One much requested feature has landed to the Raspberry Pi Pico, and that is connection, Wifi and in the future Bluetooth are added, and that new Raspberry Pi Pico W just landed in my postbox.

Blinking a led is the first thing most lads try out, a bit like printing “Hello World” in any new program language.

The official documentation gives this example

from machine import Pin
led = Pin(25, Pin.OUT)
led.value(1) // led on
led.value(0) // led off

I blinked my eye twice, but running this code the Pico W did not light its led.

How to blink a led on the Raspberry Pi Pico W

I did remember reading about a change in GPIO pins, because the Wifi-modules needed some for connection, but I was surprised it was not mentioned in the official Raspberry Pi Pico documentation.

Actually with the introduction of the Wifi variant there are changes made in the micropython framework, to let the same code blink a led on any Raspberry Pi Pico, they gave the needed pin a name; “LED”, and added two functions, on and off.

from machine import Pin
led = Pin("LED", Pin.OUT)
led.on()  // a method instead of setting the value
led.off() // turn it off again.

Do remember you need to download a different firmware for the Pico and the Pico W.

RPI Pico firmware link

https://micropython.org/download/rp2-pico/

RPI Pico W (Wifi support) firmware link

https://micropython.org/download/rp2-pico-w/

A small MariaDB database with a simple table with just a couple of columns (id, name, `description` ) drives a PHP website. The table lacks a `slug` column.

You could still get away with spaces in an URL although it’s against the specs.

`”example.com/user/John Doe”` will work if you parse “John Doe” to a variable and do a search in your database.

select * from `people` where `name` like 'John Doe' limit 1

But you can’t copy the url, it will lose Doe.

Spitting out a better url with a slug/url PHP function should output something like `”example.com/user/john-doe”`

But then there is a problem in the database:

select * from `people` where `name` like 'john-doe' limit 1

doesn’t return anything.

So we need to add a `slug` column to the database, and why not try out a VIRTUAL column. A virtual column doesn’t exist in memory of disk, but is generated on the fly.

Can that work?

To sluggify a string in MariaDB, is a bit problematic, probably you should write you own custom function but I took the easy road. The REPLACE function which can only REPLACE one character a time, it doesn’t have the more powerful TRANSLATE function, but you can nest the REPLACE function so that should do the job.

Adding a virtual slug column to a Maria/MySQL database

Not really clean and concise but let’s try:

ALTER TABLE `users` add `slug` VARCHAR(50) AS (LOWER(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(`name`," ","-"),"(",""),")",""))) VIRTUAL;

Filtering out spaces, and brackets.

Doesn’t work. Doesn’t even execute.

Got this error in  PHPMyAdmin:

Error

Static analysis:

3 errors were found during analysis.

 	A new statement was found, but no delimiter between it and the previous one. (near "replace" at position 52)

 	Unrecognized alter operation. (near "," at position 68)
	
 	Unrecognized alter operation. (near "" at position 0)

Took me some time to find out was wrong.

Nothing!

It’s a bug in PHPMyAdmin!

Executing the same command in a MySQL console worked perfectly fine.

A search on the internet gave me this issue, guess my PHPMyAdmin is too old on my local server.

Anyhow for the moment I’m testing a virtual `slug` column instead of a real one. Should save some MB on expensive disk-space.

The AOC 16T2 is a portable touchscreen monitor that I bought as a secondary laptop monitor, and as a touchscreen monitor for Raspberry Pi development. It has shown to be a great addition to a Raspberry Pi 400, and for experimenting with a Zero.

The AOC 16T2 offers an USB-C input and HDMI input, it has a built-in 8,000mAh  battery, so it can charge your devices as well. As a bonus it also worked great with my Samsung S20 Android phone, turning the monitor into something like a 15.6inch Android tablet. Samsung Dex software was working above expectation, although Dex doesn’t offer a portrait mode, which is a pity.

Both my laptop and Samsung phone can drive the monitor with just an USB C cable, which is a nice, clean and simple setup. The phone at the same time then is also charged by the battery pack in the monitor.

For connecting the monitor to a Raspberry Pi an HDMI cable is needed, and to get the touchscreen working you need to connect another USB A to C cable.

There is a tiny switch on the right, which is not mentioned in the manual, but a black sticker on the box states:

Please turn on the charging switch for the first time

At first I did miss that notice and then the monitor doesn’t output anything. The switch should be down for charging.

I guess the switch is there to limit charging the battery all the time. It should help your battery to live longer. At least that is what I think the switch is for. It is not mentioned in the manual.

Sound is OK, there is magnetic cover that can be used as a stand. It doesn’t really has a portrait mode, ti doesn’t stick but with some care it can be used vertically.

You can also use it with a VESA mounting bracket.

A downside is the OSD for changing the settings, that’s a bit clumsy, adjusting the volume takes some clicks and waiting, it cycles through all options sow for lowering the volume you have to max it first. That is awful.

Having a portable touchscreen is a nice addition. I also use it connect to my Samsung Phone to read books on a 15.6 inch screen instead of a 6.5 inch.