Digital Distractions

How to use AND, OR and NOT in an Excel IF function…

Here’s how to make the Android Debugger (ADB) and a Nexus 4 or 7 talk to each other in Windows 7. This is probably documented on the Android developer site,…

The thing that makes the Internet work is its variety of communication protocols, rather than the apps that use those protocols. We’re all too obsessed with latching onto one particular…

I hate floppy disks, they’re so fragile. Here’s how I converted my Atari ST so that it uses SD cards.

This is a post explaining how (and why) I “hacked” my ADSL router to use Power-over-Ethernet without permanently altering the router.

My keyboard stopped working a while ago and I had no spare ones with which to replace it. In a fit of desperation I enabled the on-screen keyboard on the…

I’ve just bought a second hand managed switch (a 3Com 2920 gigabit ethernet switch) and while I know its MAC address, I couldn’t figure out its IP address. Here are…

I built a gaming PC a few months ago and one of its uses is taking it to friends’ houses to play LAN games. A common problem we always have…

I needed a cheapo ethernet switch for a project so went off to a local computer shop and asked for exactly that. After getting it home I noticed the PSU…

This is just a quick reminder how to make the Network UPS Tools work with an APC UPS that connects using USB (I think that’s all the three letter acronyms…

Here’s something we’ve had sat in the loft for a while…

Being able to remotely administer a Linux machine using SSH is something so common and normal that it often gets taken for granted. Mobile broadband is quick enough that with…

Right, so the worse has happened… your shiny Mac has gone wrong – while booting it took forever and showed a mysterious grey/white progress bar. A progress bar you’ve never…

Has this ever happened to you? You’re driving around listening to the radio, switch the car off to go and do something (fill up with petrol in my case) and…

Everyone likes looking at the innards of electronic devices. Modern ones are a bit boring now unless you’ve got a microscope, but there’s plenty of interest in old tech… especially…