I have been a user of Google Analytics since 2005, although I rarely even look in there. The only report I found interesting was the monthly report over a long period to see if my websites were growing. Since Google recently switched us all to GA4, finding simple information is frustrating. There was just too much info, and I wasn’t interested in almost all of it.
I am working in a small team of friends learning Python. To learn the basics of it we decided to build a chess game. This is the third post about it. You can see part 1 and part 2 here.
In this post, I will cover how I move the chess pieces. I do not know if this is the correct way, but for now, it works. I need to create a chessboard class and also move some of the properties of the board to there such as the squares, but for now, the chessboard is just a method in main.py. The code below shows part of the main loop that deals with mouse clicks.
(more…)Recently I wrote about learning Python by creating a chess game. I am new to Python, although not new to programming. Python has intrigued me for the last few months, especially how popular it seems to be (second place on GitHub fourth quarter 2020). When an opportunity came up to work with some friends and learn it I jumped at it.
In the last post about the chess game I wrote about getting familiar with Pygame and was able to programmatically draw a chessboard on the screen. I didn’t make much of an attempt at classes and structuring the program in any good way. In this post, I want to show what I have managed to accomplish as part of my teamwork. The image above shows how it looks now when I run the program.
(more…)After spending a lot of 2020 on Zoom meetings with choppy audio and frequent freezes, I decided it was time to upgrade my home wireless network.
I began frequently using Zoom in December 2019 when doing some work for a company where all staff worked remotely (we were ahead of the curve). Noticing connection problems while in meetings I spoke to my ISP and managed to get a free upgrade to the Virgin SuperHub 3. Although this improved reliability a little, things were still rough. I would often spend a lot of the day at home with wireless disabled on my phone just because the wireless connection was so bad. Zoom meetings also carried on suffering, although a little less than before. Annoyingly, it was always when I needed to listen or speak the most.
Looking up the numbers it seems that the SuperHub 3 is capable of handling about 20 wireless devices at a time. Although that seems like a lot for a home, it really isn’t now that our home is filled with more people and devices. Just to give a brief summary of some of our home devices:
1 x Ring doorbell.
1 x Ring Floodlight cam.
2 x Apple MacBooks
1 x Apple iMac
3 x Amazon Alexa
2 x Amazon Fire TV
1 x Apple TV
2 x Apple iPad
2 x Apple Watch
1 x FitBit Versa 2
7 x Smartphones (Several in the home, some for testing iOS apps which I build)
1 x HP Wireless Printer
? x other devices that I can’t remember.
All of these are active, although not always in use. But, it’s enough wireless traffic to bring the SuperHub 3 to its knees. I don’t think the SuperHub 3 is designed for this many devices, particularly with all of the streaming from multiple devices as well as cameras that upload video on movement. To compare to Eero, these devices can handle up to 128 connection each.
After a bit of research I opted to try the Amazon Eero. I managed to get a deal on the week leading up to Black Friday although since then it has gone back up in price. I got the three Eero pack, but not the pro version as those are more than I’m willing to pay at the moment.
Setup was easy. I wont go in to all of the steps in the app, but we ran in to no problems with setting things up. Due to an injury and not being able to get around the house easily, two of my children plugged the Eero devices in, one on each of the three floors we live in, and then connected the downstairs one up to the Virgin router. I put the Virgin router in modem mode and when done, opened up the Eero app and added each Eero to the network. The only remaining task was to check for devices on my old 5G network and change the wireless settings for them to point them to the new SSID.
As I was unable to get around the house at that time, my son took my phone around the house and used the SpeedTest app to check what kind of speeds we were getting. On my old setup which used TP Powerline adapters I was reaching around 10 Mb down at the furthest point in the house. Using Eero I typically get up to the full 220+ Mb from anywhere in the house depending on the time of day. Virgin has typically been good at providing advertised speeds for me, so I am happy with the results. I just couldn’t use the wireless from their standard hub.
