Keep the bottles of ink well away from the users…
These things are quite fun. They are little rollers which print out sums when rolled down the page. Each roller is in two halves which can be adjusted so that the sums are different. Great for a little someone who just happens to like doing maths. Search for “Roller Teaching Stamp” if you want some.
Just don’t touch the rollers to check whether or they have ink on. They have.
It does take up quite a bit of space though…
I’ve had my eye out for a new printer ever since I discovered the price of buying new cartridges for my current printer. Last week I noticed that a Brother one I was interested in had dropped in price to something I could afford. So I took the plunge. It’s a BROTHER MFC-J6540DW and it is all A3, which means that it can print (and scan) pictures twice as large as your average A4 device. I really like this. If you are making signs and things, and printing for display, there’s nothing quite like a bit of extra size.
It is quite big and heavy and no fun to carry upstairs. But the print quality is nice and it was easy to set up (although there was one bit after installation where it wanted to know it’s password and this turned out to be written on the back so I had to get it out again so I could look which was a bit of a pain).
The printer uses little containers of liquid ink and comes with enough to do a few prints. They also do an ink subscription thingy but its not obligatory, which is just as well.
These are great fun
Chibli Lights Cards. What better way to keep a grandchild and an uncle busy on Christmas Eve.
You’ll never guess where I bought this
The good news is that my Agile Octopus Tariff Display (which tells us how much electricity will cost us each day) handled the clock change yesterday with aplomb. It just worked. The bad news is that one of my clocks can’t be adjusted because the little knob that you turn to move the hands has broken. So I’ve taken the battery out for an hour.
In March next year I’ll have to take the battery out for 11 hours. Perhaps I should make a “time corrector” device. You plug it into the clock in place of the battery, tell the “time corrector” the time the clock is showing and over the next day it makes the clock correct.
You can interact with the pet by tapping the moving leds. A bit scary but it seems strong enough.
One of the many nice things about having kids around for a while is that you get to look at their toys. For example there’s the Bitzee digital pet. It comes in a little case like a ring-box and when you open it you see a little vibrating bar which has OLEDs on the end. These use persistence of vision to display your little pets. The picture above was the best I could get after several attempts. It has slightly cut off the head of the little bird.
You get to feed and clean up after your pets. There are also some simple mini-games and you can attract new pets over time. I really like the display - it’s much more interesting than a panel and the different animals have distinct personalities. It doesn’t look like it will take over your life either, as when you’ve done playing with it you just close the box and everything stops. It’s a bit pricey but I think it is worth it given the display.
I’ve not tried dialing the number. I don’t think it would work
Another retro purchase today. I saw this phone calling me from a shop window in Beverley. I just couldn’t resist it, what with it being in good condition. And red. It’s been suggested that I might like to make it into a Batphone, but instead I’m going to pop a Raspberry Pi into it and try to turn it into some kind of personal assistant. You select the options you want by using the dial. I’d also like to use the telephone bell for an alarm signal. This will be a bit tricky as these are usually powered by 50 volts, but I’m going to take a look at inverter technology to see how I can make it work.
Great fun.
I’ve forgotten how to turn it into a proper calculator…
While I was clearing a path for the plumber in our untidy garage I came across the above. I used to keep it in my office at work, in case anyone ever asked if I had a calculator they could borrow. It looks completely normal until you try to use it to do sums, at which point it displays one of a range of different insults. Snag is that in the days of spreadsheets and smartphones nobody ever asked to use it..
I’ve not maanged to make thie elephant yet, but I plan to Try
This is a nice little puzzle game courtesy of number one grand-daughter that you can pick up here. It’s a meter or so long and is made up of sixty little wedges which are all connected together in a line. The wedges can be rotated 90 degrees and you can fold sections back into themselves to make interesting shapes.
The connection between the wedges seems pretty strong, although the first one I got was in several pieces when I opened the pack, so you might need to be a bit careful. Well worth the price (especially now it’s reduced).
The picture looks even better in the flesh. For some reason a photograph doesn’t do it justice.
