• Fallout Explore for Atari 2600

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    Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

    Fallout Explore is a retro-style adventure game inspired by the iconic Fallout series. Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the game challenges the player to explore a dangerous world filled with hostile creatures, limited resources, and hidden treasures. Using classic Atari 2600 graphics and sound effects, Fallout Explore centres on a vault dweller scouring an apocalyptic…

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    Fallout Explore for Atari 2600
  • Adding Google to an Amazon Fire 7 Kids Tablet

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    Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

    I purchased an Amazon Fire HD 7 Kids Pro tablet for my son in the summer. The tablet has a lot of cool kids features and apps, a simplified interface and a rugged case. But the ecosystem is locked down to Amazon. This means no YouTube and a slew of other apps that my son…

    Adding Google to an Amazon Fire 7 Kids Tablet
  • BASIC Games Reborn

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    Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

    The astounding success of Wordle had me thinking about the BASIC program that it very closely resembles. In my copy of BASIC Computer Games from 1970, it is simply called Word. A player guesses a five-letter word and the computer tells the player which letters are matches and whether they are in the correct position.…

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    BASIC Games Reborn
  • WordPress, Google PageSpeed Insights and Google AdSense

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    Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I was checking in on the status of my website in Google PageSpeed Insights using the Lighthouse scanner built into Google Chrome. I wasn’t happy with the results. Why The Scores Dropped The scores were all green last time I checked. I hadn’t made any updates to theme since then. However, I do know that…

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    WordPress, Google PageSpeed Insights and Google AdSense
  • Check-in Calendar and Log

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    Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Over the course of 2020 and 2021, different countries and regions imposed various levels of restrictions on gatherings. In Canada, employers were required to have employees work from home where possible. I have been working from home since March 2020, and work for a small business that has managed to coordinate the small number of…

    Check-in Calendar and Log
  • Bash Script To Backup Folders and Databases using a Cron Job

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    Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I sometimes find I need a simple script to backup one or multiple folders and databases. This script just takes a list of pre-defined folders and databases, compresses the folder contents, and executes a database dump. A maximum of seven backups are kept, any older ones are deleted. Customize the first six variables as needed.

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    Bash Script To Backup Folders and Databases using a Cron Job
  • Game and Toy Closet – Part One

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    Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

    One of the things about older houses is that they often have strange spaces. One of ours is under the stairs, where there is a closet with a low ceiling and not much space. Rather than storing boxes and coats, this space would be better storing our board games and some of the larger toys.…

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    Game and Toy Closet – Part One
  • Custom Android ROM for Kids Phone

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    Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

    It can be helpful to have a dedicated phone to put a few educational games and pre-approved media on. Most parents repurpose an old phone, which presents a few problems. Maybe other parents had a smooth experience with Family Link, but I couldn’t get it to work correctly. I was able to set up most…

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    Custom Android ROM for Kids Phone
  • Updating A Gulp Script

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    Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

    One of the challenges with development is that tools and libraries evolve over time. It often becomes necessary to either upgrade to a newer library or change libraries entirely. The update from Grub 3.x to 4.x required a bit of refactoring. Neither script is overly complex but there is enough there to illustrate some of…

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    Updating A Gulp Script
  • WordPress, Google PageSpeed Insights and WebP Image Formats

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    Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

    If you evaluate your website using Google PageSpeed Insights, you may find it complaining that you’re not using the WebP image format. First Scan The first scan with PageSpeed Insights gave me pretty good results for desktop, and somewhat poor results for mobile. The highest rated opportunity promised to save seven seconds in load time.…

    WordPress, Google PageSpeed Insights and WebP Image Formats