Reliability has been great. Eero was setup just over a month ago. The first outage took me by surprise as it had been reliable for a few days after installation, but then I read that Amazon AWS had a major outage knocking out a lot of the internet. This meant that Eero was actually not the problem itself and that the problem was external to my network.
The other two outages seemed related to Zoom and I never was able to get to the bottom of what happened because when in a middle of a meeting the aim is to get back in as quick as possible, unless it’s boring and you have a valid excuse for leaving. I was kicked out of two meetings briefly and had to disconnect and reconnect. Perhaps it was my wireless network or perhaps it was something external, but other than that, all has run exceptionally well since installing it.
This post is just a summary of what Eero has worked like in my home; a kind of mini-review. I’m happy with Eero and the greater reliability it brings to my home. I haven’t got exact facts and numbers to share because they are not so important to me, but what I do know is that Zoom meetings are far more reliable and I rarely lose connection.
I also am able to use wireless on my phone and not have to disconnect and use 3G/4G in the home like previously.
Hive is a service that lets you control electrical items from the internet or smartphone. The central part in the home is the hub which communicates with hive online. The hub receives its instructions and then tells the smart items in the home to switch on or off. These can be controlled by smartphone or through the web app. The system allows for both manual and scheduled changes to be made.
Hive can connect to several types of smart items which include LED light bulbs, motion sensors, door sensors, as well as a thermostat to control your heating. The pack I got contained the hub and 2 dimmable LED light bulbs.
The light bulbs I got work really well. They are 9W each which is equivalent to a 50 – 55W incandescent light bulb and thus, are far more energy efficient in terms of cost to run.
At the moment Hive only works with regular bayonet or screw type light bulb fittings. I would love to see the technology moved in to a GU10 LED light, or alternatively, a smart switch being made available where you control the power to a collection of standard GU10 fittings. I’m sure this will happen, but they are not available yet and haven’t been announced either.
Speaking about “collections”, it would be great to be able to group all my living room light bulbs (I have 4) in to one group and control them together, but retain the ability to control individually. If I need to switch on lights remotely I am stuck with having to use a schedule or by turning each bulb on individually from within the app. One up side for when being at home is that I can cut power to the bulbs and then switch them back on with the wall switch. This overrides any current settings you might have and puts them on at full brightness until any queued scheduled changes might tell it otherwise.
I haven’t received the other bulbs and parts yet, but when I do I want to explore what can be done in terms of automation. The Hive app supposedly opens up a new option to make things smarter such as switching lights on when the door opens or using motion to switch them on. I’d like to see what I can get working when all the new items arrive. Rather than having lights on in the living room while I’m upstairs, I’d like it to switch them off after detecting no movement for a determined period of time.
The Hive website says that the hub now integrates with the Alexa Echo and Alexa Dot. I don’t have an Alexa device yet, but have ordered one as a gift for when Santa visits this weekend. I noticed while using the Alexa config app that I might be able to group lights in to collections. I guess this means that I can say “Alexa, turn on all lights upstairs” or “Alexa, dim the living room lights to 50%”. I might be being optimistic with these thoughts, so I’ll put it through its paces next week and report back.
Another test I am looking forwards to is seeing what difference the thermostat makes. I like the idea of coming home from a long drive and having the house warmed up for when I get home. Likewise, I like the idea of the heating being on a thermostat instead of always on or off as it has been for the last 10 years in this home. I’m sure we can be more fuel efficient as a family by making some small adjustments to how we use our heating system.
So far I like the Hive service. I haven’t worked out any cost savings just yet as I’m sure these will take a few years to be realised, but for someone who likes nerdy stuff, a smart “ish” home is quite cool.
I’ll write more when the extras arrive and then another followup when the Alexa Dot arrives.
If you are in the UK and do use British Gas as your energy provider, you might want to check emails that came in the first 10 days of December from them to see if you have an offer for a free Hive starter kit. I checked with my Dad and he did not, so I’m not sure how the selection process worked for this.
