Category: General Blog

These are my normal blog posts.
October 18, 2018

GDPR, the ICO and Me

Back in April this year, I wrote to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) for “official guidance on GDPR for purely personal, non-commercial, use of data”. I made the point that much had been published about how GDPR applied to organisations and companies, but I had failed to find anything that applied to data handling for social clubs.

This is in respect to data I hold with regard to the forums I administer and mail-lists I run, all purely social activities, involving people who had explicitly joined up.

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>GDPR, the ICO and Me</span>
October 14, 2018

Code Example – Alexa Backend

August 27, 2018

Web Integration Tools – IFTTT, Zapier, Integromat

I’ve been using a number of web integration tools to do various tasks, ranging from cross posting from one social network to another, through to on-line automation. I think many people may be familiar with IFTTT (If This Then That), but the two relative newcomers, Zapier and Integromat are less well known. I thought I would do a quick comparison.

A web integration tool can be used to link two totally different systems. An easy example would be “Whenever I tweet, post it to Facebook”, or “Whenever someone posts to this page, send me an email”. But it can get a lot more sophisticated – I currently have automations set up that watch for specific YouTube videos and copy them to my Plex account, so they appear automatically on my home TV system; I have recently come up with a system that lets me log my medications via Alexa, and record them in Google Sheets.

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>Web Integration Tools – IFTTT, Zapier, Integromat</span>
June 23, 2018

Procrastination

I’m not talking about failure in a big way, but failure in terms of petty little tasks. I may make plans to do something that I haven’t done before – like fit a lock to my garden gate – that I should be totally capable of doing. But something nags me in the back of my mind – what if I run into problems? How will I cope? So I put off the task, rather than discover if I can do it (or do it well).

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>Procrastination</span>
May 11, 2018

Idea for an Alexa Skill

I’ve been playing around with making it easy to log what I eat/drink, together with calories. The idea is that logging what you eat can be tedious, and prone to “I’ll do that later (oops forgot)”. By doing it with a voice interface, I can do it anywhere, and quickly and simply. I can even do it over my phone, using the Alexa app.

At the moment, I have a Heath Robinson solution, using an existing skill, Tweet It, then using the Tweets it creates to log to a spreadsheet. But ultimately, I think I am going to use this to learn how to program my own Alexa skills

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>Idea for an Alexa Skill</span>
April 18, 2018

The Vinyl Decision

I have a shelf of vinyl that hasn’t been played in about 10 years. Nothing valuable, just stuff from the late 70s and the 80s. Some has been repurchased in CD form; the rest – well, if I haven’t dug it out in 10 years, I can’t be itching to hear it.

(I actually have a Vestax portable player, but it is gathering dust in the junk room.)

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>The Vinyl Decision</span>
March 23, 2018

Posh Games upgrade

But one of the things I will be using the time for is working on the update on my board game forum site, Posh Games.

This is long overdue. Official support for the version I am on ended in 2009, although I’ve managed to keep it going and secure. I have made 2 attempts, over the years, to upgrade, both vexed by the new version lacking features that are central to my website – mainly a fully integrated calendar/scheduler, allowing you to attach dates to specific topics (so people can schedule a game session, then discuss who is coming and what games to bring).

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>Posh Games upgrade</span>
November 16, 2017

Twilight Imperium 4 is Here!

November 15, 2017

Why I decided to buy Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

One of my favourite games is Twilight Imperium 3. It is a sprawling game of galactic domination. It is quite magnificent, and the only downside is that a single game will normally take 4-8 hours, which limits the number of times it gets played.

However, I’ve recently been scheduling the odd game for myself and a couple of friends on a Friday. I don’t generally work Fridays, and the two friends are similarly free. This has meant we are getting the game to the table more often, which improves how we play it, as we are not having to remember the rules from 6 months ago.

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>Why I decided to buy Twilight Imperium 4th Edition</span>
November 14, 2017

New Boardgame Purchases

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a couple of board games I was tempted to purchase.

The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 is a brand new cooperative game based on the 1982 movie (and John W. Campbell’s novella “Who Goes There”, that it was based on. An American Antarctic station runs into problems with an alien creature that can take on the form of an organism it comes across. It is one of my favourite films, and so seeing this game made me sit up. Obviously, although a cooperative game, there will be a “traitor” element in the form of whichever station crew member gets infected/imitated.

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>New Boardgame Purchases</span>
October 9, 2017

Guitar Tunings

Since buying my Tenor guitar, in 2015, I haven’t done much more than play around with it – certainly nothing serious.

This is mainly because I found myself spoilt for choice in terms of tunings. “Standard” tuning is in fifths, CGDA, but they are also commonly tuned to “Irish”, GDAE (also in fifths, or Chicago, DGBE (like the top 4 strings on a 6-string guitar).

Read the Post <span class='p-name'>Guitar Tunings</span>
September 21, 2017

Pellet Grill Forum – www.pelletfan.com