Garden Reticulation with Raspberry Pi and OpenSprinkler

So a couple of weeks ago I noticed that my lawn was starting to dry out. We’d only just turned the system back on and I’d gone around and checked that it was all working ok. I went out to the box and noticed that it was displaying a FUSE message on the screen. Not...

Tidying up Home Network

My home networking equipment has grown over time with all sorts of new stuff, spread across a few locations. We connected to the NBN a few months ago and there were a few changes to how I had everything set up. What used to be our study is now our middle child’s bedroom, so the...

LED Display Shelf

Mr 5 loves lights! And I mean loves them. He has numerous night lights, grow clocks, torches, lanterns and garden lights around the house. Every trip to Bunnings involves a stroll through the lights section. A few months ago I thought it would be a good idea (my wife didn’t think such a good idea)...

Weekend Project: Solar Powered Cubby Light

On the weekend, my son and I had some time to ourselves, so we set out to Masters to do a bit of hardware shopping. The goal was to find a birdhouse to hang in a tree, but we had a voucher so we spend some time looking around the shop a bit. In the...

Fatherhood: Losing Friends Is Easy To Do

You kind of expect to lose a few friends when you have kids, especially if those friends don’t have any of their own. There are any number of articles about the subject which will tell you that the best thing to do is to go out and make new friends. That’s great, and for the...

How To Balance a Passion Project and Your Family/Personal Life

I read an article today on Gizmodo Australia with a similar headline to this one. I was a little disappointed with the substance of the article though, as there was only one sentence which related in any way: I’m a broadcast graphic designer by day and an indie game developer by night. Or should I...

Does Commuting Cost 66 Workdays In Your Year?

How much time do you spend going to and from work every day? Is it in any way productive, or are you driving and unable to do anything but keep your eyes on the road? Jef Claes recently did the math on one of his previous commutes and figured that he was wasting 66 working...

Only Dad in the Pool

This morning I took my 15 month old son to swimming for the first time (mine, not his). It was an interesting experience to say the least. Last night, my wife went over all the finer details with me: Pack the bag, starts at 8:45, get him ready, get yourself ready etc... "Oh, and don't...

Lemon Melting Moments

  My wife sometimes has an urge to bake. It’s probably not the best for my waist line, but I do enjoy the taste. Last night I came home from a late game if indoor cricket to find her finishing off a batch of Lemon Melting Moments. Ok so they weren’t really for my benefit...

Tips for working outside the office from the Work Awesome Blog

I love the Work Awsome blog, and today they have a great article with 5 Tips to Successfully Work Outside the Office One tip that is on every article about working from home ever written is to have a dedicated space to work: This area should preferably be a dedicated office, but other areas can...