December 2019: I found I hadn’t posted this one yet… it seems kinda unfinished…. but whatever, this is what I wrote a year ago about the year before:
Our rock has completed another lap around the sun, time to look back. I realise, I haven’t posted anything since the last looking back. I guess, I’m a bit out of this blogging thing. I usually don’t do new year’s resolutions, but I guess, this year it should be to be blogging some more.
2018… the year has passed. It began quite awful, when a good friend of mine was killed in a car accident. Ellen, you’re gone from our lives, but you’re still in our minds. Rest in Peace.
Looking back on what I wrote last year, my phone. I still don’t use a smart phone, but I am not using the phone I wrote about last year. Feature Phones sold today are kinda crippled, so I’ve discovered. This new Nokia Phone can not connect to the Nokia PC Suite or any other software. I’ve bought a Nokia 6300 at a flea market. A 10 year old model, that works perfectly. This thing only costed me 5 euros, and it works just fine. A battery life no smart phone can compete with, and that on a, presumably, 10 year old battery. Take that!
What else is there to write about the past 12 months? I’m still working at Manus VR. The company is growing, we claimed another office. Also for my work at Manus, we now have our Embedded department with our own office. I must say, quite an improvement. I’d say it looks good at Manus.
Of course, I’m still doing some freelance jobs as well. I’ve been working on a project regarding Bluetooth Mesh, for example. Following this project, I started a research on other wireless technologies. I will be posting something about this soon. Resolutions, right, posting some more. However, I’ve decided to post them elsewhere. I’ve decided to use the https://www.blaatschaap.be domain for this. I mean, it has been “parked” for a while. And I believe one of the factors causing me not to blog so often is that tech-related-posts and personal posts intertwined on the same blog might be a bit messy. So, I might reblog some of my tech-articles that live on here on that yet-to-come site.
Ah… the internet, and its addicting social networking sites. Yes? Suppose I’ve said some words about that last year. But the question, then, what else would I do with my laptop? Well. I’ve been looking at some forums about electronics, such as eevblog. They’ve got a youtube channel with some interesting videos and stuff. Furthermore, I’ve been busy figuring out how KiCad works, and I’ve been drawing several schematics and pcb layouts.
I’ve been looking for nRF52832 modules at eBay and AliExpress. There are several modules out there. One day a new manufacturer appeared. They were cheaper, and their module has a metal casing. They also had an easy to find website and email support. This was eByte, a Chinese rf module manufacturer. They’re listing several modules based on other rf microcontrollers. I’m make a series of breakout modules for their modules to play around with. I might even sell some of my breakout board if things turn out well.