Saturday, 28th June, 2025

I’ve been looking at old macs. Specifically 2012 Mac minis. Mostly as they’re cheap, circa £40, and upgradable. Still slow on second gen intels and DDR3, but you get macOS (some older version) and then I could play with Tinderbox. Probably a waste of £40. It would be the third time I’ve bought a 2012 Mini 😅

Been lovely weather here today, and been outside a lot. Listened to the iPod whilst mowing the lawn.

Need to spend some time to sync more music, rip some of the cds I found and maybe make a couple of playlists.

Luckily I’ve been outbid on all my old iPod bids so not winning a bunch more.

I should get back on the tiddlywiki setup. The theme and blah can be worked on later. The basic infrastructure needs to be setup then I can start using it.

Friday, 27th June, 2025

Did the iPod mod. It was very easy, and now I have a 128GB ipod with a new big battery. It’s also lighter than the original due to the SD card vs. the hard drive. Sorting out restoring it on Windows was a little bit of a faff as now there are four apps that used to be iTunes: Apple Music, Apple TV, iTunes and Apple Devices. You need Apple Devices and to unplug/plug the iPod to get it to trigger downloading the iPod software. After that it was fine. Now to add music to iTunes and then sync it. Played some music on it. Very enjoyable. I like the Echo Mini for its robustness, if it gets dropped I don’t think anything will happen to it, whereas the iPod still feels little bit fragile. However, I much prefer the menu system of the iPod.

My USB DVDRW also arrived, so I can copy CDs onto the computer, or even make CDs. Was looking for the 30 pin iPod cable and came across my wife’s CDs and DVDs in a folder. She kept all hers, was just me that thought it was smart to get rid of them.

Considering a CD player and amp to listen to things. Although perhaps that’s unecessary, as I can just load them onto the ipod etc. and listen to it. Then not be tethered to a certain location. But would be nice to just play a CD without faff. Reddit suggests finding a used DVD player that also does SACD and has optical out for direct digital transfer. Not started looking but will think about it.

Making some progress on the new tiddlywiki. Still looking at the design/layout. Probably should just stick with the default but can’t help myself.

Sold the Xbox, which is nice. Was worried it would still be for sale when we’re on holiday. Wex photographic emailed to say the X100VI is in stock. So expensive though.

I already have a camera and laptop and desktop and and and everything!

Wednesday, 25th June, 2025

Thinking of going back to tiddlywiki. And this time for everything…

What holds me back is CSS customisation. I’m sure it’s not hard but I can never seem to break in to figure it out. Perhaps this time ChatGPT can help me. But everything else is nice. Probably going to make a new one and set it up, import things and so on.

Finally listening to my snowsky echo mini. Sat in the garden at lunchtime. It’s nice. I’m still going to be making a modded iPod but this is fun.

Tuesday, 24th June, 2025

Managed to get an iPod 5th gen from eBay and then ordered some mods. New bigger battery and 128GB SD here we come! Was getting frustrated with eBay listings and trying to min/max it on cost and condition etc. Glad it’s done now.

Looked at MacBook airs in Costco. Was a dangerous move, although still struggle to justify £1000 on a web browser.

Still undecided about websites.

Wife did finish a nice photo book last night and it made me realise I should take more photos. Need to sort out the film simulation settings on the X-E4 as I don’t like the current ones and it puts me off.

Why does it feel like I’m going to try and find a Tinderbox equivalent on github.

Sunday, 22nd June, 2025

I should know better than to try and win auctions that end on Sundays. It’s when everything sells for the highest price. People are paying a lot for 20 year old device. It makes me question why I’m doing this but also I wonder how much more expensive one already modded actually is. The internet does pump up the price of certain models as they’re “the best”.

I should just focus on auctions ending mid week and bide my time. Also my uncle in law is giving me one, but that’s likely a later gen and I do want to mod another one first before making a meal of that. Particularly as later gen ones are harder to open.

Also conversations with people on eBay is difficult, buyers and sellers. Best try to avoid it where possible and fewer replies is usually better.

It would be fun to make an ultimate mod one too - with usb c, and Bluetooth. Basically what an iPod would be today.

Saturday, 21st June, 2025

Fixed docker issue with some magic grep.

