This series is a sub-series of the Adventures with a Raspberry Pi. In this series, I am going to prepare a new SD card for installing the Raspberry Pi operating system.
I’d heard one or two people say they’d had issues with installing a new OS for Raspberry Pi, but a little searching and I found a simple tool which allows you to easily create a bootable SD card, which I am going to step through in this series.
This post is part of the Adventures with a Raspberry Pi series.
I’ve posted that my main reason for buying a Raspberry Pi was to use as a Pi-hole for blokcing adverts.
Having found that a very good use, I’ve found myself wondering what else I could use a Raspberry Pi for? They’re almost throwaway in terms of cost (£59.99 on Amazon UK) and there is a lot of software available for them.
One use I have is to piggyback on the Pi-hole by installing a VPN; I travel a lot for work and this would allow me to VPN into the Raspberry Pi when I am away and send all network travel through the Pi-hole. Ad free browsing even when away from home (I have an Android mobile so could use a VPN on the phone as well).
One potential use is as an HTPC (Home Theatre PC). A few years ago there was a raft of HTPCs available, but they seem to have pretty much disappeared (or become horrendously high price).
I will be doing posts in future as I experiment with my Raspberry Pi. Or a Pi anyway as I have a second one sat on my desk waiting to be put to some use.
This post is part of the series on using the Pi-hole; this series is a sub-series of the Adventures with a Raspberry Pi.
I’ve been a Windows user ever since I first started using a PC back in 1995; my exposure to other operating systems has been very limited so I was slightly tentative about buying a Raspberry Pi and setting up Pi-hole. I have to say that the process has been very smooth and the Pi-hole is an effective ad blocker.
The Pi-hole admin interface is very easy to use and the few items which need to be performed at command line are nice and straightforward. If I’d known how easy it was going to be and how effective the Pi-hole is ad stopped adverts, I’d have built one much earlier than I did.
This post is part of the series on Implementing SmartList Builder from eOne Solutions.
If you’re testing SmartList Builder, you can use it in the Famrikam Sample company without entering a registration key. However, yo use it on a normal company, even a test one, you will need to input the key.
To do this, log into Microsoft Dynamics GP as a user with the POWERUSER* role and open the SmartList Builder Register window () and enter the key in the Registration Key field:
Click Save to sdave the key and close the window.
This post is part of the series on using the Pi-hole; this series is a sub-series of the Adventures with a Raspberry Pi.
While the Pi-hole blocklists will automatically update, the Pi-hole itself does not. However, updating the Pi-hole is a simple job. Log onto your Pi-hole, most likely using SSH, and type the following command:
pihole -up
The update of Pi-hole will take a few minutes to run through; progress will be shown and a confirmation message shown when finished.
The Pi-hole admin interface will show when a new updateis available for the Pi-hole; it is recommended to keep up-to-date with Pi-hole to ensure the best security.
This post is part of the series on Implementing SmartList Builder from eOne Solutions.
SmartList Builder is downloaded direct from the eOne Solutions website as a zip file.
Continue reading “Implementing SmartList Builder: Download and Install”
This post is part of the series on using the Pi-hole; this series is a sub-series of the Adventures with a Raspberry Pi.
With the Raspberry Pi configured to allow remote access using SSH, we can connect to it using an SSH on any other machine. Windows 10 has the SSH client enabled by default from the April 2018 Update (Windows version 1803).
To access the Raspberry Pi, you need the username and IP address for your IP:
The default username for a Raspberry Pi is pi; use the following command to access the Pi (replacing the highlighted section with your PI’s IP address:
ssh pi@{ipaddress}
If you’re connecting using SSH for the first time, you may be prompted to continue connecting; type yes and hit return.
Enter the pi user’s password; you’ll be taken to the command prompt of the Raspberry Pi.
This post is part of the series on Implementing SmartList Builder from eOne Solutions.
As mentioned in the last post SmartList Builder was directly sold by Microsoft under a licensing agreement for many years until, with the launch of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2, the product was released back to the original ISV; a Fargo based ISV called eOne S0lutions.
I understand this was because the new top person in charge of Microsoft Dynamics GP did not like licensing products from the ISVs and release quite a few back to the original developer. However, this left a gap in Microsoft Dynamics GP in that users could no longer create new SmartLists. And so, SmartList Designer was created.
In theory it fulfils the same job as SmartList Builder; you can create new SmartLists by joining tables together or by linking in a SQL view. When it was first released, I took a look at it as an alternative to SmartList Builder on the basis it was free as opposed to needing to buy SmartList Builder.
However, in every area, it is an inferior product. It is not as functional and it is not as easy to use.
Continue reading “Implementing SmartList Builder: SmartList Builder vs. SmartList Designer”
This post is part of the series on using the Pi-hole; this series is a sub-series of the Adventures with a Raspberry Pi.
As with a number of the other items shown in this series, the DNS Servers are selected during installation, but can be changed in the admin interface. To change the DNS Servers, log into the admin interface, select Settings and click on the DNS tab; you can change to one of the default DNS servers in the list or you can enter custom DNS servers:
This post is part of the series on Implementing SmartList Builder from eOne Solutions.
Before launching into the installation of SmartList Builder, I thought it might be worthwhile to do a post on what it is. All users of Microsoft Dynamics GP will be familiar with SmartList; this is the flexible reporting tool which allows you to generate a report showing a list of master records or transactions. Each series has a set of SmartLists available by default, with predefined favourites where search criteria or columns are supplied already configured.
SmartList favourites can be customised and new ones created quite easily, but new SmartLists themselves cannot be created. To create a new SmareList, you need a tool such as SmartList Builder or, in more recent years, SmartList Designer. In this series, I am focussing on SmartList Builder as this is an additional product available from an ISV for Microsoft Dynamics GP.
Back in 2003 when I started working with Microsoft Dynamics GP, SmartList Builder was available direct from Microsoft. SmartList Builder was originally developed by eOne Solutions and then licensed by Microsoft; in the run up to the release of Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 SP2, the licensing deal for SmartList Builder was ended and maintenance of the product reverted back to eOne Solutions.
SmartList Builder the product, includes four utilities:
The standard installation of the SmartList Builder product, gets you all four of the above utilities.