I was recently selected as a RoadTest reviewer of the Omron 2JCIE-series environmental sensors. Due to a shipping mix-up, I ended up with both the 2JCIE-BL01-P1 BLE PCB type sensor and the 2JCIE-BU01 USB-type sensors. After a month of work,...

The more I look at the world of radio in the traditional sense, the more it feels under threat. As a relatively late-comer to the shortwave and HF radio listening hobby and amateur radio, I’ve had the displeasure of seeing...

I’ve been a fond user of the Xiaomi Mi Max ever since I picked it up in 2017 at the beginning of my nearly year-long holiday. As the first affordable “large” screen phone I ever owned, I found the added...

A while back, I wrote a launch-day review of the Rohde & Schwarz NGM202 power supply and a follow-up including some results from cycle-life testing of an old Samsung ICR18650-26F cell that was stored at 100% SoC for nine years....

Give me a big discount and I’ll make an impulse buy – between the likes of Singles Day, Click Frenzy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I’ve been on the lookout for good deals. This time I picked up Lexar 32GB...

Earlier this week, I was approached by Mr. Tim Davies of Channel 9 to answer a few questions to camera about the Opal Connect On-Demand Transport trial currently operating in The Ponds, Norwest and Edmondson Park. This resulted in this...

Literally moments after I bought the Toshiba Canvio Basics drive reviewed in the previous post, Seagate fired back by matching the price on their Seagate Expansion Portable 4TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive. Deciding to hedge my bets, I picked...

It’s that time of year again – a kind of “buying” season where discounts haphazardly seem to come out of nowhere. When it comes to bus-powered storage, the Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB bus-powered USB 3.0 external hard drive seemed to...

Recently, I had a request from my brother to take a look at the 3.5mm auxiliary input line into his car stereo. Over the years, pulling at the cable has seemingly mangled the plug and he was looking to get...

After my recent marginally-satisfactory experience of purchasing external 2.5″ SATA to USB 3.0 enclosures from eBay and my recent caving-in to joining eBay Plus, I decided to capitalise on my newfound purchasing freedom by picking up two Orico 2139U3 2.5″...

I don’t frequently purchase flash memory, as the cards I buy tend to serve me well. However, this week thanks to another seasonal discount, I purchased some local Samsung EVO Plus 128GB UHS-I microSDXC cards with adapters for about AU$21.50...

I haven’t had much of a chance to make regular postings recently, because when things break, it seems everything breaks at once. Between attending to a collapsing retaining wall, a broken luggage wheel and the regular work-related crises, I haven’t...

In the process of cleaning up the endless piles of forgotten-about stuff, I came across a novelty item that we don’t seem to see very much of anymore – a light-up mobile phone keyring. Back in the days that phones...

The CeBIT Australia exhibition came to ICC Sydney two weeks ago, which I attended as a regular visitor to the show. I would have blogged about it earlier – if it were not for a number of crises that I...

I know it’s not good for my health, but I’ll admit, I eat at McDonalds on a moderately regular basis. They do a decent job of providing food that is affordably priced, at convenient locations on the way to/from work...

This week has been quite an interesting week for public transport users, especially bus users, as the NSW Government seems to have announced and extended a number of initiatives that change the way you pay for buses. The Opal Connect...

Around a month ago, I was approached by Seeed Studio with an opportunity to review some of their products. As their slogan is “The IoT Hardware Enabler”, it sounded like something I would be interested in. After all, they are...

I was out and about on the rail network one day when I heard the news – the T6 Carlingford Line is set to permanently close. Having never ridden the full-length of the line, I felt sad that it would...

As I continue to chip away at the pile of vintage equipment that has been donated to me by readers, I move to this moderately rare Texas Instruments SR-56 Programmable Calculator. The SR stands for “slide rule”, however, this calculator...

It’s time for another random post – this time, there are more transport-related observations including more upgrades to Tangaras, a few vintage railway assets, a look inside my NBN HFC demarc box, another failed SanDisk microSD card and more random...

I never thought I would be collecting calculators, but somehow, it just happened. I suppose if we look back on the progress of technology, the calculator is one of the devices which might be a good measure. Compared to retro...

Just last week, I posted about a Sharp Elsi Mate EL-120 Pocket Calculator with its glorious vacuum fluorescent display. That post made a mention that there would be another VFD-based calculator in the collection – that is the Sharp Compet...

I published my launch-day review of the Rohde & Schwarz NGM202 Two-Quadrant Power Supply on 20th August 2019 and in the one-and-a-half months since then, there has been a new firmware release (and updated documentation) which improves upon some of...

When I was in the second year of primary school, I remember the teacher carrying around his pocket calculator – a black, chunky plastic device which took a lot of AA batteries. By then, solar-powered LCD calculators were the norm,...

When it comes to old and strange bits of hardware, I’m guilty of being a hoarder, to the point that it’s going to take me years (literally) to cover the stuff that I’ve already collected. In fact, I sometimes even...