review

2024: a year in review

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As is traditional at the end of each year, I review what I’ve been up to over the past 12 months.

You can read my previous posts from 2023, 2022, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

January

January started with a trip to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, to have a look at their Operation Ouch exhibition about food and, um, poo. They have another exhibition about brains and bogeys in 2025 so I’m sure we’ll be back there soon. We also went to Eureka in Halifax; despite having an excellent children’s museum practically on our doorstep, we don’t go there that often. And there was also a brief trip to the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

On the blog, I wrote one of my perennially popular blog posts about installing Home Assistant Supervised on a Raspberry Pi and how I’d switched to using Simplenote for note-taking. I now take many more notes than I used to with Evernote. I also finally started regularly backing up my blog. January is my blogiversary month and 2024 marked 22 years.

February

After the Januariest January that ever Januaried, we made it to February. We had a bat in our cellar, which a kind volunteer rescued for us, and trips to the Trafford Centre and Beaumont Park in Huddersfield. Meanwhile, I cancelled Disney+ as we were no longer using it.

We ended February on our way down to London for a long weekend.

Houses of Parliament

March

Whilst in London, we went to the Bank of England Museum, the Cute exhibition at Somerset House, the Young V&A and the Cartoon Museum. We also had dinner in Chinatown one night, and Christine stayed an extra night to see Book of Mormon in the West End.

As usual in March, we went to Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth, although this time we had friends in the car with us. This made the eight hour round trip much more enjoyable. And over the Easter Weekend, we went to East Riddlesden Hall, and went on the Snooks trail around York.

On the blog, I replaced Automattic’s Jetpack plugin with the much lighter Toolbelt.

April

In April, we went to see Unfortunate at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, and I moaned about our car needing more work on it again. I had the car serviced again earlier this month and needed four new tyres, new brake pads and brake discs, and some additional work which was another four figure sum. We probably could have bought a new car for the amount we’ve spent on keeping this one on the road over the past 18 months.

Christine and I had a child-free day out shopping in Manchester, which was nice.

Anteater

May

May is my birthday month, and I turned 40 this year. For my birthday, we went to Dudley, and visited Dudley Zoo and the Black Country Living Museum. We also had a day out at Jodrell Bank to use our annual passes before they expired, and another visit to the Tropical Butterfly House near Sheffield.

I added a newsletter to the blog in May, which is a weekly list of new blog posts. So far, a grand total of four people are fully subscribed, although two were in December so maybe it’s picking up momentum?

I also switched my bank account, but didn’t write about it until October.

June

In 2023, my dad had some health issues which persisted for some time into 2024, ultimately resulting in him going back into hospital again in June this year. Thankfully, this time the doctors treating him seemed to get on top of the issue, and so he’s now much better than he’s been in a while.

Our eight-year-old had an overnight residential school trip, giving Christine and I a rare chance to have a date night towards the end of the month. Meanwhile, we were in the run up to a General Election, and I wrote about the candidates that I could vote for in our constituency.

Seahouses

July

The General Election happened, and for once, the bad guys didn’t win, which was nice. I also made some predictions for 2029, when the next General Election is likely to be.

I fitted my Raspberry Pi with a new case and fan, and started using an SSD with it rather than an SD card.

As usual in July, we went on holiday with my parents. Though my Dad made a good recovery, we decided to have a holiday in the UK, and spent a week in Northumberland. Amongst the places we visited were Bamburgh Castle, The Alnwick Garden, a boat trip to The Farne Islands to see the puffins and seals, Warkworth Castle, Lindisfarne, Cragside, and Beamish on the way home.

August

Writing about our holiday took me well into August, and I also noted all the places we’d considered but didn’t visit. Storm Lillian visited us, cutting off our power for a few hours, and I wrote about our four most-used cookbooks. We also had a day out at the National Coal Mining Museum for England. At the end of the month, we went to Gawthorpe Hall and Mr Fitzpatrick’s Temperance Bar.

August is always my busiest month at work, and this year was no exception.

September

In September, I made Bluesky my primary social media presence and made my Twitter/X account private. Whilst I’ve logged in to X from time to time, I’ve not posted anything since.

Apple announced that its AirPods Pro could be used as hearing aids, and I wrote about how this could be a game-changer for people with mild or moderate hearing loss.

