: 2024 is almost over... I have been using this time of year over the last 5-6 years to take stock of a number of things - …

: Disk Jockey Disk Jockey is a highly useful tool when dealing with vintage machines, as a lot of the drive/disk …

: My Colour SE/30 Project now has networking :) Following along with the Branchus Creations review video, I set up the WiFi DaynaPORT Ethernet …

: 386 Motherboard Repair I’m at least one step closer to reviving a 386 motherboard I have been working on. There was a …

: App of the Year: BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory Joshua Stein is a legend! Not only did he program the section of the BlueSCSI firmware that allows …

: If there are certain events going on in the world that leave you disappointed in humanity and …

: "Bicycle for the Mind." I noticed in the last night’s release video for the new Mac mini M4, that Apple put in a sly …

: More progress with the Colour SE/30! Thankfully a more positive update this week :) Sourced a replacement metal chassis and made some …

: From Bad to Worse... I removed the damaged antenna connector from the T-Deck Plus and was partway through fitting a …

: *Sigh...* So, ordered a T-Deck Plus a while ago, it arrived, I excitedly played with it, then decided to …

: Yet Another Colour SE/30 Update Figured out the CRT screws are a type called “#8”, hopefully these ones are correct. …

: Another Colour SE/30 Update Today I 3D printed a different bracket for the LCD panel I’m using with my Colour SE/30, and …

: Hurdles and Updates. After 3D printing the display bracket for my colour SE/30 project, the back section turned out to …

: Colour SE/30 Updates... It has been a while since I worked on my Colour SE/30, but inspired again by the most excellent …

: Dell Latitude D600 This week, I had someone leave a few older machines at my Store for me to securely erase and …

: "It's Glowtime" Event. It is already almost that time of year again, where Apple rolls out the newest iPhone and Apple …

: Flirc USB I recently ordered a Flirc USB, and I’m looking forward to investigating the …

: Shortcut to add commonly reoccurring To Do items... I use the excellent To Do app “Things” across Mac, iPhone, and iPad to keep on top of …

: Setting up my ADS-B Tracker again. This week I set up my ADS-B tracker again, I was previously uploading to Plane.Watch, but I had …

: Cables, cables, everywhere... Next to my equipment rack in the garage that contains a bunch of home networking gear, I have a …

: More Dishwasher fun... I’ve been following along with this write-up (and here’s the video it is from) which has …

: Adding my Dishwasher into Home Assistant... I ordered a Zigbee 10A Smart Power Plug, which I have plugged my dishwasher into. I added it into …

: Network Utility Redux! I remember being somewhat annoyed and disappointed when Apple decided to get rid of “Network …

: Some of my Software Essentials, Part 4. These are the malware detection and security Apps I use and recommend. KnockKnock - This checks for …

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

: Some of my Software Essentials, Part 3. Reeder Yep, I still use an RSS Reader in 2024… Looks great, works well, syncs between Mac, …

: Theme Change & Cables/Adapters Storage Decided it was time for a change - I’m now using the “Hello” theme rather than the …

: WWDC 2024 / Some Random Things Only a couple of days out from that time of year again, this WWDC looks to be all about Apple adding …

: Setting up Home Assistant at my Store. To control a bunch of smart home actions I use and like the Flic buttons at my place, but I …

: Some of my Software Essentials, Part 2. This entry is more focused specifically on media conversion and playback… MakeMKV: …

: Some of my Software Essentials, Part 1. 1Password: I’ve been using and recommending their apps since 2010. Passwords are truly one of the …

: Data Recovery Fun / Archie is back! This weekend’s mini project was recovering the contents of a 30GB 3.5-inch ATA hard drive from …

: macOS Multi Installer This weekend’s mini project was creating a drive with a range of macOS installers, this one …

: Cisco PIX 515E Today’s mini project was playing around with a Cisco PIX 515E I bought off eBay a while back. …

: Time Bandits in 4K I recently bought the new release of Time Bandits in 4K - it is such a joy to see one of my …

: Random Links, etc. Some Useful Utilities and Security Tools for the Mac: The Eclectic Light Company Objective-See …

: The "Mega Floppy Drive"... Here’s a sneak peak of something I have been working on, it is an external chassis with three …

: ADB JoyPad Project Update 2. Unfortunately, looks like my little project has struck a road-block! After trying to read the PIC …

: ADB JoyPad Project Update 1. I’ve since disassembled the JoyPad, and found that it is quite simple internally - in terms of …

: DIY External Fusion Drive I ordered a combo M.2 and HD dock last week, the Sabrent DS-UFNC. Here’s the manual for it. I …

