Review on Home

Word Processors and the modern age

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 23:00:00 +0000

Note: This post has been in my drafts since June 2021.

I first saw the Tandy WP-2 Word-Processor on YouTube when a video about it was suggested to me. It was the Tech Tangents video and I was intrigued by the device and its simplicity. I do have a slight fascination of older technology that has been superseded by another all encompassing device. I still rock a flash modded iPod, even though I have my phone and access to every song via some kind of streaming service. It reminds me of a simpler times where, in this case, the user was not distracted by everything else a computer can do now of days. Now is this more apparent when it comes to writing. I personally will not write a blog post continuously, I will get distracted and go look at Reddit or my email. I have had several posts in drafts for months and I can normally get a paragraph out before something dings and I am gone.

Pinebook Pro: Betting it all on ARM – Part 1

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 11:00:00 +0000

During this lockdown, I have not been spending as much as I would typically with eating out and doing non-home bound activities, I have had a bit more disposable income for gadgets than I would usually have. With these extra funds, I decided to invest in two pieces of fascinating hardware. This blog post with be the first item I received.

My usual laptop is a Dell Latitude E7440, Intel i7-4600u, 16 GB RAM, 2 x 480GB mSATA drives, and a 14 inch 1080p screen. Currently, it’s running Windows 10, 2004 but in the past, it has run Linux, BSD and even MacOS a few times. It’s a nice machine, powerful enough to do most tasks and light enough to be in a backpack at all times.

I have used Raspberry Pis in the past as well as some “clones”. These have been used for server related tasks and not for personal computing. I believed x86 is the best platform we have but with the last few exploits in that hardware has shown that there are flaws with these closed-source, closed-designed implementations of this platform. The need for speed and performance has come at the cost of security and “simplicity”. ARM (other RISC platforms are available) I think will become the next architecture that will take over. It might have already done, so ARM is everywhere you look, phones, TVs, some fridges, VPSs and now my new laptop.

Is there an Echo?

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 12:00:00 +0000

I had this blog posted pending for a long time now (a few months) and am finishing it now due to recent events that will be explained below.

I got an Amazon Echo in July during Prime Day for a price of £80. I was excited to get a smart speaker as I am a nerd.

I took her home and pulled her in, after a rocky start with setup due to my phone not liking connecting to a WiFi point without an internet connection; I had her set up. At first, I was impressed with the sound quality and how will she recognised her keyword across the room but that’s where it started to turn south.

As I see it the most common use of a smart speaker for me is “searching” or asking it stupid questions. Simple questions or requests where handled with some ease but sometimes she would replay with the generic “I don’t understand message” or would just search it and send it to the Alexa app on my phone. At that point, I could have just googled it myself and get better answers.