We didn’t have any days out in September (bar a trip to the cinema to see Inside Out 2), but I did write about travel more generally in a blog post about furthest compass points.

A photo of the Royal Iris ferry on the River Mersey in Liverpool

October

Christine and I went back to the cinema to watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, having watched the first film that morning – in my case for the first time. I also got my Covid-19 and Flu vaccines. We went to visit the new Eureka museum for older kids in Wirral, and then took a ferry across the Mersey and visited the Museum of Liverpool.

I had a grumble about parking apps, and why we can’t just have one app that works everywhere, and I summarised my adult life using the various railcards we’ve had over the years. For Halloween, we went to Lotherton Hall, which was full of dressed up skeletons.

November

Another cinema trip, this time to bawl our eyes out at The Wild Robot which is as good as everyone says it is. Our (now) nine-year-old got one of the follow-on books as a birthday present. We also went to Bolling Hall Museum with friends, and had a return visit to the Askham Bryan Wildlife & Conservation Park (which I wrote about in 2017 when it first opened).

America voted for the bad guy again (seriously guys?), and I successfully migrated this blog to a new hosting company, seemingly without anyone noticing. Considering my track record with losing data when doing this sort of thing, I consider this to be a massive win. We did our first Costco visit; we haven’t been back yet but planning a trip in the new year, probably with friends. I also wrote about my home working setup, and how it’s evolved over the past (almost) five years.

December

And so to this month. I wrote a long post about step-free access on the Waterloo & City Line, which pleasingly got picked up by a couple of London blogs and resulted in a few click-throughs. Which I knew about thanks to using Koko Analytics with WordPress.

Throughout the year, I mostly stuck with my target of publishing a new blog post every other day, which I’m really pleased about. I don’t have the time to contribute something every day – I’ve tried that in the past and I just end up writing waffle to fill up space. And, as we’re a family of two full-time working parents, our ability to have fun days out is mostly limited to weekends and holidays. But we did have the opportunity to do a few fun things this year, and have some new experiences. Whilst we didn’t go abroad this year, we squeezed a lot into our summer holiday to Northumberland, and seeing thousands of puffins on the Farne Islands will be something I hope to remember for a long time.

Steetek USB/HDMI KVM Switch review

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A photo of the Steetek KVM switch, with a USB cable plugged in the front and various USB and HDMI cables plugged into the back. It's a grey, rectangular metal box.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a few months, you may notice that I’ll review gadgets that I’ve bought from Amazon from time to time. This includes headphones, a USB solid state drive, a Bluetooth label printer, a Bluetooth thermometer, energy monitoring smart plugs, a Zigbee dongle and a multi-device wireless mouse. And today, I’m reviewing a Steetek KVM switch (sponsored link).

KVM switches have been around for many years – KVM standing for Keyboard, Video and Mouse. They allow you to have one keyboard, mouse and screen connected to two or more computers, which you can switch between. Older models had to include all manner of ports – RS232 serial ports, parallel ports, PS/2 ports for keyboards and mice, and VGA or DVI ports for screens. Nowadays, thanks to standardisation on USB, modern KVM switches are much more simple.

This Steetek model is designed to switch between two computers. It comes with two USB-A to USB-B cables to connect to each computer, but you need to provide your own HDMI cables. On the front are four USB 2.0 ports, so it also doubles as a USB hub. Note that the picture on Amazon’s web site suggests that there are two USB 1.1 and two USB 2.0 ports, but they’re all labelled as USB 2.0 on the KVM switch that was delivered to me.

Once set up, there’s a single button at the front, which you press to toggle between the two computers, and two LEDs, which illuminate depending on which computer is in use. It can support 4K Ultra HD screens (3840 × 216 resolution) and audio over HDMI, so you can use it for (for example) games consoles as well as computers. The KVM switch does not need any external power, and there are no drivers to install. That being said, the lack of external power means that the USB ports will only be really useful for connecting keyboards and mice, and not any high-power devices like phones.

It’s also nice and compact, measuring just 11 cm (4 1/2 inches) wide, 6 cm (2 1/2 inches) deep and only an inch (2.5 cm) high, so it doesn’t take up much space on my desk. I’m using it to switch between our home Windows laptop, and the Raspberry Pi which runs Home Assistant. As mentioned, there’s no need to install drivers and so it works fine, even when the two computers are very different. It costs about £20 at the time of writing.

