Year: 2018

Birthday

by

Today is, once again, my birthday. I’m now well into my mid-thirties.

I haven’t anything special planned today – I’ll be going to work as usual. Tomorrow, I’ll be meeting up for lunch with my parents for a birthday meal.

I’ve not really asked for any presents this year. Instead, I’ve simply asked for money, to put towards buying a new iPad. My current iPad Mini was a 30th birthday present, and is now four years old. The screen is cracked and broken and the home button no longer works. And I suspect that iOS 12, which is likely to be released later this year, won’t run on it.

Also, my age now is double the age I was when I started this blog, back in January 2002. Although, to be pedantic, I was 17 years and 7 months old when I started blogging, so it would be some time next year that I could claim to have been blogging for half of my life.

Comparing smart speakers

by

Yesterday, I reviewed our (relatively) new Google Home Mini. Today, I’m going to focus on why we chose to go with Google, and not an Amazon Echo or Apple Homepod.

Ecosystems

When you choose a smart speaker, I would take some time to decide which one works with the apps, services and devices that you already use. Apple’s HomePod only works with iOS devices for example; that’s fine for me, but not much use for my wife who has an Android phone. The Verge’s review seems to focus on the HomePod’s locked-in nature.

Similarly, Amazon’s Echo devices work well if you have Amazon Prime and one of its Fire TV devices, but we’re a Netflix household and have a Google Chromecast. I gather that Netflix support on Alexa isn’t that great, whereas it works well with a Google Home.

Price

We got our Google Home Mini free as part of a deal with Nest, which was probably the biggest reason for us choosing it over its rivals. As I write this, both the Amazon Echo Dot (sponsored link) and the Google Home Mini are £39, and normally sell for about £50, and even the more expensive models are under £200. Apple is selling the HomePod for £319. For that, you could buy six Google Home Minis and cover your house, and have some change left over.

Sound quality

One reason for the HomePod’s higher price is its focus on high quality sound for playing music. Arguably, it’s trying to compete more with the Sonos range of wireless speakers, some of which now include Alexa as well.

The larger and more expensive Google Home and Amazon Echo models have better speakers than the smaller ones, but I was still reasonably impressed with the little speaker in the Google Home. Audiophiles would probably be disappointed with all but the most expensive models but for most people, even the smallest and cheapest models will do.

Third party services

Amazon’s Alexa devices have a range of third-party ‘skills’ available, which massively expand its abilities and integration with other services. Google Home is somewhere in the middle; it supports a lot of internet of things devices, but not much else. That is changing but some things, like being able to order a pizza from Domino’s, are US-only for now.

As for the HomePod, it’s Apple all the way down. If you have smart devices that support HomeKit, great. But that’s a bit useless if you have a Nest thermostat, for example. It can only play music from Apple Music, and not Spotify or any other third party streaming service.

In summary

If you like good quality audio, have only Apple or HomeKit-supporting devices and money to burn, then by all means, buy a HomePod. Amazon and Google offer much better value speakers that work with a wider variety of third-party devices and services, and the choice you make will reflect what you already own.

Google Home Mini review

by
A photo of a Google Home Mini

Back in January, we welcomed a Google Home Mini into our house. As the name suggests, it’s the smaller version of the Google Home, which is Google’s smart assistant. It competes with Amazon’s Echo/Alexa range, and Apple’s new HomePod.

In the run up to Christmas, the Google Home Mini was significantly discounted, and being bundled with mobile phones. We got ours bundled with our Nest Protect smart smoke alarm, which I reviewed last month. We placed it in our living room, seeing as that’s where we spend most of our time awake, and because it works well with a Chromecast.

Indeed, this is probably the thing that we use it for the most. When you have a screaming toddler, it’s handy to be able to shout across the room ‘OK Google, play Paw Patrol‘ and have it come on the TV without having to find a remote and navigate menus. We recently inherited my parents’ old Sony TV which supports HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), and so through the Google Home Mini and the Chromecast, we can turn the TV on and off using our voice, which is pretty cool.

