So much has happened in the past 9 months yet I've also been so busy that I've simply forgotten to post here and now some of it has gone out of my head. Well, I lie - I didn't forget about my journal but never really got around to posting.

I've been busy with my new job. My job description is still the same as when I first joined - yet they are now relying on me more and giving me some trust which is nice. I do enjoy it too which is a great thing, I hope to stay there for a long time to build my finances and career.

As I'm typing this I'm thinking back on the year so far (my last entry was Dec 08) which is kind of difficult because at the moment I'm finding it hard to think of anything in depth. Why is that? Kinda personal but I guess I'll try to put it in words.

Last week I had I think the best time of my life that I can remember in recent years. Louise and I went away for a week to stay in Margate. That place has had a lot of bad press over recent years - not that it bothered us before we went because it was more about the company and having time together - anyhow we were pleasantly surprised at how nice everything was.

The air was fresh, the beach beautiful, the arcades fun, and the places to eat definately moreish! Ever since the fire that burnt down some arcades that area has been brought up to standard and there is a big police presence now keeping trouble out of the area. The hotel we stayed in was much better than we could have hoped with the owners being very polite and welcoming. We will definately go there again hopefully sooner rather than later.

I definately feel different (in a good way) about Louise now and I can't stop thinking about her ... she has told me she feels the same about me ... and damn I can't think of much else right now so that's programming off limits I guess! At least for a good reason :) But I wont go on, I could go on for hours and I'd feel like I'd said too much.

Well that was last week, what about the rest of the year? Most of it has been the usual grind of work followed by leisure. Not too much to say but I have been working on some projects for a change.

Firstly, I am now helping out with DMDirc development. I joined the team as a programmer to help out with the windows specific parts of the project - launcher, installer that kind of thing. I've already made some improvements and once I get a clearer head I have more to do before Dataforce breaks out the whip >_<

Secondly, I built myself a nice headphone amplifier. One pet peeve of mine is the built in amplifier in desktop PCs being too weak to drive a quality set of cans. Okay, even if they can you don't have a nice volume control and I dislike software volume controls. I checked ebay for amplifiers and didn't find one I liked - they were either extremely cheap and poor or audiophile (£100+!). Mine contains <£10 of parts if you buy carefully and sounds great. I have drawn up a schematic but now I need to write up the design to put on my web site.

Thirdly, I open-sourced my FTDI chip Delphi class which is useful for anyone wanting to use FTDI chip serial-USB or parallel-USB interface chips. It provides a much nicer interface than the raw non object oriented API and also adds support for asynchronous events. Get it at the google code page.

Last but not least, I've been reworking zipNES. More people have become interested in the project and it seemed a shame to let it sit especially with all the ideas I have for it. I took the opportunity to release the latest version before I discontinued it, which you can get at the usual place if you are interested. Xealot tested it on Linux for me (using Wine) and works, so you penguin fans out there can have a play as well.

Now onto this week. Today at work we had a massive network failure and it took us hours to even get close to tracking down the problem, it was very stressful. I hope it's easily resolved tomorrow as I am not looking forward to having all of the staff in the school banging on the IT department doors complaining about a lack of email and internet access. You'd think they'd die if they lost access for even 1 second the way they act!

I'm just looking forward to the weekend, when I can have fun and relax! And the days getting shorter, nights getting longer... I like the night :)

I'd write more but I can't think clearly enough and I've written enough for now... until next time!

Blip de bleep, IBM.
(Ask 'Kore' if you want to know what that is... lol)

Soon it's christmas, but it doesn't really feel like it this year.. it's odd. I'm looking forward to it all and such, just everything seems a little less busy and excitable compared to last year. It'll be a great one though. I did put christmas lights in my window (hand made LED ones at that as I cba to go to a store for them) for a bit of cheer and some lights around my room I got from bev at work, and we have a mini christmas tree downstairs. We can't have a big tree or timmy the rabbit will eat it!

I've sorted my xmas shopping already, and the last item for my beautiful girlfriend Louise arrived today in the nick of time courtesy of Parcel Force. I did however miss the delivery of my new toner cartridge for my laser printer :( (I got the printer for free from work, they were going to throw it as it's old/slow). Isn't it nice to not have to go christmas shopping on christmas eve? You bet! Online ordering ftw!

For the first time in a couple years I get xmas off work too .. 2 weeks holiday as the school is closed. Time for some extra time with Louise and some long-due programming perhaps? I also need to go see Kore over the 2 weeks.