I’ve been playing around with thermal printers and using them to print pictures. One piece of strong advice that I have for anyone else doing this is to get some proper thermal paper. While you can use cheap stuff purchased from stationers, you will get much better results with higher quality stuff. I’m using refills for the wonderful Kidizoom print cam. These aren’t massively expensive and they last a while. Plus you can print sticky labels too.
The Little Red Geo that I ordered over the weekend arrived today. It’s lovely. It is just like a Surface Go, but a ton cheaper. It has the same processor as the ultra cheap laptop I got last year, but this time it is paired with a 128G proper hard disk. Yes it is a bit slow sometimes. But the internal disk is now faster, which improves things quite a bit. It has a really nice little screen (although the bezels are a bit big) and the keyboard and pen complete the package nicely.
The only real pain I had was with the Windows 11 installation. When I reached the point where I set the access PIN the dialog was hidden behind another part of the screen and I couldn’t get to it. I could see it using ALT-TAB but not actually get to enter anything. Super frustrating. I rebooted a few times, got stuck at the same point and eventually it let me past that bit. The tablet does have a fingerprint sensor too which I laboriously set up the first time the process got stuck, but skipped past during the retries.
I’ve loaded it up with all the software I’ll need and there seems to be plenty of disk space left over at the moment. Battery life seems to be showing four or five hours, which for a small tablet is not too bad. At the price it represents incredible value. If you want a bit more power they do a Pentium Silver (whatever that means) powered version for another fifty quid. But I’d save my cash and make do with this. I can use it for all my travelling duties. It has a micro HDMI video out plus USB C. I’ve popped a 512G micro SD card in the slot for any large scale storage duties. The kickstand works very well, as does the pen. The keyboard is tiny, but all the keys are there and they are OK to type on. The trackpad is a bit small, but then so is the computer itself. I’ve just paired a Bluetooth mouse which works fine. If you are looking for a super cheap portable solution you should take a look at this.
I took quite a few pictures with the Mint RF70 camera over Christmas. Most of them came out, which I was very pleased about. However, I’ve noticed another “foible” the camera has. It eats batteries. If you leave it switched off in a camera bag for a couple of weeks, when you go to use it there is a good chance its batteries will be flat. This is a bit of a pain, and rather expensive.
I wondered about using rechargeable batteries and then I ran up against another “foible”. The RF70 is very fussy about the batteries you feed it. I tried some conventional rechargeable cells and the camera didn’t even switch on. I think this is down to the design decision to only use two batteries to power it. Most cameras of this type use four which can provide twice as much power. Sometimes when you turn on the flash the batteries give up before the flash has charged, resulting in no flash and a wasted picture. And the picture ejection process sometimes sounds like the camera is about to give up the ghost. You have to make sure that the batteries you get are up to the task.
I think I’ve found a solution though. There are now people making rechargeable AA batteries based on Lithium cells. These provide a proper 1.5 volt output and they can produce up to three amps of power. They need a special charger but I figured that rechargeable batteries that can generate 1.5 volts were a good idea for other projects so I got some. They work very well. The flash fires every time and the picture ejection process sounds almost sprightly. I’m not sure how long they will last in the camera but I’ve had a set in there for a week and all is well so far. Worth a look if you want long-lasting, high power AA cells you can recharge.
This looks fun. It’s a combination vinyl record player (that’s the arm on the right) and record cutter (that’s the arm on the left). It can cut five-inch disks that last three minutes at high speed (45rpm) and four minutes at low speed (33rpm). You feed it audio input via a line-in connection and it cuts a groove in a blank disk that you can then play back on any record player. It’s not a Teenage Engineering design. Search ebay for “record cutting toy” and you’ll find the same thing in a different box.
The sound quality will be horrible, but every recording will be unique and perhaps great fun. I suppose you can think of it as the audio equivalent of the instant pictures that I like playing with, but I’m not going to be getting one unless I become silly rich. And anyway, they seem to have sold out…
This was the kit. The tweezers were very useful.
Today we got around to actually using my little oven. I’d bought a syringe with solder paste, some tweezers, a bunch of switches and a bunch of leds to solder in place. First step was to solder put solder paste on all the connection pads. This involved squirting the paste out of the syringe onto the board, and then using the tweezers to place a component on each pad. Pro-tip, hold the syringe like you were going to stab someone with it, and then use your thumb to force out the solder. There’s a delay between you pressing the plunger and the solder coming out, so give a quick pulse of a squeeze and then wait for something to arrive at the end of the needle. If you squeeze continuously you get a stream of solder, and you don’t want that.
