The good folk at Ailipu Technology have sent me a fist-sized USB camera to review. This is a cheap and simple way to get external video into a home server like a Raspberry Pi. This is the, slightly cumbersomely named, elp-usb100w05mt-dl36. What's in the box? The USB cable is around 5 metres long, and is wired into the camera. Four screws and rawlplugs are also included. Why? Because there…
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I've just bought an LG 360 - at £150, it's one of the cheapest dual lens cameras on the market. This an excellent bit of kit. Easy to use, impressive results, and an app which works pretty well. A single click button to take photos and videos, recording audio in surround sound, and perfect for uploading to Facebook or YouTube. Unlike most of the kit I review, I paid for this myself. I have no …
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Here's how to solve a common WordPress problem. I want to re-import all my blog's images into the media library. I've moved my blog to a new host - but kept the same domain name. I started with a new WordPress install, the uploads folder still has all my images, but WordPress can't see them. None of the plugins I found worked with huge amounts of images spread across multiple directories. One …
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The good folks at Ntonpower have sent me this utterly ridiculous, and fantastically over-powered USB charger. It has ten frickin' ports each one capable of delivering 2.4 amps. So, what's it like? Straight up, it looks like a plastic toast rack. It's a chunky beast, but surprisingly lightweight. You won't have trouble lifting it, but it stays firmly in place. Round the other side are 10 USB …
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This is a sketch of a proposal for a new HTML element to simplify displaying maps on a website. I'd like your comments and criticisms before I submit it. This is born out of my frustration of using different JavaScript mapping solutions - my phone has a mapping app, why do I need to share my location with a website and their mapping provider? At the moment, if I want to use Google Maps, or…
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It is impossible to contact large companies to report a bug in their software. So I'm reduced to writing snarky blog posts about it in the vague hope that a Social Media Manager will see the issue and raise it with the appropriate team. Welcome to 2017! Google Pay now supports American Express cards in the UK. Hurrah! But if you try to ring Amex from within the app - a problem occurs. Can you…
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The good folk at Sonoff have sent me yet another gadget to review. This is a slightly curious device - an IP to 433MHz remote. This allows a smartphone to control smarthome gadgets which usually require an RF remote control. It costs £8 plus postage direct from Itead. This is similar to an Infrared device I reviewed a few years ago. It's a cute little box, small and light enough to hide away …
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This is part of my redecentralisation efforts to liberate my videos from YouTube. MPEG-DASH is a simple method of streaming videos which doesn't require any specialised server software. You convert a high resolution video into a series of smaller resolution videos. You chop each of the videos up into several chunks. As the video plays, your browser then decides which chunk of the video to load…
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Bin day is the most magical time of the week! Children of all ages cry "Which bins is it?! Oh! Which bins?" Is today recycling day? Or green waste day? Or humble landfill day? Should my food caddy go out? Gosh! Who can keep track? I mean, obviously I could look at my calendar. Or sign up for free SMS alert. Or use push notifications in their app. But where's the fun in that? "Alexa..." …
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You can now get the UK's flood forecast as part of your Flash Briefing on Amazon's Alexa. I've tried previously to create an interactive Alexa skill - it did not go well. This time, I thought I'd create an easier skill - a Flash Briefing. You ask Alexa for your daily news report and it reads out items that you've configured - news, weather, traffic, that sort of thing. For a basic…
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Play with the demo I was lucky enough to go to Number 10 Downing Street for a meeting a few weeks ago. A perfect opportunity for a photo of me by that famous door. Being the vain man that I am, I wanted to set it as my avatar photo. But Twitter and other social networks now use circular avatars. The "10" has been obliterated and part of my head is missing. So I've created a quick way to …
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I don't think the people who sent me this touchscreen are going to be very happy with this review. But that's the peril of asking bloggers to assess your kit, isn't it? The good folks at Sonoff have sent me a review unit of their "7.0" Nextion Enhanced HMI Capacitive Touch Display with Enclosure". A USB powered touchscreen - with a range of hackable goodies. It's a device which sadly fails…
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