Category: Computers/Tech/Games

Retiring the CloudFTP

CloudFTP Device

I find it easier to throw away big things than small things. Small things can always be shoved into a drawer, placed on a shelf, or tossed into a closet. And when it comes to technical gadgets it’s often the small things cost big bucks, which makes some of these things more difficult to part with. CloudFTP was a wireless device that launched on Kickstarter back in 2012. The small box served as a tiny web/FTP server that contained a USB port and was powered by a rechargeable battery. Any files stored on the attached USB stick could be accessed… (read more)

RobOHara

PosterPi (Raspberry Pi-based Digital Poster/Picture Display)

PosterPi is a solution I created for turning a flat screen television into a virtual poster display. The script was written in Bash for Linux and designed to run on a Raspberry Pi. Although I designed PosterPi to display pictures of movie posters, it could easily be modified to display digital pictures, digital signage, or just about anything else. Once PosterPi is set up, it should automatically boot up, launch the script, read a list of posters (digital pictures) from a predetermined location, and begin displaying them in random order. My intention was for the entire process to begin without… (read more)

RobOHara8 Comments

The Joys of Arcade Ownership

So the lobby leading to my movie room is done, and by “done” I mean it’s an empty 10×20 room with carpet, waiting for me to fill it. The outside door is slightly off center, leaving about 7′ of space to the left and 10′ to the right. To the left, I plan to put a couple of arcade machines, a small snack bar, and a monitor that streams cartoons, music videos, and movie trailers. The vibe I’m going for is “80’s skating rink,” more or less. On Sunday, Susan and I picked up one of my two remaining arcade… (read more)

RobOHara4 Comments

Setting up Movie Nights with a PowerShell Script

I love watching movies, but miss the theater experience — and by that I mean trailers and concession commercials, not gum on the floor, people talking, and kids kicking the back of my seat. I decided to write a script using PowerShell to try and enhance my home movie experience. The result, which I’ve named MovieNight.ps1, is pretty neat! I’m splitting today’s blog post into two parts. The first half will be the fun half where I talk about what the script does. The first half won’t be technical at all. In the second half I’ll get into the technical… (read more)

RobOHara2 Comments

Two Weeks with Amazon’s Ring 2 Doorbell

Murderers. Rapists. Thieves. These are the people I have captured on video after owning a Ring video doorbell for two weeks. Just kidding. So far I’ve captured video of trucks driving past my house, three visitors, construction workers across the street using the Porta-Potty, two Amazon deliveries, and several videos of Susan and I trying out the doorbell. Like most gadgets, I bought a Ring doorbell not because I needed one, but because I thought it would be neat. If reporters are to be believed, our homes (and cars) are constantly being probed by scary criminals, checking to see if… (read more)

RobOHara

Putting a Computer Keyboard in the Dishwasher

The longer you work on computers, the more weird tricks you learn. Over the years I’ve straightened the pins on IDE hard drives, made temporary jumpers out of paperclips, bypassed BIOS passwords by removing the CMOS battery, and used rubber bands to remove screws with stripped heads. And then there are the really weird ones, like sticking a failing hard drive inside your freezer as a last ditch attempt to save it. While a lot of people (myself included) seemingly had success with this trick, more recent analysis has determined that there’s a much greater chance of this making the… (read more)

RobOHara

Super Mario Bros. on the Commodore 64

In the world of computers and video games, “killer apps” are defined as programs or games so useful or desirable that it actually drives hardware sales. In other words, people want the application or game so bad that they will buy a computer or video game console just to play it. Two of the earliest examples of killer apps were VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet that sent small business owners running to their nearest Apple computer dealership, and Space Invaders, a game that caused sales of the original Atari 2600 console to triple. It’s hard to think of a bigger… (read more)

RobOHara

Moving Files into Folders [PowerShell]

Lately I’ve been going back through some of my old DVDs and Blu-rays and re-ripping the ones where I missed commentary tracks or special features. The ultimate goal is to put each movie into its own folder (along with any associated files, like subtitle tracks or movie posters), but I tend to let them pile up for a while in one place which ends up in a big house cleaning mess when it’s time to organize them all. I’ve been doing a lot of PowerShell scripting at work, and have started writing a few scripts for my home computer/network as… (read more)

RobOHara2 Comments

Parting with Old Computers (It’s Dead, Jim)

Last weekend, I threw away a computer. I threw away a computer that I’ve been hanging on to for at least a decade. And the funny thing is, I couldn’t even tell you why I kept it all this time. From the outside, a Dell Dimension looks like a “modern” computer — and by modern I mean that if you passed by one sitting on a shelf, your first response probably wouldn’t be that it belonged in a museum. Instead, I’d expect you to say that you used to have a computer that looked just like it at work (or… (read more)

RobOHara1 Comment

The New House is Wired

If there’s a silver lining to a furlough, it’s that the combination of time off and no income makes it convenient to work on small home improvement projects. It’s a bad time to start an expensive project, but good for checking off all those little honey-do projects that take more time than money to complete — things like hanging pictures and setting up bookshelves. One of the projects I’ve been wanting to tackle since purchasing our new home was running ethernet (network) cables down through the walls to all (or most) of the rooms. The people who originally planned to… (read more)

RobOHara