Yes, #ESP8266 Can Now Be Easy

Take an ESP-01 module + breadboard adapter + USB-to-Serial board = Fun!

The First #Microprocessor Chips and the F-14 Tomcat

Ray Holt developed one of the first microprocessor chip sets for Garrett AiResearch's Central Air Data Computer for use in the F-14 Tomcat from 1968 to 1970. This was classified information and was not made public until in the 90's. Check out the Bugbook Museum blog for the story!

Buying Your First Board

Looking to start a DIY electronics project? Interested in learning more about AVR microcontroller boards? I take a look at several different options for buying your first board.

First Look at the RedBoard

Are Credit Cards with a Chip Safer?

The new chip card readers are starting to show up in retails stores now. The assumption is that the credit card users are being better protected. But, how true is that?

First Look at the Raspberry Pi Zero

So, You Want to go #Freelance

I'm thinking about starting up a freelance anonymous support group locally. Maybe you're thinking about branching out and doing a side job too. Here's some reading on the topic to get some ideas flowing:

Freelancers Anonymous Support Group: Conquering Your Freelance Fears

8 Great LinkedIn Groups for Freelancers

29 Easy Ways That Freelancers Can Feel Less Lonely

How to Freelance Your Expertise

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Online Business

So, what really happened to #blogging

I just have to share this blog post put up a few months ago.  It perfectly sums up several things I've been thinking about in regards to the Internet in general and blogging specifically.

The Death of Blogging

(Spoiler: Tumblr killed it)

Happy First Birthday HTML5

It was October 2014 when the W3C approved the final recommendation for HTML5.  Now it's one of the most popular buzz words in 2015.  A quick Google search will turn up plenty of tutorials on how to better utilize the latest version of HTML.  I personal like the courses being offered on EdX - but there are plenty to choose from.  Happy coding!

My First #Windows10 #Review

Glancing back, I've posted a few things about Windows Vista. Haven't said much about Windows 7 (which was an awesome OS, still using it at work).  Now here comes Windows 10.

First impressions:
1) Takes an outrageous amount of time to upgrade 8.1 to 10 (both with access to high speed WiFi connection).  Tablet took around 4 hours.  Brand new laptop, only 10 minutes out of the box took most of 6 hours (and a dozen reboots, but I sort of quit counting).

2) Upgrade breaks stuff, even though both devices were OK's for an upgrade. On the tablet it took another 30 minutes to get the Mail, Start menu and desktop back to an usable state.  The laptop's touch pad stopped working and had to download a new drive from the Toshiba web site.

Not "deal breakers" but more an annoyance. I was reminded that the times involved were much better than previous Microsoft upgrade experiences (Win 3.1 to Win 95, Win 95 or 98 to Windows ME, etc). Point taken.

Internet Culture, Bullying and #DoNotFeedTheTrolls

It was not quite a year ago when I posted about the seemingly downward spiral that post-modern online culture is taking (Has Gamer Culture Gone Out of Control?) and linked to Why the Trolls Will Always Win on Wired.com.

Now, following a very controversial run as interim CEO of Reddit, Ellen Pao has published an opinion piece on the Washington Post: The trolls are winning the battle for the Internet

Perhaps the Internet is not the Great Equalizer (Business Week circa 1996), as earlier speculated, but rather anonymity has brought out the worse of humanity to the online world?

Mac G5 PowerPC Update

Here's the specs on this project:
Mac G5 Tower, Dual PowerPC 2.7 GHz, 4.5 GB RAM, original 250 GB HD (vintage late 2005). Purchase price was $100 + shipping. Not bad, all things considered. The case was in good shape with very little signs of wear and just a bit of cleaning up to do inside to chase out the 10 years of dust bunnies. Since extra SATA II hard drives are so inexpensive on eBay, went with a second drive for installing the new OS. 

After much consideration, decided to proceed with installing the latest stable release of Debian "Jessie" (see previous post of the distributions in the running). Downloaded the ISO, burned to a DVD-R and read through the installation guide on PPC Luddite for some tips. 

First item to note, the resulting DVD was not a "Live" disc like what's popular now.  Booting from the DVD went right to business going through the steps for installation. Since this was a blank hard drive, selected the options to use the entire partition. Another option was which display manager to use (opted for kdm), and selected the Debian default, KDE and MATE desktops, just to have some variety. Other choices was lightdm for the display manager and GNOME, Xfce and LXDE for desktops - plenty to read up on and consider at the Debian Desktop HowTo page.

Second note, you'll be prompted to set the root password and then create an user account.  Remember those passwords! The user account does not automatically belong to the "sudo" group, so that's one of your first tasks after the installation. Read up on that here.

The results? A pretty sweet, massively powerful and elegant system! Seems to be some issues with the sound over the built-in speaker that needs additional research. More comments to come soon!

Bring a Mac PowerPC Back to Life

It's hard to believe that well over 10 years has past since the Power Mac G5, touted by Apple as the fastest personal computer ever built, was the hottest desktop PC around. In it's prime, the Mac G5 tower sold for $2,500 - 3,000 new.

Now these beautiful works of computer art are selling on eBay for $100 - 200. And it's because nobody is producing new software that runs on the PowerPC platform.  Or is that entirely true?

Good things comes to those that wait ... so it's been said. I've recently acquired one for a tiny fraction of that. Doing a little research, it's entirely possible to run this beast with a nice selection of current operating systems:

Linux MintPPC

Debian for PowerPC

Lubuntu or Kubuntu (flavors of Ubuntu)

 So, we'll see how this goes. Might be a wonderful adventure or a disaster. Stay tuned!

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
― Benjamin Franklin

PS - I could always run the G5 with the last version of OS X that supported PPC, Leopard 10.5.6, but what fun would that be?

Linux Based PC for Under $100

On a budget? Need a basic workstation and prefer to use Linux/Open Source software? Want to have a planet-friendly alternative for computing?

SymplePC.com has introduced a re-manufactured workstation running Ubuntu Linux. See the press release for more details.