So, ordered a T-Deck Plus a while ago, it arrived, I excitedly played with it, then decided to install an external antenna for better reception. I watched a couple of YouTube videos, carefully prised it apart, long story short somehow manage to snap off the centre pin of the IPX/U.FL antenna connector on the board… What is most surprising and frustrating is that I’m no noob with these connectors - I have run my own Mac/PC repair store for over 17 years at this point, and I’ve connected and disconnected these innumerable times as they’re used for antenna connections on WiFi cards.

Well, I have now watched some videos on YouTube showing methods of replacing these, and this approach looks good.

I’m awaiting a 10 pack of replacement connectors I’ve ordered, and will update when I tackle swapping this. Wish me luck!

Currently listening: LITTLE BIG – “KURWA” - another catchy banger from these weirdos! :)

Figured out the CRT screws are a type called “#8”, hopefully these ones are correct. I’ll update with how they go. The minimum order quantity was 100, but thankfully they weren’t too pricey.

One issue with the second display bracket I printed, is the metal chassis that screws into the front bezel interferes with the lower two mounting points… Really don’t want to dremel the chassis as I’d prefer everything I’m doing to be reversible, but I may not have an alternative in terms of reliably keeping the LCD panel in place.

I’ve ordered the capacitors I need to recap the MLB I’m using, as it needs it - there is evidence of the current ones having leaked - I’ll be giving the board a good clean as part of that process.

Also, I’m now 3D printing a holder that will fit an SD card extension cable, such that I can easily swap the SD card that will be in the BlueSCSI device that acts as a SCSI hard drive my colour SE/30 will boot from.

Currently listening: nook - “fy_resort | Intelligent DnB / Jungle Mix”

Today I 3D printed a different bracket for the LCD panel I’m using with my Colour SE/30, and I’ve had better success - looks like the fit is right this time :)

I have ordered some threaded inserts which I’ll need to embed in the 3D print to allow for the screws to hold the LCD panel in place.

I’ve also decided I will have to track down a set of the screws to replace the ones I am borrowing from the other SE/30, and to that end I have bought screw measuring device. Hopefully it is fairly straight-forward to figure out and source what I need…

Currently listening: Jackie Lomax - “Sour Milk Sea”

After 3D printing the display bracket for my colour SE/30 project, the back section turned out to not fit the LCD panel I am using (Darn it, I swear I measured!). So, will have to either use my Dremel to modify it, print a different bracket backing, or work on creating my own.

With the Dell Latitude D600, running from the IDE to mSATA adapter seems to intermittently cause a BSOD. I have installed a spare working 80GB IDE 2.5-inch hard drive I had, and am now in the process of installing Windows XP, drivers, and updates again to see if it is fine with that… I will have to keep looking for another OWC Mercury Legacy Pro, those SSDs seem to be a lot less problematic.

Speaking of installing the drivers and updates, two tools that were very helpful for this are: Snappy Driver Installer for the drivers, and Legacy Update for the Windows updates.

I’m looking forward to receiving my Apple Watch Series 10 tomorrow. Easy decision over the Ultra, as this year saw no real improvements for it - the option of a black finish doesn’t sway me. Given the larger display size of the Series 10 and how much lighter they are, I feel I’m getting all of the benefits of the Ultra anyway, aside perhaps from the longer battery life.

Currently listening: FIREWALKER - “firewalker mix II (atmospheric dnb mix)"

It has been a while since I worked on my Colour SE/30, but inspired again by the most excellent Mac84 working on his, I recently made some further progress with mine. I tracked down a molex to DC power cable, which allows the LCD panel to run off the single power supply running the main logic-board, rather than a separate mains transformer. I also borrowed the metal internal frame from another SE/30, as well as some of the screws. Will have to figure out if that is temporary, or if I will need to source extra so the other one doesn’t have to do without.

This weekend I 3D-printed a display bracket which allows the flat 8.4-inch LCD panel to sit flush in the space previously occupied by the curved CRT, here is the version I went for. The next things I need to do are to re-cap the main logic-board, as the capacitors are showing signs of leakage, as well as figuring out a solution in terms of internally mounting the power supply and solidly attaching a short power extension cable and a power switch to the exterior of the case.

