I stumbled into an interesting project I thought would be simple with the help of AI… *spoilers” it wasn’t. The task was to automate extract voter data from “marked registers” pdf’s and interpret if each person had voted or not based on the crossings out on the pdf. The problem in detail In the UK,…Continue reading Soul destroying and miserable: observations on using AI as a colleague.
Category: Free Software
Playing with HexOS part 2 : Unable to access location
Welcome to my fifth blog about HexOS, You can read my previous posts here. I’ve built a HexOS NAS for my family home and am documenting my user journey as I learn to use it. My HexOS install had no data yet but developed an error with the pool of drives which may have been…Continue reading Playing with HexOS part 2 : Unable to access location
How to take Screenshots of a banking app on android
I’m working on a series of blogs about banking apps, and screenshots are important to document what I see: however some banking apps don’t allow screenshots at all. Starling, for example, has an option to enable screenshots for 15 minutes but Cooperative Bank doesn’t have that option. Getting round this took me while to figure…Continue reading How to take Screenshots of a banking app on android
What I learned making websites for charities
This is just a brief wrap up Gingerling Design, including my ethos and motivation for making websites trading under that name. That project is now closed and I don’t do this work anymore following my dads death, however, I learned a lot so good to jot it down! Charity sector website burnout In my long…Continue reading What I learned making websites for charities
Using Feefo with Prestashop/Thirybees
I set up feefo with my prestashop store but due to unrelated personal circumstances I never did much work with the website after this. Here are my notes from the time, tidied up a bit. Appologies the post lacks narrative, it’s got details of how I did each task without much info on what the…Continue reading Using Feefo with Prestashop/Thirybees
WordPress Portfolio theme: fix for “Nothing Found” + search box on home page
I experienced a bug recently with the Portfolio theme for WordPress, which I use on my Gingerling Design website. The bug was possibly triggered by the installation of the Gutenberg beta plugin. Usually on my Home Page shows a series of images generated from Blog posts, but one day it started showing a search box…Continue reading WordPress Portfolio theme: fix for “Nothing Found” + search box on home page
Setting up Phillips Hue on Mycroft mark 1 – including guide to basic SSH access
I will explain the difficulties I was having installing the Mycroft Phillips Hue Skill using the verbal command and show how I installed this skill using SSH. This can also serve as a basic guide for using SSH with Mycroft, including how to change the default password and how to install apps from github repositories.
Adventures with Mycroft Mark 1: Second hand blues and re-installing Mycroft AI
In this blog I introduce my new buddy Mycroft, an Open Source voice activated home assistant. I detail how to re-install his software if he has a big problem.
Postcode based targeted email marketing for events using Mautic
Mautic, Open Source marketing software, can be used to send targeted emails about events to people on your mailing list who live within a radius of that event. The best thing about this process is the lists will always be up to date when you need them: next time an event is in the same area you have a list ready and waiting. Here’s how it’s done.
Removing duplicates from a list using Libreoffice
In this example, I will condense a list of paired-down postcodes into a short list by removing all the duplicate entries.