There are lots of other KVM switches available, offering external power and connections to more than two computers. There are also some Thunderbolt KVM switches, such as this one (sponsored link), which are even simpler to set up. Because Thunderbolt uses USB-C connectors for data and video, you only need one USB-C connection to each device rather than separate USB and HDMI connections. However, you’ll pay a premium for these, as they cost several times more than this more basic one. And neither of my computers support Thunderbolt.

Kvidio Bluetooth headphones review

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A photo of a pair of Kvidio Bluetooth headphones on a plain background.

Early in July, I needed some new Bluetooth headphones at short notice, and so I bought this cheap pair of Kvidio Bluetooth headphones from Amazon (sponsored link). At the time, they were around £16, but at time of writing they’re selling for £14.20, which is only a little above half their recommend retail price.

Note: this blog post was written before Apple announced that their AirPods Pro would have a hearing aid mode.

Now I’m no audiophile, although I do like headphones that at least make some effort with sound quality. And quality-wise, these sound like headphones in the £30-40 range. Which is pretty good considering their price. They’re nowhere near as good as some much more expensive headphones, but in terms of sound quality, they’re excellent value.

Two devices

One great feature is that they can be paired to two different Bluetooth devices simultaneously. I have my headphones paired to both my iPhone and iPad, and you can switch between the two sources just by starting playback on the other device; your other device will then pause. It supports Bluetooth 5.3, which is currently the second-newest release, and puts it ahead of my iPhone (5.0) and iPad (4.2).

You can, of course, use the headphones for calls, and there’s a microphone included. I haven’t tried recording sound from the microphone but people I’ve called whilst wearing them haven’t commented on any sound issues.

In terms of physical ports, charging is with a USB-C cable, and there’s a 2.5mm audio jack for devices that aren’t paired via Bluetooth. Note that the 2.5mm jack is input only – the microphone only works via Bluetooth. There are three buttons – the centre button pauses playback, and can be held down to turn it on or off. The other two can be used to skip tracks forwards and back.

Another sign of their cheapness is the sounds that the headphones make on startup (a very poorly digitised voice saying ‘power on’ and ‘connected’) and a loud beep when the pause button is pressed. More premium headphones will probably have more pleasing sounds.

Battery life

Battery life is claimed to be 65 hours, and I’ve only needed to charge them once since I bought them nine weeks ago. The long battery life is probably because these are noise-isolating headphones – i.e. they’re a snug fit around your ears to block out noise, but they don’t feature active noise cancellation. That also contributes to the lower price.

They’re quite lightweight – indeed, they don’t feel very solid although I’ve not managed to break them yet. As such, they’re quite comfy to wear, even for long periods.

For what they are, these Kvidio headphones are very good value for money. Sure, there are many better quality options out there, but I think you would struggle to find something else as good as these at this price point.

ThermoPro TP357 Bluetooth thermometer review

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A photo of a ThermoPro TP357 thermometer showing the current temperature of 17.5℃ and humidity of 59% on a LCD display.

I have an upcoming project for Home Assistant which means that I need to be able to measure the temperature in our bedroom. As part of this, I’ve bought a couple of ThermoPro TP357 Bluetooth thermometers from Amazon (sponsored link). One is for our bedroom, and the other is for our eight-year-old’s bedroom which tends to get a bit cold in winter.

I specifically went for these thermometers because they’re:

  • Cheap – I paid £19 for the pair last week, but they’re £16 for the pair as I write this.
  • Supported by Home Assistant – there’s an official integration.
  • No extra hardware required – because they’re Bluetooth, and I run Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi with a supported Bluetooth chip, there’s no additional hardware required to get the two to talk to each other.
  • Probably good battery life – Bluetooth is quite energy efficient when compared with, say, Wifi, and so the batteries should last longer.
  • No need to use the cloud – all the data can be stored locally on Home Assistant.