Mac84’s one has an Ethernet card which was designed primarily for the Macintosh IIsi, which uses the same PDS (processor direct slot) as the Macintosh SE/30, the difference being that it has a NUBUS card slot coming off at a right-angle, which then has the NUBUS card sitting parallel to the main logic-board. When installed in a Mac SE/30, that would have that NUBUS card occupying the space where the floppy drive and/or the hard drive sit, his solution was to de-solder that NUBUS slot, and replace it with a connector that is itself right-angled (I think this one?), such that the NUBUS card is sitting perpendicular to the logic-board.

It’s a neat solution, I may see if one of the Macintosh SE/30 models I have with an Ethernet card does have one of those models with the NUBUS slot, it is possible… If not, I may stick with just copying across data a different way, although it would be nice having networking ability!

Currently listening: OCT - “Spicy UKG mix 134bpm”

This week, I had someone leave a few older machines at my Store for me to securely erase and reuse/dispose of, and amongst them was Dell Latitude D600 from 2004. I removed and wiped the noisy 80GB IDE hard drive and replaced it with a 128GB mSATA SSD in an adapter, then installed Windows XP Professional, and managed to track down the missing drivers on the Dell website - good on them for still having them available!

It is in pretty good condition, but to let my Mac snobbery show, the hardware design is so boring and uninspired. It is as sexy (and as plastic!) as a lunchbox.

Anyway, this machine does have a ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics chip, so I will have to give it a spin with some contemporaneous games…

Currently listening: Mr Oizo - “Flat Beat”

It is already almost that time of year again, where Apple rolls out the newest iPhone and Apple Watch versions. The consensus amongst rumour sites seems to be the changes will be more evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but I am looking forward to replacing my Series 6 with either an Apple Watch Ultra 3 or Series 10, depending on the feature set and improvements each bring.

I hadn’t considered the Ultra previously, as I felt it was comparatively weighty and bulky, but I tried one on recently and the difference wasn’t as stark as I’d imagined. The screen size and brightness improvements more than make up for it anyway, not to mention the battery life!

Well, we will see what they announce in just over a week…

Currently listening: Capricorn - “20 Hz”

I recently ordered a Flirc USB, and I’m looking forward to investigating the possibilities… It’s a tiny USB stick with an IR receiver, and the software supports using almost any IR remote to send keyboard commands to the connected system - it works with Mac, PC, and Raspberry Pi. Would be handy using a computer as a media centre, or perhaps to control a Raspberry Pi running a business dashboard.

Currently listening: Dopo Goto - “Playstation 2 Era Ambient Jungle DnB 2 Hours Mix”

I use the excellent To Do app “Things” across Mac, iPhone, and iPad to keep on top of anything I need to take care of. As previously blogged, I switched over to TickTick for a couple of years, but returned to Things as I preferred the UI/UX overall. Generally, there are daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reoccurring tasks that I can have set to repeat, as well as one-off tasks that I will add as required. Then there are those tasks that are commonly reoccurring, but not regular, for example if I am notified there is something in my PO Box. That isn’t frequent enough that I should be checking daily or even weekly, but every time it happens, I will add it in as a task so I remember to swing by the Post Office.

Rather than entering these sort of tasks manually every time, I recently put together a Shortcut on my iPhone so that in just two taps, I can have them added into Things.

One specific part that took me a few tries to get right was setting the task to have today’s date automatically. The solution was to first set a variable to “Current Date”, and then in the “Create To Do” action, choose in the sub-menu under “Start” for it to be “On Date”, and then below that the “Start Date” to be that variable.

The last one in the current menu, “Custom”, lets me add a custom one quickly. And in future, if there are any additional commonly re-occurring items, I can add those in to the menu of this Shortcut as well.

Currently listening: Groove Armada - “Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)" - Classic album that I bought when it first came out and listened to many, many times. Great to revisit it again :)

This week I set up my ADS-B tracker again, I was previously uploading to Plane.Watch, but I had repeatedly run into software issues for some reason. It ended up being easier to wipe the Raspberry Pi I use, and begin again, this time uploading to AirNav RadarBox’s system. The one downside is there is no local webpage to see an overview map, but they have one on their server showing just the signals I am receiving.

In short, ADS-B is a system whereby aeroplanes/helicopters broadcast their location (not just commercial, military and police, etc). It is not encrypted, so an antenna, a TV tuner USB stick, and a Raspberry Pi running the appropriate software is enough to “see” all the air traffic in your neighbourhood - the distance does depend on a few factors, but my setup can pick up aircraft from 250 kms away!

