Links
Diving
Scuba diving links including clubs, online stores and technical articles.
- A.B. Ocean Divers
- A.B. Ocean Divers in East Bentleigh. Not a bad dive store for your technical diving needs, with nitrox on tap, and a good social diving club from new divers to deep, tech and cave diving.
- CDAA – Cave Divers Association of Australia
- Website geared towards members of the CDAA, with site access information, online bookings and club literature. But still some useful information for non-members.
- Ratio Deco Explained
- Excellent article on what ratio deco is and how to apply it. Its essentially a deco model which when applied in certain circumstances is a set of simple calculation which will closely resemble a deco schedule as you would find generated by deco software. As the article states, do not apply ratio deco to your diving unless you have been properly trained to do so!
Home Automation
What started out as a keen interest in getting Clipsal CBus lighting installed when we renovated our house, has now turned into a minor obsession. At this stage its only really lighting and a partially operating whole-house audio setup, but it keeps me up late and amused.
- Charmed Quark Systems
- Charmed Quark Systems is the home of CQC, a powerful, software-based control and automation system. It’s the centre of my hobbyist home automation system, which Kirsty just looooves!
Useful CQC forum posts
- Clipsal Integrated Systems
- The Clipsal™ branch responsible for the CBus lighting system, used to control the lights in our house. Also interfaced to CQC for seamless integration!
- Len Wallis Audio
- Home theatre and home automation specialist. I’ve not had much to do with them, but have purchased my Sherbourn AM/FM tuner from them.
- Ozitronics
- Australian distributor for Kits-R-Us electronic kits. Good source for a variety of quality kits. I’ve built an 8 channel amp using power supply and amp kits from Ozitronics, and they also have other kits useful for home automation, such as relay controllers. Good support for these kits is also available on the DIY Forums.
- Rain8 Irrigation Control
- Irrigation controller suitable to be hooked into most automation controllers, including CQC. I don’t have this (yet), but it may be on the cards when the rainwater tank is installed and the greywater system revisited. Available online in Aus at Envious Technology.
Photography
Another hobby of mine, which as with most of my other hobbies, I can never seem to find enough time to spend on. My camera of choice at the moment is the aging Pentax *istDS, of which I have two bodies; mostly because it is the only model that will fit in my underwater housing.
- DPReview.com
- The definitive online source for digital photography, with all the details and specifications of just about every digital camera out there, including detailed in-depth reviews of many models. The review conclusions often tend to be rather subjective, but the content is definitely very good. Also very active support forums for just about every brand on the market.
- Katz Eye Optics
- Custom focusing screens for DSLR cameras. Katz Eye manufacture replacement focusing screens with features including segment display (eg, thirds) and a manual focus matte, for those who like the retro feel to their viewfinder. At a cost, of course!
Software
Software that I always seem to take forgranted when I’m using a computer that doesn’t have it installed. Also a few links to useful howtos, tutorials, plugins and add-ons.
- jEdit – Programmer’s Text Editor
- Powerful freeware text editor, with plenty of useful features even without any of the many available plugins installed. Pretty good, even if it is java..
Useful jEdit tips and links
- ClearType- How to enable anti-aliasing in the java virtual machine