Abandoned DIY Mac Palmtop Project

I annoyingly had to abandon this project which started as a prototype for a classic macOS palmtop. I’d been after a palmtop with a usuable keyboard for a while (Something like the Poqet PC from the early 90s), but wasn’t having any luck. This was my attempt at creating...

Radio From a WW2 Avro Lancaster Bomber

I’ve got my hands on the radio set from an Avro Lancaster Bomber, used by the British in World War 2. Here it is, it’s been fitted with a power cord and antenna, but I want to go over it and check all of the capacitors etc before plugging...

Brad’s Lab Helper

I’m making available a constantly in-progress excel toolkit which was created for, and is used by, a UK university department to assist with processing the large amounts of data output by their spectrometry machines. This toolkit is updated periodically as additional needs arise. If you have found this page...

More Custom Reports in KoalaBrain Using Excel and VBA

Following my previous article on creating custom reports for KoalaBrain EPOS in Excel using VBA script, a client requested some additional reports. I’m including them here as additional examples of what can be done with KoalaBrain VBA reporting. This report pulls sale details for any uncategorized sale rows, and...

Creating Custom Reports in KoalaBrain using Excel and VBA

I created KoalaBrain in part due to a client with unique reporting requirements. Many business and finance types are proficient with Microsoft Excel, and scripting it in Visual Basic for Application, so it made sense to base custom reports around this. VBA Reports in KoalaBrain dumps sales and payment...

A Super Simple Perspex Raspberry Pi Case/Stand

I recently needed to add a case to a Raspberri Pi/5″ LCD combo so that it could sit countertop in a customers business. No suitable case could be found online, and I don’t have access to a 3d printer, or any tools beyond a sharp knife for that matter....

My Latest Product – The Coin Starter Kit

The Coin Starter Kit is a promotional booklet, targeted at collectable and coin dealers to help them get younger people interested in the hobby of collecting, to secure future customers and traders. I hadn’t done any pre-press work (or writing) in a long time, and felt like making a...

Building a Light Gun Arcade Machine

I’ve been working on an arcade machine project on and off. My brother put together the screen and case while I worked on the internals and software. It’s still not completely done, but below are some shots of the work in progress. As far as the software side of...

Revisiting Old Projects – Gadski

A few years back I needed a project to kick start learning mobile dev tools and some new JS frameworks. I went ahead and developed Gadski, a social travel app for finding other holidayers on the same route or in the same place, as well as being able to...

Roberts Ramblers

I’ve been fixing old radios. It’s been providing good weekend projects that don’t involve staring at a computer screen. Here’s some of the results! These ones have all sold, and I’ve ordered some Bluetooth modules to add to future restores so the classic Rambler can be used as a...

Multiple file uploads in Laravel with Dropzone and Laravel Media Library

There are a few examples online of using Dropzone JS with Laravel Media Library, however none of them quite worked how I’d like, and had various caveats. Below is my solution, which supports retaining original file names, generating thumbnails, file previews, repopulating forms, and deleting/adding new items when updating...

System and Backup Encryption for Windows 10 and macOS

What is Drive Encryption? Drive encryption scrambles your files so that noone else can read them – except the person with the password or recovery key. This is usually done transparently. You use your computer normally, your files will be encrypted and protected. Drive encryption is not supported by...

Automated backups for Windows 10 and macOS

There are many different backup methods, software solutions, and doctrines. Generally all agree that you should keep at least three copies of your important files in three different places. Many will suggest you keep weekly copies of your files, in case of accidental deletion or corruption so that older...

Fixing Issues With the Nintendo Switch Right Joycon

I have, along with others I’ve found online, encountered issues with the right joycon on my Nintendo Switch. Initially, the LED which displays the controller number up and died, and the pairing button would work intermittently. Then, the joycon would begin to fail to connect to the console while...

Protecting WordPress, OpenCart Admin Routes with Cloudflare

There’s a lot of tutorials on securing HTTP servers – including forcing SSL, deploying mod_security2, mod_evasive, etc (All of which are worth doing), but platforms like WordPress and OpenCart will attract automated login attempts no matter what you do – they’re popular, frequently out-of-date and often have weak passwords....

Download E-Record ATO Tax Software

DO NOT USE ERECORD FOR ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN ACCESSING YOUR OLD TAX DATA – IT IS DECADE-OLD, UNSUPPORTED, OBSOLETE SOFTWARE THAT COULD STOP WORKING AT ANY TIME – INVEST IN A MODERN SOLUTION OR RISK LOSING YOUR WORK. CLICK HERE FOR THE CURRENT ATO ADVICE ON DIGITAL RECORD...

Brother HL-1210W on M1 MacOS Monterey

Posting this as there wasn’t a clear answer elsewhere online. Brother have not released a driver package for M1 Macs running Monterey and suggest you install their printing app from the app store – an app which has terrible reviews. The good news is, the old drivers for MacOS...