: ADB JoyPad Had this arrive the other day, it’s a “SFX Plus” ADB JoyPad from 1997… I …

: IKEA Vindstyrka Sensor Today I bought an IKEA Vindstyrka, which is a $59 AUD air sensor that works with Home Assistant …

: Success with imaging SCSI Hard Drive. I tried out the Zulu SCSI in initiator mode on a 40MB Connor SCSI HD from a Macintosh Classic. After …

: Using SCSI emulator devices to image SCSI Drives... Watched yesterday this recent video “Dumping the contents of SCSI devices using BlueSCSI V2 …

: Weekend Project: Storage Speed Test on my Power Macintosh G3 I decided to test and compare a few different mass storage options in one of my favourite systems …

: Smart Home Notes... About four years ago, just before the COVID era began, I had become very frustrated with some issues …

: Happy Birthday, Macintosh! 40 years old, but plenty of vitality still. 4 different chip architectures, but a common thread of …

: Designing and 3D printing a Hard Drive Spacer One other thing I wanted to fix with the old Sony Vaio laptop was figure out a solution for the …

: Finished assembling the Telephone. The transparent telephone is all done, fairly easy kit to put together barring some steps - for …

: OWC IDE SSD Surgery Following on from my recent post about the OWC IDE SSD I found contained a bridge internally to a …

: Transparent Telephone Kit. I had always wanted to add a transparent telephone to my collection at some point, so when I spotted …

: This Failing SSD had a Secret! I was installing Windows XP on a Sony Vaio PCG-FR825P (a real chunky boi!) and I kept running into …

: Useful App: "Collections" I never really had a need for something like it back when Bento was around, but a little while ago I …

: Kraftwerk. Very happy to say I have finally seen Kraftwerk live!

: Interesting Blog post about a new Mac ransomware variant doing the rounds… …

: Outsmarting a Possum... (Hopefully) A little different in flavour to my usual posts I know, but I have been engaged in a battle of wits …

: No post this weekend, our NBN connection at home decided to flake it Friday evening, technician …

: Juicy Crumb DockLite So many of the iMac 27-inch Mid 2011 units suffer from a failed GPU, and this Kickstarter project …

: Integrating audio output into HDMI for older machines... I have some older machines that I want to use with an HDMI KVM, without having to swap around audio …

: Mac mini G4 I was playing around with my oldest Mac mini today (a “Mac mini (Late 2005)” revision), …

: "If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid." The classic expression really fits what was just doing - I temporarily needed a display for a …

: Home Networking Improvements. I purchased a big spool of Ubiquiti CAT6 Ethernet cable for home a while back, with the intention of …

: ADB Peripherals... Here’s the ADB peripherals set-up I generally use these days in “The Vault” (AKA …

: iPhone 15 Pro Notes. I have been playing around - sorry, “making legitimate technical notes of”, I mean - the …

: Far away from my desk this week… Looks like I won’t be installing the latest iOS version straight away, there’s a first time for …

: Floppy Drive Head Alignment. Following on from my last post, here is the best explanatory article I have found on aligning the …

: Oscilloscope I’ve bought a cheap oscilloscope to enable me to align the heads on a floppy drive… Or …

: iPod Surgery I received another kind donation at my store recently, a couple of old school hard drive based …

: More CMOS Battery Fun... Following on from a previous post where I replaced the RTC module on a Socket 7 Motherboard, I …

: Trying to get the MacSD working with Windows 98... Today was a little frustrating, I spent a couple of hours trying to get a “MacSD” …

: Update Time. HP t5730 Thin Client: I received the longer IDE ribbon cable I’d ordered, which has given me …

: Intersil Intercept Junior I had a customer very kindly donate to me an “Intersil Intercept Junior” recently, along …

: Retro gaming on an HP t5730 Thin Client. The last couple of weeks I have been having a lot of fun revisiting some late 90s games under …

: Pwnagotchi, I choose you! For some reason, the YouTube algorithm decided this week that I should see this video where someone …

: Following on from deleting my Reddit account last week… This week I pulled the trigger on deleting all of my Twitter accounts, some of which I’d had since …

: Today's the day...

: The colour SE/30 - including making an ATX to Macintosh SE/30 power cable. Inspired by Mac84 and others, I had been working on the different parts of building my own colour …

: Did not expect to be installing Windows NT v4.0 Server today but anyway, here we are...

