Every so often I try to bin WordPress, and move away from it. I have most recently tried to use DokuWiki to try and get away from WordPress, this can still be seen on labbook.skippy.org.uk, where the some of my notes are now going to live. Things I don’t like […]
Geeky
252 posts
A while ago I made some videos of writing a Raspbian to a SD card for use with a Raspberry Pi, I am on a mac, which makes my life much easer as there is now an awesome tool called ApplePi-Baker that makes making SD cards much easer than DD […]
I recently ordered a butterfly garden with 5 live caterpillars kit from Insect Lore, and it arrived today at work (because having stuff sent to work means I don’t need to be at home when they deliver). I opened it up to check that everything in the box was in […]
Today MiniBoyGeek, Tas, and little lion went for a dog walk down to Coate Water, in Swindon. Being it was a Sunday with nice weather North Wilts Model Engineering Society were running trains at the Coate Water Miniature Railway. This is a video of our trip round (shot off the […]
Bob found these ESP8266 based Wi-Fi Relays from china, the “Sonoff – WiFi Wireless Smart Switch For MQTT COAP Smart Home” and being that he is is kind of a geek he bought some, now in typical China fashion the difference between 3 and 5 was not all that much, so […]
A while ago I looked at the HLK-PM01, and amazingly it turned into a very well read post… (do not even touch the cheaper crap!) with a lot of people asking how to make it work properly. I also got an email from Tom at smart-sense.hr saying that he had […]
A LONG time ago I disassembled a Cheep Chinese Camera, I may have accidental blown it up by over volting it (apparently 12V DC was the wrong voltage). since then it has been sat in my desk in parts, for a while I had been pondering what the thing between […]
Looking back over Books I have read, 1, 2-6, 7-10, 13-18, 19-22, 23-27, 28-34 I have spotted that I can’t count as I seem to have missed books 11 and 12! drat. Book 11 – Anna Milbourne’s “Peep Inside Animal Homes“ Book 12 – Rev. W. Awdry’s “Meet the Engines! […]
At CASS Industries we moved it from our old site to our new site, over a year ago, yes this post has been sat ‘in draft’ almost that long! While we were moving it across, we added the additional KX-T30865 Door phone card, (The building had a Videx DK8K-1/2 Door Intercom and […]
Every so often we see on line storeys of fake chargers burning down houses, and electric shocks. Normally these chargers are refereed to as ‘Apple’ or ‘iPhone’ chargers, however that is just because the small triangle chargers (in a variety of colours) are so prevalent. An official Apple 5W USB […]
Tas, MiniBoyGeek and I had a quick walk round the Steam Punk Spectacular at the Swindon Steam Museum (will have to do Photos of that some other time). Podpad Studios were there with some of their cool steampunk stuff, and some one (not sure who) brought a Caravan. The rest […]
This is the quickest I have got a camera onto my desk and working, This camera is a ‘Dahua DH-SD29204T-GN 2Mp Network Mini IP Speed Dome 4x optical zoom PTZ ip camera built-in MIC SD29204T-GN’ I can’t see it on Amazon, but it is on Aliexpress (SD29204T-GN-W Data sheet). Powering […]
I have been playing about with Fusion 360, one of thrings you will need to include before very long is a fixing, even if you can 3D print everything in your design at some point you will want to stick two parts together at which point you will need a […]
I have been playing with Fusion 360 again… and as part of that I have been finding cunning tricks that I am thankful that I now know. Since I think I have a blog or something, I shall share those I find to be useful. And for this I shall […]
Well that is MiniBoyGeek up to three working electric Lego Duplo locomotives, only the Chinese one to go… I spoke to the seller: > Item died within 10 minutes of putting batteries into it. refund required. > I am still awaiting a response to my question re refund or replacement […]
In a previous post about Duplo trains I mentioned that I had acquired a dead Duplo Intelli Train from eBay. A bit more research tells me that it is Lego Part number 2961, it is from Duplo set 2932 ‘Passenger Train Starter Set with Motor’ and is listed as ‘Train […]
A long while ago, I managed to get high above Manchester, not High as in on drugs mind you, but as in a long way above ground. And at the weekend just gone I had a look around an old hotel in Swindon, while in Hacman this evening I wondered […]
Since the the last post on Duplo Trains, MiniBoyGeek has been given a lot more Lego Duplo by both his Granddad, and other family members for his second birthday: He has now got two of the Duplo Locomotive base engines (LEGO PART 99844). I picked up a cheap Chinese Duplo […]
This job has been sat on my desk at work for about 7 months, looking at Amazon it may be one of these (available in black too). After my luck with the last camera, I was hoping to get into this one too. Yep The CD is standard Chinese quality […]
Recently we found ourselves in Swindon, Joe offered us a free Urbex (Urban Exploration) trip round the old South Marston Hotel (Joe’s previous visit), I didn’t get many photos, but next time I do an Urbex I will :). I believe Tas will have some, and other people may add […]
Went to Savernake Forest with MiniBoyGeek and Tas for a walk, MiniBoyGeek helped me find his first geocache 😀
Everybody loves a train set and LEGO Duplo tracks make it very easy to build your own set, I have watched YouTube videos of peoples Lego Train Sets, and thought that they were cool however if you look at the price of Lego City Train sets, prepare to cry even […]
Recently there have been people claiming that they can steal money from your pocket (up to £30) by skimming your credit or debit card info using a EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) or PED (Pin Entry Device). It said thieves could exploit a security flaw to steal key data from […]
I picked up a Hantek 6022BE USB Oscilloscope as sometimes its useful to have something more than just a multimeter for seeing what a circuit is doing. While the specification makes it more of a toy than a real instrument, however what can you expect for £46.00? The Hantek 6022BE […]
Tas and I are listing to the Harry Potter Audiobooks at home, and I have had The Tales of Beedle the Bard at my parents for a while, and had not got round to reading it as of this. I am not counting Audiobooks in the 100 book challenge (I […]
The soldering of SMD devices is something that no normal person would want to do by hand for fun, I can’t even believe that normal people would do it anyway (it is a cruel and unusual punishment). Hackspace Manchester has recently thanks to Matt bought an Infer Red IC Oven […]
Sometimes I feel that my geek credentials are lacking given the lack of code I write, yes I make cool things occasionally, I work as an EMC Engineer for a small Stockport Company, I am a Director of Squashed Fly a small independent Hosting and General Geeky company with Tas, […]