Connecting to Public WiFi with Custom DNS Settings on MacOS

August 16, 2019 | Comment

Where’s my free Wifi?

For months I have been having an issue with connecting my MacBook to public WiFi hotspots and nothing would coax it into life. It would be showing as connected but wouldn’t connect to any internet pages.

This was highly frustrating as it meant that I couldn’t do any work on public hotspots (I appreciate that there are a couple of positives of that scenario in that I couldn’t do any work and I was probably more secure).

In an effort to fix this I tried all of the following at one time or another:

Cleared the

… Read the rest

Automatically Translate a Symfony Language in action

Using Google Translate to Automatically Translate a Symfony Language File

July 11, 2019 | Comment

Recently the company I work for launched a new version of our product with multi-language capabilities. This was great for us but when we wanted to expand out to other languages we found that it was expensive to have the file translated.

Given that our language file is in a standard format (Symfony’s message YML format) we wondered if it would be possible to convert the file automatically via Google Translate and then give it to a translator to polish. It turns out that it is and this is quicker and cheaper than having all the file translated … Read the rest

Sending today’s PipeDrive activities to Remember the Milk

June 5, 2019 | Comment

Until very recently Google used to allow you to forward an email based on a filter. So you could receive an email see that it was from x and then automatically forward it on to y. This was beneficial and I used it to send the today’s activity notifications from our CRM (PipeDrive) to my task manager (Remember the Milk). Now Google has ceased this functionality on privacy grounds.

With this feature gone I could no longer see my activities in Remember the Milk (RTM) which was a pain. So I wrote a little script that used the PipeDrive api … Read the rest

Is this the world’s most expensive charger?

April 9, 2019 | Comment

One of the disappointments of the new iPad Pro was that all those lightning charge cables and accessories that I’d accumulated over the years immediately became useless. However, the move to USB-C meant that the iPad had a bit of a trick up its sleeve – charging. As you can see from the image above here it is charging my Apple Watch.

The iPad Pro can charge accessories such as your watch, iPhone etc. at a 7.5W charge rate – providing that you have the right cables. To do so requires a potentially expensive outlay in new USB-C to lightning … Read the rest

Recording who clicks which link when on Sendy eMailer

February 25, 2019 | Comment

For many, Mailchimp is a reliable mailer for sending newsletters and other automated email campaigns. And for some it might even be cost effective but unless you are sending very few emails I’d suggest not. Whatever your views on costs it is very easy. However, if you’re already using Amazon’s AWS then there are other services that, with a little effort, might well be cheaper. These take advantage of the fact that you get a generous free sending limit with your account.

Sendy is one such service which does much of what Mailchimp does. It can send nicely formatted emails … Read the rest

Kablecard – The Swiss Army Utility Card for Charging on the go!

October 1, 2018 | Comment

Kickstarter has been a bit hit and miss for me but occasionally it does turn up a real gem and Kablecard is one of those.

I have to say that when I saw the video and spec list (multi-head charging! sim tool! kick stand! back light! memory storage! credit card sized!) it did seem a bit unbelievable and I wondered if it was a scam. But no, I did end up with one and it really can do all the things that it claimed.

Included inside a quite thin case is a main cable which is USB-C … Read the rest

Why I Dropped Edit for Notes on iOS

August 29, 2018 | Comment

So, this is me…

I wrote recently about dropping Drafts for the Edit app on iOS. In this post I said, and I quote:

Edit is a universal app (do we still use that phrase?) and the only feature I would like is sharing of text between the iPhone and the iPad otherwise I am set.

Of course there is already an app that does just that and what’s more it also syncs to the Mac as well. So what is this app? It’s Apple’s own Notes app of course!

I’m not sure why I missed this but, in … Read the rest

Let’s Play Spot the Difference

September 7, 2017 | Comment

Can you tell the difference between these two seemingly identical bills I received by email from Virgin Media?

I have to admit that initially I couldn’t. It was only when I saw the bill total of £498.52 and did a double take that I took a closer look. When you do that it becomes clear that:

my account details are missing
the email address, while valid, isn’t correct
when hovering over the View Bill button it wouldn’t have taken me to the Virgin Media website.

I consider myself to be pretty internet savvy but I was shocked at how well … Read the rest

Going Secure via Cloudflare (and a Warning)

August 15, 2017 | Comment

Forced to be Secure by Google

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that the site is now “secure”. Quite why a blog needs to be so I am not sure but Google is starting to insist on such things so I am in the process of converting all my sites to load via https.

To be honest it has been a bit of a trial, partly because this site runs on a WordPress multi-site installation and that has thrown up a few peculiarities. Anyway, the change from Google has forced me to look at all my sites and … Read the rest

Pebble Time vs Apple Watch

July 7, 2017 | Comment

As regular readers of this blog will know I am a huge fan of the Pebble smart watch. So it was a great disappointment when the the company collapsed and the assets were bought by Fitbit. Pebble did at least return the money that had been pledged on Kickstarter for the next generation and, due to currency fluctuations, I actually received marginally more back than I put in. However, that’s not much consolation for not getting what was looking like a great watch.

For a few months I persisted with the Pebble Time but as time went on it … Read the rest