After a while I decided Apple Music wasn’t where I wanted to keep my library. Too many things to work around and then still paying. So for now it’s navidrome on the server pointing to my music folder. Some nice native apps available on all OSs and devices, and seems to be working fine. I need to finish off getting album art and maybe try and sort out tags with musicbrainz but it’s a lot of effort. Yet to load any music onto the echo mini thing, but mostly as I’m sat at the computer whilst sorting this all out.

Get down the route of thinking MacBook is the right choice, but then think about going Linux and cost savings and open source etc. But the MacBook is nicer 😅

Listed the Xbox on eBay and all the controllers but did everything separately. Looked at the lenses but not sure about those.

Read some reviews of Apple Music…tempting to subscribe to that…ideally move the whole family over to it. Bought a CD for the first time in …a minimum of 12 years (now I want to try and figure out when I did buy the last one). The 40th anniversary edition of Brothers in Arms.

Friday, 20th June, 2025

Spotify premium is due to expire in 3 days. I’m thinking I don’t need it. I only listen to a handful of songs and albums. I have some music which I ripped from my CDs a decade+ ago and some other random stuff I’ve picked up since. So I’m deciding what I’m doing. Options are navidrome or similar server with my music on and apps to stream it. Or copies on my phone and devices or maybe iTunes/iCloud solution?

After what felt like a trip down memory lane of 2012 sorting out music libraries, I remembered about iTunes Match. Well I remembered there was something like it. Add you music, it checked them then gave you access to the files in the cloud. Not sure if it needs iCloud space or it just works. I think at the beginning it was free but now it’s £22 a year. This means I wouldn’t have to sync my phone to keep music in check, I could just manage it on the computer and then stream via Apple Music app my music.

The catch is I have to use iTunes to manage my music. Maybe that’s fine as I don’t have that much but I dunno…iTunes doesn’t like FLAC or OGG and most of my music is in those two formats. I can easily convert them though. I’d still have to pay £22 a year for the privilege. But it would be via the music app and have nice integration…except stream to Google mini speakers we have. Although there was something I used to run on the server to act as a bridge.

Hmm. I seem to have deleted half my docker compose file by fat fingering some keys in vim but then saving the file without noticing. Not sure I have a backup. Ugh.

Also this music thing somehow is convincing me to get a MacBook Air.

Thursday, 19th June, 2025

I’ve thought about the usefulness of a web based script manager and now I’ve found one, I’ll give it a spin later. Hopefully they follow through on their roadmap, although useful as is. I’ve ended up with lots of scripts, mostly organised, but not very discoverable and so I forget what I’ve done and problems I’ve already solved.

Can’t decide anything. This site, wikis, blogs, etc. Part of me wants to install ikiwiki and just use the bare bones, anti-theme, nothingness for everything - blog, wiki, notes, etc.

Saw a blog post about activitypub on Wordpress, it’s all good, but I’m not interested. Actually, I would like to have my own handle, so I’m not tied to a server/instance/topic. I guess I have to run my own server to do that. In which case, why not make it a weird, text only, over gemini server.

Wednesday, 18th June, 2025

Press play on the cassette as you’re about to hear it again…

Maybe I should bin my other blog and just use this one.

Was writing up my two big hikes and radio activations on the SOTA forum last night, and I remembered that brief period were I tried using discourses as a blog. It’s not made to be a blog but it sure is convenient. Write up my story with maybe 20-30 pictures, so easy. Wordpress was also so easy.

I like the X-E5 but I also like the no lens choice X100 series. Luckily I can’t buy either of them.

Sunday, 15th June, 2025

I’m not sure about this. Spent a while with micro.blog and think I’m okay with it. Gone with the micro.one subscription which is very good value at $10 a year. Doesn’t quite have everything of mb full - biggest miss for me would be no theme customisation. You can install theme plugins and do custom CSS but that’s it. A few themes have micro hooks where you can customise parts of them without messing the main theme. Can’t do that. Some have settings to change stuff in a config.json. Can’t do that. However, several stock themes are nice and think I have one. Still, can’t help think that I want to tweak it a little.

The upside is I have several apps on my phone and web for adding photos, posts, books, pages, etc. with minimal effort.

