC Connect, many of which can be traced back to VNC's open-source roots.

  1. VNC is open source. Open-source software is common among recent adaptations of the VNC protocol; however, this does not apply to all VNC-based software. As of 2016, VNC Connect, which uses RFB protocol version 6, is not open source.
  2. It is not safe to use VNC-based software. Out of the box, open source VNC-based remote access is vulnerable to attack. Secure connections are built into VNC Connect right out of the box, and remote PCs are secured by default with a password or system login credentials.
  3. VNC doesn't work with the cloud. The majority of open-source VNC-based applications is only available for use offline. Offline (commonly known as "direct") and cloud connections are also available through VNC connect, so you can select the one that best suits your company needs.
  4. The VNC protocol is out of date. VNC technology has been around for more than 20 years, but it has undergone a major transformation. VNC Connect is continually checked and updated to correct any faults that may arise and to meet the ever-changing needs of its users. The software roadmap is based on user feedback to ensure that it incorporates the designs and features that are most frequently requested.

Conclusion

Because buying two keyboards, monitors, and mice for your computer and Raspberry Pi would be prohibitively expensive, VNC is a great option to gain access to your raspberry pi remotely. The two computers can be used at the same time, and you don't have to switch between them. So far, we've learned how to set up our mini-computer for VNC and how to establish a remote connection to the VNC viewer. Our first project will be to use Python to control the GPIO pins of a Raspberry Pi 4, which we will cover in the next topic.

Installation of Raspbian in Raspberry Pi 4

Welcome to the second chapter of our beginner's course on the Raspberry Pi. In the previous tutorial, we learned about the components of this little computer. We also considered its uses, as well as the most important advantages and disadvantages. Let's get started with setting up our little computer to run the Raspbian operating system in this lesson.

Where To Buy?
No.ComponentsDistributorLink To Buy
1Raspberry Pi 4AmazonBuy Now

How to Install Raspbian using an imager

The next step is to make sure you have your board and SD card. The Raspberry Pi has an operating system because it is a full computer. For those who prefer a GUI desktop experience, a headless mode is still an option. Most people use Raspbian, a Debian-based operating system tailored specifically for the Raspberry Pi. However, there are other options. An excellent starting point is this operating system, which is likely to support other Linux packages that you are already familiar with.

Other means to install and run an operating system on the Raspberry Pi are also available. The imager installer is the most convenient method. As long as you're familiar with the operating system ISO, you may download it to your SD card, format your SD card and mount the ISO, and then boot the Pi. Follow the imager installation option if that's all gibberish to you.

Download imager

For this process, we will open our browser and navigate to the raspberry pi website and down to the software option, you will see a download for windows. This button allows you to download the imager for windows which in my case I am using. If you are using another operating system like mac and ubuntu there are also imagers for those particular operating systems.

The executable imager file will be downloaded to your computer as seen below.

This software allows us to flash our operating system into the micro-SD card which will be used in the mini-computer.

Flashing the operating system into the storage card

Connect the card reader with an sd card in it to your computer through USB or a regular card slot.

Launch the imager

On your computer, navigate to the location you downloaded the imager software and run it. In windows just double-click on it and it should startup.

Once the installation is done, go ahead and run the application:

Selecting the SD card

On the pi imager window, there are two options and when we click the choose storage, our SD card is detected since we plugged it into our pc.

If you have any other drive plugged into your pc, they will also appear on the window therefore be careful to select the right one otherwise you will override the wrong drive and lose your saved files.

Select the operating system

We will click on the other button "choose os" that is on the pi imager window to select the operating system we want to flash into our SD card. You will see different types of operating systems available for installation and we will go ahead and select the 32-bit raspberry pi os.

Write to SD card

Once all the required parameters are set, i.e., the os and storage, go ahead and click the write button. The flashing process begins and it takes a minimum of 5 minutes to complete.

How to Install Raspbian with etcher

NOOBS (New Out of the Box Software) is an automated installer provided by the Pi Foundation, but for this article, we're going to forego it for now.

To complete numerous projects, it is a good idea for you to learn about "flashing" the SD card yourself. Despite NOOBS's reputation as a beginner's tool, I found this one to be easier to use.

