Digital Distractions

Shellinabox – Access a command line over HTTP

James — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:59:46 +0000

TweetBeing able to remotely administer a Linux machine using SSH is something so common and normal that it often gets taken for granted. Mobile broadband is quick enough that with...

Recover files from a TimeMachine sparsebundle that isn’t recognised

James — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 13:21:04 +0000

TweetRight, so the worse has happened… your shiny Mac has gone wrong – while booting it took forever and showed a mysterious grey/white progress bar. A progress bar you’ve never...

Stop your Citroen C3′s radio from beeping at you

James — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:13:15 +0000

TweetHas this ever happened to you? You’re driving around listening to the radio, switch the car off to go and do something (fill up with petrol in my case) and...

Inside a Motorola 8500X brick phone

James — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:53:18 +0000

TweetEveryone likes looking at the innards of electronic devices. Modern ones are a bit boring now unless you’ve got a microscope, but there’s plenty of interest in old tech… especially...

Make Netatalk work on Ubuntu 11.10 and OSX

James — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:15:34 +0000

TweetI recently upgraded my server to a new machine running Ubuntu 11.10. With the Macs in our house I’ve always used Samba for file sharing – it works, it’s stable...

The insides of an iPod 1.8″ HDD and a 2.5GB Seagate Microdrive

James — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:39:29 +0000

TweetHard drives are pretty fascinating things, full of complex and precisely machined pieces of metal that spin at high speeds. And they’re strangely reliable too, considering what’s in them. Well,...

Fake Hello Kitty iPod Shuffle from eBay for £0.01

James — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:05:45 +0000

TweetAmy just received this amusing piece of Chinese electronic tat from eBay. It’s a Hello Kitty branded MP3 player that bears a striking resemblance to a popular brand of portable...

A BBC Micro with an MMC Card… and some bad components

James — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:23:44 +0000

TweetAfter the success of repairing my BBC Micro’s PSU I decided the act of shoving 30 year old floppies into an equally old drive, while amusing and all was a...

Repairing filtering capacitors on faulty BBC Micro PSU

James — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:38:23 +0000

Tweet30 year old computers often have a few drawbacks, especially when the equally old components inside them start to malfunction. There is a known fault with the BBC Micro’s power...

Building a Fignition computer

James — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:20:02 +0000

TweetFrom the main Fignition website FIGnition is a £20 educational DIY computer which works like an 8-bit home Micro: outputting to composite video and ready to be interactively programmed from...