Gav's World

2021-12-29 : Website Template Updated : v2.23.2

Enhancements

None

New Setup Variables (see <setup-sample.php> for details)

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Bug Fixes

1. The permalinks for the news feed only worked if the website was in the document root. Now takes into account the path.

2021-10-23 : Website Template Updated : v2.23.1

Enhancements

None

New Setup Variables (see <setup-sample.php> for details)

None

Bug Fixes

1. Not really a fix, but the W3C has recently deprecated the media "projection" for style sheets. This was in the XHTML header data that's generated from index.php

2021-07-03 : New Mountain Bike

After 3 years of fun on my Saracen Mantra Pro hard-tail, I decided to go to the next level in mountain biking and purchase an Orbea Occam H20 full-suspension, 29'r mountain bike.

This bike, with its bigger wheels, rolls over rocks easier; and with the rear shock, is less tiring on the downhills (saves my knees doing all of the work). However, it's slightly harder to get up them in the first place: since it's a bit heavier, got larger wheels and slightly higher gearing than my hard-tail.

Hopefully it'll serve me well for the years to come on the technical trails... and I'll save the Mantra Pro for the easier trails with the family!

2020-11-28 : New 3D Printer

This is one of these gadgets that I've been wanting for years - pretty much since they first came to market... but I've just never been able to fully justify it. Technically I can't now, but there was a good sale on at Pimoroni for a Vertex Delta 3D Printer that I just couldn't pass up on.

This is an open source hardware platform (with 3D models of all parts should I need to print any - which I've had to already after breaking a bracket that holds the print bed in place), that runs Marlin, open source embedded 3D printer software (no... it's not firmware!). There is also a freely available slicer: Ultimaker Cura which itself is composed of open source libraries etc. which (best of all) even has a native appImage for Linux!

There are thousands of 3D models of all sorts of things on the Thingyverse, and when it comes to having to design a model myself, then FreeCAD is also available for Linux!

Let's see what I can print :-)

2020-11-10 : New Raspberry Pi 400

Now some may think that having more than 10 Raspberry Pi computers is a bit excessive - I don't :-)

So, when a new one was announced, the Raspberry Pi 400, I felt that I really needed to add it to my collection (which takes this up to the 17th Pi that I've bought!).

It's basically a Pi 4 (bit a bit quicker - 1.8GHz compared to 1.5GHz) with a new board layout to allow all connectors to appear on the rear of the unit, and built into an official Raspberry Pi keyboard... just like the good old days of (in my case) the Acorn Electron and Atari ST where this was the case. However, the Pi 400 is way more powerful than any of the 1980s and 1990s computers, ovbisouly!

I'm initially playing with the 64-bit version of Ubuntu Server but since it's a "computer" as opposed to a headless server, I'm going to install Xubuntu desktop on it too.

2020-09-19 : New SOHO Router

Nothing too exciting - yet another network device, hopefully to improve Internet connectivity reliability and throughput.

A DrayTek Vigor 2762 (on the left) has replaced my Netgear D7000 Nighthawk... not that the D7000 was a bad bit of kit, but every few months it needs a power cycle as it locks up, and I've no idea what the firewall throughput is like.

The D7000 will go on ebay soon I think - as its still worth a bob or two!

It has VLAN capability, so if I reconfigure my gigabit network wiring slightly, then I should be able to re-introduce guest Wi-Fi access for Internet only (without them having access to my whole network).

2020-07-23 : New Laptop

At times I missed not having a wee laptop (like my old Eee PCs - 701 and 901), so I eventually bought another one.

Having read about All the major Intel vulnerabilities I opted for an AMD processor - a combined CPU and GPU as it turns out: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U, which together with the NVMe drive makes for quite a nippy wee laptop!

2020-06-07 : Website Template Updated : v2.23.0

Enhancements

1. Added ability to insert html pages from html pages with a special HTML comment. Similarly, the ability to include PHP files and call PHP functions from similar HTML comments.
   For example:
   <!-- insert user_includes/A_Common_File.html -->
   <!-- php_file ./user_includes/a_php_file.php -->
   <!-- php_function a_user_function(1,4) -->

New Setup Variables (see <setup-sample.php> for details)

None

Bug Fixes

None

2020-05-05 : New PC Speakers

Sweet... after having the same Desktop PC speakers for nigh on 25 years, the constant humming eventually started annoying me - spending all of my lock-down working day and most of the evening in front of my PC. So I treated myself to a new pair: Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II

They sound very nice :-D

2020-04-09 : More Server Memory

It bothered me for a while that my desktop PC had more RAM than my big server (especially since the server it runs a Linux VM with several Minecraft servers within it).

So, a pair of HP Enterprise 862974-B21 2400MHz 8GiB ECC DDR4 added to the box. Since the other two DIMMs are only 2133MHz, the whole memory system runs at 2133MHz.

A bit of a panic after they were installed though! The PC just kept rebooting after the BIOS POST. I tried swapping the DIMMS around and then just put one of the new ones in at a time thinking that one may be faulty. Nothing! Back to the old configuration... and the server still rebooted after BIOS POST!

After trying various things (including removing the battery), a CMOS reset appeared to do the job. Server functionality restored ... and the Linux VM has twice the RAM allocated that it used to!

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[ News feed last updated Wed 29th Dec 2021 | viewed 121967 times ]