A little background
Well, whaddya know, I woke up this morning and found myself in 2024! Kicking around, I found the old year lying in a messy heap in the corner, looking in a real sorry state - it's been an on-and-off year for me and my pack, and although it's not been all bad, I was not sorry to see it go. The main problems have been the realisation that yes, the country really is in the shit state that everyone that's not a Tory voter is claiming, and despite various organisations saying otherwise, the climate (and planet) really is going to hell in a handcart. To make it all the more disappointing, the Government seems to have rowed back on various promises to cut emissions, at least for a couple of years until they're no longer in power or some brilliant scientist comes up with a panacea for all our ills. Either way, you have to admire Sunak's abaility to negotiate a deal with Mother Nature who has apparently agreed not to continue destroying our planet until 2030! Anyway, enough of the truth and reality bitching: lets have a look at what's on the horizon!
2023 Achievements
Overall, 2023 was an interesting one as regards technology, which comes as no suprise to those that know me. Here's a few milestones in no particular order...
The Blogging Bag
I finally got my act together with my portable "office", and carefully selected a variety of accessories which would let me blog/report from practically anywhere. The iPad Mini 6 is still a firm favourite in that respect, and the acquisition of a new keyboard has finally enabled me to create a grab-n-go bag; at least I know I'm prepared for live reporting anywhere, anytime! I spent nearly a week looking at portable keyboard reviews and eventually went for an Arteck folding Bluetooth keyboard. It's not quite full size and doesn't have a numeric pad (that I don't need) and it folds twice to make a small, portable package. the back is made of metal and it all seems tough: time will tell. One advantage is that there's provision for 3 separate device connections, so you don't have to keep re-pairing it for other devices. My bag is just about big enough to hold the iPad, battery, keyboard, cables and a MiFi portable hotspot from T-Link. I felt that this was essential rather than relying on my phone, which I may actually need to, y'know, talk to someone occasionally - if I've slurped all my battery transferring files then I'd be in trouble! Anyway, it's a nice setup and not too obtrusive if I go out and about.
Talking of which, I'm sad to report that my previous found venue for all things hipster, the Good Mood Bar closed down. Insufficient footfall was the main culprit I believe, and probably not helped by beer and meals at near-London prices. Coming from the South, you can sort of accept a higher price, but locals aren't often inclined to pay what can seem exhorbitant prices unless there's something really special on offer. Even the weekly vinyl evenings at the bar couldn't save it, which is a shame because Halifax really needs venues like that, as I said earlier. However, a replacement establishment has now stepped in, and they already have similar premises at a nearby suburb, so it should be interesting to see what happens! It opens in February so watch this space...
The Ever-Expanding Laptop
Next up is the constantly-changing laptop! In keeping with my "buy old and cheaply when possible" policy, my brand-new open-box Lenovo T480 laptop has seen a few changes this year. The T480 was/is a very popular and capable machine, loved by corporate users and developers alike. It's not a light machine and is built to last, but it's the amazing interchangeable parts that make it one of the best in the business. Originaly I bought it minimum spec (it was cheap): 8Gb memory and a 128Gb SSD drive with a copy of Windows 10 installed. I fully intended to upgrade it, so out came the SSD - it's a joy to open and work on, unlike many - and in went a 2Tb WD Blue NVME SSD -the wallet stung for a while but I figured out I'd never need to upgrade it again. Probably...
Then I looked at memory. No way was I going to be able to run a decent instance of Linux for video and audio editing on that, so I looked around and found that the T480 could accomodate 32Gb, so another moment of walletary pain and 2 banks of memory were soon installed. Swap space? We don't neeed no steenking swap space! I later revisited the memory situation and found that many T480 laptops did in fact support 64Gb of memory - it's just that when it first came out, 32Gb memory banks just weren't generally available. Nowadays it's different, and it's possible to install 2 x 32Gb memory unless you're rocking a vPro CPU like me in which case you're limited to "only" 48Gb. So, just one bank of memory to replace, and I now have the maximum 48Gb.
The keyboard? Well, the problem was that although the T480 supports backlit keys, it's not a standard option, so a trawl of eBay revealed an allegedly original one for a low price, and due to the excellent design of the laptop I found that I was able to change the keyboard without taking the back off! A quick-win there and now I can type in the dark and low light.
It didn't stop there though. I found out that the T480 has a spare slot for a WWAN device - that's a wireless modem to you and me - which just happens to be capable of accepting (by design) a short-form NVME SSD instead! And as a side note, while I was ferreting around with my investigation I found a SIM card slot that Lenovo had designed in to support the WWAN modem. Yes, you can see where I'm heading with this one, and yes, the challenge had to be met. After a false start in finding a suitabel device, I ended up a 128Gb NVME which was big enough to make it worthwhile but small enough to be affordable. Once the long-suffering base went back onto the T480 I was left with a laptop which could be booted from either drive, as I had installed a copy of Debian 12 on the new drive. This is extremely handy as I can have a completely separate environment if I want to work on other projects without mucking up my daily working environment.
