Category Archives: Updates

Site updates and news

Thank you, Jetpack Stef

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Stef, a Happiness Engineer with Jetpack, quickly responded to my support ticket. They have confirmed that my site is not commercial, and reclassified me as a personal site. This will allow me to continue viewing the Jetpack Stats without needing to pay for an upgraded commercial account. Thank you, Stef!

Normally, I don’t think it is fair to complain about “free” stuff. Jetpack does not force ads on my content, so, as far as I can tell, using their plug-in on WordPress for personal sites truly is free. I do, however, pay for a backup service they offer, so at least they get some money out of money.

Sadly, that backup plan is no longer available, and has been replaced by a more expensive offering which I would not be able to justify for a personal site like this. Still, better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it available.

This is not a commercial site.

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Today Jetpack Stats informed me I need to upgrade to a commercial plan for this site. For some reason, I have been flagged as a commercial site. Commercial sites can use it free if they have under 5000 visitors a month which, apparently, this humble blog exceeds. That alone is surprising, since I mostly post about a 1980s Radio Shack computer, and embedded C programming ;-)

I just wanted to assure my thousands of ‘bots that scan this site regularly that I:

  1. Have no ads on this site.
  2. Do not request donations.
  3. Do not have affiliate links.

About the closest I ever get to “commercial” is when I put an Amazon link to something ;-)

I thought I’d post this so the Jetpack Support folks have something to see when/if they check out my site to verify my claim.

Appleause.com merged into this site…

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My old appleause.com blog has been shut down, and the articles form there merged into this blog. I originally started that site back in 2007 with the intent of blogging about Apple stuff, mostly my research. Those articles are obsolete now. Firewire to SATA interface research? How quaint.

The one surprising thing was that I posted about resurrecting my Furby many years ago, even to the day I still get a few comments on that article each year. Crazy.

And if you wondered, I always pronounced appleause.com (like Apple + Applause) as Apple-Oz…

And if anyone wants a cool domain name for an Apple blog and wants to obtain that domain, let me know. I had big plans for it, and still do, but likely won’t have the time to work on it any time soon.

Blog stats for January 2025

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I am trying something new, when I remember to do it. Unfortunately, copying and pasting from the stats dashboard seems to make links that have no URL attached to them. Annoying. So for now, just the titles.

Top Posts & Pages:

  1. Using the DJI MIC 2 or Mic Mini with the iPhone native camera app
  2. DJI Neo error downloading videos to phone
  3. Splitting a 16-bit value to two 8-bit values in C
  4. Insta360 X3 and X4 file transfer comparisons
  5. Nested ternary operators in C
  6. Wire up your own RS-232 WiFi modem for under $10 using ESP8266 and Zimodem firmware.
  7. Wokwi online Arduino/ESP32 simulator
  8. C warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions [-Wsign-compare]
  9. Insta360 ONE X2 photo and video modes and filenames

I guess I need to post more CoCo articles and see if I can get those back in the Top 9.

Top Referrers:

  1. Reddit – mostly from posts in the Insta360 camera group, I believe.
  2. Facebook
  3. WordPress Android App
  4. ecosia.org – “The Greenest Search Engine on the Planet”
  5. vogons.org – a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference! Mostly about my WiFi modem experiments with the ZiModem firmware.
  6. youtube.com
  7. Hacker News
  8. ccsinfo.com – they sell the PIC24 compiler I use at work. I have this blog in my signature.
  9. cse2.chickenkiller.com

I was curious about #9:

chickenkiller.com is being shared via Free DNS, a dynamic DNS domain sharing project where members can setup, and administrate their dns entries on their own remote internet connected systems in real time.

– chickenkiller.com

Top Countries:

  1. United States
  2. Canada
  3. United Kingdom
  4. India
  5. Australia
  6. Germany
  7. New Zealand
  8. France
  9. China
  10. Russia

Old posts should be working better now.

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I did some updates to this site a year or so back, and found out it broke images in all my older posts. I think I fixed those last week, so if you find any broken images, please drop a comment on that post so I can look at them.

Code listings are still quite busted, and I have to fix them manually — if I can. Some seem to have lost data and I have no idea what was there. But, if you catch any of those that are broken, leave a comment as well and I’ll fix if I can.

Thanks!

Most-viewed articles of 2021

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Here is a snapshot of the most-viewed articles on this site for 2021. Some of these even had dozens of views.

The most popular article continues to be my writeup on using a cheap ESP8266 module as a WiFi modem via a .99 cent RS-232/TTL adapter.

Several of my C programming articles top the charts as well, including simple things like how to split up a 16-bit value into two 8-bit values.

My “fix” for Arduino Ethernet has dropped down a few places, after being one of the most-viewed articles for years since I first published it. Perhaps they have finally updated the library to support multiple connections from the same IP address so my hack is not needed.

Even my bicycle LED POV light page (which hasn’t been updated in years) still shows up.

And although Sub-Etha Software was created in 1990 to offer software or the Radio Shack Color Computer (“CoCo”), you will see that content barely make an appearance in the list. But, it at least makes an appearance.

To the dozen or so folks who visited my site in 2021, thank you for visiting :)

CoCoFEST! near Chicago on May 4-5, 2019

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Although I am not certain I will make it (hopefully at least a day trip on Saturday), the 28th annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST! is coming up soon. Find details here:

http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/

I am hoping to find time to update my fork of ZiModem firmware for the CoCoWiFi project, and also dig out some more goodies to donate to the Glenside Color Computer Club for their fundraising auction. If nothing else, maybe I can get those items there with some others that will be passing through Des Moines on their way.

More to come… I hope.

The CoCo is hooked back up.

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Last week, I finally got around to unpacking and hooking back up all the Tandy Color Computer gear I took with me to the 2018 Chicago CoCoFEST! I am now using Ed Snider’s two-slow mini MultiPak replacement, so I ever have more room on my desk. I hope to get the Matchbox CoCo (new name for Roger Taylor’s FPGA CoCo recreation) permanently setup on the desk as well.

Even though I’m still going to be quite busy with summer activities (mostly taking bicycle rides), this gets me one step closer to returning to work on various CoCo projects, including SirSound.

I also got a cheap 3-D printer I will be reviewing, soon. The first thing I printed with it (other than the demo “cat” that it had) was an enclosure for the CoCoWiFi device (compliments of designer Travis Poppe). Now I know why John Strong of StongWare has been so into these printers for the past few years. Even this cheap “toy” one is great!

More to come…

All quiet on the Western front…

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Things have been very quiet here. I started a new job a few months ago and have been having a blast doing embedded C firmware programming for power-over-ethernet LED light control systems. I am currently working on the CoAP protocol, as mentioned previously.

I have a few articles for this site waiting for me to get back to them:

  • Tiny BBS – A new take on my 1983 *ALLRAM* BBS for the Radio Shack Color Computer. A few years ago, I had ported my old MIcrosoft BASIC BBS program to Arduino C. I decided to do a new version of the system using things I have learned over the past 34 years. I had worked up a proof-of-concept version earlier this year which had a substantially larger message base in the same memory. I hope to find time to return to this. I think it would be fun to take a CoCo and a $3 WiFi-to-serial adapter and put a micro BBS online ;-)
  • const-ant confusion in C – I have another article in the works that will delve in to the const keyword in C, based on how I’ve been mis-using it most of my programming career. I learned quite a bit about it at a recent job, since we had it defined in our coding style guide. But, many of us there were still using it incorrectly.

But meanwhile, I’ll be chugging away at my day job, working on my Iowa Adventureland amusement park website, and doing various side projects to earn extra income so I can save up for something really cool for my child’s birthday.

To be continued…