So I bought a couple of these Fire Pro fire alarms (smoke alarms) from Bunnings. I realised I never keep the installation manuals for these things, so In case I needed them later I scanned the manual. It’s the cheapest photoelectric smoke alarm in Bunnings, powered by a standard 9V battery (NOT a 10 year … Read more
I bought a Hisense 120L bar fridge. Manual below. In early 2018 our huge old westinghouse died, and it was kind of handy to have a second fridge downstairs, so I thought I’d try a bar fridge. As a second fridge I gambled and bought one of the cheapest out there, and it is so … Read more
Below is the manual for the pump based vacuum suction cup shower caddy and soap holder that Bunnings sell – “Fusion-Lock” brand I think, but the pump instructions are branded EVOVAC. The attachments have a one way valve and it comes with a blue / teal pump that allows you to remove some of the … Read more
I bought an Arlec Rialto Tower Fan (ATF212) at Bunnings in Brisbane (Australia). I wish I hadn’t. Here’s the link to the item. For summer 2017 we wanted a new fan for our bedroom. It was advertised as having “seven quiet speeds” and sleep mode and so on, so I thought it would be ideal. The fan … Read more
The Problem: If your webhost uses litespeed to speed up your websites, an unintended side effect is it caches MySQL SELECT queries. In my experience it only cached them for 45-60 seconds, but a one minute delay after you add data (like a shopping cart) is not good! The Test: First of all run … Read more
Simple 2017 / 2018 Australian Tax Calculator Calculate approximate tax payable for the financial year 2017 / 2018 ending on 30 June 2018 for Australian Residents. Income (after deductions): $.00 Approximate Tax: $0 Tax Breakdown Income$ Marginal Rate% Base Tax$ + Medicare Levy*$ – Low Income Offset$ = Approx Tax$ Please note: … Read more
Simple 2016 / 2017 Australian Tax Calculator Calculate approximate tax payable for the financial year 2016 / 2017 ending on 30 June 2017 for Australian Residents. Income (after deductions): $.00 Approximate Tax: $0 Tax Breakdown Income$ Marginal Rate% Base Tax$ + Medicare Levy*$ + Temp Budget Levy$ – Low Income Offset$ = Approx … Read more
Here’s a simple calculator to convert Volts, Watts and Amps. They form the power triad, or the electrician’s triangle Volts Watts and Amps Calculator Converter Watts = Volts x Amps Watts = Volts x Amps Watts = Volts x Amps | Volts = Watts / Amps | Amps … Read more
The Problem WordPress seems to limit the file upload size to 2Mb. You see a message like this: Maximum upload file size: 2 MB You may also receive an error like this: filename.jpg exceeds the maximum upload size for this site The Solution Assuming you are using a web host (and not your own dedicated … Read more
i Before e Except After c? I was trying to teach my seven year old how to spell some words, when I came to an ie word, and hauled out the old “i before e” mantra. But hold on – what about height? Or weird? or science? Looking into it a little more, it’s an … Read more
So you’ve bought a new Windows 10 PC (or nuked your PC), and want to put a bunch of programs back on it again like Chrome, GIMP, Malwarebytes, Skype, Steam, VLC, iTunes, etc. There is a very simple way to do this: ninite.com Ninite.com allows you to tick the boxes for the programs you want … Read more
Australian Price: $299 (Officeworks, Kogan) I’ve had one as my main phone for a couple of months, and I love it. If you would like a nice plus sized phone, but just can’t justify $1,000 for a Samsung or iphone, then get this phone. This isn’t a review from someone who used it for a … Read more
Fix with Step by Step Instructions By default Skype (and other voip call programs) reduce the volume of systems sounds when you are in a voice chat. This is rather annoying when you are playing a game and chatting to friends. Fortunately it is easy to turn off. The trick is, it isn’t a Skype … Read more
If I had followed my own advice, I would not have been scammed. Here’s what I advise businesses and home users to do to stay safe from scams: Interrogate Inbound. Emails Evil. Activate Antivirus. Powerful Passwords. Suitable Security. Preventative Procedures. Careful Companies. Begin Backups. Interrogate Inbound Treat everything inbound as a scam until proven … Read more
For the first time in 20+ years in IT I fell for a scam. I actually clicked on a link in a scam email. Malwarebytes saved me (it is awesome – see why here), but that was the first time I have ever clicked on a scam email link. In my defence, it was the … Read more