Our Nest Thermostat is also able to communicate with the Google Home Mini, so we can use it to find out the current temperature and also change the temperature on the thermostat. This, together, is the extent of our foray into the so-called ‘internet of things’ and we haven’t yet invested in any other smart home devices. Although I’m contemplating either a smart light bulb or plug for a standing lamp in our living room.

Having support for Spotify built-in is also handy, although it works best if you have a Spotify Premium account as then you can play individual songs. This prompted me to upgrade. Sadly, although you can have multiple Google Accounts linked to one Home Mini, you can only have one Spotify account. As I found, when I opened Spotify at work, to find that Christine was already using it to listen to the Moana soundtrack.

The support for multiple Google Accounts works well; it’s able to identify whether me or Christine is talking to it. So if I ask it to add something to my calender, I know it’ll go into mine.

Support for third party services outside the Google ecosystem isn’t great. Whilst the Google Home can connect to a wide variety of smart home devices, it’s limited to playing video content from YouTube or Netflix, and music from either Spotify, Deezer, Google Play Music or Apple Music (if you have an iOS device and a valid subscription). Fortunately, there is IFTTT integration, and I was able to set up a link with my to-do list in Wunderlist, albeit in a roundabout way using IFTTT and email. But Amazon’s Alexa platform has a much wider variety of ‘skills’.

I was sceptical about whether we would actually use the Google Home, but it’s become part of our daily lives. On a morning, it’s handy to ask for a time check whilst getting ready, or for a weather update. And it works really well with our Chromecast; we’ve not really used our Roku player since we got the Google Home. I wish there was more third-party support; being able to request content from BBC iPlayer would be a great help.

I recently visited a friend who has five Google Home devices around his house – including the bathroom. I don’t think we’ll ever get to that stage, but the thought of having one in the bedroom has crossed my mind more than once. Maybe we’ll consider it the next time there’s an offer on.

Elsecar Heritage Centre

by
Elsecar Heritage Centre

Because I’m still woefully behind in writing up about our days out, today I’m going to talk about the Elsecar Heritage Centre, which we visited over 6 months ago. It’s in the village of Elsecar, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, and is a part of the village that has been preserved to look much as it would in the 19th century.

The centre includes many ex-industrial buildings. However, rather than being a static museum, most of the buildings are now leased out, and now host an array of craft shops. The main building, in the photo, is now a soft-play gym, which I think our two-year-old very much appreciated.

Elsecar Heritage Centre

Around the back of the site is the Elsecar Heritage Railway, which runs for a short distance using heritage trains. You can have a look at some of the locomotives and carriages in the yard, and there’s a station with services running at weekends.

We actually picked quite a good day to visit, as there was also a small birds of prey exhibition, and an indoor craft market in one of the larger buildings. We’d also been lucky with the weather, although we had a string of nice weekends last autumn.

That being said, without the extra events, I don’t think it would have been much worth coming to Elsecar on its own – at least, not for the distance we travelled. Whilst there are plenty of information boards around, and it’s nice to look at, it’s not really a full day out. If we were to come again, I think we would need to combine it with something else in the area, such as Cannon Hall Farm.

You can view the photos I took on Flickr, as usual.

Neil’s guide to surviving a cold

by
Giant porcupines

I’ve been feeling pretty rotten this week, having caught a particularly nasty cold. Presumably from Lizzie; she’s had a cold for a few days now and so her face has been constantly covered in snot. And she likes giving us kisses now, which is cute, but also a sure-fire way to pick up her germs.

I have still gone to work as normal, and I thought I’d write about what I do to get through a rough patch.

Please be aware that I’m not a medical professional, and none of this should be considered medical advice. If a medical professional advises you to do something else, follow their advice, not mine. This is just what works for me.

Get up and get clean

When you’re feeling rough, either because you’re ill or experiencing a decline in mental health, there’s a temptation just to stay in bed. And, if you’re so ill that you really cannot get yourself out of bed, it may be best to stay there – if you have ‘flu for example. But maybe call NHS 111 if this happens, just in case it’s something more serious.

If you can get yourself out of bed, then do. Have a shower, and put on clean clothes. Brush your teeth. Shave, if you have facial hair. You probably do these things anyway, but make a special effort to do so. If you’re feverish, then you may have shed a lot of sweat, so getting yourself clean and fresh should help.

