DavidCraddock.net

After many many years of consideration, deliberation, hesitation, and procrastination, I have started a Masters degree at Royal Holloway, University of London.

On hq.local, I have two Calibre libraries, one for EPUBs, and one for PDFs/comics.

I have spent a lot of time tidying up my hq.local server config, the IOC code that hosts all my services, including my Plex server, my full set of arr services,my calibre libraries, my SWAG Hugo blog sites, and various indexing, conversion and backup scri…

Portswigger Academy I have signed up to, and have been learning a lot from, the Portswigger Academy using the Burp Suite Community Edition.

So today I finally ordered an 8TB moving platter disk drive so that I can expand the home server - hq.local. hq.local currently has about 19TB in disk space, almost all of which is fully utilised currently.

Someone made a comment the other day on a post I made on forum, that made me think.

I’ve updated the repository that generates my CVs in PDF and HTML form, from a markdown file.

I recently converted my old server case, motherboard RAM and CPU into a Linux workstation, that I’ve installed Kali Linux on, and will help me up-skill in computer security.

The year of 2024 comes to an end, and what a year it has been!

I had a problem recently with the server where the server was constantly having to boot into ‘rescue mode’ due to a problem with the fstab.

I got into a bit of a situation where I broke the main server.

I have been taking some extended time off work for the past month, to deal with my mum’s illness and unfortunate passing away, and because my work situation is so bad it’s borderline horrific.

A workbench.

I think that there is a very real problem around the definition of the purpose of a ‘QA’ or ‘Quality Engineering’ department and what it is expected to do in an organisation.

To send a secure message to me: Use my signal username: granddesigns.92 2600 hacker magazine.

Every year I’ve been doing these ‘retrospectives’, usually once per year but sometimes a couple of times per year.

I have moved over from wordpress.com that I was using before on DavidCraddock.net to self-hosting using Python’s Hugo.

My electric cargo bike.

Here is a quick diagram I mocked up to detail exactly how video routing works in the studio.

If you’re currently in high school in the UK and want to be a GOOD and EMPLOYED software engineer.. this is my advice.

Working on a park bench with my mobile office setup.

My music acquisition process for DJ music: ARM (Automatic Ripping Machine) rips CDs I buy into FLAC form without any interactivity.

My home network cabinet.

Every year towards the end of the year, I put together a retrospective of events that have happened over the year - the good, bad and the ugly.

I’ve been having online guitar lessons with my friend Jon.

If you are still using optical discs, e.g.

The Mythical Man Month and other Essays - Fred Brooks - Read it as part of my university degree.

Every year (when I remember) I do an end-of-year summary to outline what has been going on in my life.

My Work From Home (WFH) Office.

I have been working from home, the majority of the time, for over 5 years.

This is based off of the 2021 Reddit post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PSP/comments/kcx4ei/tutorial_convert_most_video_formats_to/ I am using it with Handbrake 1.5.1.

For years, UK politics has become more right-wing, popularist, and presidential.

Here are some extra tips if you’re just getting started out on Ubuntu.

Click to view full diagram Hardware 2 x Reloop 8000mk2 turntables Roland 707m Mixer and DJ Controller 2015 Macbook Pro (DJ Laptop) SoundSwitch USB -> DMX interface, attached to broadcast PC Beatstep MIDI Controller mapped for controlling SoundSwitch, atta…

For 8 TB of data storage on Google Drive, plus my own Google organization, I am paying £30/month, which is a pretty good deal.

I had planned a different network toplogy for sure, but this is my current setup and it seems to work well: I was not able to implement connection load balancing using the Miktrotik router.

I have nearly 20 years experience, so my skill-set is in high demand from all sorts of different organisations.

I really like my Withings Mattress-Based Sleep Tracker .

I have a relatively obscure hobby - I collect digital video games.

Now that I actually have the internet connectivity being installed to make use of it, I am getting my home network design a bit more finished.

I have had this knowledge in my head for a long time now and thought it would be better to write a diagram to explain the current setup for my MIDI routing.

Did some network design for my home network.

This is my current DJ setup that I use for Twitch streaming mainly. 2x Reloop RL-8000mk2 turntables. 2x Serato ‘Butter Rug’ Slipmats. 2x Concorde Mk2 Digital carts.

I use and recommend the following software for Windows.

It may surprise some people to learn that I don’t use a word processor to write pure text any more, and haven’t for several months.

This is my current DJ setup with the following components: Decks 1 and 2 - 2x Reloop 8000mk2 Vinyl Turntables with Serato intergration Deck 3 - Numark NDX500 CDJ with Serato Integration Deck 4 - Roland 707m Serato Controller and Mixer using its internal d…

Using Jenkinsfiles in repositories for declarative pipelines, which is an example as infrastructure as code, is absolutely the right thing to do, in my opinion.

I thought I’d write here a bit about how I got into technology and how my career has progressed for those people wanting to get into technology.

Ever since I worked at an internet marketing company on an advertising analytics platform, I have realised that I don’t want my personal internet browsing tracked, monetised, influenced, and sold to the highest bidder.

It seems that for a lot of people, perhaps the vast majority, they cannot expect to be 100% happy all the time.