You'll need an image file and an application to put it to your SD card to install an operating system. However, you can use any operating system of your choice for this guide. For example LibreELEC for a media box; RetroPie for retro gaming; and so on.

Because it's accessible for Windows, macOS, and Linux, Etcher is my go-to tool for writing to the SD card. There may be partitions that aren't visible in Windows, but these may be cleaned out with diskpart if you've previously used the SD card in a Pi.)

The full Raspbian image with suggested software is what I'm running, so go ahead and download it if that's what your Pi model calls for. It will either be an IMG file or an IMG compressed into a ZIP file (which you don't have to do if you're using Etcher).

It's as simple as opening Etcher and clicking the Select Image button to select your downloaded file. Flash your SD card by selecting it as the target. Selecting a destination drive should only be done with extreme caution, as the operation will wipe whatever disk you select.

Once the SD card has been ejected, you can insert it into your Pi, connect the HDMI wire to a display or TV, and turn on the Pi by plugging it into the wall. Once you've landed on the Raspbian desktop, you can begin fiddling with your Wi-Fi and software installations with apt.

Booting the raspberry pi

Now that flashing is complete, with the pi powered off, we will go ahead and eject the storage SD from the pc and put it back to the raspberry pi SD slot. Then we will go ahead and plug the power cord back in and our mini computer should start. If you mouse, keyboard and screen go ahead in the previous tutorial and see how they are connected since they are necessary for this step.

The mini-computer boots up into the os and you will find a window with instructions on what to do. Follow through the graphical user interface, provide a password, location, screen, and Wi-Fi connection.

Then go ahead and install updates and the raspberry pi will reboot. A couple of issues will be solved when it boots up such as window dimensions and resolution.

We will do some more configurations in the terminal, therefore go ahead and start the terminal.

Configuration

Preferences on the menu can be found in the Configuration tool, which enables you to change most of your Pi's settings, including the password.

Several options are available, as illustrated in the screenshots below. We'll enable vnc and ssh for the time being. The Raspberry Pi's fundamental system settings can be modified in this area.

It's a good idea to change the factory default "raspberry" password for the pi user. When your Raspberry Pi boots up, choose between using Desktop or CLI (command line interface), and enable Auto Login.

You can set your Raspberry Pi to wait until a network connection is available before starting up, by selecting network at boot.

You can choose whether or not your Raspberry Pi boots up with a splash screen.

Interfaces

There are numerous ways to connect your Raspberry Pi to other devices and components. For your Raspberry Pi to recognize that a specific type of connection has been made to it, you must use the Interfaces tab to enable or disable the various connections.

To use the camera on the Raspberry Pi, you must first enable it.

A Raspberry Pi can be accessed remotely through SSH or VNC.

To enable the SPI, I2C, and Serial (Rx, Tx) GPIO pins, go to the SPI menu. To enable the 1-Wire GPIO pins, go to the 1-Wire menu. To enable the 1-Wire GPIO pin, go to the 1-Wire menu. To enable Remote GPIO, go to the Remote GPIO menu.

Performance

We can alter the performance settings of our Raspberry Pi on this tab if we need to do so for any specific project.

Caution: Changing the performance parameters on your Raspberry Pi could cause it to behave strangely or stop working altogether.

If you want to boost your computer's performance, you can overclock the CPU and adjust its voltage.

Localization

This enables you to customize your Raspberry Pi's settings based on where you live.

To configure your Raspberry Pi's locale, select the language, nation, and character set you want to use.

For example, you may want to change your time zone, or you may want to switch to a different type of keyboard layout.

Go ahead and finalize the configuration and reboot now that you've completed the setup.

Setting up remote connections

  1. On Windows, connecting to the Raspberry Pi via RDP is a straightforward process.

You don't need much more than a remote desktop program and the IP address of your Raspberry Pi to get started.

Open Remote Desktop Connection on your Windows computer to get started. The app will appear as seen in the image below.

In the "Computer:" field, type in the local IP address of your Raspberry Pi (1.), and then click the "Connect" button (2.).

  1. After connecting to your Raspberry Pi, the xrdp software will present you with this screen.

Enter the account's "username" and "password" from your Raspberry Pi.

If you're logging in as the default pi user, your username and password should be "pi" and "raspberry," respectively.