: What a crappy year for some of my favourite apps... Pour one out for these examples of greatness. Well, the good news is I haven’t been using …

: What's behind my TV? Gee, maybe this should be called “What’s not behind my TV?”… I had …

: Replacing a defunct RTC module on a Socket 7 Motherboard. I had bought a couple of [RTC modules] …

: Another Projects Update. The HDMI connector for the VersaTerm arrived, I soldered that on and all is well. Last step is 3D …

: VersaTerm First Boot... Received my order from Mouser Electronics this week which included the bulk of the rest of the …

: Retroid Pocket 3+ I ordered one of these handheld Android gaming devices recently, and it will be arriving soon. As …

: VersaTerm I ordered the PCB for this project a while ago, I’ve been gathering up the parts over the last …

: Updates on some Projects. Powerpal Home Assistant Integration - made some progress, as the build errors I were running into …

: Vintage Apple enthusiasts meet up with Ken Gagne! I spent a very enjoyable day on Saturday meeting up a bunch of like-minded vintage Apple …

: A Wild PowerBook 150 Appears! Of all the donations I have been the appreciative recipient of at my store over the years, this …

: "Space Flight" Book Something I picked up on a recent day trip at a Church book sale, first published 1958… …

: Project: E Ink Display I have started gathering the parts needed to make a front door sign for my store out of a Raspberry …

: Lizard Photo Back from a holiday! Here’s a photo I took whilst away :)

: USB-C charging on a ThinkPad T520. I ordered and fitted one of these replacements for the charging socket on my T520. That means over …

: Installing an mSATA SSD in my PowerBook G4 12-inch. Today’s project was swapping over a failed HD in my PowerBook G4 12-inch. I used an mSATA …

: ChatGPT knows HyperTalk! I recently had a conversation with ChatGPT and asked if it knew HyperTalk, the high-level scripting …

: My Colour Classic lives! I have a Macintosh Colour Classic in my collection, a beautiful yet flawed machine, which has given …

: Continuing the move to Plexamp... The main reason for my moving across to Plex/Plexamp for my music playback is the issues and changes …

: So long, iTunes/Music... I’ve used iTunes since the very first version, in fact I used SoundJam MP before that, so …

: Repairing my Cobalt Qube 2700... There was a cube between the NeXTcube and the Power Mac G4 Cube. It was around during the late …

: More Home Assistant Fun Whoops - some how deleted this from a couple of weeks ago, reposting now! It’s the usual …

: Home Assistant / Powerpal Integration... That tiny M5Stack Atom Lite arrived, I followed along with the write-up I posted about a couple of …

: Printing from Mac OS 9 Just managed to set up printing from a Power Macintosh G3 running Mac OS 9.2.2 to a much more recent …

: A New Year, time for some more Smart Home tweaking... One project I wanted to undertake over the holidays was to replace an Aqara M2 Hub that I use with …

: Last Post of 2022, and Quake 1 "RTX On" I install the Ray Traced version of Quake 1 the other day and it is darn impressive! It’s …

: 2022 - another year almost done! Well, we’re now coming up on the first anniversary of this blog, and I’m happy I have …

: Checkmate 19-inch IPS Retro Monitor This Kickstarter campaign is for a screen with the ability to allow for many, many different input …

: Dissecting a fake SuperDrive... The other day I had a customer bring in an optical drive with a disc stuck inside… Nothing …

: Wallpapers & Revolver Love these wallpapers, my favourites include “Shippou”, and the “Pepsi …

: Minisforum Neptune HX90G At my store we use an older Intel NUC that we use to run PC diagnostic software and to …

: Some more thoughts on the AR headset... To me, one of the most interesting things when Apple comes out with a completely new class of device …

: Hyperspace! It may not really be suitable for those who suffer from motion-sickness, but this screensaver is a …

: The new Apple TV 4K (2022). I should be receiving the two that I ordered today, I will update this post once I have set them up …

: Nothing to write about this week, see you next week!

: Faulty iMac + Aussie ingenuity = Juicy Crumb. In what has got to be the coolest project I’ve seen in a while, this Kickstarter campaign is …

: Review: Framework Laptop. Upgradeable! Modular! iFixit 10 out of 10 repairability score! I’ve been wanting a Framework …

: The return of PAX After a hiatus due to you-know-what, PAX Aus was back this weekend. Sure they had PAX Online the …

: Sometimes the simplest solutions are best... And by sometimes, I mean practically always. For a while now at my store I’ve been …

: Roadtrip & Jolt Cola! Last week I took the family on a road-trip to Adelaide, which was an absolute blast. Amongst all the …

: Nothing this week, back next week! :)

: Playing more with the Stream Deck I’ve been trying out some more things this week with the Elgato Stream Deck, in particular …

: Wemo Smart Plug with Thread Hidden behind my TV is an LED light strip we use as bias lighting. Powering that is the tiny Apple …

: Aqara Water Leak Sensor Under my house there’s a water filter for our fridge that started leaking recently. It turns …

