Posts Tagged ‘andysworld’

What’s in your Man Bag?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

After a few folk on-site recently have been laughing at my “hand bag”. I keep telling them it’s a man bag which I keep my notebook in and a few other things! I’m always complaining to Lindsey about not being able to find her keys in her many bags that she uses, it’s prompted me to take a photograph of the items in my man bag!

Contents of my man bag!

Contents of my man bag!

Contents Include:-

  • Sony Vaio T1XP Mini Notebook and Sony Vaio Case.
  • Sony Vaio T1XP charger and mains cable.
  • Tom Tom GO 520 in hard case.
  • SanDisk cruzer mini 1GB flash drives (2).
  • SanDisk cruzer micro clear body 4GB flash drives (2).
  • SanDisk cruzer micro 4GB flash drive (encrypted) (1).
  • hp 4GB flash drive (encrypted).
  • Corsair Survivor GT 64GB flash drive (encrypted) (including chain and dog tag!).
  • 3 3G MF627 USB Modem with 4GB micro SD card inserted. (encrypted).
  • Cisco Aironet 350 AIR-LMC350 (patched 200mW) PCMCIA card.
  • Cisco Aironet 802.11a/b/g PCMCIA Wireless Adaptor.
  • Linksys Dual-Band Wireless 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g WPC55AG PCMCIA card.
  • Orinoco 802.11b PCMCIA GOLD Card.
  • Senoa special PCMCIA card!
  • N-type to Wireless LAN card pigtails, various types (3).
  • Canon Ixus IS 850 Digital Camera including case.
  • Flash card case including compact flash, SD, Micro SD, Mini SD, Memory Stick, Memory Pro cards.
  • HP Smart Start CD ROMs and ESXi flash modules.
  • Carrying case full of technical CD ROMs.

I’ll not complain the next time Lindsey has difficulty finding her keys!

That’s alot of tech!

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Wireless (WiFi) Remote Control of X10 Modules using USB Remote Access

Sunday, December 20th, 2009
  1. The Active Home Pro software is installed on/in a virtual Windows XP Professional computer, I don’t like cluttering up my main production Workstation which happens to be Vista 64-bit Ultimate.
  2. The CM15PRO Programmable Computer Interface is connected by USB to this computer. The Active Home Pro software is the software that drives the computer interface, I’ve saved the “house file” house.ahx on my NAS (network attached storage) device, so it can be easily shared on my network.
  3. This is the clever Tech bit, USB over Network by Fabula Tech, I’ve been using this software in the virtual work I do for a few years, and it allows you to share a USB device over your network, e.g. you can plug in you USB device on one computer, and connect to it on another via your network. Very handy… USB remote access!
  4. The USB over Network by Fabula Tech is installed on the computer connected to the CM15PRO Programmable Computer Interface. We will call this the server.
USB over network

USB over network

The above snapshot, shows the USB over Network server software running, and the current USB devices attached to the server, which can then be shared, just like any resource, disk, printer etc.

USB over network device shared waiting for connection

USB over network device shared waiting for connection

The device is shared, and is waiting for a client computer to connect to it.

USB device properties

USB device properties

You can give the devices meaningful friendly names, that you’ll remember. On the client computer (remote computer), install another copy of Active Home Pro, making sure the drivers are installed for the CM15Pro. Run the USB over Network client software.

USB over Network client setup

USB over Network client setup

Select USB Device, Add, browser for the computer or enter IP address. You should see, a list of devices that can be connected to.

Client connecting...

Client connecting...

Right click the device, and click connect, if this is the first time you’ve connected to the device, you’ll get the usual, bing-bong tones, and plug N play will start and register the drives.

Now you can use your ActiveHome Pro software on another wireless (WiFi) computer, just open the *.AHX home file, from a shared location.

Client Connected to device

Client Connected to device

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Happy Halloween from andysworld!

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Let the pumpkin masacre begin…

and as is customary in andysworld!

here are my carved pumpkins for 2009! (keeps those evil spirits away!)

pumpkin2009-3

pumpkin2009-1

pumpkin2009-2

and a Big Happy 60th Birthday to that witch – my Mum!

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All change!

Monday, May 25th, 2009
Two 48 inch replacement tanks for the fish house
Two 48 inch replacement tanks for the fish house

I’ve not blogged anything about the fish house in a while, because nothing really exciting has happend, and I didn’t think you be interested in feeding the fish, or bi-weekly partial water changes. To conserve electricity, I shut down six small fish tanks in December 2008 (18inch x 10inch x 10inch, and smaller), they were used as quarantine, and for smaller fish, but more recently I’d increased the fish house, by six tanks, so these weren’t really used a great deal. These four fish tanks, were the first four that started the fish house in 2004. Time for a change.

