Andrew's Blog

Originallypublished Dec 29th 2024 Audio woes with AI I recently got a M4 Mac mini, more on that later but along with that, I also got a Focusrite Scarlett Solo 4th gen, that has been working quite well up until now. Yesterday I decided to try out an app called SuperWhisper , as I hoped that it would help speed up my workflow, in particular, writing these blog posts for example. I installed it via my setapp subscription ( referral link if you’re interested, we both get a free month), launched it and tried to dictate something. It didn’t see the mic, which was weird, so I checked the system preferences - security settings, all looked good there. I decided to try ChatGPT and see if that worked, same problem. didn’t see the mic. Ok, lets try something else, launched Quicktime, made an audio recording no problem. Launched Logic Pro, made a quick voice recording with no problems. Tried OBS, made a quick screen recording and voice over, no problems. Went back to ChatGPT - tried again, still...

  Originally published Dec 28th 2024 To NAS or not to NAS… So for a while now I have known that I need a NAS at home. Up until now we have had our files stored in various cloud services but with the ever increasing monthly or annual fees for this, the clock was always ticking. That’s also taking into account the fact that your files are on someone else's server, which is never at the end of the day the best call, at least depending on the level of risk vs convenience that you’re willing to accept. Now the thing that always kept me from going to a NAS was the price, Synology, QNAP and all of the others, don’t really fall into the affordable category, especially if you want a decent size array with some level of protection. So basically I kept putting it off but was then stuck in an endless loop of paying for cloud services because I couldn’t afford something local but if I cancel the cloud, then I need to put the files somewhere and catch 22. I finally got a break in this endless ci...

Originally published 22nd Oct 2024 UPDATE: 20th June 2025 - The right bumper didn't survive parrying in Expedition 33 Are These The Best Xbox Controllers? A couple of years ago, I decided to treat myself and invested in an Xbox Elite 2 controller, my theory being, that as the controller was more premium, which I understood as more solidly built, it would last longer than the standard controllers. Especially in terms of stick drift or buttons failing. I was very happy with the controller, it felt good, worked well and did everything I could want, needless to say, two months after the warranty ended, I got bad stick drift first on one stick and then on the other. I tried to send it back to Microsoft but the online form failed and attempts to get help either sent me to an automated chatbot that never got anywhere or the community, which in this situation, can’t help. After spending sometime researching, one thing caught my eye, all Xbox controllers have a polling rate of 125hz, presu...

  Originally published 7th of September 2024 Dell Optiplex 7050 - Stealth Gaming or Something else? Not too long ago, a friend passed on to me a Dell Optiplex 7050—a decent, if slightly aged, desktop. It came with an Intel i5-7500 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. My friend didn’t need it anymore and, knowing I like to tinker with gadgets, thought I’d give it a new lease of life. Who was I to say no? The Original Plan: A Simple Media Server Initially, I thought I’d transform it into a basic media server for all those DVDs I’ve got lying around (because, let’s face it, they’re not watching themselves). I swapped in a larger hard drive, installed Linux Mint (a user-friendly, free operating system), and set up Jellyfin to stream all my old films and shows. I figured I’d leave it at that. But as these things go, I didn’t. A Spark of Inspiration One day, as I was mindlessly scrolling through YouTube (as one does), I stumbled across a video of someone upgrading an old HP Pro...

Originally published July 23rd 2024 The Dawn of Gaming… Gaming is something that we take for granted these days, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry, a pass time that millions of people engage in and something that is now considered to be a lot cooler than it was just a few short years ago. In fact for some people it might seem as if gaming was and has been around forever in its current form. While it may be true that gaming has been around along time, it was very different from it’s current form. The first games or at least something resembling games, were actually created in the 1950’s. At the time though, it wasn’t something that you would be playing at home, these were mostly technology demonstrations and ways for scientists to learn programming and study how people interacted with machines. So most of the games were simple at the time, due to the technology constraints and the fact that we, were still learning. The games themselves were in the vein of Draughts (Checkers), the old...

  originally published on July 19 2024 Please Add A Pause Button Ok, so this might not be a post that is popular with a lot of people but I am sure that there is a group of people out there who will hopefully appreciate where I am coming from on this topic. It’s a feature that will make a lot of people happy and that is, as the title says, adding a pause button to your game, or make it so when you go back to the menu it pauses. Thats it. Easy peasy. At least I hope. But please add it into your games, even for cut scenes. Now I can already hear the crowds of people yelling at me, that I’m just another one of those people with kids or if I can’t set aside the time to game properly, then I shouldn’t game and so on. But… and hear me out now before you raise the pitchforks again, why shouldn’t games have a built in pause button? What is wrong with having the ability to suspend your game if something comes up? What about if you just need a bathroom break? I mean there is even an app that...

Blogging is back? Originally published on 17 JUL 2024 I haven’t had a blog for a long while now and truth be told, the ones that I have had in the past, never quite lasted very long. Part of the problem was always the amount of friction that it took to put together a blog post, coming up with an idea, finding the time to write it and edit it and so on. So why am I doing this now, again? It actually boils down to a YouTube video that I saw a couple of days ago now and what I believe was almost a throw away comment by the YouTuber about sharing information with your peers and having a record somewhere of what your thoughts were, what was happening at the time and so on. My plan here is mainly to talk about things that interest me, I know most people in general say that you need to pick a niche and stick to it, maybe it will come to that at some point but for now, I’m giving myself the freedom to write about what I want to. Hopefully this will mean that there is a chance that this bloggin...