Get some fresh air

Go outside, even if it’s just for a few minutes. If you can’t, at least try to get a window open. I felt noticeably better as soon as I got out of the house.

Go to work, if you can

This is a subjective point. I have a desk job, so work isn’t too strenuous; plus, this week a lot of people were off so the office was quiet. Also, I take the train to work, so there was no need to drive; I would have been less likely to go in otherwise. Being at work, seeing other people and being productive actually made me feel better.

Drink plenty of fluids

I mentioned fever sweats – you’re more likely to get dehydrated when you’re ill, so drink plenty of water. Avoid alcohol; the odd hot toddy is probably okay but too much alcohol can leave you dehydrated and feeling even worse. Stick to no more than one average-strength alcoholic drink a day.

Take paracetamol

Paracetamol (acetaminophen to Americans) is cheap, and can help ease your symptoms. Adults can usually take two tablets no less than four hours apart (but always read the label).

Get plenty of rest and avoid stress

Finally, whilst I do advise getting out during the day, rest is also really important when you’re ill. Go to bed early, and avoid doing too many strenuous or stressful activities so that your body has time to recover.

We need to buy a new printer

by
Photo of the HP Deskjet All-in-One F2140 printer

Here’s a photo of our current printer. It’s a HP Deskjet All-in-one F2140, and I think it dates from around 2008. Suffice to say, it predates the computer that it’s connected to, has been through several house moves and periods in storage, and even predates my relationship with Christine. You can also see how much dust is on top of it, and I’ll admit to having to shift a pile of documents stacked up on top of it to get the photo.

Okay, so we don’t use it very often. But having a printer is useful from time to time, and we use the scanner every now and then. Christine and I recently scanned all of our qualification certificates, so that we had electronic copies on hand in our shared Dropbox folder.

So why the need for a new printer? It still works, and we can still get hold of new cartridges easily.

The issue is networking.

Christine’s new laptop

Christine recently bought herself a new laptop – a very lightweight Lenovo Ideapad 320S. She’s doing a part-time university course, and her previous laptop bought in 2010 (when we first started dating) was getting too slow. It’s also big and bulky compared with what you can buy new nowadays. As she will need to print from time to time, she tasked me with setting up the printer on her laptop.

Our HP printer isn’t wireless, and so it’s connected to my Mac Mini (also dating from 2010) by a USB cable. I’ve been using Apple’s Bonjour network sharing protocol to share it across our Wifi network. For Windows, Apple offers a Bonjour Print Services utility that will discover any printers shared using Bonjour. And on Christine’s old laptop, this worked fine.

But I couldn’t get it to work on her new laptop. I think the core issue is that Apple last updated the Bonjour Print Services tool in 2010, and so it pre-dates Windows 10 by some time. Her old laptop was set up under Windows 7 and so was fine. Despite following my own printer sharing guide, and manually installing HP’s Windows 10 drivers, I could not get the Bonjour Printer Wizard to complete without failing with a permissions error (even when running as Administrator).

Whilst my Mac is generally on all of the time, it’s probably about time that we replaced it with a proper wireless printer. To get it to work with my iPhone and iPad, I’m using Printopia, which works okay but it’s a bit of a hack. Having a proper wireless printer, which works with all of our devices (Windows, Mac, iOS and Android) would be a big improvement. Especially when it comes to scanning, which we can currently only do on my very slow Mac.

A custom solution?

New wireless printers start at £30, so it wouldn’t be a big expense. In fact, it’d be about the same price as buying a new Raspberry Pi and setting up some kind of bespoke solution. Which, whilst appealing to my geeky side, would probably take a lot of the very little free time that I have nowadays. Plus, there would be the added ‘fun’ of trying to find a way of scanning documents on the Raspberry Pi, and then have them available to use on our other devices. I’m sure it’s possible, but what’s the point when you can buy an off-the-shelf product that already does this?

I could also look at buying a printer sharing hub, but again, the cost would probably be about the same as a new printer. So I might as well just buy a new printer.

We’ll have a look out for any good deals and will buy a new printer soon.