To me, this is an interesting intersection of radio, aircraft, and playing with single-board computers, so scratches a few itches :)

Currently listening: TheJunglist76 - “1996 mix. Oldskool Jungle - DnB. Vinyl Only."

Next to my equipment rack in the garage that contains a bunch of home networking gear, I have a couple of brush wall cover plates for all the ethernet cables coming in from around the house, similar to this one: The problem is, despite there being two of them, I am running out of space! The solution I have come up with is to remove both of those, cut the wood panel between the two exisiting holes to create one large rectangular hole, and install this larger frame. Now, it does mean I have to disconnect and pull out every cable to route them back through the new frame, certainly not a small job, but I think it is about time I pulled out the entire rack and gave it a good dust-out anyway…

Currently listening: Moondog - “Lament I, “Bird’s Lament” (Instrumental)"

I’ve been following along with this write-up (and here’s the video it is from) which has been very helpful in terms of setting up the automation and logic for having an alert when the dishwasher cycle finishes…

I haven’t had any experience as yet with setting up automations in Home Assistant, despite running it for years! I’m sure it will prove to be a never-ending rabbit hole :)

Currently listening: FIREWALKER - “low poly Internet Checkpoint - (Ambient Dub Techno Mix)"

I ordered a Zigbee 10A Smart Power Plug, which I have plugged my dishwasher into. I added it into Home Assistant through the ZHA integration, and was then able to add a realtime graph showing the current draw of the dishwasher to my Home Assistant dashboard. This week’s project will be figuring out creating some simple logic to track when the dishwasher is on, and then letting me know when the cycle is finished. Yes, it does play a happy little beep melody when it is done, but as I’m not within audible range when it finishes, it’ll be handy.

Currently listening: ELAIZA - “Tamashii” - reminds me of “Beaucoup Fish” era Underworld :)

I remember being somewhat annoyed and disappointed when Apple decided to get rid of “Network Utility” from macOS (I think in Catalina?).

It contained a useful set of network diagnostics in a simple GUI. Thankfully there is now an almost exact replica to replace it made by the fine people at Devon Technologies.

Heard about it via 512Pixels.

Currently listening: Sarah Sommers - “Rude Girl”

These are the malware detection and security Apps I use and recommend.

KnockKnock - This checks for anything that persistently launches across reboots, something that plenty of legit software does, but certainly is also a hallmark of malware…

Malwarebytes - Speaking of malware, this is still the best anti malware app for Mac in my opinion… They’ve slowly ratcheted up the annoyance factor over the years in terms of bugging the user to “go premium” unfortunately. On the Mac, I still don’t see the value in paying for constant scanning though, assuming you’re running one of the last two or three versions of macOS, and also don’t have a habit of installing random dodgy software from goodness-knows-where!

Little Snitch - This App is an outgoing firewall, which is to say it monitors outgoing network connections from all Apps and lets you allow or deny them, based on a set of configurable rules. I have run it on and off since 2006.

Currently listening: Dee Camù - “Liquid Drum & Bass Mix - Home Session After The Gym”

I bought a couple of these Ulanzi TC001 Smart Pixel Clocks, and then loaded the Awtrix Firmware, as per these instructions…

The next step is to set up the Home Assistant integration, which should allow these to function as a nice little updater around the house when the garage door gets left open too long, when outside gates are opened, etc.

Currently listening: Gerry Cinnamon - “Erratic Cinematic”

Reeder Yep, I still use an RSS Reader in 2024… Looks great, works well, syncs between Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Tot Simple 8-page notepad that also syncs between Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Handy to have as a scratchpad to quickly capture lists and To Do items.

Collections Hey, another App that syncs between Mac, iPhone, and iPad :) This one lets you easily build custom databases… Handy for lists where you want to have the flexibility to sort by different criteria at different times.

Currently listening: Klangphonics - “Ich Brauch Mehr Bass”

Decided it was time for a change - I’m now using the “Hello” theme rather than the “Marfa” theme for the blog…

Also, I needed a better solution for storing all the various adapters/cables/USB drives I use most frequently. I bought 6 of the smaller IKEA Kuggis storage boxes, and labelled them using a little inkless printer called the Phomemo D30. Much better! :)

Currently listening: Vulfmon & Evangeline - “Got To Be Mine” - It’s an infectious summer groove, just what we need during the cold Melbourne winter!