And just when you thought it was all over, I decided to see if I could get the inbuilt smartcard reader going for a reasonable price. This involved a little more dismantling of parts but for less than a tenner I had a fully-working card reader. All I need now is a use for it! It's amazing the number of new or nearly-new parts available for the T480, especially via eBay and I think I can safely say that I have upgraded it as much as possible. Probably. All in all though a great result.
The Android Tablet
Although I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Apple user, I'm acutely aware that Apple have tightly sealed their devices to make sure you can only use them for their intended purpose; now where's the fun in that?! So I can install all the apps that I want, but there's always limitations on many of the features. I can't install a development for instance, although Pythonista furnishes me with a full IDE, as long as I want to develop in Python. There have been attempts at enabling a limited Linux environment, but basically it's practically useless due to Apple's sandboxing, so I'm using the iPad Mini the Apple Way and that's the way it'll stay.
Then, a few weeks ago I read about a growing number of people who are running Linux on Android Tablets and I thought it would be good to have a look at that, although the prospect of returning to the Dark Side (Android) unsettled me somewhat. Nevertheless I did some research and found that it was indeed possible to run a reasonable instance of Linux on an Android device. I started the usual hunt for a suitable device on eBay and eventually found a commonly-available Lenovo M8 Tablet: 3rd Gen. The spec is good: Android 10 (no further upgrades available), 32Gb "disk" space and microSDHC storage. Screen is a good-quality 1280x800 and the alloy-cased tablet comes with its own desk stand. The killer feature for me though is that it suppports 4G LTE so need to carry a separate MiFi/hotspot. I bought a no-contract SIM card with good data allocation and it's ready to go. The battery is a hefty 5000mA version which gives incredible battery life.
So as regards getting Linux onto the device, I originally went with the popular Debian Noroot. This is an interesting concept as it offers a cut-down but still-GUI desktop environment, all without having to root the tablet. I tried this out for a few days but it eventually dawned on me that I don't actually need a GUI Linux environment so I deleted it and looked around again. This time, and old friend, Termux came to my aid, and having used it before I happily reinstalled it on the M8. With that in place I was then able to install a copy of Debian 12 (without the GUI, obvs) which actuallly runs very well indeed. Sure there are limitations, but I'm able to run my favourite tools, like SSH, GPG, Git, Perl(!) and others. My moment of joy came though when I was able to download the latest copy of CKermit from the project web site, and compile it on the Android Tablet. It all works as the designers intended and I'm a happy man. The real win for me though is that the Termux/Debian subsystems can use the onboard 4G connection transparently so really, despite not having a keyboard permanently attached it's my perfect laptop! More to come on this project when I've experimented more...
Flying Tonight!
I think the most exciting moment of 2023 was the time I decided to fulfill my ambition of becoming a pilot! Not of a real, full-sized flying machine you understand, but an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or, drone. Yes I bit the bullet after doing a lot of research and invested in a DJI Mini 3 Pro sub-250gm drone (the weight's important) and some spare bits to go with it. With some trepidation I eventually had my first test flight in the back garden and from then on I was hooked! Of course, it's easy to go out and buy a drone, but what they don't tell you about are the rules and regulations that go with it. My goodness - it's not quite as bad as being a real pilot apparently but once you understand the requirements of flying your tiny device in public it's all put into perspective. I had to apply to the CAA (no less!) and get an Operators Licence which entitles to operate (a fleet of) drone aircraft. Then, I had to take the equivalent of an airborne driving lesson after reading up on the CAA Drone Code; like the Highway Code of the skies. I have to retake this test every year.
Then, insurance. I get the impression that any old bod can go out to Currys and buy a drone, but insurance is rarely, if ever mentioned. Obviously flying anything "by wire" - or wireless in this case - is potentially prone to accident if not handled correctly so Public Liability for Drones was arranged. Depending on who you insure with, this potentially entitles you to fly in slightly less-regulated situations (more on this later) so I'm now good to fly, but have beeen severely restricted as the weather has ben shockingly bad. It's incredible to think that these tiny devices can legally fly to an altitude of 120m/400 ft at speeds of up to 30MPH, but can't really handle rain at all, so although it doesn't specificaly need Californian Sun, Yorkshire is not a good place for trying to fly a drone from... Still, I've had some interesting initial forays, so more on this later.
And Finally
Well, that's it for now. 2024 has had a nice, slow start and I'm hoping to be writing more frequently, albeit with a tech/computing bias. Have a good start to the New Year yourself, and please feel free to leave comments!