tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-139664772024-03-13T06:17:38.131+00:00Tech and Writing blog by Sean McManusSean McManus is a freelance writer specialising in business and technology. In this blog he shares his latest articles, free book resources, and tips for writers. His books inspire young readers to learn to code, and he has also written a novel about the music industry called Earworm.Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.comBlogger421125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-44409295278180867092024-02-22T15:32:00.001+00:002024-02-22T15:51:42.553+00:00New visualiser for Out of MindI've released a new visualiser for Out of Mind, one of the most popular songs on my album of electronic music Artificial. The album explores what happens beyond artificial intelligence, when the machines acquire emotions. The visualiser provides a convenient way for people to play the song on YouTube. There are now videos or visualisers available for Out of Mind, Broken Shell, Input/Output, and Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-59989802655835326372024-01-03T00:02:00.004+00:002024-01-08T11:26:43.292+00:00Make your own Steamboat Willie game in ScratchYou might have heard the news that Walt Disney's early version of Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain. The copyright on the 1928 film Steamboat Willie expired in the US, UK and many other countries on 1 January 2024. As a result, you can now use the early Mickey and Minnie Mouse versions from that film in your own creative works.
This a great opportunity for young people looking for Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-71073841149859484732023-11-21T14:13:00.000+00:002023-11-21T14:13:08.315+00:00Can AI automatically negotiate contracts?My latest article for the BBC looks at how AI can help to negotiate contracts automatically. It's based on a demonstration I saw of a new technology called Luminance Autopilot, which uses artificial intelligence (AI). In the demo, I saw two computers running the software to negotiate a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The tool is trained on an organisation's repository of previous contracts, so itSean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-49979988013257251122023-10-27T17:41:00.002+01:002023-10-27T17:41:29.384+01:00Play BAS Invaders - a new type-in for the Amstrad CPCI've written a new Amstrad CPC type-in for a one-off collectors' magazine called Amstrad Addict. The program is a simple version of Space Invaders called BAS Invaders, which was written 100% in Amstrad BASIC.
I remember trying to do a Space Invaders type game when I was just starting to learn Amstrad BASIC in 1985. It took so long to draw the characters on the screen that it was impossible to getSean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-47390679187824332132023-06-07T12:28:00.001+01:002023-06-07T12:29:17.916+01:00How can companies securely recycle e-waste?Did you know that millions of storage devices are shredded each year to stop their data leaking? Yet, even fragments as small as 3mm still have data on them that could be recovered. It's actually safer to use secure deletion today, which also means the drives can be reused.
I explored this concept in my latest article for BBC News Online: Why millions of usable hard drives are being destroyed.
Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-15986727125015657742023-06-01T11:58:00.002+01:002023-06-01T11:58:36.460+01:00Three new articles on AI and hidden messages in Spectrum gamesHere's a round-up of articles I've written recently. ChatGPT features in two of them, and one of them gets under the skin of classic 80s computer games.
For The MagPi magazine, I wrote a tutorial called Bedtime Stories (pictured on the right). This uses ChatGPT to create a story featuring your chosen heroes, and DeepAI's AI image generation API to create an image for each paragraph of the Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-25454481576066257662023-05-30T08:58:00.003+01:002023-06-07T12:31:57.468+01:00Shortlisted for Best Feature 2023 I’m delighted to say that my article about sustainable web design for the BBC has been shortlisted for the inaugural Freelance Journalism Awards 2023, in the Best Feature category.
The article shows how simple changes in a website’s design can have a dramatic effect on its carbon emissions. One company cut its website carbon emissions by 96% by making some simple design changes, and the articleSean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-22911097958876600892023-04-21T10:47:00.000+01:002023-04-21T10:47:17.472+01:00TikTok, BookTok and ChatGPT at the London Book Fair 2023
Yesterday, I attended the London Book Fair for the first time since the pandemic. It was great to meet up with my publishers and talk about the state of the market and opportunities to work together. At the show, I also got to see the new 7th edition of Web Design in Easy Steps in print for the first time. I even got to try on Wallace's Wrong Trousers, courtesy of Paper Engine, who make Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-28019760111411673912023-03-23T18:29:00.000+00:002023-03-23T18:29:10.344+00:00How to cut the carbon emissions of your website
I recently wrote an article for BBC News Online about how websites can reduce their carbon footprint.