Only a couple of days out from that time of year again, this WWDC looks to be all about Apple adding AI to their various OSs… Not sure how I feel about that, hopefully the rumours that it will be opt-in are accurate… Apparently iOS will gain even more customisation options. Looking forward to some other nice surprises! Follow along with Basic Apple Guy’s Bingo card! :)

So, I have a Davis Vantage Vue weather station in my back yard that wirelessly talks to a WeatherLink Live, which in turn talks to a server on the internet to keep all the historical weather data since I first set it up.

I’ve had that WeatherLink Live base station unit powered by an older Apple 5W USB power adapter that I had spare, running fine for years, then the last couple of days it had been increasingly flakey and finally gave up the ghost yesterday… I initially thought it was the unit itself - they cost around $400 AUD, so that would have been some bad news! However, I used an inline USB power tester I have, which showed the power adapter was cycling on and off… Swapped it out for another 5W adapter I had spare, back up and running, thank goodness!

Also, I recently got a Cisco SPA 303 VoIP phone which I have started playing around with… More of an update when and if I have something interesting to report.

Currently listening: Softboy7 - “Spacebreaks (Glitchbreak \ Breakcore \ DnB)"

To control a bunch of smart home actions I use and like the Flic buttons at my place, but I didn’t want to buy another of those hubs and a few more buttons for the Store. A cheaper solution, mostly using items I had already, was a Raspberry Pi and a Phoscon ConBee II USB stick. I had used those for my Zigbee devices before I upgraded at home to a Home Assistant Yellow.

I bought a couple of the IKEA Somrig shortcut buttons. They’re only $12 AUD, and they work well with Home Assistant, once you discover that turning on the “Advanced mode” option under your profile will then expose the buttons to the HomeKit integration!

I swear I’m usually a follower of the ol' K.I.S.S. principle, and I know having a whole other platform just to run a couple of buttons sounds like overkill (mostly because it is…), but I already have some other Zigbee devices I’m planning on putting in now that I have this up and running. Keeps me busy and out of trouble :)

Currently listening: luunace / sylphiette - “march 22nd is my birthday \ breakcore mix”

This entry is more focused specifically on media conversion and playback…

MakeMKV: Technically this is a “transcoder” as it does not convert (which would then imply generational loss) but preserves the quality of the original media, this app is essential for “format shifting” shall we say…

MKVToolNix: Useful if you need to concatenate media files together, for example a longer movie that had been spilt across two discs.

HandBrake: This allows you to convert uncompressed video files to a more manageable file size - similar concept as to the difference between the file size of an uncompressed Audio CD versus a converted/compressed MP3 file of the same audio…

VLC: The app with the familiar ol' traffic cone icon plays almost any media format under the sun - before VLC existed you really needed a multitude of video apps to playback the various formats that different platforms/companies/zaibatsu preferred. It truly is the Swiss-army knife of playing back media formats!

Plex: Although their homepage these days makes it look like a streaming service, Plex offers both a local media server that can run on Mac/PC/NAS allowing you to store a collection of media files, as well as a client that runs on many platforms, including the current Apple TV, which means a nice interface to browse said media from your TV.

Currently listening: Jamie xx - “Gosh”

1Password: I’ve been using and recommending their apps since 2010. Passwords are truly one of the great ills of the modern age, most people would probably prefer to visit the dentist than deal with ‘em, but the only safe option is to ensure they are strong and unique - a password manager makes all the difference in how easy they are to wrangle. One great feature of 1Password is “Watchtower”, which gives you a heads-up if any of the websites or services you have saved are known to have been compromised, letting you know it is a good idea to change that password.

Time Machine (Built in to macOS): It is said there are two types of people, those who back up, and those who will lose data. Back when Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard came out in 2007, one of the banner features was an automatic backup solution called Time Machine. In my opinion, this addition has made the biggest difference to whether the average person backs up. Completely non-scientific data (based on my asking people who come into my store) would suggest about 40-50% of Mac users have it enabled (although whether a backup is performed regularly is a different matter, unfortunately). No, cloud syncing of whatever flavour is not a real backup (case in point). Having the safety-net of a local second copy of your data is damn important…

Hazel: This software watch specific folders, and if the contents match certain criteria, performs selected actions… An example, I have a folder in my iCloud which Hazel on my Mac at home watches, and if a compressed file is added, it automatically decompresses it. Where this is useful is if I have a compressed file that is in a format the iPhone or iPad cannot open, I still have a way to access the contents… Another example, I have an “Auto Process” folder within my Downloads folder on my Mac, where if I drag in a Screenshot it will import a copy into Photos and then delete the original.