I received my iPad 3, AKA “The new iPad” on 16th March 2012. I previously owned the original iPad and an iPad 2, both of which were sold to make way for the newer version. The iPad 3 was fantastic. It was the first iPad with a retina display of which the retina display was first made available in the iPhone 4 which shipped in June of the previous year.
The iPad 3 is the last iPad I ever purchased. I still use it today, although it’s painfully slow. I think the reason I didn’t continue to upgrade each year was related to the iPad 4 being shipped just a few months after the 3 launched. I didn’t want to upgrade so soon, and then the year after I got my first MacBook Pro (the 13 inch retina). It knocked me out of the cycle of upgrades and I never got back in to that cycle.
One of the challenges I find on any iOS device that I have owned is that after 2 major iOS releases, things begin to slow down. The upgrade for iOS 5.1 to iOS 6 was just fine, but then the update to iOS 7 was where the slowness began to show it’s ugly face. For some unknown reason to me, I continued the yearly upgrade cycle to 8 and then 9. I currently run the latest version available which is 9.3.5 and it’s just ridiculously slow for many things. I’m surprised that Apple even though it was a good idea to move past iOS 6 for this device. To give some idea of how slow it can be, I can write a note in Evernote or Day One and type a full sentence out; I then sit for 10 – 20 seconds waiting for text to appear on the screen at which point it catches up with me.
So why do I still use the iPad 3? Other than the extreme lag, I still like the screen and I still find it fairly convenient for doing some basic work on such as marking off tasks in OmniFocus, or looking up reference material. The children also love games on it which in most cases do run just fine after the initial load. I also use it to play Amazon Prime video over Air Play to my Apple TV. It’s mostly a device that I consume information on. I cannot create on it. It’s just too slow and frustrating to do that.
I need to upgrade. I use the word “need” carefully as an iPad is not really a “need” in life. Perhaps I should say “I would like” instead. I would like to purchase the 12.9 inch iPad Pro, probably the wifi only model and the lowest storage, but it was released over a year ago in November 2015. If I buy now, I suspect that Apple will upgrade in the new year and thus, lower the price of the current gen. Likewise, if I buy an iPad that’s over a year old then iOS 11 will probably be the last usable OS on the device: usable meaning running without any lag at all. I could stick to iOS 11 when it launches and never upgrade, but sometimes it’s just far too tempting to hold back because of the new features available. Either way, I’d prefer to wait for the iPad pro 2 and purchase when/if that is released.
I still think the iPad is great. I know of a number of people who have switched to iPad only setups. iPad only doesn’t suit me as I need Xcode for creating apps for the iPhone, but for many day to day tasks it was a good laptop replacement when it worked well. For now, I use my MacBook Pro, but I like the idea of simplifying where I can. A MacBook Pro is often a lot more than I need.
I think the best temporary solution prior to my upgrade is that I will just switch off many of the features such as location services, background app refresh, notifications, and anything else that might cause the iPad to do a little more work than absolutely necessary. It’s a compromise, but perhaps something to keep my iPad 3 breathing a little longer.
Visitors to your website are more likely to stick around and not abandon your website if the page is quick to load. Google has a whole host of information about this. There is typically no single solution that would speed a page load up on a website; instead, there are many small optimisations that can be done each shaving a few fractions of a second off of the page load.
Since I stumbled across Evernote a couple of years ago it has literally transformed the way I deal with my notes and paperwork. To put it bluntly, my organisation sucked and often I would have to spend hours digging through bags of paperwork to look for a passcode I filed somewhere or for a P45 ready for my tax return. These days, I have it all stored online and can quickly search through everything to find what I need, usually within seconds.
I first came across Evernote when I got an iPhone 3GS. I don’t exactly remember how I found the app, but I suspect it was either sitting at the top of the productivity charts while I was browsing through various apps in the App Store, or perhaps I saw another blogger write about it. After installing it, I quickly found that a desktop version was available and perhaps a couple of months later, an iPad version launched the day the original iPad launched. I was hooked because things I noted on my iPhone or iPad were made instantly available on my desktop and laptop and vice-versa.