I was a bit stingy with my solder paste, which meant that I never got the magical “surface tension” moment where the components swing into place. Instead mine drifted around a bit.
I also got a temperature gun to check the temperature of the oven plate, but this didn’t work well because the cover is shiny. In the end we just set the temperature to 170 degrees and popped the board on for 20 seconds. Stuff melted, but there was a pleasing lack of smoke and funny smells.
This is what it looked like when it was finished…
The image above might not be correct. Actually it looked pretty tidy and all the components were stuck on the board. Next step is to solder the PICO on the reverse of the board and then test everything.
Hot news (see what I did there?). My oven has arrived. It is very tidy. I’ve checked that all the exposed metal is earthed and it is. Not got time to turn it on just yet. Looking forward to trying though.
A while back I bought a super-cheap laptop, just to see what you can get for 59 quid. It turns out that it runs Windows 11 - its the only machine I’ve got that can. I’ve been using it to make Windows 11 screenshots. Anyhoo, long story short, the laptop got left on a chair and I sat on it. The first thought was that I wondered why the chair was suddenly so uncomfortable. Then I heard the tiniest of creaks and I realised what I’d done.
The laptop was absolutely fine though. I’m really impressed. I’m not planning on sitting on it again, but it is nice to know that it can handle things like this. It’s still on sale too. You can find it here.
Now with added sticker
For the last few days, I’ve been living in a tent and doing all my work on a laptop that I bought for 80 pounds (that’s around 100 dollars). I’ve developed code, written documents, captured video, opened lots of browser tabs and given the odd presentation. The machine I’ve been using is a GeoBook 140. It is not what you would call highly specified. It has an Intel Celeron N3350 processor, 4Gb of RAM and 64Gb of mass storage. It chugs a bit. And yet it gets there in the end. It has run everything I want faultlessly.
It has a couple of USB A sockets and a single USB C. It also has HDMI and audio outputs along with a micro-SD slot. The keyboard is clunky and not back lit, but I can type quickly on it and it is a good size with all the keys I need. The screen is low resolution (but very bright) and the track pad is not great (although I much prefer an external Bluetooth mouse anyway). It runs Windows 10 very well indeed though (although it may never run Windows 11).
I can even run KiCad
I can open Visual Studio Code, Word, PowerPoint, OBS, Thonny, GitHub desktop, PureData and all the other bits and bobs I need to get things done. The paltry storage space doesn’t bother me because I use OneDrive to give me the illusion of all my files at my fingertips. I’m getting at least five hours of battery life. I don’t know how long the battery really lasts because I’ve not managed to run it flat yet. I wouldn’t be thrilled if someone said that it was now my primary device, but I’d still be able to do stuff.
I’ve got a MacBook Air which I think is lovely. And I use it every now and then. But I’d never take it away to use in a tent. I’d be scared that it might get dropped, scratched, or wet. And it wouldn’t be as useful to me as the GeoBook. I’m afraid that MacBook to me is a bit like a Ferrari. I take it out for a spin every now and then to do fancy things. The GeoBook is more of a Ford Focus. I use it to get things done. I like it a lot, especially in the Minecraft Blue colour. I’d be a bit upset if it got broken. But I’d also only be 80 quid out of pocket. For the price of my MacBook I could buy more than ten “blue wonders”.
The amount of productivity you get for your money is amazing. If you’ve not got a laptop it represents amazing value. You can pick one up from xsonly. They have a bunch of different ones. I recommend the N3350 based ones as they have four core processors. Well worth a look.
The world is a crazy place. On one side the price of everything is going up. On another you can get a workable Windows laptop for less than 80 pounds. It runs Windows 10 quite handily. I bought one earlier this month. It was originally sold as a “Minecraft machine” and came with a copy of Minecraft and a years subscription to Microsoft Office 365. If you want to buy that flavour for the bargain price of 159 pounds you can get it from Smyths toyshop here. If you can do without Minecraft or Office you can pick it up for the amazing figure of 80 pounds from here.
