The Serpent

// Cursing the Internet since 1998

ESP32’S AND THE REAL-TIME CLOCK

Posted Mar 10, 2024 Hardware

I’ve been doing a lot of amateur projects with microcontroller’s lately. It’s a fun hobby which I incorrectly assumed would be quite straightforward yet rewarding. I was half right.

A NEW YEAR PROJECT - DEBIAN NETWORKING

Posted Dec 22, 2023 Linux

Christmas is a time of year for family, friends, presents, Turkey and yes, Linux networking.

CITIES SKYLINES II OUT NOW

Posted Oct 24, 2023 Gaming

For those with an eternal love of city builder simulation games, Cities Skylines II is for you. It comes just over eight years since the first game released, and promises to deliver all the realism that mod’s covered since.

CHOOSE YOUR CLOUDS WISELY

Posted Sep 25, 2023 General

Ask any IT engineer about their home lab and you’ll probably get into a conversation that rivals Cat lovers uniting or new parents talking about their babies. It can be long, passionate and you may end up never speaking to the person ever again. Well, ok maybe not that extreme.

DEBIAN 12 “BOOKWORM” ARRIVES

Posted Jun 19, 2023 Linux

It’s been a week since Debian released the latest iteration of their rock solid, super free Operating System - Debian 12. Codenamed “Bookworm”, it’s now on digital shelves all across the world for you to enjoy.

A SATISFACTORY EASTER

Posted Apr 10, 2023 Gaming

Every now and then, a game comes along that can teach you more about the world than your average school classroom ever could.

SYSTEMD AND WSL

Posted Apr 5, 2023 Linux

Microsoft have done a pretty good job with WSL, and while it still has a lot to do - for the basics, it’s pretty reliable and sure as hell beats spinning up VM’s every time you need to run a quick command.

KALI LINUX GOES ON THE DEFENCE, TURNS PURPLE

Posted Mar 14, 2023 Infosec

The good folk over at Offensive Security had a surprise for us over the weekend. As part of the latest 2023.1 release of Kali Linux, they’ve added additional tools aimed at the purple\blue teams - defensive tools!

IT’S OFFICIAL, WE’RE GETTING A CITIES SKYLINES 2

Posted Mar 8, 2023 Gaming

It’s been eight years since Cities Skylines blessed our PC’s with a fantastic city building simulator and helped us forget about the troubles Sim City provided in 2013. The good folk at Paradox Interactive have released this teaser:

CYBER RESOURCES FROM UK POLICING (AND VIRGIN)

Posted Feb 24, 2023 Infosec

The Internet is still similar to the wild west in many ways. There’s a lot more law enforcement than there used to be, but it’s still mostly about prevention, rather than justice.

SIGNAL TO END SMS SUPPORT FOR ANDROID CLIENT

Posted Feb 20, 2023 Mobile

One thing I’ve always liked about Android is the freedom to choose the default SMS app. Not that I’ve used SMS in a while, but when various services still rely on it - it’s nice to have the SMS messages combined with an existing messaging app, rather than something entirely different.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, YOU LOVELY PEOPLE

Posted Dec 30, 2022 General

Congratulations on making it yet another year around the sun and keeping all your faculties and sanity intact (even if it’s just a bit!)

RUFUS BETA MAKES WINDOWS 11 INSTALL A DREAM

Posted Jul 5, 2022 Windows

Rufus, the long-time application of choice for building ISO files on Windows, has added some great new features to their latest 3.19 release. Ever since Windows 11 was released, it imposed some rather questionable decisions upon the community, such as requiring a TPM chip, and forcing the use of a Microsoft account. But no more! These things can now be removed at the source thanks to their trusty ISO burner.

THE PI PICO W

Posted Jul 3, 2022 Hardware Home automation

Exciting news in the world of micro-controllers for under £6! Raspberry Pi have released a WiFi enabled version of their successful (and tiny!) Pi Pico.

INTERNET EXPLORER FINALLY BOWS OUT OF THE RACE

Posted May 26, 2022 General

So long Microsoft Internet Explorer - you gave us hell for 25+ years, but yet somehow will still be missed*… a little.