  1. You should now be able to connect to your Raspberry Pi using the Windows remote desktop program.

Have trouble connecting to the Raspberry Pi? Double-check that your IP address is accurate. TeamViewer or TightVNC are two other options.

I hope you can now access the Raspberry Pi's remote desktop using the tool of your choice.

Installing Python on the Raspberry Pi

Python will be installed on your Raspberry Pi, and you'll see how simple it is to do so. This can be accomplished in a few simple steps thanks to Python's default package repository.

  • We should check our package list and existing packages for updates before we install Python. The following instructions can be used to update both of these on your device. Let's go on to the next phase now that we've completed this one.
  • Next, we'll set up our Raspberry Pi with the Python package we downloaded earlier. Python 3 will be the focus of this guide because it is the most recent version that is still widely supported. Installing Python is as simple as running the following command.
  • Once this process completes, you will now have Python installed on your Raspberry Pi. This will provide you with the minimal essentials of Python, but that is all you will need for now. Later on, you will end up using package management such as pip to extend the capabilities of Python.

Using the Thorny Desktop IDE

Thonny, a Python IDE, is pre-installed on desktop versions of Raspberry Pi OS. It is much easier, faster, and more pleasant to write code when using an IDE. Open Thonny on your Raspberry Pi, and then learn a little bit of Python in the process.

  • The Thonny IDE must first be opened before we can proceed. On your computer's desktop, go to Start, and then click "Raspberry". Next, you'll need to click on the "Programming" option on the left-hand side of the page. Lastly, select the "Thonny Python IDE" option to launch the Python editor on your Raspberry Pi".
  • Since you're probably using Thonny for the first time, let's go through the basics of how it works.

The toolbar is located at the very top of the screen. All the buttons you'll ever need to work with the editor are right here. The "Save" and "Run" buttons are the only ones you'll need (1.)

It's time for the center box. All of your Python code can be written here. (2.)

Finally, the Python shell is at the bottom. You can use this to directly communicate with Python. The output of your code can also be found here (3.).

Conclusion

You should now have a better understanding of how to get started with Python on your Raspberry Pi. This instruction explains how to install the Raspbian operating system, configure its interface, and install the Python interpreter with a few basic command lines. On the Raspberry Pi, we also demonstrated how to start a Python code editor to develop code.

Visual Studio Code Installation for Raspberry Pi Pico Programming

Hello readers, I hope you all are doing great. This is the second tutorial of the Raspberry Pi programming series. In our previous tutorial, we discussed the basic features and hardware architecture of Raspberry Pi Pico.

In this tutorial, we will discuss the various available development environments for programming the Raspberry Pi Pico. Later, in this tutorial, we will also discuss the installation of Visual Studio Code for Pi Pico programming.

Fig. Raspberry Pi Pico

RP2040 supports multiple programming languages like C/C++, Circuit python, and MicroPython cross-platform development environments. Raspberry Pi Pico module consists of a built-in UF2 bootloader enabling programs to be loaded by drag and drop and floating point routines are baked into the chip to achieve ultra-fast performance.

There are multiple development environments to program a Raspberry Pi Pico board like Visual Studio Code, Thonny Python IDE and Arduino IDE etc.

We need to download and install some tools before installing the Visual Studio Code for programming Raspberry Pi Pico which includes:

  1. CMake
  2. ARM GCC embedded tool-chain package
  3. Python
  4. Git open source project
  5. Build tools for VS code

CMake

Fig. CMake

CMake is an open-source system developed/designed to fulfill the need of powerful cross-platform build environment which is responsible for managing the build process in a compiler independent manner and in an OS (operating system. It is designed to work in conjunction with the native build environment.

CMake is responsible for generating a build environment for compiling a source code, building executables, creating libraries and generating wrappers.

It also supports dynamic and static library builds. It can handle complex hierarchies and applications dependent on several libraries. CMake can also handle projects with multiple toolkits or libraries, where each library is further having multiple directories.

CMake is open-source tool which is easy to use and also having a simple yet extensible design which can be extended (as per the requirements) to support new features.

Installing CMake in Windows

Fig. 3 Windows 64-bit installer

  • Open the downloaded .msi file for installation.