ThermoPro TP357 look and feel

The ThermoPro units are smaller than I expected. They’re about as tall as a credit card but roughly square, so they’re narrower than a credit card. Each one runs on one AAA battery which is provided. On the back is a flip out kick-stand, a magnet and a hook, so you can wall-mount it, stick it to your fridge or have it free-standing on a shelf like I do. There’s also a button on the back that switches it between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

On the front, there’s an LCD screen which shows the current temperature and humidity level. There’s also a face pictogram – it’ll smile when the humidity is between 30-60%, frown when it’s less than 30% or show a neutral expression if it’s over 60%.

Home Assistant integration

If you have Bluetooth enabled on your Home Assistant device, then a few minutes after you put the battery in, Home Assistant should pop up a notification to say it’s discovered a new ThermoPro device. You’ll just need to confirm that you want to set it up and allocate it to an area, and you’re done.

As you would expect, the ThemoPro integration reveals entities for temperature and humidity, but also the battery level. I’m not sure how accurate this is, as both provided AAA batteries just show 50%. I’ve added these to my Home Assistant dashboard, and have set up some additional functionality that I’ll blog about later. Mainly because, despite allegedly being ‘summer’ in the UK right now, it’s not been warm enough for me to test.

The range seems quite good on these. ThermoPro claim that there’s an 80 metre range in direct line of sight. There’s a few thick walls between my Home Assistant device and the thermostats, and one that is around 5 metres away doesn’t have great signal strength but it’s enough.

ThermoPro app

Of course, ThermoPro expect you to use their app for iOS and Android. This includes logging of up to a year’s data, and you can set notifications based on events related to the humidity and temperature. Well, that’s what it says – I haven’t actually installed the app. I’m not yet sure if it’s possible to have the app and Home Assistant communicate with the thermostat at the same time. But theoretically, anything the app can do, Home Assistant can do too.

Alternatives

I’ve had various Facebook adverts for alternatives to these. Some have e-ink displays, which are more readable at a distance, or use different protocols to Bluetooth. But they’re all more expensive. These two seem to do the job well and are small and cheap. Plus, it should be quite a while until I need to replace the batteries.

My favourite things of 2023

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Covers for books I read in 2023, including These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany and Third Eye by Felicia Day

There’s only 32 hours of 2023 remaining in my timezone, so it’s time to review the things I’ve consumed this year and pick out my favourite content.

Note: all links below marked with a * are Amazon referral links, and so I receive a small amount of commission from any purchases. But please feel free to buy these from a local, independent tax-paying shop, or borrow them from your local library, as I did with several of these recommendations.

Favourite book of 2023

So far I’ve read 95 books this year, although to be fair, quite a few of these were bedtime stories for our eight-year-old. Those aside, my favourite book was ‘These Impossible Things’ by Salma El-Wardany*. It tells the story of three young British Asian women, who are navigating the divide between family and cultural expectations, and life as a young person in the UK in the 21st century. It’s very well-written, with very relatable characters. This is El-Wardany’s debut novel and so I’m interested to see what comes next.

Honourable mentions: There were a few books that I awarded five stars to on Goodreads this year:

Favourite film of 2023

We haven’t been able to watch many films this year, and those that we have seen at the cinema have tended to be child-friendly films. We’re also behind on Marvel films and haven’t seen any in a couple of years. Of those that we have seen, probably my favourite was the Barbie movie, which was just hilarious all the way through. We saw it a few weeks after it came out and there were several of us laughing out loud in the cinema.

Honourable mentions: Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves* was fun, and it was good to see Hugh Grant playing an antagonist for once. And it was nice to finally see a sequel to Chicken Run – I had the first film on VHS, which gives you an idea of how long ago since that came out, and meant I’ve had to explain to our eight-year-old what a ‘VHS’ is.

It’s also worth noting that we are planning to see Wonka tomorrow.

Favourite TV show of the year

Again, we’ve not had much time to watch TV this year. When you work full-time in a different city to where you live, and have a child who has school and homework and weekend activities, there’s not a lot of time to keep up with TV. Of the shows that I have seen bits of, The Repair Shop has filled that niche of being interesting, comforting and educational.

Favourite audio series of the year

Okay, so I basically created this category so that I could tell you about Felicia Day’s ‘Third Eye’*. It’s an Audible exclusive, and is more akin to a radio play rather than an audiobook. But, it has a narrator in the form of Neil Gaiman and is split into chapters. Felicia Day wrote the script for TV several years ago, and although no TV channels picked it up, it’s become a very good audio series with Day playing the lead character. London Hughes, Alan Tudyk and Wil Wheaton provide some of the other voices.

