I changed jobs about 18 months ago, and I’m already getting known as ‘that’ guy when it comes to fiddling with technology! So, a colleague turned up at work with a laptop which had been given to him by a family member who had bought a newer machine. He said it was running slowly and […]
While at Liverpool Makefest last June, I bought myself a kit to build an RC2014 Z80-based computer. The kit was very well made, with high quality circuit boards which accepted solder very easily, along with sufficient documentation to make the whole building process smooth and enjoyable. I found the process quite educational too, as the […]
Recently, I attended #offcamp – a barcamp style discussion around open data which was organised by the Isle of Man branch of the BCS and was free to attend. The morning sessions were OK and it was good to see that some thought is being given to making data open and available, especially data that has […]
This week, I tried some different firmware on the ESP8266 modules that I have. I flashed a version of NodeMCU which allows Lua scripts (and other files) to be uploaded. By using this software: https://github.com/reischle/CaptiveIntraweb I was able to turn the ESP8266 into a Wi-Fi access point which serves a static site, regardless of what web […]
I was lucky enough to get some vouchers for Amazon for my birthday recently. I bought some things I needed, but then had a couple of pounds left on the voucher. I decided to ‘waste’ this on some MiFare Classic 1K RFID cards. These can be formatted to the NDEF standard, which means that many […]
I first saw an ESP8266 board at OggCamp as part of a central heating control project. Recently, I’ve been researching a project for CodeClub that needs to control devices remotely over some kind of radio link and so I thought it was time to get to grips with these devices. They turned up in the […]
Chromebooks are nice machines, but of course they dance to Google’s tune. Google are usually pretty good at adopting open standards but occasionally they think they can do better. There are established protocols for printing over a network, but Google have ignored these entirely by ensuring that all Chromebooks only support Google Cloud Print printers! […]
On a recent trip to the UK, I called in to a Lidl store because I know they often have interesting (well, to me anyway) bits of tech for low prices. I picked up this camera for a shade over thirty quid. When you consider it contains Wi-Fi hardware, a web server, pan & tilt […]
So, the nice HP Chromebook 11 seems to have a design fault. If you let the battery run flat, the Chromebook will no longer charge. Symptoms are that there is no charging LED, and no matter how many hours you leave it with the charger plugged in it simply will not charge the battery. It […]
Having already dipped my toe in the water of Chromebooks with an HP Chromebook 11, I knew that I liked Chrome OS. The very fast boot time, stable and full featured browser together with a real physical keyboard make these great devices for people who like to create content, rather than just consume it. I […]