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 […] Read More
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 […] Read More
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 […] Read More
Upon joining the hyper-local social network "Nextdoor" - users are asked to verify their postal address. One option they offer is to have them send you a card in the post. So, I signed up, entered my address, and waited. A few days later, this popped through my letterbox. A few random thoughts... ✅ This […] Read More
I've been sent a 3D camera addon to review - the Svpro SV-2560X3D-001 is a £65 stereo camera designed for Android. It will also work with a Raspberry Pi! It looks a little like a Microsoft Kinect - a single bar with two embedded cameras. The camera resolution is 720p on each lens. You can […] Read More
Here's a very simple introduction to getting started with Tweepy - a Python program which lets you access Twitter. This will work on small computers like the Raspberry Pi. Everything here takes place in the Terminal on the Command Line. This should work on Windows and Mac - but I'm using Linux. Get Python Open […] Read More
I've been sent a couple of Sonoff smarthome gadgets. You can read my review of the S20 WiFi plug socket and the POW in line power controller. Here's a video of me controlling them from my Amazon Alexa: The latency seems a little slow - hard to tell if that's Amazon only relying on US […] Read More
I want to stop someone from following me on social media. In this case, it's not a stalker or harasser - just someone who's presence I don't need in my life. This could be worse - they could be a lot more malicious and I could be in a more vulnerable position. I am positively […] Read More
The good folks at Sonoff have sent me a bunch of kit to review. See my previous review of the S20 WiFi plug. This is the Sonoff Pow - a WiFi enabled in-line power switch. Set Up Wiring up the Pow is relatively easy. The cover to the terminal block is secured with a simple […] Read More
In the last couple of months, I've been seeing the ú symbol on British receipts. Why? 1963 - ASCII In the beginning* was ASCII. A standard way for computers to exchange text. ASCII was originally designed with 7 bits - that means 128 possible symbols. That ought to be enough for everyone, right? Wrong! ASCII […] Read More