You know what, I was kind of busy last week with my OCC project, and I was also building a website for a friend who is opening her own doctor's office, and so I completely forgot that my blog turned three years old last Thursday! Well I actually didn't completely forget, but I was convinced that the date of my first...

This past week I've been writing a lot, first the Walkman post and then my IR sensor project. I've gotten some really nice feedback on both; the Walkman post in particular seems to have resonated with a lot of people, which is interesting. I wasn't even sure if writing a post about it was worth it because it was...

Since the coding part is now done, I decided to solder the Arduino and IR sensor on a bit of perfboard, and then put it in a case. I don't have a case though; but what I do have is a 3D printer, so I'm going to try my hands at designing one. This was interesting because I've never really designed anything before....

Now that the IR receiver is working and I can receive key presses from the remote on the Arduino, it's time to think about sending them to the PC somehow. The remote I'm planning to use is the small Apple remote that came with old Macbooks. It has five buttons for Play/Pause, Vol +, Vol -, Next Track, Previous Track...

Okay, enough theory. Time to actually start implementing. First step is to download the latest version of the Arduino IDE, which is currently 2.3.10. I've worked with version 1 before so I think I'll get by, but there are also a number of tutorials available to get you up to speed. The Arduino IDE The Arduino IDE...

Yesterday I announced that I'm planning to build a USB-IR receiver for my media centre. Let's look in a bit more detail at what I'm trying to do here. I have three components: An infrared receiver An Arduino A remote Infrared receiver, Arduino clone, Apple remote I want to connect the infrared receiver to the...

It's that time of the year again. For the past three years I participated in the old computer challenge every year, and I always had a lot of fun, so I wanted to do something this year, too. The topic for this year isn't strictly about old computers, but rather about making something yourself, to combat the...

It keeps happening. I can't control it. Sometimes, I feel nostalgic for some old piece of tech, and before I know what's happening, I'm already browsing eBay looking for one. That's how I ended up with an old Thinkpad from 2004 recently. And now it happened again, and so I'm now the proud owner of a Sony Cassette...

I recently had a "phone support" call with my parents, where they needed help with their computers and smartphones and the internet router. They regularly ask me for help, because they're completely overwhelmed and out of their depth when it comes to modern technology, and it makes me sad to see how much they...

It's July again! Soon, anyway. And this means two things: Heat waves (hate it) and computer shenanigans thanks to the Old Computer Challenge (love it). This is what I started this blog with three years ago, and I've participated every year since. Last year the community was a bit meh, and for a while it looked like...

I recently discovered that Bubbles offers the option to embed a widget on your website, to show how often your post has been upvoted and also to nudge people to go upvote in the first place. I'm not sure if I really want this on my blog and if it really has any kind of benefit... The idea behind it of course is to...

This week, the new Commodore under CEO Peri Fractic (actor turned Youtuber Christian Simpson) announced the release of their latest product, a flip phone they called the Callback. And people online went nuts. Some love it, but most seem to hate it and the feedback has been overwhelmingly (very) negative. I have some...