Let’s stick with the past, ‘cos the future won’t last…
As a sequel to my earlier post Obtaining high resolution displays for Linux guests in Hyper-V, which focussed on Linux Mint (specifically Cinnamon), I then tried Elementary OS, which has a much nicer macOS-like feel than Mint (I mostly use XFCE, rather than Cinnamon). I accept the warnings given during the Elementary OS installation that some [ ]
There s an antenna system that s very popular via AliExpress it features a short ground spike with M10 thread, short red cylindrical adapter with an SO-239 and two M10 threads, and a 5.5m telescopic whip with M10 thread. Just search for red vertical hf antenna , and you ll find something like https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008970184546.html which has the [ ]
Due to corporate policy, I have to use Windows 11 as my desktop operating system. I develop Linux software for deployment in AWS, so I use Linux Mint 22.3 in a Hyper-V VM. One problem with Hyper-V is that it s not obvious how to set your VM to run with very high resolution displays. There [ ]
Happy new year and all that! I previously reported that I d got the GPIO-based asynchronous links working on the Raspberry Pi Pico, and that they were not driven by PIO, and so were very slow. I had hoped to get a release of this code out by the winter solstice 2025, but another of the [ ]
It has been a while since I ve done any work on Parachute, my project to build a portable, open source, cross-platform Transputer emulator, toolchain etc. Recently I ve been working on digital signal processing on the Raspberry Pi Pico, and having got to a convenient context-switching point on that, decided to go back to Parachute, and [ ]
If I had to choose a set of things to recommend that would improve your use of computers by an order of magnitude, I d pick the Colemak layout, Logitech ergonomic trackball keyboard, test-driven-development (if you re an engineer), and Linux Mint XFCE. As the late Jerry Pournelle would say: Recommended . However, of late, I ve been [ ]
Note: This post is a work in progress (early May 2025). I haven t yet finalised the build of this antenna. I built a Meshtastic node around a Heltec T114, zerofox3d s FLEXO case, LiPo battery and a Paradar 868MHz short vertical antenna. Testing with my pocket H1-cased LoRa32 v3 node and a stubby antenna, it works [ ]
I ve recently been searching for a good framework with which to write integration / system tests in Rust. The built-in testing facility gets points for being there, but doesn t really help it s fine for unit tests. For integration tests, I need a setup_all function to bring the underlying system up, a setup_each function that [ ]
I m moving one development system from an ageing MacBook Pro to a Lenovo T14s running Windows 11. Windows 11 as in VirtualBox Linux Launcher . I tried several modern desktop Linux systems, and settled on Linux Mint, XFCE4 version. It d be Ubuntu, but GNOME is quite heavyweight for a desktop. XFCE4 is nice and light, customisable, [ ]
Intro from Jan 2023 This post was first drafted in March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic started. At that time I was developing the Parachute emulator and toolchain during my commute to and from work. Working from home changed this regular development opportunity, and I put the project on hold, while I got up to [ ]