In the first year or so of using Evernote, I stored notes, ideas and perhaps some emails that I forwarded to my Evernote account. The system I used to get information in to Evernote worked well. Yes, my organisational skills still suck and I have plenty of unorganised folders and tags, but as search works well in Evernote, that doesn’t really matter to me as I always quickly find anything I need. Everything is always found in there.
A few months later (mid to early 2011) I started finding blog posts about various Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners as well as other models such as the Doxie (amongst others), and noticed that people were using document scanners to scan direct in to Evernote. At this point I realised that my usage was going to really go through the roof as I had a lot of messy documents stored in various bags all unorganised around the house. At that point in my life, I had spent the last 10 or so years supporting scanning equipment such as large Kodak document scanners and various scanners from Canon. I hadn’t put two and two together until I saw a video on how a document scanner can scan in to Evernote.
The scanners I have used are large Kodak 3500 models which scan duplex (both sides of the page) at about 60 pages per minute. Overkill at about $15,000 each when launched 10 – 12 years ago, but as there were several in the office at work I took my paperwork in there and began scanning in bulk stacks of paperwork, perhaps over 2000 pages if I remember correctly. The software I used was supplied by Kodak and deskewed the pages, removed blank pages and converted to PDF format easily. I seperated multi-page and single page documents and scanned single pages in large batches which were split in to individual PDF files. I then scanned multi page documents in single batches and stored multiple pages in a single PDF for each document. When scanned, I simply set up an import folder on the Windows version of Evernote and all of them were sucked in to the service and then uploaded.
By default, the free Evernote accounts come with 40MB (might be 60MB) of uploads per month which I quickly exhausted. For a reasonable $45 I upgraded to an Evernote Premium account which allows for 1GB of uploads per month and the rest were transferred. As the Premium service gets a priority OCR (optical character recognition) service, within a short period of time (perhaps 30 minutes), all of my documents were searchable. All my messy bags of paper that had been untouched for years were suddenly searchable. It’s incredible to see all the mess suddenly become organised and even crinkly pages were transformed in to amazing looking and clean documents thanks to the Kodak scanning software processing the images as they are scanned.
But, as most people do not have access to a $15,000 scanner, what I do recommend is that you look at scanners such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap and Doxie scanners. The ideal type of scanner is a duplex colour. Duplex means it scans both sides of the paper as it feeds through. The alternative is simplex which is a pain to use when you want to scan both sides of the paper.
At the moment I am using a Kodak i30 as I use it to test with at home for support purposes but I don’t recommend it for Evernote as it only scans the front side which is a pain when having to run multiple pages that are printed front and back. The i40 is an option although it’s a large scanner when compared to the ScanSnap models from Fujitsu (tiny compared to the $15k Kodak 3500s which are not made anymore). Also, if you configure Evernote correctly and the scanner settings, you can simply drop your post in the scanner as it comes through the door, let it scan and have it immediately and automatically imported in to Evernote.
Here is a quick video demonstration on how a document scanner can be used to get paperwork in to Evernote.
By default, I now put all scans in to my Inbox folder which includes all items I forward through email, or clip from the web. I then spend time each week going through the folder and moving in to other folders as needed. I can then also make sure I action my post that needs to be actioned.
I personally use Evernote to store all items that get delivered through my door (except for junk mail of course). I also use it for storing notes from meetings as well as ideas and various other things. I can highly recommend it although some might feel uncomfortable storing such items within an online service. Looking over the technical specs of Evernote and how they encrypt data, I feel safe with it. For highly sensitive data I also encrypt the text within the individual notes and provide a strong password. It might be possible for someone to access if they get my password and get my second password for the sensitive data, but they might also get something out of my trash if I forget to shred a document. So, I’ll let you make your own decision for that.
For me, the Evernote service and everything in the cloud has made me far more effective and efficient at what I do and I highly recommend you check it out now… considering it’s free to use then you only waste a bit of time should you not like or trust it.
