Coming up later in 2016

To the many many people who stop by everyday, welcome and thank you!

To those of you who might hang around and revisit these pages I'd like to just go over a few items I'm looking at performing over the next few weeks.

Firstly, I have a big technical post about setting up Trac with Subversion, including securing it, hosting it on a virtual server and really getting you up and running with project tracking and management with Trac, from total scratch.

Secondly, I have a big of Dungeons and Dragons stuff to cover, both a bit about the official rules and the in-house rules we play with, and there will hopefully be a live stream with my niece whom is D&D crazy, and even made me a D&D based birthday card, which we will play through together.

Third, electronics, I'm probably not going to get to do the PS/2 connector project previously listed, but as the autumn winds in and and the winter comes across, I hope to get back to the DCC layout stuff, not least because I have a tonne of stuff laying around for it and two part soldered projects ready to go.

Fourth, a bit of computer history, I have a manual (just a manual) for a VAX VMS, I'd like to do some coverage of that for you all to geek out over.

Fifth and perhaps finally, gaming, I'm going to be looking back at Elite Dangerous I think, with the release and massive price tag on "No Mans Sky", I'm going to go back and see if Elite has done anything more interesting.  I've also been looking at buying Squad, the successor to "project reality" and going into that.  Our good friend Chaplain has invited us to play some Arma 3 time with him, and I'm playing World of Warships still.  So we'll go through all of that.

Sixth, so yes, fifth was not final, programming.  I'm looking at a project internal to myself, something I want to actually create, manage & sell.  So we'll see how that goes, but understandably there's not a lot I can share.  You will also find me touting myself for business at www.freelancer.co.uk, and as such I hope to make up some of the wads of cash we've been spending since the wife's surgery.

I'll speak to you all soon, I may start to make a mid-month post like this for you all to catch up on, but we'll see how things pan out.

In the mean time, the pony has a new home, and she has a new friend meet our Gerty and Magic once again:

Blog Update: Mid-Session

Yeah, so what do I mean by mid-session?

Well, I'm midway through an awful lot of little projects, and right now (well about 5 hours ago) I actually just got home from a holiday (vacation to our American cousins)... So, lets just go over what I'm working on, what I'm planning for you guys, and when I plan to do it, saving time slips.

First, the server fan project, the fans have been modded with new resistors, they all still work, and the server boots.  And it a LOT LOT quieter, however, the BMC does start to moan after a while and it ramps the fans up to 100% screaming again when they drop below 2250 RPM.  So, I'm still working on software patching that...

Second, I have an introduction for you guys for the servers, covering all the little bits of kit I found in them, including memory installation, RAID controller configuration & installation, DRAC set up, and even re-working an Intel Dual Gigabit 8x PCIe.  Well I say re-working, I took the heat-sink off and put new shiny thermal paste on it to help it run cooler with the slower fans... Anyway, all that is coming up.

Third, what am I actually going to be doing with the servers?  Yes I have two new things to announce, watch this space.

Fourth, again a server item, racking them... I'm planning on building my own mini-coffee table style rack from some ikea items... However, this is a very low priority and depends on Pay-day coming around.

Last Server Item, it the new drives and RAM upgrades I've order, yes a whooping £20 has been spent!  However, I'm reaching out to several ebay and Amazon traders looking for partners to bring you new and exciting content as well as giving them reviews for their kit... So, watch this space for more kit being reviewed in my unique style.  To those vendors I've sent missives to... Get back to be folks, first come first served... I've got a Server CPU provider already negotiating... I'm missing RAM and cable providers... (hence why I've bought the first round of items for review & use).

Sixth, this is a software project, one of my most popular post series is my old, original, "Write your own CPU" series, which I think is pretty crap, I never finished it, never went beyond the basic add & sum op codes.  The later 4004 tutorial is not as popular (despite it being vastly superior), so to help my viewers see more of my blog and sites I'm going to be making a video series about writing your own virtual CPU.

I've got a bunch of real Z80 chips lying around, and some LED's, and a breadboard, so I may very well make a simple Z80 stepping/tester board and then we can write something similar in C++.

Seventh, Java code, the java series I had gets a fair view YouTube views, but I never see those viewers come through to here, so we need to figure out someway to get them java folks to read more than one line of text at a time!

So that whole series needs a tidy up, and the game itself there needs some new loving.

Eighth, I have some more Socket 775 modifications to work on, these are very very low on my list of projects, as I bought them at exactly the same time as the new servers came in.  And since the servers work, and are dual socket quad core Xeons, they are far more performance ready.

Very finally, I need to sort out the work-area, I have a new lovely digital controlled soldering iron, I have the Z80 project to solder, and three different arduino powered projects for the father-in-laws DCC train-set hobby to work on, so all those are coming this way, the first will be to mount the arc welding effect lighting into a single board solution.  Then I have an RGB effect lighting board to build to emulate a glowing set of fires for him.  Then finally a 5v DC motor project to power with PWM and emulate a set of coal-mine head stocks turning.

Solder, Short Circuit and Surgery

I started the weekend finally trying to sort out a little board for ken to mount in his blacksmith shop, using three LEDs to give a flickering flame effect...

I can run nice pinned wires from the arduino to the header I've included here, and it allows me to change the intensity of things, the resistors help keep the different channels dimmer for the LED's and so the light is not over powering.