You know what though? I still don’t write anything. So why bother.

Also this site to DayOne is nice but the motivation to write here is because someone might read it. If I write to myself I know no one will read it.

I also don’t want to put “random shit” in my blog. This whole site is random shit (and it’s my blog) but I feel like it’ll mess up my main site. (Hence I never write anything there).

Like today I saw DPReview’s commentary and first look at the X-E5. I’ve been thinking about the X100 series and getting rid of my xe4 and lenses but now I’m thinking … what about the X-E5. I even quite like the film sim dial as you can save recipes to it, and I always set a hot key/button to those.

I thought about writing a post on my new main blog on micro.blog about the X-E5. But it feels pointless as it’s just me going “oh look at that (everyone already knows) maybe I should get one (no one cares) or maybe I shouldn’t (now I’m being annoying)”. Brain says: you can’t write that on your blog. It’ll be bad. It’ll look bad. What a pointless thing to do.

Meanwhile over here on Fondoftea I spend each day going “maybe this; maybe that.” and think nothing of it.

I think this is my third time trying micro.blog. I just don’t quite like it. Not sure exactly what it is, as it’s a very comprehensive service with lots of features. Im not interested in a community and when I do try I struggle to find anything. Searching my emojis is cute but nothing comes up. Searching via words also seems to have nothing. Then seeing one part of conversations appear in my feed is just weird. At least this time it’s cheaper. I suspect I won’t last.

Sometimes I think I should use mastodon and just post stuff to that. But I also don’t care or want to. I don’t want something to spend time on. I like discovering new things but I also don’t need to.

I do return to “delete it and don’t bother” from time to time. I’ve deleted apps before and then never missed them.

And so, I don’t know what I want or should do.

Saturday, 14th June, 2025

Reading the X100VI website makes me want to get one, and sell all my other Fuji stuff to soften the blow. It does have quite a bit more than my X-E4 and my previous X100F. I don’t use a “big camera” that often anymore (which is a shame) but it’s nice to have one and think I’d prefer the X100. I’m always debating about which lens to pick and I still don’t use several of them - likely bought after reading reviews or blog posts where people say the xyz mm is the hidden gem or secret weapon and proceed so say how unique the rendering is and the colours and blah blah blah. I buy it, use it, and go “I don’t know what they’re talking about but I won’t admit it”. Then never use the lens as it’s an annoying focal length.

Probably my problem is solved by the fact the camera isn’t in stock anywhere.

I try not to get sucked into stupid arguments online but it still happens from time to time. I get annoyed with myself and think that the best way to avoid it is to delete my accounts. Probably that’s just as childish.

The 3D printer is annoying. Nothing sticks to the base plate and keeps coming off. I’ve cleaned it and calibrated it but still stuff comes off. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to replace the base plates periodically? I see there are 3rd party ones which are supposedly stickier.

I’ve also been thinking that I might end this blog…it’s had a good run for four years but I might move it to a DayOne journal. I’ll still write out stuff but being private means I can go even deeper or cover items I don’t want to put online. I’ve thought about having this plus a separate one but that’s too much. I think it’ll help me add to the family journal if I’m already in DayOne. I’ve had DayOne for 15? years now, it’s such a nice app. I hope I write a bit more on my main blog as a result. I’ll leave this repo, so I could come back if I didn’t like DayOne…for some reason. I did move for a while to Tiddlywiki and then back, so perhaps this is just the same thing.

Friday, 13th June, 2025

I’m thinking of not renewing a couple of domains. It’s not much money but I don’t need them. It includes this one. I usually buy domains over the summer holidays when I come up with “good ideas” which of course I don’t do anything about once I come home.

I’ll move this site somewhere, although also thinking of not having it and actually writing on my main site.

Or I’ll just do nothing, the domain will renewal automatically and life will continue.

By the time this mp3 player arrives I’ll have moved on. Mostly because I’ve still not picked any headphones. I can’t tell how “open” open headphones are and it seems these are more common in smaller headphone styles. Probably I should just buy the cheapest ones and see how they go.

I need to cancel my eBay alerts as it just makes me want to buy things.