Fig. 4 Press Next

  • Accept the terms and conditions and press next.

Fig. 5 Accept Agreement

  • Select the ‘Add CMake to the system path for all users’ option and press next to continue the installation process.

Fig. 6 Add path

  • Select the destination location and then press next.

ARM GCC Compiler

The GCC ARM tool-chain is compatible with devices that are based on 32-bit Arm Cortex-A, Cortex-M, Cortex-R processors.

Installing ARM GCC Compiler (in Windows)

Fig. 7 Downloading ARM GCC tool-chain

  • Install the “ARM GCC tool-chain” by double-clicking on the downloaded executable file.
  • Follow the default installation procedure to continue the installation process.
  • At the end select/check the “Add path to environment variable” and press the Finish button.

Python

Installing Python (Windows PC)

Fig. 8 Download Python

  • If the Python installation file is downloaded successfully start the installation process by double clicking in the downloaded file.
  • Enable/check the “Add Python 3.10 to Path” at the bottom and click on “Install Now”.

Fig. 9 Add path and install

  • Click ‘OK’ once it (python) is installed successfully.

Build Tools for Visual Studio Code

The next task is downloading and installing ‘Build Tools’ for Visual Studio Code. This tool is responsible for the command-line interface.

Fig. 10 Download Tool chain

  • Open the downloaded executable file to initialize the installation process.
  • During installation process, select Desktop development with C++ and also enable the “Windows 10SDK ” option from included tool list and click on install.

Fig. 11 select the necessary tool

  • The installation process will take some time as the installation is significantly large (1.85 GB).

Fig. 12 installation

 

Git

Git is an open-source tool responsible for code management. The main purpose of using Git is to track the changes in the source code or any set of files, which helps multiple developers work together on non-linear development. In simple words, we can say that Git makes a team of people or developers work together and that is too using common/same files. Toptal is a marketplace for top coders. Top companies and startups Hire Toptal’s freelance coders for their mission-critical software projects.

Download and Installing Git

  • To download Git, follow the given link: https://git-scm.com/download/win
  • Download the respective setup file i.e., the “ 64-bit Git For Windows setup” executable file.

Fig. 13 Download Git for Windows

  • Start the installation process by double clicking on the downloaded executable file.
  • Next task is selecting the necessary components.
  • All the necessary components are already checked so just press Next.

Fig. 14 Select necessary components

  • While adjusting the name of the initial branch in new respositories, select the “Let Git decide” option and press Next.

Fig. 15

  • Next, adjust the path environment.

Fig.16 Select the above highlighted choice

  • Next step in installation process is configuring the line ending conversion by selecting the “Checkout as-is, commit as-is.

Fig. 17 “configure line ending conversions”

  • Next, thing is to configure the ‘terminal emulator’, for that select the “Use Windows default console window”.

Fig. 18 configure terminal emulator

  • Next, select the “Enable file system cashing”

Fig. 19 “configure extra option”

  • Enable the “select experimental support for pseudo console” option and press install.

Fig. 20 “Experimental support for pseudo consoles”

Downloading Pico SDK

Once all the necessary tools (mentioned above) are successfully installed, we can download the Raspberry Pi Pico SDK and respective examples.

Before downloading the Pico SDK and Pico examples, we need to create a folder or directory to save the SDK and pico examples. So, we are creating a folder “RPi Pico” in C:\ drive.

  • Open the command prompt.
  • Next task is to create a new new directory in ‘C’ drive using “mkdir” command to download and save the SDK and pico examples.
  • To download/clone the raspberry pi Pico SDK type : “git clone –b master https://github.com/respberrypi/pico-sdk.git in the command prompt and press enter.
  • Make sure your system is connected to internet.

Fig. 21 download Pico SDK

  • After completing the cloning process, go to the ‘pico-sdk’ directory using ‘cd pico-sdk’ command and type “git submodule update –init” and press enter to add the tinyUSB submodule.

Fig. 22

  • Now got to the previous directory (where you downloaded the SDK) using command “cd ..” that is ‘RPi Pico’ in our case.
  • Download the raspberry pi Pico examples using “git clone -b master https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-examples.git”.

Now we are ready to program Raspberry Pi Pico using Command Prompt.