You may not have considered it before, but every web visit results in pollution. It uses energy on your device, in the network and on the server. A visit to my homepage, for example, produces 0.17g of CO2, which is better than 83% of websites tested by the Website Carbon Calculator. If I had Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-59975851360128353682022-12-07T21:54:00.000+00:002022-12-07T21:54:44.527+00:00The Amtix Annual 2023 is out nowWhen I was a kid, I always looked forward to the Christmas issues of computer magazines, such as Amstrad Action, Amtix, and the ZX Spectrum title Crash. They were often bumper issues, sometimes with a cover tape attached, and unashamedly Christmassy. Snow on the cover, Christmas puns inside, and sometimes with a festive type-in, too. With the globalisation of magazine sales, few titles do a Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-10545604401685607352022-09-29T17:36:00.000+01:002022-09-29T17:36:47.872+01:00Create a virtual DJ on your Raspberry Pi
I had a funny idea about using text to speech together with MP3s to create a virtual radio station. All the fun and trivia of the radio, but with complete control of the playlist and the DJ's jokes. Now that idea has been realised in my latest Raspberry Pi project, Raspberry Radio. You give the Python program an MP3 collection and a set of jingles, and it creates a personalised radio Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-75974801155398047532022-08-25T10:31:00.000+01:002022-08-25T10:31:50.209+01:00Read RSS feeds in Python and download the weatherMy latest Raspberry Pi project is called Raspberry Radio. It turns your Raspberry Pi into a virtual DJ, which announces your songs before it plays them and reads out the news and weather report. I've written a two-part series about it for The MagPi, and part one is out now.
In the first article, you'll see how to download the news headlines (and indeed any content that is syndicated in RSS Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-60216355196124929992022-07-26T21:08:00.001+01:002022-07-26T21:08:58.264+01:00Solve programming problems with Microsoft OfficeYou might have heard of the law of the instrument:
it’s the idea that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Put another
way, it’s easy to fall back on familiar tools instead of using the right tool
for the job. I have this in mind as I confess that I have, on occasion, used
Microsoft Office for programming.
When you’re writing Python or HTML, you’re basically writing
text. Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-24923527756702497072022-07-04T09:56:00.003+01:002022-07-04T11:59:04.040+01:00Create digital art on the Raspberry Pi
The new issue of The MagPi is out now, including my four-page tutorial on ArtEvolver, an ever-changing digital artwork I've created. ArtEvolver blends together images, constantly changing their transparency. Each time you look at it, you'll see a fresh mix of the images.
For my installation, I've curated a collection of 1,000 images, but you can use maybe 10 to try it out, and get Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-23724292321311947502022-05-26T12:18:00.003+01:002022-07-04T09:57:14.868+01:00Learn ImageMagick on the Raspberry Pi
The new issue of The MagPi is out now, including my four-page tutorial on using ImageMagick to transform batches of images on the Raspberry Pi. This is the first part of a two-part tutorial to create a digital artwork called ArtEvolver. The first stage is to curate a collection of images that can be blended together, and that's what this first article covers.
While ImageMagick can be Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-13118051273642159172022-03-20T18:56:00.002+00:002022-03-20T19:01:38.272+00:00Issue #3 of Amtix out nowThe third issue of the revived Amtix magazine is now on sale, including two features I've written.
