FoodMaestro and Nielsen Brandbank are hosting their very first #hackathon at Food Matters Live 2018, and I’m delighted to be hosting and helping organise this event with their teams. Technology is changing, and so is our appetite to eat better. We are calling for creative minds to join us in creating the next big revolution …
MySql 8 and PHP mysqli_connect login failure – fixed on OSX
If you develop on a Mac as I do, you’ll want to get up to date with the latest versions of the software! So I installed a fresh new copy of MySql database server – now version 8, and made sure I was using PHP 7.2 for use with my Jetbrains PHPStorm IDE. The trouble arrived …
My failed A-Level results found me my vocation
How my failed A-level results put me on a path to a vocation I never knew I loved until I discovered it!
Decoding TV Teddy Part Four – The Search For Encoding That Works
If you’ve been following my articles on reverse-engineering the TV Teddy soundtrack embedded in the video picture, then you may have wondered why I’ve gone silent on encoding my version. The previous article (part three) found me working to encode a new signal for Databits, the excellent retro-tech Youtube channel. Well, all I can say …
Wi-Fi Mesh ‘Whole Home’ Networks really work!
I have finally fixed the Wi-Fi! Since the BT engineer had to rewire our telephone cable to the back of the house, getting Wi-Fi signal to the front of the house has been a nightmare – especially to the main TV where we watch internet shows from BBC iPlayer, Netflix and others. This is because …
Decoding TV Teddy – Part Three: Encoding a new TV Teddy Video
In part two I successfully decoded the TV Teddy audio embedded in a TV Teddy video, and I’ve watched the sync’d playback with the original video. In performing the decoding I learned that: The TV Teddy audio track is created by mapping the audio waveform to shades of grey The bit rate can be only …
Decoding TV Teddy – Part Two: Programming and Audio Output
As a purely fun and academic exercise, I’m going attempt to decode the TV Teddy audio track embedded in a TV Teddy video programme, and output the audio as a separate file. I’ll then try and play back both the audio file and the YouTube video in sync to enjoy this particular TV Teddy episode …
Decoding TV Teddy – Part One: Discovery
I’ve always been fascinated by technologies embedded in products – especially toys which use tech to provide interaction with the child playing with it. Indeed I think toys really ‘push’ technology as they need to be easy to understand and use yet be robust enough survive boistorous play. From the earliest clockwork rabbits, to dolls …
TechForTesco QR code appears on Midsomer Murders episode
An eagle-eyed TV viewer has contacted me to say that, when he scanned a QR code in an episode of the ITV detective drama Midsomer Murders called Murder By Magic, he arrived at my old blog at TechForTesco. Here is the original QR code: …which contains a web link to take you to this page …
Follow my DJI Mavic Pro Aerial Photography
Dear reader, As well as writing this blog, I also post YouTube videos of flights filmed by my DJI Mavic Pro aerial camera / quadcopter / drone at this web address: https://1fw.tv “1fw” stands for “1FW Flight Widescreen” (yes it’s recurive) so please take a look and let me know what you think!