Welcome to Gadgetwiz.com
Welcome to my website. I’ve got a ton of mostly useless or dated information here. I’ve neglected this website for years, and I’m not sure if I will neglect it in the future, but I’m working on it now along with a couple of my other personal projects.
Speaking of which, here is what I’m working on in 2021.
Birdfart.com
Okay. I know. There isn’t a lot to it. I spent a ton of money creating and buying these things. I had 1,000 of them custom made in China in 2019 (the irony, right). I still have 940 left.
I spent a lot of money advertising them, but still haven’t made much headway. I figure I will just keep trying to add products to my website to see how well they sell. I’m not quite ready to give up on this little venture.
Gadgetwiz.com
I’m updating this site right now. I’ve moved it around many times over the past 20 years, and I’ve left it to stagnate for the last decade or so.
I was going to stick everything into a Docker container and host it myself on a Kubernetes cluster in Digitalocean, but I would rather spend my time working on content than administration, so I cheated and put it on Siteground. I’m not a big fan of WordPress, but don’t like wasting time on details either. So here you are. An ugly site, with miscellaneous information.
I’m in the process of moving finding my old webpages for this site right now. Plus, I haven’t fixed the menus yet. It’s a work in progress.Sorry for the dust.
Zalaxy.com
This is my primary focus right now. I’m trying to create a Network Appliance that small businesses can plug into their network to enable monitoring. Solorwinds and a number of other companies do similar things, but they all require software installation, and they often charge by computer.
The idea behind this device (Zapper, lil’Z, Zalaxy Small Network Appliance, Fred – I still don’t know what to call it) is that you can plug it into any network. It will map everything automatically (optionally configure SNMP for more monitoring options), and display the data on my website. An entire subnet can be monitored per device, and the price is fixed at $49.95/month (hopefully I can keep it at that price).
Iltz – Rent Your Thing
This used to be GadgetWiz, but it didn’t gain any traction, and I kind of let it go to seed. It’s been a long time since I looked at it, but I’m bringing it back up as Iltz. I used Iltz because I’ve had that domain for years, and I haven’t been able to find a use for it. Eventually, I might name it something else though.
There are some issues still (sessions aren’t working properly right now so it’s pretty useless). Hopefully I will have the major bugs worked out within a week. I just brought the site back up a few minutes ago (2/16/2021).
I’m considering open-sourcing the software. I spent a few months putting it together after work, and some people might find it useful for their own projects. My only concern is that I took quite a few short-cuts in the code. It didn’t make sense to right perfect code if it wasn’t going to take off, right?
Either way, I might re-use some of the code for Zalaxy, and I might open source that code too.
Martin & Fender
Last, but not least, I am trying to pick up guitar again. I upgraded my old guitars from a Jasmine Takamine and an Ibanez to a Martin SC-13e and a Fender Ventera Stratocaster.
OMG. I love these guitars! It’s been years since the tips of my fingers hurt this much.
Other Things
Oh yeah. I wakeboard too. A lot! Right now it’s -12F degrees outside, so I’m not doing much of that.
Suffice it to say that I like to keep busy. Even in the midst of the Pandemic, I’m busier than a 1-armed wall-paper hanger – with crabs.
Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I didn’t bore you to death!
Joel Griffiths