Discogs Collection Clean-up

August 1, 2025 | Comment

As I continue my 12 apps in 12 months journey this month’s is, by my own admission, a low effort submission! That’s not to say it isn’t useful, it is to me at least, but let’s just say it’s not going to win any programming awards.

What is Discogs?

For those that aren’t aware Discogs is an online platform that allows you to record your media collection, mainly vinyl in my case, and it also has a marketplace allowing sales of the same. One part of the recording of items is that it allows you to record the grading of … Read the rest

What’s the Difference Between Matter and Thread?

July 27, 2025 | Comment

I’ve recently been getting into home automation and Home Assistant in particular (expect more posts on that as I get my head around it).

Words that frequently come up when dealing with home automation devices are Zigbee, Thread and Matter. I was familiar with Zigbee but was confused about Thread and Matter and how they worked together so I asked my friend ChatGPT to explain. I found it useful so decided to tidy it up and post it here.

What are Thread and Matter?

Thread and Matter are two of the latest smart home standards, often mentioned together, … Read the rest

Evernote Family Remembers

July 1, 2025 | 1 comment

On long car journeys one of the favourite games for my grandaughter to play is something she calls “family remembers”. What she wants is for us to tell her interesting stories from our family past and mainly from our son, her father, and her uncle. These stories are all taken from memory and made me wish that I had recorded them somewhere for future prosperity. This in turn led me to start collecting interesting stories about my grandchildren and recording them in Evernote.

I thought that it would be nice to be able to turn these little stories locked away … Read the rest

Adding labels to media with php2Bluesky

June 28, 2025 | Comment

Someone mentioned to me that you can add labels to posts in Bluesky and I have to admit that I had not idea what they were referring to. Looking at them I can understand why I’d not come across them – I’d not had any need for them but what are labels?

Bluesky Labels

A Bluesky label is a tag you can add to your own post to warn others (and moderation tools) that your content may include things like nudity, violence, sexual content, or graphic imagery. They:

  • Enable users to filter or blur posts based on content type.
  • Help
… Read the rest

Customer Support BS

June 18, 2025 | Comment

If you contact customer support, literally any customer support, with any technical issue, depending on your device, you are likely to be met with one of the following responses:

  1. Turn it off and on again (any piece of hardware)
  2. Clear your browser cache (any web app/site)
  3. Delete and reinstall it (any mobile app)

In their defence, those in customer support would say that this solves 90% of issues, but it is annoying that these are the first things offered up, and they’re not happy if you tell them that you’ve already done them.

Of course, many more issues could be … Read the rest

Nanobag

June 11, 2025 | Comment

Is a shopping bag technology? Well, this one, Nanobag, was featured in Wired magazine, so I am pretty sure that it is! On that basis, I am featuring it here on my blog.

I’ve had shopping bags in the past that fold into themselves to a small form factor, but the Nanobag suggested that it took that to another level. The issue I had with other solutions was that they weren’t actually that small when folded and, when opened out, weren’t large enough to hold an LP record.

Choices

The Nanobag comes in several sizes, as illustrated in the … Read the rest

Ella, The Robot Barista

June 4, 2025 | Comment

On a recent trip to Keukenhof, the Netherlands, I was struck by the crowd gathered around a windowed box. I had sort of assumed that it contained some rare plant, given where we were, but in fact, it was Ella, the Robot Barista. Ella is, apparently, able to “brew more than 300 coffee combinations at 200 cups per hour” using data, Robotics and, of course, AI.

Here she is in action:

… Read the rest

bookISBN2Task

June 1, 2025 | Comment

In the UK, the average adult reads approximately three books per year, according to a recent poll by YouGov. However, 40% of Britons haven’t read a single book in the last 12 months. That I have read on average 19 books a year puts me very much in the upper echelons of readers in the UK. My wife, on the other hand, averages 126 a year (that’s one every three days) and very much puts me in the shade with her average!

Too Many Books

I suffer from a couple of problems where books are concerned. Firstly, books (that … Read the rest

WhatsApp for iPad

May 28, 2025 | Comment

Well, that’s a surprise. Meta has (finally) released a version of their popular messaging app WhatsApp for the iPad. It has only taken then some 15 years to do so but I for one am glad that they have as using it in a web browser wasn’t a great experience.

In a quick test this afternoon, it worked seamlessly (as it should after a 15-year wait!), including Split View and Slide Over. I have no idea why it has taken so long to deliver, and Meta hasn’t said, but suggestions have been in the past that the end-to-end encryption … Read the rest

Ulanzi MA30 Carabiner-Mounted Phone Tripod

May 21, 2025 | Comment

I wrote recently about my disappointment regarding the credit card-sized tripod, the CardPOD, which was portable but unstable, not what you want in a tripod. Undeterred, I searched for a more suitable replacement and stumbled upon the Ulanzi MA30. I was already familiar with Ulanzi as I own some of their 52mm MagFilter Magnetic Filters.

A Different Approach

The MA30 has a lightweight, all-metal body with a premium feel to it. The feet for the tripod fold into the body and, like the CardPOD, it has a strong, Magsafe, magnetic ring to attach it to your phone. … Read the rest