Damien’s Posts

Well apparently, it’s been over a year since I posted about astrophotography, so I’m well over due to put something up. My last post I talked about setting up an old laptop with Linux to use to control my camera. Like most of what I’ve posted about here, what was a good idea in theory … Read More “Astrophotography Update” »

Today’s tasks are to install any command line software that don’t get included in the base package, set up zsh to be the default shell and get a GUI up and running. Potentially this last part could be the most complicated part, as it’s not something I’ve ever had to do myself. My first task, … Read More “ArchLinux – Day Two” »

In my last post I mentioned that I had previously attempted to set up ArchLinux, and not had a good time with it. While the source of my trouble that time was more to do with poorly supported, old hardware, it well and truly put me off playing around with it. Now that I have … Read More “Why do I do this to Myself?” »

It’s been interesting looking back at what I’ve posted over the past year. I’ve had lots of ideas, but never really fully completed any of the projects I started. I’m not a huge believer in new year’s resolutions, but I think this year I’m going to make the effort to complete whatever projects I start. … Read More “Here’s to a New Year” »

Before anyone points out the post that Quinzy made a couple of years ago saying how passwords aren’t secure, I’d like to say that I agree with him, and the title of this blog post shouldn’t be taken to mean I think otherwise. But, like it or not, passwords are probably here to stay for … Read More “Passwords for the Win!” »

In my last post I got my old MacBook Pro up and running with Linux and cobbled together a network connection so that I could install my camera control software of choice, Entangle. I chose Entangle because it would apparently work with my camera, and was included in the Debian repositories, so installation should be … Read More “AstroBook Day 2 – Software Install” »

In my last post I planned what I needed to transform my old laptop into a something useful for astrophotography. Now comes the fun bit, putting everything together. The first part of this is installing an operating system on the laptop. We’ll need a few things to make this happen: Laptop (he says, stating the … Read More “AstroBook Day 1 – Preparation” »

Wanting to do some astrophotography, but not wanting to mess around with trying to line up and focus a camera pointed straight up in the air, I’ve decided to build up an old laptop to control my camera over USB. Before I get into the gory details of how I am going to build this … Read More “AstroBook – Day 0” »

In my previous post about Linux from scratch I mentioned that the WiFi hardware on that particular model had less than ideal support. The laptop in question is going to be useful for me in my astrophotography project I’m working on, but I need to find some way of getting Internet access for the initial … Read More “The Subtle Art of the Kludge” »

I’ve just realised that it’s been nearly 6 months since my last post. There I was, raring to go with building a Linux install from scratch, and obstacle after obstacle got in the way. The end result was me just dumping everything in the too hard basket, and dealing with other things that needed attention. … Read More “Wait, What Blog?” »

So, after the previous session’s trials and tribulations, I was determined to make sure the next step ran as smoothly as possible. The most important task for me was to get WiFi working, and as mentioned previously I needed specific drivers for the Broadcom WiFi chip in the MacBook Pro. Ideally, I would just download … Read More “Linux From Scratch – Day 2” »

What am I Doing? Building a Linux system from scratch on a 13” MacBook Pro Mid 2010 and documenting the entire process here. Why? Mostly because I want to see if I can, and it sounds like a fun challenge. Along the way I’m expecting to improve my knowledge of Linux. How? I’ll be using … Read More “The Linux From Scratch (LFS) Project” »

Just recently a new version of the Minecraft launcher was released. I dutifully installed it, simply to get rid of the annoying message nagging me to update it. Imagine my shock when I started up the new version and discovered that my rather extensive list of installations was now almost completely empty! A quick browse … Read More “New Minecraft Launcher Deleted My Installations!” »

I’ve been a long-time fan of Apple computers, mostly because my experience has been that when I want to do stuff, I can do it easily. When I returned to Uni to study a post-graduate degree I ended up switching to a Windows 10 laptop, simply because that was all I could afford. I found … Read More “Getting Family Sharing to Work in iCloud” »

Some time ago I was surprised to read about a TV show being produced based on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of novels. As a big fan of Terry’s writing (particularly the Discworld series), I was both excited and apprehensive about this. Excited because I’d enjoyed previous adaptations of Discworld novels, and apprenhensive because this new … Read More “Fabricati Diem, Pvnc” »

Back in the day I spent 3 years in the Australian Army Reserves. One of the few skills I’ve retained over the intervening 20-odd years is the ability to use swear words like punctuation. As awesome as this might sound, in normal company it’s a bit of a handicap. As a parent, you need to … Read More “Learning the “F Word” in Russian…” »

Originally posted on October 3, 2018 by Damien Having worked in IT for many years, I thought I had a good handle on how to create a secure password. My passwords didn’t use dictionary words, I used mixed case, numbers and symbols. Of course, they were damn difficult to remember, so I ended up using … Read More “Is your password really secure?” »

This is a continuation of my first post about how eBay effectively hijacked my account. If you haven’t read it already, please do so, as it will provide background for this post. Continuing on from the previous post, I wondered if I would receive a reply from a supervisor the next day. I didn’t, of … Read More “Shafted by eBay – Part 2” »

Earlier this week I was surprised to get an email from eBay stating that my eBay account was being restricted because it had been linked to another restricted account. Suspecting that this might be some sort of phishing attempt, I logged into eBay, only to discover that the email was in fact legitimate. Reading through … Read More “Shafted by eBay – Part 1” »

Originally posted on September 9, 2018 by Damien The first card trick I ever learned was a pretty simple one that required no sleight of hand, and worked if you could follow the simple instructions. It used 21 cards, and allowed you to identify a chosen card. The trick is simple, get the volunteer to … Read More “Self Working Card Tricks” »

Originally posted on September 1, 2018 by Damien I’ve mentioned the first “real” magic trick that I learned was entitled Lie Detector, and it uses the Si Stebbins stack. I don’t even know if I still have the written instructions I bought back in the mid nineties, or if they’ve been turfed in one clean … Read More “The Lie Detector” »

My decision to resurrect my blog is thanks to a conversation with my friend Quinzy Beardsdale (not his real name, btw). He mentioned that he’d like to start blogging about his efforts to learn about cyber-security, but didn’t want to entrust his data to a free blogging site. I told him that I had a … Read More “Introducing Quinzy Beardsdale” »

Originally posted on August 28, 2018 by Damien I’ve always had a bit of an interest in magic tricks and sleight of hand, mostly thanks to my Grandfather. Pop would often amuse me with simple magic tricks, like making coins disappear and then pulling them out of my ear. I never really bothered learning much, … Read More “It’s a Kind of Magic…” »

Well, it’s been nearly a year since the free web host I was using previously caused my site to disappear and forced me to find a new host. I’m finally getting organised enough to put back the content that I’d saved before everything went pear shaped. My plan is to post an old post every … Read More “It’s Back…” »