Author: David Dobson

I need a VoIP system for my grandmother that doesn’t cut-in and out. Currently I have a Cisco VoIP adaptor behind a Telstra Smart Modem Gen 2 (DJA0231). The problem that is happening is the phone is not clear and garbled, sometimes not being able to connect to the SIP server. I have theory that the modem is causing the connection problems, but I don’t necessarily want to replace the Telstra modem as it has 4G backup for DSL and voice. It also has VoIP, but being a Telstra branded modem, it is all locked down.

The light blew in the fridge, and didn’t want to buy a new one, so I thought I would make one out of the stuff I have lying around.

I have wanted to add another WiFi access point to my shed. I had a cheap Chinese one that had a 100Mb port so I could use a simple injector system with the unused pairs.

We replaced our old dishwasher with a new LG Direct Drive model, with the all important feature of child lock.

Now, when something has chid lock, you would imagine it would stop a child from pressing buttons and turning the dishwasher off mid cycle. Not the case.

Not entirely sure how but this is what happens when you ask your teenager to fill the bath for the kids.

I have stated working from home like a large portion of the population and I needed to put in another wireless access point on the other side of my house for better WiFi access to my new office work area and also has the benefit to extend the network out to the IoT switch on the grey water. I ran an Ethernet cable from the modem in the lounge to the eaves on the corner of the house, but didn’t want to run mains power to run the new access point.

My Wife wanted a blogging site to try, so I had the choice of setting up my own server or signing up to an online provider.

I first looked at setting it myself, and after doing the sums, I calculated it was going to cost me roughly $10/month in electricity to run a computer to host it, all the time to maintain it, the learning curve to set it up and the pain of trying to work behind a public IP address that changes every couple of days.

This compared to $6/month for hosting with Bluehost, which specializes in hosting blogs with WordPress, so it was a no-brainer. I would host it myself.

My recent trip to Chile informed me of the international driving rules:-

William- Eva, can you put Netflix on for me?

Eva- Netflix doesn’t work because Daddy’s brother didn’t pay for it.

William- Awww. That’s so mean!

I ordered 120 128GB for $6 each off a Chinese marketplace, Joom. I fully expected them not to be 128GB, more of the capacity range of 8-16GB. Joom offers a full refund if the item you receive is not as described, leaving me with all my cash and 120 x 8GB thumb drives. I was sorely disappointed when I tested them and found they were all 128MB, and most had errors/ bad blocks within this.