Per default the serial port of the Raspberry Pi is set up to be used as an old fashioned serial console. Almost no one uses it for that purpose anymore. We can put the serial port to a much better use, for instance to let it talk to a micro controller which handles all time critical I/O for us.
Here's how to set up the serial port for our own purposes.

Mutt is a full featured, text based, mail client. This article shows how you can setup mutt to be used with Gmail. This also allows your Pi to send mails on its own accord, even including attachments. So if your Pi's job is to take measurements all day long, it can now mail the measurements back to you.

Your Raspberry Pi can send you updates on what it is doing per email. I prefer using Gmail as mail delivery system because it is very reliable and it works on all networks.
Here's how to setup your Raspberry Pi to use Gmail to send you mails.

If you want to be able to connect to your machine from anywhere in the world, without using port forwarding, no matter what kind of services you want to expose, consider using TOR. That’s what my new minion Kevin is designed for. I can login to Kevin over ssh, or view his web pages, no matter where he is, without opening a single port in the network he is on.
If you have use for a similar scenario, read on and find out how easy it is to set it up.

OK, the Raspberry Pi can send tweets. But can it send text messages to my mobile phone too? Oh yes it can. And the good news is that it can do that without any extra hardware.

This chapter shows what other hardware is guaranteed to work well in combination with the Raspberry Pi.
The information is collected from my own experiences as well as from other trusted sources.

When you connect your Pi to your home network you can easily find out what IP a$ However, when you connect your Pi to a strange network, you're left in the dark. Unless you use this script to make the Pi send you a tweet whenever its network$

When you connect your Pi to your home network you can easily find out what IP address it has received through DHCP. However, when you connect your Pi to a strange network, you're left in the dark. Unless you use this script to make the Pi send you an email whenever its network comes up.

Expand the storage capacity of your Raspberry Pi with ample free cloud space. This doesn't only expand the storage capacity. It also enables you to share files between several Raspberry Pies and your desktop computer.
You can even give commands to your Raspberry Pi through this shared cloud space, even if your Raspberry Pi is locked up behind a firewall.

Use Google Authenticator to make your exposed SSH enabled Raspberry Pi more secure against unautharised access.

Make your Raspberry Pi send random tweets every now and then. For instance to advertise your web site, your company, your product or any special event. My Pi advertises my web site a couple of times a day.

This little article explains how to connect your Raspberry Pi to multiple networks using only a single Ethernet port.
Please note that you'll have to connect your Raspberry Pi to a managed network Switch for this to work!

New to Linux? No problem, here is a collection of things you need to know before you can start most of the experiments on this or just about any web site about the Raspberry Pi.

When you are baking a Raspberry Pie you should keep a close eye on the temperature. But how do we actually read temperatures with a Raspberry Pi?
With minimum effort we can read temperatures in several ways.

Turn your Raspberry Pi into a TOR router. This helps when you want to browse the internet a bit more anonymously. Or you can use that network to isolate virus infected guest computers from your own network for instance.

I can imagine that it may be very useful if your Pi can send tweets about its status. Or tweet whenever special events occur. With this small Python3 script your Pi can send any tweet you like, as many as you like.

The internet is full of things, the Internet Of Things (IOT). MQTT helps sensors and actuators to be connected to each other in a highly flexible way. And an MQTT server (broker) is light weight enough to be run on even the slowest member of the Raspberry Pi family.

I was just wondering whether it was possible to connect the Raspberry Pi to the internet using a 3G USB dongle, just in case I ever needed it. And you've guessed it already, it is perfectly possible. So here we go....

This little Python script allows you to switch on just about any modern computer on your LAN. Now you can leave your powerful and power hungry computers turned off, while still being able to turn them on when you need them, even when you're not at home to push the ON button. The only thing you'll need is your power friendly Raspberry Pi to be on at all times.