So – these are the things that I have watched, read and listened to in 2023. Next year, I’m hoping to catch up with the Marvel films we’ve missed (especially now that the pace of release has slowed down) and continue to read more things. Maybe I’ll manage 100 books across the year this time?

Koopower Wireless Doorbell review

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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.

TP-Link Gigabit Powerline Starter Kit review

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A photo of one of the TP-Link Gigabit Powerline adaptors

Today I’m reviewing the pair of TP-Link 1000 Mbps Gigabit Powerline Starter Kits that I bought earlier this year to improve our network at home. If you haven’t already, please read yesterday’s post for some context, although I’ll summarise here too.

My aim was to improve the network speeds on some of the devices that I own, thus freeing up Wifi capacity. I went with Powerline (also known as HomePlug) because it would be less disruptive to install than Ethernet cables.

The TP-Link units were well-reviewed on Amazon, averaging 4.5 stars with over 1000 reviews at time of writing. I needed three adaptors; unfortunately I could only find them in packs of two, and so ended up buying four. At the time, this set me back £80, but they’re now down to £36 for a pack (so £72 for two).

Installing the Powerline adaptors

Setup is a doddle. Each starter pack includes two Powerline adaptors, and two standard two metre Ethernet cables. You plug one adaptor into a wall socket near your router and connect it up with an Ethernet cable, and then use the other adaptor and cable to connect to your device in another room. Ensure the adaptors are switched on at the wall, and your device should connect, just like it would if there was a direct Ethernet cable linking it to the router. Repeat this for any additional adaptors – you can use more than two in the same home.

There’s no special software to install, and unlike Wi-Fi routers, there’s no configuration either. It’s literally just ‘plug and play’.

That being said, each adaptor has a ‘Pair’ button, and it’s recommended that you press this on each adaptor in turn. This encrypts the signal between each adaptor, so if there’s any signal leakage with a neighbour, their Powerline adaptors won’t be able to connect to your network and vice versa. It’s a bit like enabling WPA on your Wi-Fi, and it doesn’t seem to have any discernible effect on performance.

Performance

Speaking of performance, the TP-Link adaptors seem to work well. The speeds and latency are certainly better than I was getting over Wifi. Internet-based tests like Ookla’s Speedtest seem to suggest that I’m able to take full advantage of my internet’s connection speed.

As I mentioned yesterday, our household electrical wiring is of variable quality and I was concerned that the older wiring would affect speeds. This doesn’t look to be the case, and the Powerline signal works across our fuse box to serve different electrical rings.

It is worth pointing out that you ‘lose’ an electrical socket when using these adaptors. This isn’t much of a problem for us; when we had the downstairs rewired, we deliberately installed far more sockets than we needed. If you are short of sockets, then you can pay extra for adaptors with a pass-through capability. They work the same but you can still plug another AC device in; however, they cost £50 for a pair, rather than £36.

Compatibility

As I was starting from scratch, I deliberately bought two pairs of adaptors from the same manufacturer. The good news is that HomePlug is an agreed standard (IEEE 1901), and these TP-Link adaptors comply with the HomePlug AV2 specification. This means that if I wanted to expand the network even further, I could theoretically use any HomePlug AV2 compliant hardware to do so – I wouldn’t necessarily need to buy TP-Link equipment again. As it is, I have a spare adaptor since I only needed three.

Conclusion

I’m really impressed with the TP-Link Powerline units. They deliver a good, fast connection, and have worked well in the couple of months that I’ve had them. Whilst it would have been nice to save a bit of money and buy a pack of three adaptors, rather than two pairs, at least I have a spare adaptor for future expansion.

If you have problems with your Wi-Fi speeds or signal strength – especially if your home is around 100 years old and built of stone, like ours – then Powerline adaptors may be a good solution for you.