In a word – no. But that shouldn’t stop you using them anyway. As a cloud developer I encourage people to use the cloud, despite the risk. Because it’s like the rest of life – everything has a risk attached. Driving a car, catching a plane, cooking your dinner – all these activities carry an … Read more
Simple – it’s Xero. I have helped many Australian Sole Traders and Small Business owners set up their accounting software over the last 20 years, and thanks to my background in finance, I am often asked which program is the best? Up to a few years ago, it was MYOB over Quickbooks. But no longer. … Read more
One of my all time favourite bushwalks. Beautiful rainforest, flowing creek, inspiring views and crisp mountain air, with a challenging climb at the end – all on a well maintained path. Read more on BeautifulBushwalks.com
When your computer is switched on, the first thing the motherboard does is run a Power On Self Test, or POST. This is run by the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) on the motherboard, not by Windows – Windows hasn’t even started to load yet. If there is a problem with say faulty RAM or … Read more
The Problem: Printer won’t scan across the network. Printer error says “Set the computer to scan” when you try to scan from the printer. Canon Pixma MG6150 (or other MG Series Printers with network scan). Windows 10PC (new or reinstalled). Printer has scanned in the past over the network, whether cat5 or Wifi. The … Read more
This is just horrible. An 89 year old lady on the Gold Coast lost $200,000 in late 2016 to a fake police scam. Here is a news article about it: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/…/woman-89-loses-200000-to-… Scammers are specifically targeting retirees like this lady, and telling them they are from the police, and that someone has attempted to take money … Read more
I Have a Very Happy Spath! Yes, that is a photo of my Peace Lily. No, it’s not plastic 🙂 I’m usually a brown thumb – I’ve certainly killed way more pot plants that have thrived under my care, but this one is amazing. Maybe it’s just a great specimen? I can’t take the credit … Read more
SSD = Telsa Model S. Normal HDD = furniture truck. My Windows 10 PC was running unreasonably slow in February 2017. It was only a year old, so usually I would do a format reinstall, but instead I bought a 1Tb Intel SSD hard drive and did a fresh install of Windows 10 onto the … Read more
The Problem: New Windows 10 PC, or a Windows reinstall Need to move AUSkey to the new PC The Solution: On old PC, go to C:\Users\Fred\AppData\Roaming\AUSkey (put your username in there instead of Fred) Copy the file “keystore.xml”. You don’t need any other files On new PC, go to C:\Users\Fred\AppData\Roaming and create a folder … Read more
The Problem: Windows 10 using One Drive for your files. You just did a format re-install of Windows or you have a new PC. You want to copy your One Drive files to your new PC / new install of Windows. The Solution: You could just install One Drive and let it sync from … Read more
The Problem: Windows 10 user folder is the first 5 letters of your email address (e.g. danie instead of Daniel) You want to change it (because I hate being called danie) The Solution: This is going to take a while and a fair bit of messing about. The sooner you do this after installing … Read more
The Problem: You add an additional hard drive to your Windows 10 PC. You can see the hard drive in the BIOS (when you press DEL as the computer first boots up). You go into “Disk Management” (Right click Windows Start Icon – Disk Management) and drive does not appear in Disk Management. You go … Read more
So I bought an Aqua Systems Electronic Digital Tap Timer at Bunnings in Brisbane (Australia). Here’s the link to the item. The main advantage of digital tap timers over the manual ones is that you can set a watering schedule lasting a week, instead of a daily schedule. I wanted my pot plants watered twice … Read more
Are you making a car part or a novelty item? Car part = ABS, novelty item = PLA. I print a dash latch to suit Ford Territory cars that I have sold over a thousand of (bingtastic.com), and I only use ABS Filament. But ABS isn’t always the best choice. If you are 3D printing … Read more
