Its been a while.

My wonderful time at uni is coming to a close. The things I have learnt, the memories I've made and the people I've met are all fantastic. Now that I face my final semester, the remaining 6 months are colored with a tinge of finality and nostalgia. I'm going to miss it.

Career wise, things are going well too. While I am studying I.T, I have always had a keen interest in electronics and engineering. While interning at a software company, I saw an opportunity to move into a team developing new products - working on both the software and hardware sides. As this is something that interests me greatly, I took it. It is immensely challenging, but the work is very interesting and I am learning so much. Even better, I was offered a very flexible casual contract to continue my work following the internship, so I will continue working at this company. Exciting times.

I have long held the idea of moving out to be important next stage in my personal development. Working two days a week over an hour from home, AND juggling full time uni is no easy feat, so I am considering renting an apartment/studio somewhere in the city to reduce the complexity of some things. This is by no means a small mental barrier - but it would be a big step forward for me.

In terms of keeping myself organised, I have a number of things on my event horizon. As usual, this consists of a combination of self-development/organisational/work-related and personal projects:

• Recycle old shirts that no longer fit me to reduce clutter in the amount of clothing I have
• Throw out old socks / jackets
• Find a rental property for the next 6 months - either on my own or with a flatmate (M.M)
• Clean/consolidate my room, preferably putting the things worth keeping into boxes
• Get all important toolchains working on my laptop - so I can work anywhere

Projects:

• Panel creator cad program - for creating DXFs for laser cutting
• PIC Web IDE - to make programming PIC micro controllers as easy as arduino
• 145MHz Oscillator circuit and custom PCB - my first entry into the world of RF electronics
• ESP8266 mesh network node - Building a mesh network using the popular wifi SoC. Each node will have a large battery and a solar panel.
• Access Control System (ACS) for the BioFoundry bio-hackerspace - built using ESP8266s, electric door strikes, and relays.

Project wish list:

• Generalised communications system (probably based off IRC) for a chat network or signalling in a distributed system.

• Generalised plugin architecture for running code and gathering data in the field - for general infosec research.

• RTL-SDR tool for finding and decoding data bursts in the 433Mhz range (for finding and decoding transmissions from arbitrary devices automatically).

As always, stay frosty.

-Tom