Eton American Red Cross SOLARLINK Portable Radio ARC FR600

On an antique mall I did find this nice radio, little bit dirty but otherwise in good shape.

Some cleaning notes.

DreamQuest Pro+ N150 - a review

Once in  while the main PC I use need to be upgraded or fixed.

Normally I'm going on eBay looking for old server to rebuild the main PC, this time I decided to try to buy a new computer, where "new" means recently built.

Browsing around I found this little guy and somehow I was intrigued.

Cooling the server area - Peltier way - the idea

Time ago I did buy a Peltier unit cooling contraption.

There are many different types on the market, I think mine is a 50W unit already assembled with 3 fans, two for cooling down the
hot" side, and one to push the cold air.

Phoronix Test Suite

Sometime there is the need to determine if a computer is "fast" and thus capable to run specific operations.

Is not easy to set up, run and interpret results of tests.
There are many way to do tests on machines, this one is open source, covers Linux, MacOs and Windows, is based on PHP so is highly portable and is quite complex to master just because is HUGE !

Install Joomla on Docker - APKH

I used Joomla for many websites, this is a procedure to install Joomla on a Docker container rather than the traditional set up on a server.

The advantage is the capability to install different versions of Joomla for tests/development or data retrieval from older backups.

Playing old piano rolls - ideas

Cleaning up some stuff from my father, I discovered to have many old piano paper roll.

My father had a piano capable to play those rolls, but it was eons ago, so now I have probably 20 or 30 rolls but no means to play them.

I didn't really though about how to read them until today.

AirThings - gather data remotely

 During one of my excursions on flea markets, I did find a AirThings Wave Plus.

For 10$ I decided to buy it and try it out (the normal cost is around 230$).

Repair - UV insect trap (UPDATED)

Funny story of a trivial repair attempt over an electronic ballast used to drive a fluorescent UV bulb for an insect trap.

DISCLAIMER !!!
This stuff is connected DIRECTLY to the power grid and the fluorescent bulb emits dangerous UV !!
Working on these type of circuit REQUIRES knowledge and precautions !
DON'T ATTEMPT ANY REPAIR UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING !

Ubuntu Core - run it on Virtualbox

Ubuntu Core is an OS designed for embedded machines, operates in different way than a standard Linux distribution.
This article explains how to install Ubuntu Core over a Virtual Machine (VM) using VirtualBox over a MacBook Pro Intel based, for development/experimentation purpose.

Ubuntu Core is not a standard distribution and cannot be installed directly over Virtualbox.
It is necessary to use a standard/normal Ubuntu distribution to be used as installer.

Restoration - Talking doll mechanism

This is not a usual "repair".
At an antique mall we found a Italian doll made around the seventies, a "talking" doll !