Diamond Rio PMP300
Posted on Tue, Mar 30, 2021
(Last modified on Mon, Apr 5, 2021)
| Alan Pope
My loft is a treasure trove of old crap. For some reason I keep a bunch of aged useless junk up there. That includes the very first MP3 player I owned.
Behold, the Diamond Rio PMP 300. Well, the box, in all its ’90s artwork glory.
Here’s the player. It’s powered by a single AA battery for somewhere around 8 hours of playback. It’s got 32MB (yes, MegaBytes) of on-board storage.
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Pro Breeze Air Fryer Review
Posted on Fri, Feb 26, 2021
| Alan Pope
Like many during The Event I bought an Air Fryer. Specifically I got the Pro Breeze XL 5.5L (affiliate link) from Amazon. I honestly didn’t do a tremendous amount of research, just reading a few reviews and using those as my basis for what to buy. The Pro Breeze models come in different sizes, and the reviews for the smaller model suggest the larger 5.5L one is preferable. I’m lucky enough to have enough kitchen workspace to leave it out on the side, so went for the larger model.
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Scanning Frustration
Posted on Sat, Feb 20, 2021
| Alan Pope
“Printers are devices for causing pain and frustration. They also sometimes print stuff out.” - Me, many times over the years.
I have an HP LaserJet 100 MFP M175nw networked laser printer / scanner / copier. I’ve had it since 2013 where it’s generally worked okay most of the time. We don’t print a ton of things in this house, but when we do, it’s typically urgently required for work or school.
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Hunting Down A New Laptop
Posted on Fri, Feb 12, 2021
(Last modified on Mon, Feb 15, 2021)
| Alan Pope
My most “recent” laptop history looks a bit like this:
Toshiba T1910cs (~1994) Toshiba T2100cs (~1995) Sony Vaio PCG-C1 (~1998) Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 (~2005) Toshiba Portege M400 (~2007) Apple MacBook Pro (~2010) ThinkPad X220 i7 (~2012) ThinkPad T450 i7 (~2016) There have been other, non-primary computer devices over the years like the Intel Classmate, ASUS Transformer, Asus EEE 701 & 900, EEE 1000HA, Dell Latitudes, Toshiba AC100, Pinebook, Pinebook Pro, an Entroware Athena and, briefly a MacBook Air.
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The Best Toaster
Posted on Thu, Jan 28, 2021
| Alan Pope
If you know me well in person, or online, you’ll almost certainly have heard me evangelise about the best toaster you can buy. If so, you are excused from reading any further. However, I may test you on this text at some point. So skip reading it at your peril!
There are no affiliate links in this post. I do not seek to financially benefit from your enjoyment of deliciously toasted bread.
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Magewell HDMI Capture with ffmpeg
Posted on Wed, Jan 27, 2021
| Alan Pope
Three years ago I bought a Magewell USB HDMI capture device (affiliate link). It’s a neat, reliable and well made, if expensive device. I use it to capture the output of computers, mostly to get pixel perfect bug reports, and to make some videos for YouTube. I prefer these hardware solutions over the software screencasting counterparts, as they tend to be more reliable, and don’t consume resources on the computer being recorded.
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Xiaomi Redmi AirDots S Review
Posted on Wed, Jan 20, 2021
| Alan Pope
This is a somewhat belated review, as I’ve had these headphones for over 6 months now, but I use them often enough for a long term review I think. Also, I’m no MKBHD, so this isn’t a deep dive into the audio response of these things. Set expectations accordingly. This is more of a ramble than a review.
I’m no audiophile. I tend to listen to music while working on whatever headphones are nearby.
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Two Displays & Two Computers
Posted on Sat, Jan 9, 2021
| Alan Pope
In my messy office I have a main desk I work at. I have two portait displays on a hefty, but inexpensive BONTEC Dual Monitor Stand (affiliate link), clamped to the back, to lift the monitors up off the desk. The monitors are 3-year-old, low-end 24" ASUS VS248HR (affiliate link) “Gaming Monitor’s” 🤣.
I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 400 which also sits on my desk for quick-release arm64-action! The problem I have had with other Pi’s is the spiders web of cables needed, and additional keyboard.
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Ouya was a Success
Posted on Tue, Jan 5, 2021
| Alan Pope
On 11th July 2012, the Ouya burst onto the scene via popular crowdfunding site - Kickstarter. It was billed as “A New Kind of Video Game Console” which sold for $99/£99 at launch. It was essentially an Nvidia Tegra 3 based ARM System on Chip crammed into a tiny box which sat under / near your TV and was operated with supplied bluetooth game controllers. They far exceeded the target of $950,000, reaching $8,596,474, setting some high expectations among the backers and interested onlookers.
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Eufy RoboVac 30C Review
Posted on Sat, Jan 2, 2021
| Alan Pope
3 months ago I bought a Eufy RoboVac 30C (affiliate link) vaccum cleaner. Now feels like a good time to write a review. Before The Event we had a cleaner at home who came once a week. We no longer have a cleaner and I’m now the only adult in the house, so figured I could do with some help cleaning up. In short, yes, I’d recommend it, if you have similar requirements to me.
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