Programming the Raspberry Pi Pico using Command prompt for Visual Studio Code

  • To program the Raspberry Pi Pico with Developer command prompt, click on Start button and search for Visual Studio 2022.
  • Click on the Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022.

Fig. 23 Developer Command prompt

  • Go to RPi Pico
  • Next thing to do is, to set the path for SDK use the following command; setx PICO_SDK_PATH "..\..\pico-sdk" and press enter key to set the path.

Fig. 24

  • After setting the path, exit from the command prompt.
  • Restart the same Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022.
  • In the RPi Pico directory create a new directory with name ‘build’.
  • Go to ‘build’ directory you just created.

Fig. 25 create build directory

Using CMake to build the Makefiles:

  • To create Makefiles use the command “cmake –G “NMake Makefiles” ..”.
  • Now we are ready to build projects using nmake The nmake command will build all the available projects and the process is time consuming.
 

Download and Install Visual Studio Code in Windows

Visual Studio Code is tool developed by Microsoft for source code editing.

  • Download Visual Studio Code
    • Follow the given links to download the Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com/
    • Download the installation setup for Windows by clicking on “Windows x64 User Installer”.

Fig. 26 Download Visual Studio Code

Installation of Visual Studio Code

  • Once the package is downloaded successfully, we are ready to install.
  • Start the installation process and the first step while installing the setup is to accept the agreement and press next.

Fig. 27 Accept the agreement

  • Select the destination location where you want to store the installed files.
  • Next, select the start menu folder.
  • In Additional Task, check the “Create a desktop icon” icon of you want to create one and then check the “Add to path” option (as shown below) and then press next.

Fig. 28 Add to path

  • Now we are all set to install the software. Press the install button.
  • Do not check the “Launch Visual Studio” icon, press finish.
  • To launch the Visual studio Code, go to Developer Command prompt.
  • Open the RPi Pico
  • Type code and press enter.

Fig. 29 Launch the Visual Studio code

  • Once the Visual Code studio is launched successfully, a “Get started- Visual Studio” screen will pop-up automatically, as shown below:

Fig. 30 Visual Studio Code launched successfully

 

Installing CMake in Visual Studio Code

After successfully installing the Visual Studio Code, the next thing to do is to install CMake in VS code.

Steps to install CMake in Visual Studio Code are:

  • Open the Visual Studio Code on the left menu list, click on.
  • Search for Cmake and install the tool.

Fig. 31

  • On the bottom left menu list, press Setting icon and select “Setting” option.

Fig.32 setting

  • Click on the Extension icon and select on the CMake Tool Configuration
  • Again the in User list expand Extension and select CMake
  • A new list will appear on right side of user list.
  • Scroll down to the list and click on the “CMake Configuration environment” and set item as “PICO_SDK_PATH” and Values as “..\..\pico-sdk” and press “OK”.

Fig. 33 CMake Configure Environment

  • Make sure your system is connected with internet.
  • Again go down in the list and click on “CMake: Generator” and fill the space with “NMake Makefiles” and close the settings window.

Fig. 34 CMake generator

  • Next, go to the Explore icon (top left of the screen) and select Open Folder
  • Search for pico-example by writing “:\RPi Pico\pico-examples\” in the search bar and then select the pico-example

Fig. 35 Open folder

Fig. 36 Select ‘pico-examples’ folder

  • Select the “GCC for arm-none-eabi” from the list.

Fig. 37 GCC fro arm-none-eabi

  • After this, the CMake tool will initialize building the Makefiles for all projects.
  • From the bottom blue menu tab, by selecting the build button, you can build other projects as well.
  • So now we are all set to upload a program into raspberry pi pico.

Before writing a program for Raspberry Pi Pico make sure you have all the necessary hardware components along with the software and compilers (installed) required to program the Pico board.

Components required to program Raspberry Pi Pico are:

  • The first thing required is a Micro-USB Cable, which allows the user to connect it to a computer or a Raspberry Pi for programming and powering up the Pico board.
  • Next component is the development environment required to compile and upload the program into the Raspberry Pi Pico development.
  • If you need to interface a peripheral with your Pico board using a breadboard then, you also need a set of Pico Headers.

