Remote care

I use VNC to control Mum's computer remotely. I can initiate video chats, and other interactive sessions. All mum needs to do is to watch and listen.

• I use SSH and SFTP to administer her computer remotely.
• I use Perl and scheduled tasks to play music at set times, and display messages on a 'whiteboard'.

This mindmap shows how the idea developed. You can get the splendid Freemind software to view it here.

Here's a video (OGG format, 14MB), showing how it works. My thanks to Adrian Warman for talking me through what I needed to do when I was planning the project.

Extreme Blue project

IBM adopted remote care as an Extreme Blue project. The students took my ideas a lot further, and produced a great prototype using an Android tablet, and Raspberry Pi (to control an aged TV using infrared). I ran out of time, skills, and energy to take it further, but the White Paper in which they describe what they did is available. Contact me if you'd like a copy.

For information about Extreme Blue, see http://www-05.ibm.com/employment/uk/students/extreme-blue/.

DNS resolvers

DynDns hiked their prices by 20%, without explanation, and without even telling me that they'd put them up. I can afford it, but what the heck! So I stopped the payment. I still have their free name; in preparation for when they remove that, I set up an alternative with Free DNS. I should thank DynDns really; corporate greed has made my setup more robust.

Last updated: 2016-05-30.