Update (January 2025): this model is no longer available, but here’s a sponsored link to some newer ones on Amazon.

mPow Magneto wireless Bluetooth headset review

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A photo of a mPow Magneto wireless Bluetooth headset

When my latest set of headphones stopped working in one ear, thanks to a loose connection in the jack, I decided that it was probably about time to get rid of the wires altogether and go wireless. I’d previously tried some cheap no-brand Bluetooth headphones in 2014, which were terrible – a non-standard charger cable, poor sound quality and cheap plastic-y construction. I think I used them once – I’d bought them for the gym but then stopped going and haven’t been back since.

After browsing through Amazon, I came across these mPow Magneto headphones. The reviews were generally good and they ranked as the number best-seller in wireless headphones. I purchased them for £16, but at the time of writing they’re selling for less, making them a bargain.

The headphones aren’t completely wireless – there’s a flat wire between the two earpieces which also has a remote control on the right side. But they’re less prone to tangling than regular wired headphones and you can run the wire behind your neck. The ‘Magneto’ name refers to the magnets in the earpieces – you can attach them together and wear it as a sort of necklace when you’re not listening to them.

The remote control has volume control buttons, and a general purpose button used for turning them on and off, and for pause the current playing track. There’s also a microphone, and when paired with a phone you can use it to make and receive telephone calls. The right earpiece has a micro-USB port for charging – a full charge takes about an hour and gives around 8-10 hours of music playing in my experience.

Pairing with your device is straightforward, and if your device supports the Bluetooth Battery Service, you’ll be able to see how much charge your headphones have left. My iPhone 5S supports this; when connected, the Bluetooth icon in the top right gains an additional battery indicator and a new ‘Battery’ widget appears on the Today pull-down. The mPow Magneto will also play an audible warning every 5 minutes once you get below 30% battery remaining.

Sound quality is pretty good – decent bass and reasonable clarity. Audiophiles will probably want to spend more on something better, but I was pleasantly surprised – I’ve used wired headphones with worse sound quality before. Although sometimes radio interference affects the range – the sound can become choppy if your device is more than a foot away from your headphones, but it depends where you are. Other times it can be a couple of metres away and be fine.

Going wireless does have its downsides. As far as I can tell, you can only pair your headphones with one device at a time, whereas you can plug wired headphones into any device with a 3.5mm audio jack. Although you can use the headphones whilst they’re charging, you may have physical difficulty getting the right earbud to sit in your ear as you do so. Plus, the need to recharge your headphones once or twice a week may put some people off, as will the extra battery drain on your phone or device (especially if you normally have Bluetooth turned off). But not having to unknot wires that then dangle and pull when running is quite liberating.

There are better headsets out there, if you’re prepared to pay more. But the mPow Magneto is fantastic value for money and gets my recommendation. I use them daily and have been really impressed with them.

Netgear WN3000RP Wi-Fi Range Extender review

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A photo of the Netgear WN3000RP Wifi Range Extender plugged into a wall socket

Today, I’m reviewing Netgear’s WN3000RP Wifi range extender (sponsored link) – a plug-in device to improve your home Wi-Fi network’s range.

You may be thinking, ‘wait a minute, you only reviewed a Netgear range extender a few weeks ago!‘. And you would be right. I was sent a Nighthawk EX7000 Wi-Fi range extender to review, but unfortunately I had to send it back to the PR company after I’d written the blog post.

I still needed a Wi-Fi range extender though, as my BT Home Hub 4 can’t reach the whole house. The WN3000RP model had some reasonable user reviews on Amazon, met my needs and was reasonably affordable, and so I put it on my Christmas list. Santa, or rather my Dad, obliged and so I’ve been using it since Christmas Day.

It’s a much smaller than the Nighthawk and simply plugs directly into a plug socket with no further assembly required. As it’s equipped with Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS), configuring it is dead simple – turn it on, press the WPS button, press the WPS button on your router, and then wait a minute or two. A new Wi-Fi network will appear with ‘_EXT’ appended to it and it’ll use the same WPA security key (password) as your router.

That’s probably all most people will need to do, but a few configuration options are available using a web-based control panel. There’s also a port for a network cable to connect a device which lacks its own Wi-Fi connection, although you’ll need to provide your own cable.

The Nighthawk I reviewed in November was a premium model with lots of additional features, such as extra network ports, a USB port for a hard driver or printer and faster connections. This is a much simpler model without the bells and whistles, but it does the basic job well. It has certainly alleviated our wifi signal issues and seems to perform as well as we need it to.

