Allister Jenks, Author at Podfeet Podcasts

A product image showing the Manta SOUND Sleep Mask. It is a band of dark grey fabrics, wider in the front with an arch for the nose. There is a red Manta Sleep symbol — evocative of a Manta Ray — on the front, and a turquoise circle is visible on the near side which is the outer part of the Bluetooth speaker on that side. The mask is angled as if it is propped up at the back on a small box, however none is visible.

Manta Sleep Masks

I have lived in my current home for over 20 years. In that time I have often complained — usually to friends and family, but also to the local council — about the insufficient number of street lights on our street. Late last year we finally saw the installation of some additional lights. It has […]

A picture of bundles of plastic "zip tie" cable ties in red, green, yellow, orange, blue, white, and black. In front of the bundles is one of each colour looped into itself to show how they hold cables. The looped ones each have a written label on the large plastic tag.

Tiny Tip – Cable Tags

The instructions said, “Use ONLY the cable that came with the product.” I said, “Well then make it distinctive and not look like every other USB cable in my cable box!” I don’t know whether I believe my Manta Sleep Mask needs that exact USB cable to charge, but I do know that my Epson […]

Philips Hue Programming, Evolved (Part 2 of 3)

Device name selection In my previous instalment, I explained how to use the curl command to control Philips Hue lights. Part of the exercise involved dumping out a huge glop of JSON data and finding a long, gobbledegook of random alphanumeric characters that were the ID of a light we could control. I wanted to […]

A picture of a block of velcro-like straps, in black, green, blue, red, yellow, and white. There is also one of each colour strap shown looped on itself to show how they wrap cables.

Tiny Tip – Re-usable Cable Ties

The problem to be solved was a bewildering array of cables in a very large box. Step one separate boxes for each basic type: network cables, power cables, audio cables, and USB cables. The next problem to be solved was a bewildering array of USB cables in a large box. If we count USB-A, USB-A […]

A product image of three Philips Hue bulbs and a Hue Bridge. The bulbs are lined up on an angle receding from the viewer and to the left, towards the bridge in the background. The bulbs are mostly white, lit up in a purple colour. The bridge is white with a lit up blue ring.

Philips Hue Programming (Part 1 of 3)

A few years ago, I decided I needed to get some smart light bulbs. I need to be able to set very dim light in my study for the nights I am on call for my job. After trying some cheap no-name bulbs, I discovered the Nanoleaf Essentials range. These were affordable and also came […]

A three-view of iPhone screen captures, showing a medium-sized Contacts widget at the top of the home screen, the top section of the opened widget, and the bottom section of the opened widget. The contents of these are described in the text.

The iOS Contacts Widget

Home Screen widgets on iOS are a tradeoff between instant access to many applications and instant access to useful information. Even the small widget size displaces four potential spots for app icons. Because of this tradeoff, I have had an on again, off again relationship with widgets. I’ll try out new ones offered by third-party […]

A collection of circles offer a glimpse into many of the scenes available in the Portal application.

Portal — Immersive Soundscapes for Focus or Relaxation

Recently, there has been a groundswell of ambient noise applications. These are intended to provide a background level of noise to help you focus, relax, or even sleep. The simplest may offer white noise, and a few other colours of noise. More feature rich examples may add in other, natural sounds like rain, a crackling […]

Stream Deck — Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 3

At the end of Part 2, I had a really useful set of buttons, many with nice button faces, and I was looking into how to get live information to display on a button. I knew there were plugins that did this for their specific functions, but I could not figure out how I could […]

Photo of Stream Deck showing buttons used for controlling Microsoft Teams

Stream Deck — Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 2

When we left our hero at the end of Part 1, he… I… had a working set of controls for my NanoLeaf lights. Once I had my buttons working, I decided I wanted to have some nice images to place on them to make the actions clear, and which were nice to look at. The […]

Elgato Stream Deck with buttons for controlling NanoLeaf bulbs and light panels.

Stream Deck — Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 1

As is so often the case, I wish to blame Allison for what I’m about to tell you. I’ve had a project on the boil for a while now which had me seriously considering buying an Elgato Stream Deck. It is entirely Allison’s fault, however, that I actually bought one. I bought the Stream Deck […]

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