Categories
Isle of Man

Food Security

The Isle of Man has arable land. It has farmers. It has crops. It has livestock. It has a slaughterhouse. It has a dairy. It has the potential to feed itself. However, because of the crazy world we find ourselves in, economies of scale mean that Isle of Man milk and cheese can cost more […]

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Hardware Isle of Man

A Hackspace for the Isle of Man?

I’ve discussed the need for a hackspace on the island over the years with members of the Isle of Man Linux User group, work colleagues in education, people in the pub, family and friends and they’ve all said what a great idea it would be. Today while out walking the dogs, I noticed this building […]

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Hardware

LG Smart TV

It’s Christmas time, and family are coming to stay. I realised that they would probably want a TV in their room. There isn’t much choice for TV retailers on the Isle of Man, but I figured that if I was buying a TV at the end of 2013 it should have at least an LED […]

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Hardware

USB Wi-Fi Adapter

While I was in the UK recently, I took advantage of an Argos store to acquire a USB Wireless dongle. I bought the TP-Link TL-WN725N because it was cheap, and very small. The plan was to use it with my Raspberry PI, and a quick Google suggested the TL-WN725N would run directly from the Raspberry Pi […]

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Hardware

Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

My Dell XPS 13 developer edition is a lovely machine. It’s slim and light, very very fast and has a beautiful screen. It also came from the manufacturer with Ubuntu linux pre-installed and ready to go. I do wish more manufacturers would sell their computers without Microsoft Windows. However, it did have a tendency to […]

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Amateur Radio

GB3GD – VHF Repeater

While I was out walking the dogs today, I noticed that GB3GD is back in service. GB3GD is the callsign of an amateur radio VHF repeater, based on the summit of Snaefell on the Isle of Man. A repeater is a radio receiver and transmitter combined (with some control logic too) that takes weak signals […]