A couple weeks ago me and a few friends I met online went to Milton Keynes for a weekened out. It was kick ass.. and I ended up getting drunk... :D I ended up signing up for 3 mobile broadband with a free netbook, which I may say is kick ass. Oh, and they made me sign up for a T-Mobile G1. Evil people! Pictures are on facebook.

Last thursday I went to China Palace in Meopham with some colleagues from work, that was a blast. Funnily, we would not have made it without my T-Mobile G1 as me and Andrew got lost - it saved the day by providing directions... Food was great, we had a laugh, and Kore will be happy to know that croxton was present and he got told off big time for shooting us with a water pistol that came out of a christmas cracker and saying that the carved carrot decoration was a phallic object infront of our server!

Times are good.

Well well, I'm finally out of that horrid place known as The Co-operative Food. 3 days ago I started a new job working as an IT technician at a local school. It's a completely different planet to working at the co-op. I have my own desk/workstation/phone, lots of responsibility and decent people to work with - not to mention the decent money and a nice 2.5 week holiday over the christmas period! The only downside is the early morning starts but I'll get used to it. It's kind of funny to hear that the co-op are currently screwed finding people to cover my shifts. When they put out advertisements for job posts only 17 year olds apply. No one wants to work for our store.

It's nice to be appreciated for the work I do for a change, rather than only being moaned at when I didn't so something quickly enough (and getting no mention even when I go all-out for them at co-op).

Finally I have weekends free to spend with Louise, which I have wanted for a long time. We went to Bluewater yesterday to do some shopping and hang out, was really fun ^_^. Just need to get my girlfriend out of that shithole place now. She desperately wants to leave co-op.

Just need to settle down then I'll resume my usual projects and stuff, although I'm always tinkering with electronics. Check this if you're bored:



Hehe ^_^

So, almost 2 months without posts. Yea, my life really is too boring for me to be able to write much about it. Things are going well as usual, just a bit peeved off with work but I have a week of holiday coming up.

My friend Koretetsu has now moved to Chaucer college near his uni, all the best to him, I do miss him being around for random walks and programming discussions however :( I'll still take walks late at night as it helps me think and clear my head but it's definately not the same.

I finally have a webcam and microphone now and I've been using it with Skype, it's great. If any of my friends reading this want to try it with me leave a comment and I'll get in contact with you. It's ace.

I'm also beginning to pick up programming again. I put it off because of social stuff and I generally got fed up with coding for a while for various reasons. I'll have to stop posting ETAs because I never meet them as things always come up. Instead, patience! When I have something I promise I'll show it.

Finally bothered to make pics of my room and such.

( Click here for the rest. Picture heavy. )

Yep... It's been ages since I posted. I do apologise, I have not had much to say!

I did finish my backup system or the basic components of it anyway last month. If I get time today I'll post some pictures. It is not pretty by any means but it's very functional and does the trick!

Things have been great with my girlfriend Louise, but unfortunately a black cloud called Work hangs over everything. I'm off work next week on holiday which will be a great time for us to get together as Louise is off too! ^_^

I have been trying to program in bits and pieces and hope to put some in today. On what, I wont say right now.

I'm not feeling well today, infact I had to call in sick as I woke up feeling like I'd been hit in the stomach by a ton of bricks, so this isn't a long post. Maybe I post again later on with pics and stuff :)

Well well well, months goes by without me saying anything on here, then everything happens at once. I just had one of the scariest shocks of my life and it was hardly funny.

Sooo I was sitting there watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager before bed as I was bored, when suddenly I notice a strong burning plastic smell. I suspect it's the charger as the old one was faulty, perhaps the replacement is too - and the smell was getting stronger *fast* so I killed power to everything in a panic (UPS held the computer up), then put the UPS one back on by itself while I looked into it.

Charger didn't smell of it, but I noticed the extension lead was warm where the charger was plugged in. Smelt a little like it too, so out it came.

Ripped it apart (damned security screws, they wont stop me) and I couldn't believe what I saw inside the switch for the socket the charger was plugged into.



Bigger version: http://www.zipplet.co.uk/postimgs/burntswitch1.jpg

Uhh.. notice the burning inside the housing, the burning on the pin, the melted plastic on the switch handle where the pin is, and MELTED metal on the strips (the contacts are supposed to be smooth). I took another switch apart to compare them just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. That got hot enough to melt metal at the contact and could have easily started a nasty fire. I'm only sticking with quality made ones from now on, although that one did cost £20.