So you’ve got a WordPress blog, and you allow readers to comment… Welcome to comment spam hell. Doesn’t matter how small your site is, it takes no time at all for spammers to spam spam-filled comments of spammy spam spam. Honestly, who buys medicine from dodgy Russian websites anyway? Obviously enough people to warrant more … Read more
BYOD = Bring Your Own Device BYOD is being rolled out in high schools in Australia, and parents ask me which computer to buy. There are a lot of factors to consider, and budget. Personally I don’t like to over invest in any computers as they are quickly obsolete and have a tendency to die … Read more
This Question Has a One Word Answer… I am often asked what is the best virus protection? Malwarebytes. As a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and programmer who has fixed hundreds of infected PCs over the last 20 years of running my own IT company, it is the only product I can recommend. Every other product … Read more
The Problem: Windows 10 PC (probably upgraded from Windows 7 or 8) Network is connected (Wifi or Cat5) Yellow exclamation mark on network icon saying internet is not connected Attempting to do a network repair fails Wifi or Ethernet adapter has an autoconfig IP address (169.x.x.x) ipconfig/release then ipconfig/renew results in “File Not Found” The … Read more
How old is my Australian Made Beale Piano? Enter your serial number below to find out. Your Beale Piano was made sometime between 1893 and 1976. We inherrited a Beale piano and wanted to know its age. So after some digging I found a table of serial numbers and year of manufacture. Turns out our … Read more
.htaccess is your friend Using .htaccess to block directory listings, specify a home page and do custom error handling are all explained below. If you’d like some background on .htaccess or see examples of the rewrite rule: Overview of .htaccess Rewrite Rule with examples and cheat sheet Block Directory Listing Decent web hosts have this … Read more
What is .htaccess? .htaccess is a file in the root folder of your www (or publichtml) folder on your web server. It’s a configuration file for your web server (usually Apache) with information on redirects and some security settings. That’s a weird file name? Yep. It is not htaccess.txt, it is simply .htaccess It … Read more
Hints for using .htaccess to redirect file, folders and queries If you’d like some background on .htaccess read this first: Overview of .htaccess OK, let’s dive in… Ensure once (and only once) you have this in your .htaccess file at the top: RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / Simple URL Redirect Simple redirect from one url (file) to … Read more
Bit of fun on the weekend. While watching videos on youtube one day my daughter and I saw some videos of burning matches and thought – why not? So we did. This one was our second successful attempt. All clumped together in a circle burns a lot faster than our first video of them lined … Read more
So, my daughter and I decided to have a little fun on the weekend with some matches… We saw someone else on youtube do something, and this is our simplified attempt. It didn’t cost much or take long. About $5 of matches and an hour or so to set up and burn. For the base … Read more
What’s the limit for GST when importing into Australia? There’s been some talk of this lately. I’m not an accountant, and I believe there are some different rules for things like alcohol, cigarettes, etc, so do your homework and don’t rely on this. Here’s what I managed to find online… According to the ATO, goods imported that … Read more
What’s the limit for GST when importing into New Zealand According to New Zealand Customs, no GST is payable on an imported item if the amount of GST that would be payable is less than $60. As the GST rate is 15%, this means that any imports under $400 do not attract GST (unless they … Read more
This is a seriously cool mapping of the mbti to Star Wars characters. Click for larger version: I’m Yoda!
Here’s the wiring diagrams showing the pin out for the plug and socket for the most common circle and rectangle trailer connections in use in Australia. I put this here because I had a hard time finding and figuring this out for my trailers. If you have a round connector, commiserations. Get a flat one. … Read more
Scanned User Manual I bought one of these univeral air-conditioner remote controls on ebay, and a year later I couldn’t find the manual. I searched online and it wasn’t on the manufacturer’s webpage or anywhere else. Eventually I found my copy of the user manual and the code to enter for my Samsung air conditioner. … Read more