Tuesday, 10th June, 2025

Well I had a great day today. Summit in nice weather, a new Munro, 8 points, a summit to summit contact with a nice guy I’ve met via radio, decent run of contacts, found the geocache at the top, and no issues with timing and back to work meeting on time. Obviously would’ve been better if I hadn’t had to go to work at all…probably would’ve done a big loop of 4 hills but there’ll be there the next time.

Fallen far behind on my summit trip write ups. Tbh posting the photos and a few sentences is all I really need to do.

Started adding to DayOne family journal again recently. It is so nice. I thought about making a SOTA one. Convert all my blog posts into it and add new entries there. This is probably a dumb idea, but I could make a real book out of it! No one would want it but it would be fun to actually make a book. Maybe? Or maybe I just import my stuff into DayOne and have them print a book for me.

Also I’ve started geocaching. It’s fun and plenty near home and work. Need to get the kids in on it. Although they might be disappointed when there’s nothing actually in the cache other than a notebook. Some do have toys but that’s it. Maybe we could hide one and get some codes for things that move about so we can follow them.

One thing at a time.

Saturday, 7th June, 2025

Been consolidating VPS applications down to a single server for public items and will have another for private applications. Both Oracle VPS under their free tier. When they first started offering them I was worried they’d take them away and wasn’t sure how much I liked Oracle so didn’t use them that much. However, it’s been about 4 years+ and nothing has happened so I might as well just use them. The free ARM VPS are very generous and you can get two small x86 ones. Think when I first started there wasn’t much for ARM in the repos but now pretty much everything is there. Also tidied up DNS records. Still got the private VPS to do. Although can’t decide if I should just host those things at home.

Been using the Linux (Debian) laptop and have been enjoying it. I stopped using it before has it had a bug where it wouldn’t wake up from sleep. Eventually I searched for the solution and seems it was a kernel parameter on this specific cpu. It’s still a bug in Debian but I’ve fixed it. It’s not quite as nice as a MacBook but it’s much nicer than windows. Did think that maybe I should’ve spent the money on a Mac vs that radio. But there we go. The best part of the radio is that now I have to buy transverters and other accessories for it.

Oh now I have to read and watch all of this content for typewriter maintenance. That sounds fun, and there’s a huge Royal at the hackspace that’s been on the “to fix” heap for ages. Someone is trying but not sure how far they’ve got. I talk like I’ll know what to do and be able to fix things. I can buy tools and stuff at least 😅

I should redo the Fuji film sims to give me an incentive to use the camera again.

I should do a lot of things.

Browsing https://selfh.st/ and seeing lots of neat apps, open source versions of high quality programs that you have to pay for otherwise. However, I don’t really need a lot of these and it’s a bit stressful looking at the all and thinking about using them. The only one I’m tempted to try is immich photo management, but also I can’t be bothered to maintain it and its database for something I probably won’t use. I looked at a couple of activitypub servers (also thought about micro.blog) but I’m not interested in social media, regardless of if I can host it. I just like my blog. I should just close it.

Friday, 6th June, 2025

Well I just rebought the radio I sold. Upside is for slightly less than I sold mine for. My previous chat about microwaves was a reason why I wanted it back. It’s such a versatile radio. Hopefully I’ll use it 😅

I’ve been getting annoyed with Windows recently. But maybe that’s just me trying to justify getting a Mac. Not sure that’ll solve the problem, it’ll just shuffle the deck again.

I have three free VPS on Oracle cloud. I wanted to install Debian on one and use for an allstarlink node (think ham radio over pbx). But my goodness is the cloud interface panel confusing. I darent touch anything as I suspect I won’t get the resources I currently have assigned, but also I can’t figure how to change anything. I do think maybe I should scrap them and pay for a vps elsewhere. But it’s free!

I’ve made a list of the VPS and now seeing what’s installed on them. Also made a list of what I want and then I should rejig it all. Found a nice guide to install Debian on them (as only comes with Ubuntu) and turned out you can have 6 free VPS!

Thinking of binning my wiki and using Apple Notes. When I find something useful I should make a blog post of it or not presume that others will find it useful. Given I’ve found it, they can probably find it too. Unless they’re not looking for it. I’ll keep the radio wiki as that feels more useful as it’s more curated.

