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Tag Archives: DIY

Thanks UWE!

Bristol Wireless is pleased to announce that funding has been secured for 2 years to keep the network running courtesy of the University of the West of England (UWE) and High Tech Bristol & Bath CIC. The funding will be used to ensure the Bristol Wireless volunteers can continue to operate the network – including […]

Rio’s largest favela has its own wifi provider

With the Olympic Games being held in Rio de Janeiro this summer, lots of eyes are being turned on the city. Some of those eyes are being turned on the city’s slums – known locally as “favelas” – with some surprising results. For instance, Techinsider has discovered that Rocinha, the city’s and Brazil’s largest favela, […]

Happy 15th birthday, Wikipedia

This week, Wikipedia reaches its fifteenth birthday. These days the free online encyclopaedia is the world’s seventh most popular website and now includes more than 38 million articles in 289 languages, all maintained by an army of volunteer editors and contributors. Andy Mabbett, one of that army of editors and contributors, has been musing on […]

Server retired after 18 years & 10 months

As part of our network upgrade work, Bristol Wireless has recently retired a couple of Pentium III-powered Compaq Deskpro EN machines that were acting as network gateways and performing other roles too. As these CPUs were only produced for 4 years between 1999 and 2003, that means our hardware is rather long in the tooth. […]

Wifi from wee

Bristol boffins have developed a pair of socks embedded with miniaturised microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and fuelled with urine pumped by the wearer’s footsteps that have powered a wireless transmitter to send a signal to a PC. This is the first self-sufficient system powered by a wearable energy generator based on microbial fuel cell technology, […]

BarnCamp burns the nerd gag

Last weekend saw the staging of BarnCamp 2015 (in which Bristol Wireless’ volunteers have been involved since its inception. Ed.). Running from Friday 19th June to Sunday 21st, BarnCamp was as usual a low-cost rural DIY skillsharing event open to everyone, including UK activists, campaigners, people involved in social and community groups and anybody else […]

Registration for Barncamp 2015 now open

Barncamp is a low-cost, rural DIY skills sharing event open to everyone, including UK activists, campaigners, people involved in social and community groups, and anybody else with an interest in technology and how to subvert it to put it to good use. All skill levels are welcome and the organisers promise that workshops are not […]

Claverton, Somerset helps fund its own broadband connection

The village of Claverton, a couple of miles south of Bath, was not best pleased when residents discovered they were to be bypassed by the £2 bn. scheme to provide the rural UK with superfast broadband. They decided to do something about it, according to yesterday’s Western Daily Press. What they decided to do was […]

Britain’s Superfast Broadband Future – pure fantasy?

In December 2010, 7 months after it assumed power, the UK’s coalition government issued a document (PDF) entitled Britain’s Superfast Broadband Future. In that document’s introduction, the then Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt and Minister for Culture Communications & the Creative Industries Ed Vaizey stated: Broadband is one of our top priorities. We took office earlier […]

Introducing the Pi-Top

A group of developers has developed a DIY laptop kit, heise reports. All components can be assembled in a way that’s friendly for beginners and without soldering. With the Pi-Top you’ll be learning DIY both for hardware and software. Jesse Lonzano and Ryan Dunwoody had the idea of developing the Raspberry Pi-based Pi-Top DIY laptop […]

Less than a week to SFD 2014

It’s under a week to Software Freedom Day (SFD) 2014, which is being held this year on Saturday, 20th September. SFD is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The organisers’ goal in this celebration is to educate the public all over the world about the benefits of using high quality FOSS […]

3 Bristol youngsters beat national competition

A Bristol University press release from the end of last week reports that 3 young people from Bristol overcame competition from across the country and have been recognised at the Young Rewired State Festival of Code 2014. Chris Chapman and brothers Rhys and Owen Marsh won the ‘Code a Better Country’ category at the event […]

Hackday in Bristol on Saturday

We’ve gleaned from our friends at Connecting Bristol that online takeaway meals ordering outfit Just Eat is sponsoring a hackday this coming Saturday, 26th July at the Engine Shed in Bristol from 8.00 am to 9.00 pm. The programme of events is: 8.00am – 8.30am: Breakfast 8.30am – 9.30am: Team formation and pitching 9.30am – […]

Learn how to use Arduino with Bristol Hackspace

Our friends over the road at Bristol Hackspace are having a beginners’ Arduino session tonight, according to their Twitter feed. interested in #arduino and you're a beginner? Come along tonight at the hackspace! 7pm till 9pm. led by @will_price_94 #BristolCity — Bristol Hackspace (@bristolhackspc) February 19, 2014 According to the manufacturers, the Arduino is an […]

Bristol IT Megameet registration extended

News has just arrived via email that registration for the Bristol IT Megameet (news passim) on 1st June has now been extended until Friday 24th May. To quote from the email: Although we currently have over 250 people registered, with the very recent addition of a couple more sponsors, we are now able to take […]

20th April is Hardware Freedom Day

Here’s something that’s bound to appeal to our friends at Bristol Hackspace and Dorkbot Bristol: 20th April has been announced as the date for Hardware Freedom Day 2013. Hardware Freedom Day (HFD) is an annual celebration of Open Hardware. Open Hardware Day was initiated in 2012 by the Digital Freedom Foundation, the organisation responsible for […]

Bristol Mini Maker Faire – more details

Some time ago, we gave very advance notice of Bristol’s first ever Mini Maker Faire (news passim). More information has now been received from the organisers, as set out below: Saturday 23rd March is the date set for Bristol’s first Mini Maker Faire, a family-friendly event at which people show what they are making and […]

Mansfield funding free wifi project through “crowdfunding”

A project to provide the town centre of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire with free wifi is on track to meet its target fund after setting out to be “crowdfunded”, according to an E-Government Bulletin report. The “Make Mansfield Your HotSpot” project has been developed by Mansfield Business Improvement District, a partnership between the council and the […]