Thoughts

For the first time ever, this site is static generated

By dave on October 30, 2016

For the first time ever, this site is now statically generated using hugo content templating system, I wish I'd done it years ago. For technology sites it really is like a breath of fresh air, as there is no more playing around trying to get code and technical content into an online editor designed for WYSIWYG general purpose blog editing. For some time, I had kept the misconception that a CMS had to be dynamic; that was until I found I was spending considerable time trying to keep my Joomla system up to date and safe.

Impressed with Fedora 19 Linux

By dave on October 26, 2013

After 10 years of service, my old linux box finally gave up so I bought a basic tower to run Linux on. I've got to say that Fedora 19 was very easy to install and get working. Just as with Windows 8, I think the new Gnome 3 interface is an improvement once one is accustomed. Although I did tweak a few things with the tweak tool. These days, I use a setup of Win7/64 running on a macmini (you read that right - I run windows on my macmini).

What a great summer we had in England

By dave on September 27, 2013

Over here in England we've had the best summer in some years. During a recent week holiday in Devon, we could as well have been in the French Riviera the temperatures were so high. I stumbled across a town called Lynton in the Exmoor region on the way back, and what scenery there - the valley of rocks is certainly worth a visit! In the town centre there was a small record shop, I don't know the name, but I managed to get half and hour in there to pick up a few records.

Technological advances and AVR chips

By dave on May 19, 2013

Just recently I stopped to think about AVR's. There's something astounding about a chip that costs a couple of pounds and yet has a fully implemented processor, memory, flash, serial IO, ADC and reprogrammable ROM. Just think that's basically almost as powerful as an old 8 bit computer from the 80's in an 8 pin DIP package. To put that in some perspective, the old 8 bits had countless support chips and their power requirements would be well in excess of any of the ATTINY range of Atmel's chips.