A blog post every day for three months means I'm now just shy of having written 100 posts! I can't believe that I've made it three months without skipping a day, even though we've moved house.
These blog posts have helped me in unexpected ways. Sometimes the act of writing things down helps me to think through a problem. Other times it's just helpful to have documented something when I want to look at it again later. It's also helped me to be more clear and less ambiguous when having to communicate things to others.
None of these things require me to write them in public on a blog, but having it public somehow helps me to be a bit more accountable and to keep the habit going.
One of the reasons we moved was that the new house is nearer to the beaches of the Gower, the UK's first Area of Natural Outstanding Beauty. In addition, we've got four parks and a beach within walking distance.
Cwmdonkin Park, made famous by Dylan Thomas, is the nearest park to the house. You can also take a walk through Brynmill Park with its duck pond, through to Singleton Park, a massive park next to the university and beach. Singleton Park is about a quarter the size of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but for a city of only 250 thousand residents it's a pretty big park.
The toddler and I walked through Brynmill Park and Singleton Park to the beach today, and back past Victoria Park, another park next to the beach. It's a bit of a steep climb getting back, but manageable. I'm glad this house is starting to feel like home.
I spent most of the day putting up new furniture and attaching things to walls. First I drilled six holes to attach our TV to the wall with a movable arm. Making sure I got the six holes in exactly the right places was quite nerve-wracking, but it all worked out in the end.
I also drilled two holes to attach our shoe cabinet. In the end we decided to mount it against a wall with a lower skirting board, which left our foyer as the only viable option. This one turned out easier than expected, as it's not too hard to line up two holes for drilling.
I then assembled yet another piece of IKEA furniture, this time round a set of drawers for our bedroom. This one also had to be fixed against the wall, with two metal brackets. I had to move the brackets from their original position in the furniture to make it fit, but this also worked out in the end.
All in all, a successful day in the DIY department. There were no big surprises, and slowly but surely everything in the house is coming together.
Previously I described some of the issues regarding getting the internet working at our new house. Well, it seems like I've finally found a solution!
Using a WiFi extender was not successful, as the average network speed would still be around 10Mbps. I considered getting a second ASUS router and setting up a mesh network, but initial testing using the existing router showed it would peak around 60Mbps and maybe not be that reliable.
This morning I went and bought an AV2000 Gigabit Powerline ac Wi-Fi Kit . It's theoretically capable of carrying up to 2Gbps over electrical wiring, with 802.11ac WiFi built in. Guess what, powerline networking is amazing! Given that our house was built over a century ago, I was a bit worried that the electrical wiring wouldn't be up to the task. However, setup was super easy and the link between the two powerline units is around 670Mbps!
My actual Internet speed is only around 40Mbps (while I'm paying for 78Mbps), but that is a whole other issue.
For dinner tonight I finally made that vegan mac & cheese I wrote about a while back. I was a bit surprised by how easy it was to make and that I actually enjoyed eating it. The toddler ate his very enthusiastically (or maybe he was just very hungry) and my wife ate at least half her plate.
I'm not planning on going vegan anytime soon, but it's good to know that there are alternatives to things like cheese that taste acceptable. I can't say I've found any good meat alternatives yet.
On Monday I wrote how other companies copying IKEA's flat-pack furniture style really don't match up when it comes to the quality of the assembly instructions. Today I was assembling an IKEA shoe cabinet, and the instructions made it a breeze.
Also, by keeping to standard and minimal sizes on their screws and bolts, there was very little confusion about which screw to use when. With the assembly instructions of the other manufacturers, they actually included a printed ruler section so that you have to measure each screw before you use it.
There was one major hiccup: I was almost done and wanted to mount it against the wall. Our skirting boards[1] are so high that the cabinet doesn't sit flush. I found an IKEA Hackers article that uses door stoppers to extend the feet, but I would need door stoppers at least 10cm long for that to work.
The proprietor of the tiny hardware store in my new neighbourhood was very helpful and suggested that I use 2x2 pieces of wood and cut them to replace the existing feet. That's a pretty good option, but I'm still looking into other alternatives like mounting it directly against the wall or maybe mounting it on a wall with lower skirting board.
Sometimes I have to run Windows virtual machines (VMs) on my machine to test new code. I used VirtualBox for a while, but then wanted to switch to something else as I didn't want to be using something owned by Oracle.
Microsoft makes time-limited Windows VMs available for free. I switched to VMWare, but I stopped counting how many times it crashed my whole system. I really wanted to like it, but it's probably the buggiest software I've ever tried to use. Well, apart from anything made by Microsoft. đ
So, I'm back on Virtualbox. The interface is much simpler and it's been running without issues so far, so that's what I'll use for now. If you know of a better option, please let me know in the comments.
Today is a public holiday in the UK, where most of my time was spent putting together two pieces of flat-pack furniture for our new house. Funnily enough, neither piece was from IKEA where we went yesterday.
First up was a garden storage bin from B&Q. On the outside it stated that it would take 25 minutes to assemble. Maybe if you're a Formula 1 racing team, but it took me a good couple of hours. The instructions were a lot more complicated than IKEA's, and there was a lot of self-tapping screws that had to be pushed through pieces of plastic. I can't say I recommend the experience.
The second piece was a kid's wardrobe from Argos. Again super confusing instructions made the job difficult. Say what you will about IKEA: They have actually put some thought into the design of the assembly of their furniture, and have at least tested and their assembly instructions so that other people can use it.
Growing up in South Africa without any IKEA stores means I still get a little bit excited when going to IKEA. I especially enjoy the meatballs with mash, gravy and lingonberry jam. They're the delightful break between hours of walking along routes designed to take you through every bit of the store.
Going to IKEA with the toddler can be very draining, but he was mostly good fun and we managed to get what we need. Worse was the hour's drive there and back in torrential rain. What happened to all the sunny weather we've been having lately?
The drain in our bath gets clogged with hair very easily, so I started looking into options for preventing hair getting in there in the first place. The best solution so far seems to be the OXO Silicone Shower & Tub Drain Protector, which sits over the pop-up drain. It has a metal piece to weigh it down, and is made from silicone for a better seal. We have the OXO stainless steel squeegee, which works great. They give a lot of thought to their designs and make good products.
So I started thinking to myself â could I 3D print this? I couldn't find anything similar on Thingiverse, so I made a simple dome shape in OpenSCAD with a bunch of holes in it. The first prototype printed in PLA seems like it could work eventually. The PLA is too rigid to form a good seal, so it moves around and debris will get past it. Maybe a good reason to experiment with flex filament? I'll post the design here and on Thingiverse once it works reliably.