If you’re looking for a simple solution to extend your Wi-Fi router’s reach, at £27 from Amazon, you can’t go wrong with the Netgear WN3000RP. It’s a fifth of the cost of the £140 Nighthawk EX7000 (although Amazon had it for £100 before Christmas) which offers extra features and performance, at a price.

2015 in review

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It’s time for my annual review of the year just gone. The theme for this year is ‘when I grow up’, for two reasons. One, it was the name of a song that I sang in a concert in April, but also because some major grown-up things happened to Christine and I this year.

You can read my previous posts from 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

Anyhow, without further ado, here’s January.

January

We decided that 2015 would be the year that we would buy a house, and January was the month when we started looking at potential properties in earnest. However, it would take until much later on before we’d actually buy a house, and then even longer before we’d be able to move in.

As usual, the 14th January was my blogiversary, marking 13 years since I started blogging. I was also sent a UPS to review; that’s now been passed on to a friend who could make better use of it.

The Bradford Brewery

February

February saw the first big step forward in the house-buying process – we had an offer accepted, for the home that we ultimately bought. I also visited the opening of the Bradford Brewery, which later became famous for a Twitter spat with the then-local MP George Galloway, and got a new iPhone after my previous one started to give up the ghost. We went to see the comedian Josie Long in Leeds, and the cabaret act Fascinating Aida in Bradford in the same week.

February also saw the blog move to a new server, for the first time in a few years. I’m now running it on Bytemark’s flexible BigV platform. The server move also meant that I could more easily add an SSL certificate for the site, which went live in the same month.

March

March was a busy month, by comparison. The first week was taken up by being a theatre technician for Moby Dick! The Musical, for which Christine was the producer and also a performer. This was the first of three shows that I worked on this year, all at the Bradford Playhouse. I then had a busy couple of weeks at work, followed by a week away in the Middle East for work. This was my first overseas trip for work, and saw me visiting Amman in Jordan and Muscat and Salalah in Oman, via Dubai and Bahrain. It was a great experience and allowed me to visit countries that I will probably never have chance to see again, but the days were long and I had to work hard out there.

On a sadder note, it was a year since my good friend Dave Jennings passed away suddenly. Christine and I still miss him but we’re able to move on now.

The busy month meant that I didn’t get chance to write about much on the blog, apart from how I wouldn’t be buying an Apple Watch. I still haven’t bought one.

April

The big news in April was me passing my driving theory test – a key milestone in learning to drive. I’d taken and passed the theory test before, back in 2006, but they’re only valid for two years and as I didn’t subsequently pass my practical driving test back then, it expired. Still, it was a big step forward.

Over the Easter weekend, we went on a day trip to Fountain’s Abbey, with my parents.

I don’t often sing in public but I decided to take part in a small concert, at the very end of April. As Christine was organising it, I decided that being part of it would mean that I get to see her more often, rather than spending two nights a week apart due to rehearsals.

May

In early May, we discovered that Christine was pregnant. At the time, we kept it mostly a secret, telling only close family and our respective employers.

I had a fun day out at the Foxfield Railway with my family. My dad turned 70 at the very end of 2014 and his birthday present was to be a train driver for the day, so we spent the day trundling up and down the short preserved railway near Stoke on Trent. His birthday present this year, from Christine and I, was a photobook of the photos that I took on the day. I haven’t seen the finished photobook yet but I gather it has come out well – I ordered it from Apple through the Photos app in OS X.

May is my birthday month, and this time I became the rather unremarkable age of 31. We went to Tropical World in Leeds.

June

We finally completed the house purchase in June, and so we were able to start work on renovating it. We’d originally expected to be able to move in after around six weeks, i.e. early August, but the more work we did, the more we realised that additional work would be required. Ultimately, it was late September before we moved.

I did the second of the three shows in June – a production of Our House, the Madness musical. I got called in at the last minute, but it was a great show to work on.

June was the month when we went public about Christine’s pregnancy (although I didn’t blog about it until July). We kept mostly schtum until after the 12 week scan, mainly because there’s a higher risk of miscarriage in the first trimester, but also because we wanted to be able to show the ultrasound image. Until then, we didn’t have anything really tangible to show, apart from a positive home pregnancy testing kit.