Conclusion

This concludes the installation procedure for Visual Studio Code in Windows ( for Raspberry Pi Pico programming) which includes the installation of various tools and compilers necessary for programming Raspberry Pi Pico.

In our next tutorial, we will discuss the installation procedure of Python Thonny IDE for programming the Raspberry Pi Pico. We will also continue the programming part with Python Thonny IDE with MicroPython programming language.

I hope you found this tutorial of some help and also hope to see you soon with a new tutorial.

Getting Started with Raspberry Pi Pico

Hello readers, I hope you all are doing great. This is the first tutorial of our Raspberry Pi programming series. In this tutorial, we are going to provide a brief description of the Raspberry Pi Pico module designed and developed by the Raspberry Pi organization itself. We will also discuss various features, memory, peripherals interfacing capabilities, hardware architecture, programming techniques etc.

Before moving towards the detailed study of the Raspberry Pi Pico module, let’s first understand the traditional Raspberry Pi Computers.

What is Raspberry Pi?

Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer or a minicomputer. It was created with the goal of making computing knowledge more accessible to those who cannot afford laptops or desktop computers, as well as developing programming skills at a lower cost. The Raspberry Pi organization designed it.

The Raspberry Pi is a low-cost computer that includes some GPIOs (General Purpose Input-Output) for connecting to and controlling peripherals. Despite the fact that the Raspberry Pi's processing speed is much slower than that of desktop computers and laptop computers, it is still a computer with all of the processing and interfacing capabilities and low power consumption.

A Raspberry Pi can be used to create hardware, home automation, industrial applications etc.

There are various Raspberry Pi models available and Raspberry Pi Pico is one of them.

Fig. 1 Raspberry Pi Pico Vs Raspberry Pi Computer (Pi 0)

Raspberry Pi Pico

Raspberry Pi Pico is a completely different model or device than traditional Raspberry Pi models. Raspberry Pi Pico is not a Linux computer, but it is a microcontroller like various available Arduino boards.

It is a cost-effective development platform designed by Raspberry Pi which has enough processing power to handle complex tasks. It is a low-cost yet powerful microcontroller board with an RP2040 silicon chip.

Like the Raspberry Pi computer, Raspberry Pi Pico is also featured with a processing unit, GPIO (so it can be used to control and receive inputs from various electronic peripherals) etc. but it does not offer any wireless connectivity feature.

Other available Raspberry Pi boards like Raspberry Pi 0, Raspberry Pi 4, 3 etc. are similar to a traditional desktop computer. This means they have all the features to work as a computer like, an HDMI port to connect a monitor, USB ports for mouse and keyboard, SD card slot for OS etc.

But, Raspberry Pi Pico does not have any of the above features or capabilities, neither an HDMI port nor the USB for keyboard and mouse connectivity and instead of using an SD card for storage Pico model is featured with ‘Onboard flash memory’ to store programs.

So now you might have a doubt, that whether one can run a Raspberry Pi OS on a Raspberry Pi Pico or not? The answer is, NO. Unlike traditional Raspberry Pi modules, Raspberry Pi Pico doesn’t run a full desktop OS (operating system) but it runs code directly without a desktop interface.

If you have an Apple, Linux or Windows computer or even a different Raspberry Pi board (Pi 0, 4 or 3 etc.) then, you just need to plug the Raspberry Pi Pico into a computer to program the board for a specific task or project. Once the Pico is programmed successfully, it will run that code every time the board is powered ON.

So we can say that Raspberry Pi Pico is more like an Arduino board than a traditional Raspberry Pi model.

Features of Raspberry Pi Pico

Fig. 2 Raspberry Pi Pico development board

Some key features of the Raspberry Pi Pico board are:

