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About the Book

Getting the real world to meet the digital one...

'Raspberry Pi: Measure, Record, Explore' is a book written to help those who want to get started interfacing computers with the physical world and turning recorded information into visual data.

Is this book an official Raspberry Pi product?

Nope. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is not involved in the production of the book. However, any and all readers should regard raspberrypi.org as the starting point for information on using and enjoying the fantastic products they are producing. They really are awesome and deserving of the success that is the Raspberry Pi.

Is this book for you?

It's not written for experts. It's put together as a guide to get you started if you're unsure about how to make the first move. It reads more like a story as it leads the reader through the basics of using a Raspberry Pi, connecting sensors, recording information into a MySQL database and presenting that data on a web page using d3.js.

Why was Raspberry Pi: Measure, Record, Explore written?

Because in the process of learning things, it's a great way to remember them if you write them down :-).

As a result, learning how to do cool stuff with a Raspberry Pi means that I'm accumulating ways to help me out when the going gets tricky. Making a book out of the information is a no-brainer since that way more people benifit from the process.

So here we are! A collection of tips and tricks for measuring, recording and exploring information written by a noob for people who might consider that they're in the same situation :-).

What's in the book?

I've captured the appropriate code and added in illustrations of what's going on so that you will get more traction at the start of your learning process.

Hang on, there's code?

The code examples that are used in the book are available to download (still free!).

The awesome that is Open Source.

Please consider this an opportunity for you to contribute back to the Open Source community that makes products like the Raspberry Pi possible. If you find something that can be improved about the book or think there's something that can be added, just let me know!

The book has plenty of information in it, but I've tried to pitch it in sections so that if you find something interesting, you can read parts in isolation. I have a little bit more additional material that I want to add, so I'm hoping that publishing using Leanpub will allow readers to get easy notification of when updates and improvements are made.

Download the whole book just to try it out!

I'm making the book available for free because I think it's a great way to give something back to the community as a whole, but if you find some value in the book, please consider contributing 99 cents when you download it so that Leanpub gets something for hosting the book and providing such an awesome service (50 cents is their flat cut of any book sales and 99 cents is the minimum (apart from $0) that they will allow for a sale).

(Don't be put off by the button at the top saying 'Buy the ebook now'. Once you click on it, you can select any price you want including $0!)

Enjoy.

So I hope you get something out of the book, please excuse the sometimes light-hearted conversational manner in which I approach the topic and enjoy measuring, recording and exploring the world in digital!

About the Author

Malcolm Maclean

@d3noob

I have a passion for knowledge and I realise that part of the responsibility of gathering knowledge is being able to advance the state of the human condition in some way.

My aims using the Raspberry Pi and in writing this book were to play with software and hardware, achieve a personal goal and try something new for fun. It also helps that I think recording and the visual representation of data rock in serious ways.

I don't have a formal Linux or coding background so the way I explain things is focussed on trying to impart that understanding in a simple but functional way.

I'm totally in awe of the Open Source community that has made this type of work possible, which is why you can download Raspberry Pi: Measure, Recore, Explore for free.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@d3noob), I find it a great service to get alerted to what's going on.