Amtix was originally a magazine for Amstrad CPC computer owners published in the 1980s. It was a sister publication to Crash (for ZX Spectrum users) and ZZAP (for Commodore 64 owners). All three were published by Newsfield Publications, and featured a focus on games, and distinctive cover artwork Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-6930519665633688342022-02-09T10:21:00.002+00:002022-02-09T10:21:39.245+00:00Top 10 Surprising Facts About Microsoft ExcelTo mark the second anniversary of 100 Top Tips: Microsoft Excel, I've written an article covering ten surprising facts about the leading spreadsheet package. Did you know, for example, that AC/DC once hid an ASCII art video in a pop song? Or that poet Brian Bilston has written love poems using the package? Or that an energy company once lost $24 million by cutting and pasting spreadsheet rows Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-77125409652614085442022-02-07T12:24:00.002+00:002022-02-07T12:24:43.909+00:004th Edition of Raspberry Pi For Dummies is out nowThe fully updated 4th edition of Raspberry Pi For Dummies is out now. It now includes coverage of the Raspberry Pi 400 (which is a Raspberry Pi built into a keyboard) and the Raspberry Pi 4, the latest edition of the single board computer version. We've updated throughout to reflect changes in the software since the previous edition.
As before, the book provides a comprehensive guide to the Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-52247959875241453892022-01-05T17:28:00.005+00:002022-01-05T17:38:26.142+00:00Did you resolve to start running, write a novel, or release your album? Get help here.
Happy new year! If you've promised yourself a fresh challenge this year, here are some of my articles that might help you succeed:
Start running with the Couch to 5K programme. I completed this some years ago now, and share my experience in this blog post.
Write a novel. Discover my three ugly truths and 17 tips for novel writing, based on my experience writing my novel about the music Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-42330127444820823782021-12-22T12:24:00.002+00:002021-12-22T12:24:47.150+00:00Raspberry Pi For Dummies features in the Maker Advent Calendar 2021Thank you to Les Pounder, who featured the new 4th Edition of Raspberry Pi For Dummies in his Maker Advent Calendar today. In the video, shown below, he reviews the book and outlines its contents. The new edition of Raspberry Pi For Dummies is out now. I'll update my site with more information and a new photo when my author copies arrive.
Check out the rest of Les's Maker Advent Calendar Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-44109530382283984652021-12-07T09:52:00.001+00:002021-12-07T09:52:59.743+00:00Ten new Microsoft Excel tutorialsI've published ten new tutorials for Microsoft Excel, taken from my book 100 Top Tips: Microsoft Excel. If you've already downloaded the free PDF sampler, you'll recognise these. They're now online in HTML format, so it's easier to take a quick look at the book.
The book is aimed at anyone who uses Microsoft Excel and wants to be more effective with it. It's packed with ideas that will make it Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-9691496276647726632021-12-01T19:36:00.002+00:002021-12-01T19:36:42.862+00:00Download my novel and music for free, plus more Christmas newsFor the next few days, you can download my novel Earworm for free on Kindle. This book for adults takes a satirical look at the music industry, and explores the point where music and tech collide.
Each year that passes, it seems little bits of it come true. The book shows what happens when a record label replaces musicians with artificial intelligence (AI), and there are more and more Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-26296137926056803662021-11-16T16:52:00.000+00:002021-11-16T16:52:01.026+00:00Coder Academy is updated for Scratch 3I'm pleased to say that my book Coder Academy has now been updated for Scratch 3. The book uses a mixture of on-the-screen and on-the-page activities to teach coding. It includes shape stickers that can be used to design a sprite, as well as a pull-out board game with a poster printed on the back of the board.
The book is mainly based on Scratch, but also includes a section at the back on Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-26142779935602198692021-10-15T12:00:00.001+01:002021-10-15T12:11:12.686+01:00New Raspberry Pi tutorials hubI've been following the Raspberry Pi since its launch. Over the years, I have blogged about it, co-written four editions of Raspberry Pi For Dummies, and contributed to The MagPi magazine.
I've now created a hub to pull together my various Raspberry Pi articles, tutorials, and resources in one place. I hope that this will be useful for anyone interested in the starting with the Raspberry Pi or Sean McManushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02269170767045711269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13966477.post-9379206698645416292021-06-09T19:15:00.000+01:002021-06-09T19:15:31.340+01:00New video for Waiting for GotoI've created a new video for Waiting for Goto, the ambient track near the end of my album Artificial. You can watch it below. Artificial is available to stream in popular streaming sites, and available to download at Bandcamp. At Bandcamp, you can also download individual tracks. Find links to stream and download Artificial here.
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