I also think if it’s a link to somewhere good then I should use a service that’s built around managing links, like linkding. Vs the wiki which work for it but less good.

Also want a MacBook.

Thursday, 5th June, 2025

A nice day out. But of a drive though to get to some of these last hills nearby that I’ve not been to. Rain kept at bay, although I could see it in the distance.

I should find some headphones now. Cheap but not cheap…

I sold a lens as well. The 50-230 XC Fuji lens. Never use it. Wasn’t a very expensive one but another pointless thing in the house.

Watching videos on the Olympia SM series. I would like one…

I install navidrome on the server and have started listening to albums I’ve not touched in 15+ years. It’s great. I should listen to my music more 😅 I did rip all my CDs to FLAC but now when I look in the folder for some artists it’s empty or only one album and I know there were more. I’m sad about that. I can get the songs from spotify but I used to own the CD…

Down the rabbit hole of what headphones to get for the echo mini…

Wednesday, 4th June, 2025

I was very close to buying Snowsky Echo Mini but then saw they had a retro mini and then looked at iPods. The problem was I kept changing why I was buying it and creating scenarios and then reading endless reviews. There are two problems: 1. Don’t want daughter on her phone the whole summer holidays but she uses it for music and we don’t want to be that mean. So thinking of some secondary device she can listen to music to on. 2. I want to have a non-computer based device for listening to music. She’ll use Bluetooth and I won’t. So really it’s two problems which probably want too different devices - although summer music is temporary so that pushes me share a device or spend the least. This triggers the internal struggle again.

Also, probably I won’t use mine. Mostly as I can’t break the habit of sitting on the computer all night.

I dug out the Smith-Corona Viceroy De-Luxe that I have. Doesn’t quite work, nearly every key does work except Q and 1/2 symbol. Ink is dry too. I don’t really want it and I don’t want to try and fix it. It is a nice size but that’s about it. I was going to sell it but they sell for nothing and there are listings for £10 which expire and no one bids. It has no sentimental value and it’s not a “top notch” one so probably I should just give it away. Think I only paid £20 for it. Maybe take it to the hack space or give it to a charity shop. Smells a bit old too.

Tuesday, 3rd June, 2025

Wish I never got rid of my SanDisk Sansa clip from 10+ years ago. Was the perfect little digital music player. But back then I got sucked into Spotify etc and “I don’t need this anymore”. Now I wish I had it so I could listen to music and not get sucked into my phone. Or even whilst going out on hikes. Be nice to listen to music or podcast or audio book etc but not be worrying about phone battery. Trying to find something equivalent, but it’s hard as either 1000 cheapo things (which may or may not be good) or people on reddit going “this is the budget one you want. <$200>”

Also eBay is charging more now for them than when new. Obviously.

The Shangling M0 looks nice but more than I want to spend. This is a rabbit hole.

Monday, 2nd June, 2025

Lovely blue sky this morning. Made me annoyed as I’m working today and off tomorrow when a low front hits. Probably push it into Thursday or Friday. The corona ejection or whatever it was that caused a big geomagnetic storm is still lingering so that would’ve put a dampener on an outing anyway. Also I looked at the mountain weather forecast and it’s not blue skies there. So there we go, maybe not missing out on much as I thought. Wish I was retired though 😅 plenty of nice coastal parks to activate.

Went to bed early as I was so tired. Still feel tired today. I know I’m grumpy when I’m tired but it’s hard to not be.

Randomly opened DayOne and added some entries to the family journal from this weekend. I forget how nice the app is. As before, I should do this more often! The usual feeling of burden to do it but then joy at having done it and looking back. This year has been very poor and end of last year wasn’t great. But even a photo and a sentence is better than nothing. Also reminds me of another reason to get a Mac 😅 although they have the web version too which I could use on any computer…(but don’t).

Sunday, 1st June, 2025

3D printers are annoying. Well my one is or can be. Mostly bed leveling/cleaning/ adhesion. Trying not to buy a new one to solve the problem. Was talking to another dad at swimming pick up and he has three Bambu printers! He’s made this huge Lego man with a swim suit, googles and hat for the club which is pretty cool. He said he had an ender but got annoyed with it and the bambus are so good. Thanks man. 🤑