However, whilst working on this board I found the soldering iron was being a real pig, it took forever to get to temperature, solder would not really melt - despite being fine previously - and then I found the handle to be very warm, and the solder would instantly vapouriser if touched on the iron's shroud.

So, I powered it off, let it cool, checked the tip... Nothing seemingly wrong, I plug it all back in, and as I flick the power switch the whole house goes dark.. Yep, I tripped the house's main fuse.. WHOOPS.

But, this freaking iron, I think it's dead.... I may have to start researching and flutter my eye lids at the wife to let me go buy a proper nice, temperature controlled soldering station.

And now finally, I have my date for my ankle surgery, yes they need to go back into the right ankle joint and have a tinker around, I went for my pre-op on Friday, and they operate in a fortnight... However, right now I have an appointment with a respiratory doctor and a stinking cold... Gah.

Gaming wise, I've been playing lots of World of Warships, but I'm also still playing Crown of the Gods, a clone of Lord of Ultima.

And project-wise, for code at least, I've started working on my own SDL2 based, XML driven 2D UI, for adding overlays or creating tools in C++, this is going to be useful for high-speed customisable and internationalization tasks I need perform; both at home and at work.

DCC Train Test Bed

I've spent some time this evening actually getting around to setting up a length of 00 Gauge railway track, in order to test my DCC base station and sniffer builds.

I've lots of electronics lying around and to be honest I need to knuckle down and play about with them more.

You can see I have a reference DCC station here, a Gaugemaster unit, I'd much prefer to have the actual ESU Ecos system on the real-layout, but Ken wouldn't let me bring it home... not least as it'd leave him with nothing to play with.

Anyway, you can see this is actually longer than my desks, so it goes way off into the ether, and I've propped the left end up (just to stop it sagging under it's own weight) with a cardboard tube I had lying around.

Then, in the center above the mini screw drivers you can see the pile of Arduino Uno boards I have, and then the mess of electronics in various re-purposed glass jars.

And my quality £3 volt meter just poking into view... Hey, hey, it's not a Fluke, but it does the job for now.

Planes, Trains and Plastering Trowels

Today I have mostly been plastering...

This was the opening for the old gas boiler, it was an open hole in the wall, so I had to build a timber frame into the brick work, plaster board that and then skim over it.

It's been a success, though I do have to wet & dry sand the top and sides a little to smooth them in, however, when the whole wall gets a coat of paint, and the new electric fire is hung back over the hole you'll never know.

Ken's train set is also coming along more, as you can see here, he's ballasted and started to decorate the station, there's lighting and tree's.

We've got an Arduino Uno powered dynamic lighting effect set, awaiting delivery of some ultra bright LED's.  And of course the arduino powered detection/occupancy system is still awaiting delivery of the magnets and reed switches.

Finally, I've been broadcasting my WarThunder game-play to Twitch again...

Come join me there for game play, programming, soldering projects and other bric-a-brac.

http://www.twitch.tv/xelous

Big Catch Up - Gaming, Programming, Model Railways

Well, I've not been around here for a while... So, where have I been for over a month?...

Just busy... But that doesn't mean I don't have a bunch of stuff to share with you all, I think this break from posting started with the wife and I going on Holiday.  We went to Wales just as the Rugby World Cup started, have you ever been English in Wales as the Welsh beat England at Twickenham?... Not a good vibe towards the English, that's all I'll say.

But Wales was great, so great, we're going back next year.

One thing that struck me however, was that I heard people speaking Welsh, and not just on touristy things, down the coop, people speaking Welsh.  I've not been to Wales since the late 80's, back then as a kid I don't remember hearing anyone speak Welsh, it sort of wasn't done, at least not done in front of us English, lest the Welsh themselves feel self conscious or they avoided trying to make it look like they were talking about us.

Luckily now, speaking Welsh seems to be in vogue, and so I heard that strange, lyrical, twitter a lot.  Down the pub, down the shop, at the chippy... We only had one place where I was conscious that we were being talked about and they took the piss, and that was the chippy, where they over charged the wife for cod & chips, and were commenting on it in Welsh.

For you see there are some words, which just translate, and whatever the woman actually said, what I heard was "how much shall I add onto this English fish?"  And the reply was "double it"...  Hey ho.  She paid, she enjoyed the meal, whatever.

In programming circles, I've continued to be using Python in anger, moving from an Android based app to creating a new website for the company using Apache and mod_python.  This has been a learning experience for me, and I have lots of tutorials in mind to add to the blog.

Gaming I've been playing two major titles, Payday 2 and WarThunder, the later of which I finally bought a premium set the German 109 G2 and some little tank, so there, finally a premium owner, more about that later.

And I've been playing a game called "Human Resource Machine", again more about that later.

Finally, I've been helping the father-in-law debug his model railway track... I have a series of videos and a few pictures here for you all now:

Origami shunting sheds, with Christmas lights inside, then the diesel shunters and to the right one of the diesel (maybe a Deltic) loco's and just pulling out of the station on the right, one of the steam loco's.

Here we see the Pinkston and Bestwood colliery trains on the inner, tight, circles.  Then the Queen of Scots (Mallard class) coming on the outer radius, before we get a de-railment on the far side.

We also see the DCC sound loco struggling to move with the power needs.

A view of the seven station circumferences.

Some movement along the station side, pictured previously.

More footage of the outer radius.

Coronation Class (I think) on the back straight, with DCC Sound playing.