I’ve had three four foot fish tanks in storage since the fish house move of July 2006. One four foot tank would replace these four nicely!

I’ve cleaned, soak tested it for leaks, and painted the sides white with some spare matt emulsion. It’s not the tidest of fish tanks, but it holds water, ideal for the fish house.

Before - fish tanks that will be replaced
Before – fish tanks that will be replaced

These are the four dirty fish tanks in the fish hosue that will be replaced by one single 48x15x12 fish tank. I just noticed that one of the tanks, has a successfuly breeding colony of snails. Most of the time, I’m trying to get rid of these with Clown andCandy loaches, and have successfully removed all snails from the fish house. I’ll keep these in another small tank, so I can rear them for live food for the loaches. (I’ll regret it later, I’m sure).

After - removed!
After – removed! Fish tanks removed.

wires, and new polysterene required, and a bit of tidy up required before I site the replacement fish tank. That’s another day.

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Windows 7 Release Candidate

Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Well here is its, Windows 7 Release Candidate, the final version of Windows 7 which may be released in August 2009.
Windows 7 x64 edition

Windows 7 x64 edition

I’ve just taken some time out to download the 3GB download, and install this 64-bit Release Candidate to have a look.

I’m still a fan of Windows 2000 Professional, although a bit old these days, and have resisted the temptation to move/upgrade to Vista, apart from on my gaming rig because I needed DirectX 10 for the games.

Windows 7 x64 Edition Scene Theme

Windows 7 x64 Edition Scene Theme

Quite a few other colourful themes as well.  For oldies like me that like the “classic theme”, the Windows Classic Theme is still present! After 10 minutes of fiddling, here’s my desktop!

Windows 7 x64 Classic Theme

Windows 7 x64 Classic Theme

  Would I upgrade, not at present.  But Nice picture of a Male Siamese Fighter though!

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Sunday afternoon Goldfinches

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

I’ve just quickly dashed out into the garden in my slippers, with camera and zoom lens, balanced on the rotten wooden fence and got off a few shots…

Sunday Goldfinches!

Sunday Goldfinches!

The problem with the Goldfinches, they always show, when I’m not in the garden! I’m hoping to get much better shots, but I cannot play at present, because I’ve been given my orders to wash-up and tidy the kitchen! But I’ve got a few gadgets to try and get better shots!

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Our House imported posts from legacy blog

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

I’ve now imported all the posts from the old Our House blog. I’ve still got to convert the posts with photos and internet links in before they get published here. I think I’ve decided to take the plunge, and no longer update the old legacy blogs, and new posts will appear on this new blog, in the various categories, sections or topics. It will make things easier for posting, and make easier reading. To keep the timeline correct, they’ve all been tagged as category house, but I’ve also tagged them in other relevant categories. So over the coming weeks, you’ll see more of the older posts appearing, once they’ve been duly converted (provided WordPress and the hosting holds out!)

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Real-Time Energy Usage on Blog

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Real-time energy usage readout of electricity used in our house is now available for all to see. Average consumption is approx 3000 watts (3kW). If it increases to approx 6000 watts (6kW) then someone in the household has put the kettle or cooker on for tea! Between the hours of 12.30 – 7.30 GMT Economy 7 starts and in the winter the storage heaters turn on, so expect some high wattage readings between these hours.

Just refresh the web-page to see it change.

I blogged about this here.

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Real-Time Energy Usage on Twitter

Monday, March 30th, 2009

I blogged about my gadget Wattson,[here] if you missed it.

Well with some super software from Crispin called Powometer over at myenergyusage.org, I can now link my Wattson to the Internet and update twitter on my energy usage!

UPDATE 2nd April 2009 Crispin has done some work that now allows me to show you all LIVE power usage in watts!

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Hawthorn hedging

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

I’ll just tell it how it is, after the local council sprayed around the village notice board, the exact same width of hedge behind the notice board died!

After some discussions, ERYC sent me some free plants. Many Thanks to ERYC.

So, I decided to also order 50 x 110-125cm Hawthorn bareroot hedging plants, canes and spirals to patch the holes that have appeared in our old hedge that surrounds the front garden. They were ordered from Scot Plant Direct in Scotland, as they were very competitively priced, arrived the next day in great condition, and been living in moist compost since. But I must plant them out soon.

Hawthorn No.1
110-125cm Hawthorn bareroot hedging plants

Hawthorn No.2 from ERYC
Hawthorn bareroot hedging plants from ERYC

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