Nest Protect Review

by
A photo of the Nest Protect smart smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector

Back in January, we bought a Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide alarm (Amazon link). Like other Nest products, it’s a smart, ‘internet of things’ device, so it does a bit more than your regular cheap alarm.

For me, its two best features are:

  • Push notifications to your phone when the batteries need changing, rather than random chirping at 2am
  • Being able to cancel an alarm if you’re accidentally burnt your sausages but have the situation under control

Set-up is easy; it’s done through the Nest mobile app before you attach the alarm to the wall or ceilling. We went for the battery-operated model, but you can also buy a mains-connected device if you have the relevant wiring in place.

The Next Protect has a small motion sensor (like the Nest Learning Thermostat). If it’s in a dark room and detects motion, it’ll briefly illuminate with a white light. The light will also glow red, yellow or green depending on whether it has detected any issues.

There’s also a small speaker and a microphone. As well as an alarm tone, the Nest Protect will talk to you to tell you that it has detected smoke or carbon monoxide. The microphone is for self-testing; periodically, the Nest Protect will have a ‘drill’ to ensure that it’s working correctly.

Nest products work together, and as we have a Nest Learning Thermostat, the Nest Protect will tell the thermostat to turn off our central heating boiler if it detects carbon monoxide.

Before buying the Nest Protect, I considered the Roost smart battery. Roost works with your existing smoke alarm, but adds some of the smart features. Unfortunately, as it’s slightly larger than a standard 9-volt battery, it doesn’t work with all smoke alarms.

The other factor that convinced me to buy the Nest Protect was an offer that was running at the time: free delivery and a free Google Home Mini. I’ll be reviewing the latter in another blog post.

PRINCE2 certified

by
A picture of my PRINCE2 Practitioner certificate

As the certificate above shows, I passed the PRINCE2 Practitioner certificate in project management. I took a week-long intensive course with QA Training in Leeds in March, which included the foundation and practitioner exams.

I was lucky to get a funded place, in a ballot held by my trade union branch at work (Unison). QA’s PRINCE2 course is not cheap, costing over £1000 – there would have been no way that I would have been able to afford it with my own funds. For your money, you get a copy of the official textbook (Amazon link – sponsored link), workbooks and full sample papers for both examinations. Refreshments are also provided, and the coffee machine is pretty good, but you need to bring your own lunch. That being said, QA is based in City Exchange in Leeds, which is the tower block overlooking the Trinity Leeds shopping centre, so there’s no shortage of places to eat within staggering distance.

PRINCE2 is a project management method, originally developed by the British government. Indeed, the Cabinet Office co-runs Axelos, the company which manages PRINCE2, in a joint venture with outsourcing firm Capita. Consequently, PRINCE2 is commonly used in project management in the UK public sector and it’s a useful certification to have.

As mentioned, the PRINCE2 course is quite intensive – especially the first two days, where you prepare for the foundation exam. You start the course on Monday, and sit the foundation exam on Tuesday afternoon. There’s around three hours of coursework to complete before the course starts, and two to three hours each week night. That’s on top of full days in the classroom. That coffee machine was very much welcome, and I’m also indebted to my wife for managing Lizzie whilst I looked myself in the bedroom to study. I’m also thankful to one of my colleagues who took the course a few weeks before I did, and was able to lend me the textbook. That allowed me to read the first few chapters before starting, so that I had a better grounding of some of the terminology from day one.

You receive provisional results from the Foundation exam straight-away, as a pre-requisite of the Practitioner exam is that you have passed the Foundation level. On Wednesday, the class gained a few additional students who were just studying for Practitioner, and we took the Practitioner exam on Friday afternoon. Both exams are multiple choice, but whilst the Foundation exam is just an hour, the Practitioner exam is two and a half hours. And I needed the full two and a half hours. In the Practitioner exam, you’re typically given four choices; two will be wrong, and the other two will be the right answer but with one for the wrong reason. This is still counted as a wrong answer though, and is the major difference between Practitioner and Foundation. You need to know why an answer is right, not just that it is the right answer.

The results took a couple of weeks, and, fortunately I passed. The pass mark is 55%; I managed 81% in Practitioner and a similar score in Foundation. You don’t get anything extra for passing well: it’s pass or fail. There’s no merit or distinction grades.