  • Dual-core processor (ARM Cortex-Mo+), 133Mhz
  • DMA controller
  • It supports 16MB of Flash memory via QSPI bus
  • 264kB of on-chip static RAM(SRAM)
  • SP2040 microcontroller chip designed by Raspberry Pi organization
  • A micro USB (type B) port for powering and programming the board
  • AHB crossbar
  • 2 on-chip phase-locked loops or PLLs to generate USB and core clocks
  • Programmable on-chip LDO to generate a core voltage
  • 26 GPIO pins with 23 GPIO pins are digital-only and the rest 3 pins are having ADC capabilities
  • 3 pin ARM SWD (Serial wire debug) port
  • 2MB onboard QSPI Flash
  • Raspberry Pi Pico board operates at a range of 1.8 – 5.5V DC power supply.
  • Operating temperature: -20°C - +85°C
  • Raspberry Pi Pico board also supports drag-and-drop programming using mass storage over a USB.
  • RP2040 also offers on-chip floating-point libraries.
  • Built-in temperature sensor.
  • Multiple digital peripherals supported by RP20400 are:
    • 1 real-time counter
    • 2 UART channels
    • 2 I2C
    • 2 SPI (Serial Peripheral Interfaces) channels
    • 16 PWM (Pulse width Modulation) channels
  • High quality and performance at a very low price
  • It also supports low power sleep mode and dormant mode

This module also offers an onboard buck-boost SMPS (switch mode power supply), which provides a flexible option for powering the board via a micro USB port, batteries or external supplies.

Along with various available peripheral interfacing modules and data communication capabilities, the Raspberry Pi Pico also offers, 8 PIO state machines, a USB 1.1 controller.

The Raspberry Pi Pico development board has been designed to use either a soldered 0.1" pin-headers or can also be used as a surface-mountable device (SMD) or module, as the user IO (input/output) pins are also castellated.

Microcontroller (RP2040)

Raspberry Pi Pico comes with a dual-core microcontroller RP2040 chip, the chip is completely designed in-house at Raspberry Pi.

Fig. 3 RP2040 Microcontroller

RP2040 is the first microcontroller from Raspberry Pi. It is manufactured on a 40nm process node, which provided low power consumption capability and a variety of low power modes to offer extended duration operation on battery power.

The RP2040 microcontroller board consists of total of 36 GPIO pins but only 26 GPIO pins are exposed for control and interfacing.

Now let’s understand why this microcontroller is named so!

  • In RP2040, RP stands for Raspberry Pi.
  • The first digit ‘2’ represents the number of processing cores.
  • The second digit ‘0’ represents the type of processor i.e., Mo+
  • ‘4’ represents the amount of RAM, from the functional floor (log2 (RAM/16kB)
  • The last digit represents the amount of non-volatile storage and ‘0’ indicates no non-volatile storage.

Fig. 4 RP2040 microcontroller

Communication protocols

Some of the communication protocols or methods supported by the raspberry Pi Pico model are:

  1. UART ( It offers 2 UARTs)
  2. 2 SPI (Serial peripheral interface) controllers
  3. 2 I2C controllers

GPIOs

Like a Raspberry Pi computer, Raspberry Pi Pico also featured with GPIO pins to control & interface peripherals or to communicate data with peripherals and even to receive inputs and control signals from those peripherals.

Fig. 5 Raspberry Pi Pico Pin-out

The Raspberry Pi Pico pin-out reveals that it has 40 pins in total, including the power supply pins ( GND and VCC pins). PWM, ADC, UART, GPIO, SPI, I2C, debugging pins, and system control pins are the different types of pins.

Unlike the Raspberry Pi computer board series, the Pico board's GPIO pins serve multiple purposes and in total Raspberry Pi Pico has 26 multifunctional pins. These 26 multi-functional pins are marked as GP0, GP1, GP2 and so on. They can be used to perform both digital input and digital output functions.

For example, if we consider the GP4 and GP5 pins, they can be used as either a digital input or digital output, as can I2C1 (SDA and SCK pins) or UART1 (Rx and Tx). But, only one function can be used at a time by selecting a particular pin and providing the respective instructions in the code.

  • PWM pins: Raspberry Pi Pico has 16 PWM output channels. Actually, it has 8 PWM blocks and each PWM block provides two PWM outputs and hence a total of 16PWM channels.
  • ADC pins: Raspberry Pi Pico board has 4 ADC pins to read analog inputs from peripherals (sensors) out of which only 3 ADCs and usable.

A 12- bit ADC is supported by the RP2040 Pico board and thus the ADC range can go from 0 to 4095.

The MicroPython code, on the other hand, can scale the ADC values to a 16-bit range. As a result, we have a range of 0 to 65535. Because the microcontroller operates at 3.3 V, an ADC pin will return a value of 65535 when 3.3 V is applied to it or 0 when no voltage is applied. When the voltage applied or the input voltage is in the range of 0 to 3.3 V, we can obtain all of the in-between values.

