Everyone who knows me, knows I’m a tech enthusiast, and phones are the ultimate personal tech product that drive the majority of our digital interactions today. This is a future I’ve always subscribed to and as such I’ve upgraded my iPhone religiously every year since the 3GS in 2009.

Most people seemed to be on a two year upgrade cycle, as the majority tend to pay the phones off over time with a contract. I’ve never liked those, or the idea of carrier lock-in so always just bought them outright.

The leaps in technology used to be massive so an upgrade was easily justifiable. Around 2013 the speed of the processors being shipped were so impressive they no longer send to get slow after a year or more of software updates. The focus for upgrades moved to cameras and screen sizes. Most of the phones, aesthetically at least, seemed to evolve only incrementally, or on S-years invisibly. But...

I find it hard to do good work if I don’t feel good. It’s hard to wake up and get a workout in every morning, but for me its harder to concentrate all day on my work if I haven’t first concentrated on my body.

Having a desk job I spent too much of my early career and university time sat at a desk. In addition I injured my back working in a warehouse in my late teens which was only aggravated by continued desk work. Getting exercise in has been the best way to keep the issues at bay, along with changing my working setup.

I first joined a gym in 2004 when work offered a discount with a local chain. Getting to the gym had always been a matter of distance for me. If it was easy to get there, I’d do it. I’ve rarely travelled far to work out. For years I only went 1-2 times a week. Once I became a freelancer it became harder as I was often not working within reach of a gym in my chain...

I stopped using Facebook in 2017, I stopped using Instagram in 2018, and am much better off for losing both. My mental health is better for it and I get back time I can use for more constructive things. I’ve felt the same about news in general for about 8 years now, I never seek it out, only consume what little I see that gets through my defenses, mostly on Twitter. I still use Twitter most days, but a lot less than before.

Why the move? Platform changes and simply caring less about the content shared. But the biggest reason was the realisation I don’t need the social gratification or involvement in the minutia of friends (and stangers) lives. I’d rather wait until I see them and ask where they’ve been on holiday than already know everywhere they’ve been and have already seen their holiday pictures (picture that are mostly 90% face and 10% location). There’s nothing of real importance I...

This time, 10 years ago, I was with one of my best friends touring Central America for 3 months. We were still in Mexico, and still with our travelling companion Petr, who had to leave in a weeks time. We went on to tour 5 countries using an old-style Mexican Beetle we bought, driving across the continent exploring every region en-route.

I left my role at the company I was working at to do this, and would return to them after travelling. It would be another year before I started out on my own.

I had just met my significant other, and we had been dating on and off for a few months. I was afraid the long break might be the death of us, but upon returning I did not give up - one of the best decisions I ever made.

A lot changes in ten years. I started a business that lived profitably for 8 years, then went on to work for one of my first clients.

The days of traveling for 3 months at...

2018; My 38th trip around the sun. So what’s been going on?

I’ve not written in this way before, and it’s mostly for my future self, but this seems like a suitable place to put these thoughts.

I’ve been meaning to write more, and the idea behind this post is to list all the things in 2018 of note that I’d like to share. I’ll then write about some of those topics in more detail and use this post to link to them all once written.

Health and fitness
I’ve gradually been ramping up my efforts over the past few years, and I intend to continue on this trajectory for 2019. I’ve been tracking a lot of new things and finding new ways to motivate myself. I’d say I’m now fitter than I’ve ever been and feel great for it.

We’re both eating healthier than ever and I’m drinking less than I ever have in my adult life.

Social media
I stopped using Facebook in 2017, I stopped using Instagram in...

Update: Eero have long-since been possible to buy in the UK directly.

Eero, is a new type of home wifi router. It uses mesh network technology to connect several routers using their own back channel radio frequency and spoofs devices into think they a single large network.

Mesh network routers have been around for a while, but they traditionally are only available for commercial use and cost large sums of money to buy, setup and maintain. Eero puts the power in the hands of the home consumer for a reasonable price, and frankly it’s amazing. However, at the time of writing this they are only available in the US. There are many reviews online that can give you a more technical perspective if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m interested in talking about using Eero in the UK and using the US power adaptor that it comes with.

You cannot buy Eero direct from the company outside of the...

Some time ago now we bought a One Fast Cat Wheel for our darling pussycats. They loved it since day one and enjoying showing off by jumping inside and going for a run when we are around. It wasn’t until we installed a camera in the kitchen (partly for security, partly to keep an eye on the misbehaving cats at night) that we realised just how much they use the wheel. And so I came up with the idea of using a cycle computer to track their usage.

I didn’t want this to be an expensive experiment so I found the cheapest cycle computer I could find on Amazon which could be set to any wheel circumference.

I had to dismantle the piece that connects to the spokes of a bike as they are not needed in this scenario. This involved smashing the piece of plastic to get to the magnet.

To test if this was going to work I used some blue tack to secure the magnet on the inside of the wheel...

I’ve always been a movie fan, and also a audio-visual hardware fanatic. I had a DVD player attached to my 32" Sony Triniton CRT TV in 1995 [ 1? ]. I bought a good DVD player that was chipped to make it multi-region so that I could order region-1 (North American) discs [ 2? ] and held regular movie watching sessions in my small single bedroom with my friends. It was ace. Over the years I have accumulated over 200 DVDs, and eventually bought a Blueray to play the small handful of Blueray discs I also ended up owning.

Time marches on and today in 2016 I think I have not played a DVD disc in at least 5 years, maybe more. I have put in storage both my DVD and Blueray players after several years being little more than ornaments, and my DVD collection has been sitting in boxes since my girlfriend moved in and wanted the shelf space the DVD’s were pointlessly occupying.

Five years and two...