2022-04-13 05:18
I don't know how it came up, but one day I was checking if www.uminaheights.com was available, and it was. Now that I registered it, what to do with it?I bring you Umina Heights, a services… Read More
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2021-06-02 22:39
I have been helping with the new web site for Peninsula Lighthouse. Peninsula Lighthouse operates in Ettalong NSW, and provides support services for families dealing with domestic violence.G… Read More
2020-11-30 01:07
So I am aware of this scam because I have heard it before, but not everyone has. If you are familiar with the scam you are less likely to be caught by it. Also the scammer's cost is their ti… Read More
2020-08-30 02:12
In theory Home Assistant's native support for Z-Wave is quite good. Plug and play.In practice, not quite.Start here of course: https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/z-wave/Note: Make sure you f… Read More
2020-08-30 01:57
I'm planning on connecting up the lighting in my flat to my home automation system. At my previous place I was renting, and I had normal BC bulbs, so smart bulbs was a good choice then.Now t… Read More
2020-04-25 02:00
This week someone kindly left a box of industrial sized toilet rolls in our building's foyer for people to take. The large size roll isn't going to fit in my bathroom, but maybe I can improv… Read More
2020-03-09 11:24
My bathroom only has one towel rail. That's fine when there is only one person living here, but a bit inconvenient when there are two.The company that makes the bathroom fittings do make a d… Read More
2019-04-21 00:02
This project was to use an ePaper display to display weather information in my lounge room. Really it was an experiment to see what you could do with ePaper, because the ePaper module was an… Read More
2019-04-10 11:33
Warning: Home appliances have high voltages inside. Danger. Don't attempt a project like this unless you know what you're doing, and take appropriate safety precautions.See also:WiFi control… Read More
2019-04-07 02:21
A word of warning: If you proceed with making this project yourself, you run the risk of electrocuting yourself and dying. Fan motors use high voltages inside. More than enough to give you a… Read More
2019-04-07 00:21
My quest (spoiler: ultimately successful) to smart-ify a pedestal or box fan.Spoiler: The finished productOverviewI have a Xiaomi smart socket that could turn my fan on or off at the wall, a… Read More
2018-02-24 03:15
A while ago I saw a 5m roll of RGBW LED strip lights at Aldi. The pack included the 5m of lights, along with a 12V power supply and an IR controller for effects.My reading online told me tha… Read More
2017-03-15 09:31
Here I show you how to make a simple button box that can be used to control lights, set scenes, or other automation things connected to your Home Assistant system. It works by detecting… Read More
2016-09-24 00:36
The need:At work we have WiFi everywhere. If you go to a meeting you take your laptop with you. If you go to do some work at someone else's desk on another floor, you take your laptop with y… Read More
2016-09-08 00:19
Thanks to the year 4/5/6 students at Petersham who made me this fantastic thankyou present: Read More
2016-05-15 00:18
I wanted to build a retro gaming system. Simple enough idea. I have a spare Raspberry Pi lying around, so why not install RetroPie on it?Again, simple enough, but of course games are not so… Read More
2016-05-15 00:18
In this section I connect up the front panel socket for the game controller to a USB plug, so that it can plug in to the Raspberry Pi USB port.For this I bought some USB plugs and some 4 con… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
I have been getting organised with online calendars.I asked some colleagues at work if any community organisations they were involved in used subscrib-able calendars. A number said yes, so I… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
Visiting Canberra on the weekend, the suggestion was made to hit some Geocaches. We haven't done Geocaching in ages, so why not? We hit City Gates, Bush BBQ and All Rounder Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
On Saturday night the Ebenezerling & I went to see PROJECT Trio play to a full house at The Con. These guys were amazing. I highly recommend going to see them live if you get the chance… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
Yesterday morning we attended a "demolition service" in the car park at Barneys. Yesterday was the 151st anniversary of the church opening. I don't think we have been on the site since just… Read More
2015-04-16 00:16
A quick series of photos on replacing tail lights on a Subaru Forester. (I told you this blog was random) This model is sold as MY02 in Australia, although it may be slightly different in ot… Read More
2015-01-13 07:55
Code update complete, and my Arduino weather station is reporting barometric pressure.In addition to this small update, it is now sending data to WOW (Weather Observations Website). WOW is a… Read More
2015-01-01 10:39
Above is a shot of my "weather station" with a Bosh BMP180 barometric pressure sensor attached. The pressure sensor was a Christmas present from my Dad (thanks Dad!), and will allow me to re… Read More
2014-12-28 01:20
I have been working on making a nice OO interface with interrupt callbacks to the popular DecodeOOK (on-off-keying) class for Arduino. This is used to receive wireless data from various weat… Read More
2014-11-22 22:05
This is a picture of the internet part of our weather station.After reading that it was possible to receive the signals sent by the wireless sensor for an Oregon Scientific weather station… Read More
2014-11-06 06:53
I love my OpenELEC media centre running on my Raspberry Pi, but lately I have been seeing a problem where the network does not connect when the device reboots. OpeneELEC is set to use DHCP… Read More
2014-09-14 05:59
JBlinky is a small night light project I designed for my son's birthday party sleepover. JBlinky has a light sensor and a temperature sensor. When it is dark, the NeoPixel strip lights up, w… Read More
2014-09-12 00:49
The NeoPixel strip and light sensors arrived today from Core Electronics Read More
2014-09-11 14:39
OK it is later in the evening than I would have liked, but all the parts are finished, the instruction booklet is written, the Arduinos are programmed, the containers have sensor holes drill… Read More
2014-09-10 20:38
Yesterday I discovered Fritzing. It is quite a useful tool for making an assembly diagram (along with a circuit diagram) Read More
2014-09-10 00:02
I modified the programming last night to make even small changes in temperature cause slight changes in colour. We had a lot of fun seeing what colour we could get from the freezer Read More
2014-09-08 11:12
"So Ben, what are you actually making?"The plan is to make a temperature and light sensitive blinky thing. You can see my assembled prototype above. When it gets dark the lights come on, and… Read More
2014-09-05 06:44
Thanks to Hokka Hokka in Westfield Sydney for helping out Read More
2014-09-03 12:29
First up is the NeoPixel strip. AdaFruit suggest a 1000uF capacitor across the power lines, and a 300-500 ohm resistor for the data line.The solder pads for the NeoPixel strip are pretty sma… Read More
2014-09-03 12:01
The order from Element14 is in! I am ready to start construction of the prototype.(I added some hookup wire of different colours, and some double sided tape.) Read More
2014-09-02 23:35
So, 3 batteries or 4? The neopixels specify 6V max, so 4xAA is a bit risky. Nominally AA cells are 1.5V, but new ones can be a little more. To be safe I used 3, and added a wire where… Read More
2014-09-01 10:42
The plan is to build "some kind of night light blinky thing" with 6 boys. So far the parts list includes:Arduino compatible microcontrollerLight sensorTemperature sensor4 x Adafruit NeoPixel… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Do you find yourself coping your church roster assignments into your electronic calendar each month? Wouldn't it be handy if you could just subscribe to a feed for your roster assignments so… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
A nice detour around Iron Cove on the way to work this morning Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
A nice sunny day for the August bank holiday! Today we wandered around Breakfast Point and found Village Green, Go Fish AGAIN!, and Cachefinders2's GZ. We looked hard, but didn't find Hunter… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
I haven't been for a while, but with some time to kill in Wollstonecraft I went looking for (and found) Rainbow Raspberry.I installed c:Geo on my Nexus 7. A great free app for Geocaching Read More
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