A day out in Manchester gave me the opportunity to write about the renovation of Manchester Victoria station, which was nearly complete in June. I also finally started writing about my middle east trip, over a couple of weeks.

July

Cheers! #Instagram

I was back in Manchester in July, this time for a stag weekend where I probably drank more alcohol in 48 hours than I did for the whole of the rest of the year. Thankfully, a lot of this was at Brewdog, so it was good alcohol.

We had a free meal out at a local chain restaurant, in a role as a mystery shopper. It was a good experience, although sadly we haven’t had the opportunity to do it again, as none of the visits offered since have appealed to us.

I wrote my first piece on Medium. It got a few views, but I was a bit underwhelmed, if I’m honest. A subsequent post later in the year barely got noticed. I also belatedly updated the blog to comply with the EU cookie directive.

And I bought a selfie stick. I haven’t really used it much though.

August


I passed my driving test! It was technically my third attempt, following two attempts in 2007, but was the first time after a long break, and with only two minor errors. It was a big relief, as I think we would have really struggled with our baby daughter later on, had I not passed by then.

August is always busy at work, thanks to it being UCAS Clearing, so I didn’t get chance to write about much on the blog. We got to end the month with a trip to St Andrews in Scotland, for the wedding of two very good friends, over the bank holiday weekend.

September

A photo of my Nissan Note

Two big things happened in September. The first was finally being able to move into the house that we’d owned since June, albeit right at the end of the month. Since moving in, we’ve done some more painting but renovation work has been on the backburner whilst we got ready for the baby’s arrival. In any case, the work remaining is relatively minor and not urgent, hence why we were able to move in.

We also bought a car. This actually happened before we moved – and having a car made the house move a little more bearable. It’s not a great car but it meets our needs, and I haven’t managed to crash it yet I thankfully. Although the paintwork has gained several scratches and the front right wheel arch needs replacing after I got a bit too close to a metal railing whilst reversing. We need to get a little more money together before we get these issues fixed in the new year.

We went to a couple of stand-up comedy gigs in September – Justin Moorhouse played our local pub on one of the first dates of his UK tour, which was nice of him, and then we went to see George Egg in Bradford as part of the British Science Festival.

October

Although we were able to squeeze in a short, last minute visit to London in 2014, in October we made proper plans and spent a full weekend in the capital. This also gave me over a week’s worth of content for blog posts, which was helpful.

Whilst I’d decided not to buy a full-blown smart watch earlier in the year, I decided to splash out on a Fitbit Charge fitness tracker. Three months on and I’m still wearing it every day, as it’s a good motivational tool. It encourages me to take the stairs rather than the lift, and to move around more when waiting for things. I’ve even tried its sleep-tracking feature of late, seeing as how sleep is likely to be at a premium for the next few weeks.

I was rather disappointed with the Sunrise calendar app being discontinued. I’m managing with the stock iOS Calendar app for now but it’s not as good.

November

We picked an unseasonably warm and sunny day to visit the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and specifically the poppy cascade that is there until early in the new year. November also saw the long-awaited opening of Bradford’s new shopping centre, which has been under construction for over a decade. I’ve been through it a few times since and it has always been busy. There’s a handful of empty shops but these seem to filling up quickly – a trend that’ll hopefully be repeated elsewhere in Bradford city centre.

I had a go at brewing my own beer. The beer was okay, although I never drank any more of it after writing the blog post. It’s almost certainly spoiled by now.

We went to two live gigs in November –Dara Ó Briain in Halifax, and Professor Elemental in Leeds – and made a second annual visit to the Thought Bubble Comic Con. And I was part of the technical team for Sleeping Beauty at the Bradford Playhouse, the last of the three shows this year.

December

And so to this month. Obviously the arrival of our baby was by far the biggest news, and we’re all now back at home now having recovered from the birth. In fact, our little newborn poppet was lying on my arm whilst writing part of this blog post, so any mistakes are probably the baby’s fault. As well as worrying about the birth, I was also worrying about the flooding that hit our town – thankfully, we weren’t directly affected but getting to the hospital for the birth was interesting.

We had a quiet Christmas at home, so that we could enjoy some time alone with just the two of us. Tentative plans for New Year’s Eve have been made, but these are very much weather-dependent.