There are not new machines, they are “reconditioned”. I bought one as a first computer for number one granddaughter and I must admit I was tempted to hang onto it because it is so darned nice. With 4G of memory it runs Windows 10 quite speedily on its quad core Celeron N3450. The biggest weakness is the hard drive. It uses a 64G SD card as the main storage so you won’t have space to load a lot of stuff with only 28G available for your files. However, there is micro-SD slot if you want more storage and a couple of USB slots for connectivity.
If you are after a “disposable” machine that you wouldn’t mind if you dropped in the bath or left on the bus this would be perfect. I even like the Minecraft green colour of the case (it is also available in Minecraft blue) which I think will endear it to the intended user. It arrived speedily with Windows 10S pre-installed. If you look carefully you can tell it has been used a bit, but everything works just fine. The screen is bright but lacks a bit of contrast. The battery life is not great, but workable.
The only snag that I can see is that the processor in the Minecraft laptop I received is the Intel N3450 which doesn’t appear on the list of Windows 11 compatible processors and Windows Upgrade says that it can’t be upgraded to Windows 11. This is where things get a tiny bit confusing, the page for the Minecraft Geobook 140 on the Smyths site states that a Windows 11 upgrade is possible. This is because there are two versions of the Geobook 140 in circulation. One uses the Intel N3450 and the other uses the Intel N4020 (which is Windows 11 compatible). For my purposes Windows 10 is fine, so this is fine with me.
The amazing news is that the N4020 version of the Geobook 140 is available for even less money here. You can get it for only 70 pounds. In fact I’ve just bought one to take to emf.
I found this on Clive Maxfield’s blog. I’ve sworn off new gadgets for Lent (no - really) otherwise I’d be rather tempted.
Our replacement fridge arrived today. Kudos to Currys for being able to deliver it so quickly and big thanks to the two chaps that were able to get it into position in the kitchen with a minimum of fuss. The new fridge has coloured lights inside. I’ve always been a sucker for coloured lights, even in fridges. The lights change colour to mimic the day-night cycle that our lettuce was experiencing before it was pulled from the ground, wrapped in plastic, shipped across the country and dropped into the salad drawer. The technology is called Harvest Fresh and apparently it preserves freshness and vitamins for up to five days or so. No, I’m not convinced by this either, but the fridge is nice enough. And the door is very firmly attached.
Travel the world with ring….
I installed our first burglar alarm a very long time ago. It was the morning after we woke up in the night and went downstairs to find the front door standing wide open. The fact that we were due to head off on holiday that afternoon made it even more exciting. I went down to the local DIY warehouse first thing to pick up a box of bits and a large bell box to go on the front of the house. That alarm worked well until one day it got bored with alarm duties and decided that it really wanted to be a beatbox and filled the hall with clicks and beeps.
The one that replaced it that also performed its duties well, although recently it has been forgetting the time of day and the backup battery inside must be well past its best. So I’ve just fitted alarm system number 3. I bought it in the Amazon Black Friday sales. It was very well reduced. In fact, if I think about it every alarm that I’ve bought has been cheaper than the previous one. In a hundred years or so they will be paying me to take them away. Of course, Amazon is not looking to make a profit on the sale of the hardware. That is so last-century. What it really wants is the 8 pounds a month I will probably end up paying for the monitoring service.
The alarm was very easy to install. The sensors in the basic kit were already connected to the alarm box, the additional ones just needed to have their QR codes scanned to introduce them to the system. I didn’t have to run a power supply to the keypad that goes in the hall. That will run off batteries for a good length of time. You can put the alarm box anywhere you like and you can also wire it directly to your network rather connect over WiFi. There is also a backup mobile phone in the alarm box in case your home falls of the internets.
It is much easier to configure than my earlier alarms were. Rather than making you think about setting up “zones” you just have three modes. Alarm off, alarm on when you’re at home (for example at night) and alarm on when you are out. The modes can be set on a schedule or based on your location. And of course you can configure and manage everything from your phone.
I’m impressed. Although I’m not sure I’ll bother with the stickers.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
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