: H801 LED WiFi Controller, Part One This weekend’s project was setting up an “H801 LED WiFi Controller”, or at least …

: "Shareware Heroes". My copy of “Shareware Heroes” by Richard Moss arrived this week. His previous book, …

: PicoBoot Follow Up / Apple Music Widgets My PicoBoot install was a success! Here is the original video I watched, and then followed along …

: My DALL·E invite finally came today After waiting for a little while for the access invitation, it has been a fun morning of generating …

: Combining Emojis is fun :) My kids and I have been having a lot of fun lately playing with this: emoji.supply/kitchen/ Poop + …

: Apple is all about those minor details... One detail that I’ve not spotted previously, as I’ve only ever owned a single iPhone …

: That syncing feeling... I remember the “good ol' days” when I first started using Dropbox in 2009 and everything …

: GameCube + PicoBoot A few years ago, I bought a GameCube to play a bunch of games from an earlier time in my life. …

: Chunky Battery Pack So, the same people who are releasing that cute compact Macintosh “inspired” charger I …

: Outdoor Gate Sensors, Part Two So, following on from last week’s installation of those Outdoor Gate Sensors, I found that the only …

: Outdoor Gate Sensors Inspired by a Shane Whatley YouTube video, I have installed some Aqara Door and Window Sensors on a …

: Post-WWDC Thoughts The new macOS Ventura and iOS 16 look pretty sweet! Having the ability to customise the iPhone lock …

: When things break... I’ve been running a PurpleAir Air Quality Sensor since 2020, and having been using the …

: It's a small charger, and it looks like a compact Macintosh :) Absolutely this is just the nostalgia factor, but like Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels, I backed this …

: WWDC 2022 in two weeks... I’m guessing we’ll at least see a preview of the Apple silicon-based Mac Pro and a bevy …

: Nothing to write about this week that I can think of… Back next week :)

: 1Password 8. Well, it’s finally out… although I have been checking for a couple of days though, and still no sign …

: Upgrading one of my Store Workstations... After spotting a bit of a bargain on eBay just this last week, I bought a used Mac Pro (2013). …

: My HomeKit Favourites (Part One)… I have now a fairly extensive “smart home” built up with a bunch of HomeKit devices over the years, …

: From the Vault: Micromat Techtool Protégé USB flash drives (AKA thumb drives or USB sticks) have been around for quite a while, and there are …

: Stream Deck So, I got myself a Stream Deck (No, not a Steam Deck :P ). If you’ve not seen one, it’s …

: From the Vault: iPod 1st Gen & Microsoft Zune Look at ‘em, these two old-timers, discussing years gone by… Reminiscing the days when …

: My thoughts on the AirPods Max. I recently had a chance to try first-hand the AirPods Max for an extended time, and I found them …

: From the Vault: EFI-X Dongle Back in 2008, a European company came out with an expensive dongle that promised to allow a PC to …

: The big iMac is no more! Not only was there no new high-end iMac announced at the Apple event, they’ve discontinued it! I …

: Hanging out for Tuesday… Well, it is official, Apple has an event next Tuesday, “Peek Performance”, the invitation headline …

: Not posting anything this week. Not in the mood. Stay strong, Ukraine 🇺🇦🥺

: Waiting for a Redesigned iMac 27-inch… I’m really hanging out for a redesigned iMac 27-inch, which I know must be coming in the next few …

: Finally got some AirTags… And I have realised two things; 1: It would be extremely handy if you could share the location of a …

: Finding the right Sideboard. In our living room we have a sideboard which stores a random assortment of charging cables (mostly …

: Random iPhone Keyboard Thought. It’d be handy on the iPhone keyboard if that when you hold down shift and press delete it was a …

: Universal Control is almost here! Very excited to see the latest beta versions of macOS Monterey and iPadOS have finally enabled …

: Happy 38th Birthday, Macintosh... The very first Mac I saw was a lonely Macintosh Classic in my high school computer lab. There were …

: Making the Switch... I’m trying out at the moment a switch from a combination of “Things” and …

: It's All About the Details. I just noticed that the Satechi M1 Mouse displays its battery level in the Bluetooth menu in macOS …

: More nostalgia… The classic Mac OS smile tiled desktop pattern - now high-res! …

: Finally got around to watching this, good short documentary on Handspring, their journey and …

: My current favourite screensaver - Despite the icon being one that inspired fear and concern in so many old-school Mac folk, this …

: From the Vault: A Tale of Two Old Mice. On the left is a NeXT mouse, which connects via ADB. This is the same connector c. 1986 - c. 1998 …

: First Post! - Or, what is this all about anyway? My aim with this blog is to cover technology I love or dislike - some old, some new - smart home …