The Foundation certification is valid for life, and the Practitioner certification is valid for three years. You can extend this by doing continuing professional development with Axelos (and paying them some money), which I’ll have to contemplate.

As for my own career, having PRINCE2 doesn’t change anything in the short term. It may mean that I’m able to take on some project work in my current role at work, and I may look for other roles in project management. It was a big confidence boost though; excepting my driving tests, this was the first time I’d taken an exam since leaving university. I also feel pleased that the extra effort that I put in was worth it.

Koopower Wireless Doorbell review

by
A photo of the Koopower wireless doorbell and the two plug-in receivers

I was recently sent a wireless doorbell from Koopower (Amazon link) to review.

Like with most wireless doorbells, this Koopower kit has a transmitter bell to attach by your door, and a plug-in receiver that plays the chime. What sets the Koopower kit apart is that the transmitter doesn’t require any batteries.

A photo of a Koopower wireless doorbell mounted next to our front door

The energy required to transmit the signal is generated by the action of pushing the button. This gets around one of the major problems with traditional wireless doorbells – knowing when the batteries are flat. Short of testing your own doorbell regularly, you run the risk of someone pressing the button and there being no chime, even when you’re in.

The Koopower kit I received contained two receivers, which is useful; I have one downstairs and one upstairs. Our house is quite long with thick walls and in the past I’ve struggled to hear our previous doorbell.

Pairing them with the transmitter was straightforward, and the transmitter includes a double-sided sticky patch for attaching to your wall/door. Compared to my previous wireless doorbell, installation was really easy.

Once installed, a couple of buttons on the receivers let you control the volume, and choose one of 25 polyphonic ringtones to play. I stuck with a simple ‘ding dong’ sound, which is the default. The receivers also flash an LED when they ring.

Whilst more expensive than other wireless doorbell kits, the Koopower system gains points for its incredibly simple installation and offering two receivers. It’s not a smart doorbell system like Ring (Amazon Link), so it won’t link to your phone. But it does well for a basic doorbell system that requires minimal maintenance.

New Year’s Resolutions for 2018

by

Happy New Year! As usual, I’m making a handful of resolutions that I’ll aim to achieve in 2018. I don’t always blog about them (as a quick search of my old posts suggests), but here’s an overview and the rationale.

  1. Try to get at least 10,000 steps on an many days as possible. I’ve been a Fitbit wearer for almost two and a half years now. 2017 brought some good streaks where I managed 10,000 steps on consecutive days, including 100 days from July through to October. I would like to have more streaks in 2018. I think 10,000 steps every day for 365 days is out of the question, especially as I’m writing this shortly before lunchtime on the 1st January and I haven’t even hit 1000 steps, never mind 10,000. But I think it’s having a positive effect on my fitness, requires a relatively small commitment each day and it’s achievable.
  2. Become a PRINCE2-certified project manager. I’m booked onto a week-long intensive PRINCE2 course in March, with funding from my trade union. The funding was awarded from a ballot, and the course would normally cost a four-figure sum, so this really is an opportunity that I can’t afford to lose, both morally and financially. So I need to make sure that I put in adequate preparation beforehand, allowing me to make the most of it and pass the exams.
  3. Move forward with house renovations. We did some more work on our house in 2017, but not as much as in previous years. Two rooms downstairs are almost finished, so this year I need to get on and complete those jobs. We also need to start on our two-year-old’s bedroom, which will be a major project including re-plastering and probably some electrical work.
  4. More child-free evenings out. Christine and I managed two child-free evenings out in 2017, which were the first ones since the end of 2015 when our two-year-old was born. We’ve had several offers from potential babysitters and need to do more to take up these offers, so that we can have some more quality time with each other.
  5. Write more blog posts. My blogging basically fell of a cliff at the end of last year. I’m going to aim to write two new blog posts each week, and re-start my answers to Richard Herring’s Emergency Questions.
  6. Clear out our spare room and have more guests staying over. We have a spare bed, but it hasn’t been used since May 2016 because we’ve had too much stuff piled up in our spare room. We should now have enough storage space to put all that stuff away properly, so that we can actually use our spare room and have more guests staying over.

Let’s see how many I managed to stick with.