  • UART pins: if you have previously worked with any microcontroller board or development board then you might have used this protocol because this is the most commonly or frequently used serial communication protocol. Raspberry Pi Pico module also offers two UART channels, namely UART0 and UART1 and dedicated GPIO pins are available to implement this protocol.

Fig. 6 Raspberry Pi Pico Communication protocols

  • I2C pins: I2C is a bidirectional serial bus (Two Wire) that is used to communicate data among I2C enabled devices but over a short distance. In raspberry Pi Pico there we have two I2C controllers, which are easily accessible via GPIO pins.
  • SPI pins: SPI stands for Serial peripheral interface and it is used to communicate data between SPI enabled devices over a dedicated or available GPIO pins. Raspberry Pi offers 2 SPI channels for peripheral interface.
  • Power Supply Pins: Some power supply pins are also available to power up the board:
  • SMPS: This pins is used to generate the 3.3V for the Pico board and its GPIOs
  • VSYS: This is the primary input voltage and can be varied in 1.8v to 5.5.V supply range.
  • VBUS: The micro USB input voltage connected to the pin1 of micro-USB port.
  • GND pin

Some other features of Raspberry Pi Pico are:

Labeling

The silkscreen labeling on the top side of the board provides an orientation for 40 pins, while a full pin-out is printed on the rear.

USB

Raspberry Pi Pico comes with a USB 1.1 controller. This USB port is used to power up the board and program the Raspberry Pi Pico.

Bootsel

A BOOTSEL button is available on the Raspberry Pi Pico development board which means Boot Select. This button is used to put the board into USB mass storage mode while powering up the Pico board. This allows the user to drag and drop programs into the RPI-RP2 mounted drive.

Debugging

An SWD which stands for Serial Wire Debug is provided for hardware debugging and letting the user quickly track the problems down in the program.

Programming the Flash

As we mentioned earlier, the Raspberry Pi Pico offers 2MB of on-board QSPI flash memory which can be programmed or reprogrammed via using either the SWD (or Serial Wire Debug) port or using a special USB mass storage device mode.

An Internal Temperature sensor

Raspberry Pi Pico module comes with an inbuilt temperature sensor. The sensor is internally connected to the ADC or analog to digital converter pins of the Raspberry Pi Pico board. These ADC pins, supports a range of values and that is determined by the input voltage applied to the pins.

Programming Raspberry Pi Pico(2040)

Fig. 7 Programming Raspberry Pi Pico

There are multiple development environments available that support different programming languages to program the RP2040 microcontroller.

But, before writing a program for Raspberry Pi Pico you should have all the software and hardware components required to program the board.

Components required to program Raspberry Pi Pico:

The first thing required is a Micro-USB Cable, which allows the user to connect it to a computer or a Raspberry Pi for programming and powering up the Pico board.

The next component is the development environment required to compile and upload the program into the Raspberry Pi Pico development.

If you need to interface a peripheral with your Pico board using a breadboard then, you also need a set of Pico Headers.

RP2040 supports multiple programming languages like C/C++, Circuit python, MicroPython cross-platform development environments. Raspberry Pi Pico module consists of a built-in UF2 bootloader enabling programs to be loaded by drag and drop and floating-point routines are baked into the chip to achieve ultra-fast performance.

There are multiple development environments to program a Raspberry Pi Pico board like Visual Studio Code, Thonny Python IDE and Arduino IDE etc.

In our next tutorial, we will discuss the installation of the development environment for Raspberry Pi Pico and get started with the respective development environment.

So, this concludes the tutorial. I hope you found this of some help and also hope to see you soon with a new tutorial on Raspberry Pi.

Syed Zain Nasir

I am Syed Zain Nasir, the founder of <a href=https://www.TheEngineeringProjects.com/>The Engineering Projects</a> (TEP). I am a programmer since 2009 before that I just search things, make small projects and now I am sharing my knowledge through this platform.I also work as a freelancer and did many projects related to programming and electrical circuitry. <a href=https://plus.google.com/+SyedZainNasir/>My Google Profile+</a>

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Syed Zain Nasir