If I hadn't watched that episode of voyager I might have never woken up due to toxic fumes. Oh, and that socket USED to run my computer kit until recently when I got my UPS, so again, if I didn't get the UPS, what would have happened?

Arrrgh I can't settle now.

Melted metal: http://www.zipplet.co.uk/postimgs/burntswitch2.jpg
Switch inside: http://www.zipplet.co.uk/postimgs/burntswitch3.jpg
Another view: http://www.zipplet.co.uk/postimgs/burntswitch4.jpg

Feel like I want to cry in some ways -_-

Bah, another monday, and ANOTHER power outage. This one only lasted 2 hours and it was in the morning though so no need to break out the power backup system which is a good thing as the charger is faulty and rapid are coming to replace it today. It kept overheating and stopped working - no charge current :(

I made another (and probably my last for a couple months) rapid order today, for the low voltage side of this project. LED strip lighting, wire, control circuitry, stuff to build a control panel with, and fixings. Once this, and my ebay stuff arrives, I'll have a complete low voltage setup complete with car cigarette sockets for 12V accessories and very efficient / energy saving LED strip lighting which will be useful even when there is no power cut.

Once this is done pics will be obligatory ofcourse, and the project will be mostly concluded. Not too much work I think.

I made sure to add key switches to the order to prevent power being wasted by people who might decide to flip a few switches to see what they do, and to prevent accidental battery drain.

I've been doing too much stuff on projects though the last week.. time for a break I think, need to go out for a niiiice meal with Louise ^_^ She deserves it ... she NEVER complains about my projects or the state of my room when I haven't had the time to tidy away the stuff I've been working on EVEN when I have a desk covered in wire, components and tools.. as I always make time for her :)

I'm typing this while on battery power. Yep, the setup I ordered works. It needs a lot of tweaking - and I need to build the low voltage DC supply stuff for extended runtime. I've been on battery for almost 40 minutes now *WHILE ON MY DESKTOP PC* and it's working really, really well.

A few images to show the basic beginning test setup below!

1. Inverter


2. Large battery and charger infront. I added a charge fuse (white thing dangling infront of battery).


3. Top of inverter


More to come!

Er.. you lot wont believe the brainwave I had today, which turned into ANOTHER order from rapid electronics. WAR ON BLACKOUTS!

I decided to build myself a very powerful standby power system with room for expansion. I do have a final design for it but I'm beginning with the heart of it.

A 600W continuous / 1.2KW peak AC generator (inverter) and large battery bank.

The main AC power will be provided by a powerful 600W continuous / 1.2KW peak AC generator (inverter). Modified sine output which will be fine for pretty much anything. The inverter outputs little heat as it is 90% efficient and little noise (only from the small fan).

http://www.rapidonline.com/Electrical-Power/Power-Supplies/DC-AC-Converters/12V-DC-230V-AC-Inverters/66840/kw/85-1974

I ordered a 12V 44 amp hour sealed lead acid battery which weighs 13KG (... ooh that's gonna be fun to explain to my parents when it turns up) to go with it. I can add as many additional batteries as I need in parallel.

http://www.rapidonline.com/Electrical-Power/Batteries/Lead-Acid/6V-and-12V-Sealed-acid-monobloc-batteries/73345/kw/18-1176

A 19 hour smart charger completes the picture, which will keep the batteries fully maintained when charging is done. I will need to upgrade the charger if I add more batteries because the 44Ah one is already over the recommended size (it will still work, but take longer to charge from flat).

http://www.rapidonline.com/Electrical-Power/Batteries/Chargers/12V-Fully-automatic-battery-charger/81177/kw/18-1461

Yes this setup is OVERKILL. The inverter is powerful enough to run all of my computers at the same time if I desire, but efficient also. The battery I have selected to start me off has a large capacity and I calculated some estimates on how long it will run various pieces of kit assuming 90% efficiency (the inverter quoted spec):

My PC + monitor + networking gear: 2 hours 18 minutes (omg)
Network gear only (including router): 12 hours worst case
Laptop: 8-12 hours depending on usage
Television and gamecube: 6 hours

The best part is I can easily add a second battery at a later date to double the runtimes. Oh this is going to be so fun to get working :). Later on I'll add a 12V DC output socket and some equipment to generate various other voltages, such as for charging USB gear without using the inverter for higher efficiency. I also want to use a direct 12V in-car laptop charger for the same reason.

This system will benefit my family as well because I can run the router for LONG times during blackouts and even let them charge their laptops/etc from it if I run an extension cord outside my room...

This gear should turn up friday! I can't wait!