PasteBot: A Mac user from 1984 falls into a temporal wormhole, they are suddenly in 2024, and are sat down in front of a modern Mac. One thing you wouldn’t have to explain is how copy/paste and the clipboard work, it’s exactly the same! Whilst this is great is some ways, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a browsable history to the clipboard, or the ability to have multiple items? PasteBot does these and more… I use it at my Store with some buttons on my Stream Deck, so I can copy a series of text items from and to different apps, it makes a massive difference to efficiency.

Currently listening: BreakStation - “Gundam Hearts - a breakcore mix”

This weekend’s mini project was recovering the contents of a 30GB 3.5-inch ATA hard drive from a customer’s Power Mac G4. The dusty and cobwebby tower looked like it’d been stored in a shed for the better part of a decade…

The first challenge was that the first couple of interfaces I tried with the drive did not seem to provide enough power. I ended up installing it temporarily inside one of my Power Mac G4 towers, and after tracking down the proper 80 pin ATA cable, it mounted and seemed a bit happier…

However there were still issues with copying files, and so the next step was to try running an old version of DiskWarrior, surprisingly without success. I next ran “Disk Doctor” (remember Norton Utilities?!) which helped to fix up some corruption with the data. Even after that, there were still some files located on bad blocks, which meant doing a standard copy in the Finder was a real pain. I then used “Synchronize! Pro” to ensure I had as complete a copy as possible.

In other news, I watched this morning the latest video put out by “The Serial Port” on YouTube. It’s titled “We brought back the internet’s first search engine”, and goes over the software archaeology of tracking down what could in fact have been the last copy of the Archie server software. Archie was a search engine which would trawl through the contents of a bunch of FTP servers, and was a mainstay of the pre-WWW Internet. I am glad they have managed to track it down, configure it, and now in fact have it running live on the current Web! Someone needs to ask them to bring back Dynix now :P

Currently listening: Orbital live at Leeds Sound City 1996

This weekend’s mini project was creating a drive with a range of macOS installers, this one specifically covering OS X 10.11 El Capitan through to macOS 14 Sonoma. The drive is a 250GB SATA SSD I placed into a repurposed LaCie Rugged case with a USB-C connector.

Mostly, I was following the instructions on the relevant Apple knowledge base article, but macOS Sierra is missing from that. It appears there is an issue with the newest version of the macOS Sierra installer that they have not rectified, but thankfully this genius has us sorted!

End result: All imaged and working happily… Next up, I have an older Buffalo MiniStation case with the original Thunderbolt connector, and an even older LaCie Rugged case with FireWire 800, both of which will get an appropriate range of macOS versions on them as well… I’ll be covered back to Mac OS X v10.2 :)

Currently listening: Sheer Taft - “Cascades (Hypnotone mix) 1990”

Today’s mini project was playing around with a Cisco PIX 515E I bought off eBay a while back. It’s a firewall appliance, a rather old one at this stage.

As it was password protected, the first task on the list was to figure out how to reset the login password. This proved to be more challenging than I had anticipated, as it wasn’t a simple thing like a paperclip and tiny reset switch, or a motherboard jumper, or pulling an internal battery… I had already bought one of those famous Cisco light blue RJ45 to serial cables to be able to connect up to the serial console port, which I hooked up with my Versaterm. I tracked down an old Cisco webpage on the Internet Archive, which documented the password reset process, and went through setting up an TFTP server on my NUC (I used Tftpd64, which worked well). This is required as you have to transfer across a small binary file referred to as the “PIX Password Lockout Utility”, which is what actually clears the password.

I set up a temporary network using the ethernet ports on an old Linksys WRT54GL, just in case, as one webpage noted there may be issues on a Gigabit Ethernet network when the PIX 515E is running in the reset procedure mode.

So, after a bit of experimentation with commands, and the joys of figuring out which specific version of the binary file I needed, I made progress and was greeted with a lot more scrolling output, and then after another reboot, a login prompt that this time was happy with a blank password!

Interestingly, the configuration files show this to have been in use by a fairly large minerals processing company, based in Perth, with network links to offices around the world… There were a few other saved passwords in some of the other config files, but hopefully after 10 years+ they are all well and truly out of date! I’ll have to nuke those just in case though…

Currently listening: “Red Snapper - Hot Flush (Sabres of Paradise Remix)"