Diddums

Same, don't even know what Divinity is 🤣

It's taken a long ass time to get to this point. I remember when I told people that I wanted to start a Youtube channel and all I got was "get a proper job" - nowadays a decent youtuber earns 10x what I do. It takes some serious dedication, time and the will to cancel everything else in your life to get there but the payout is worth it if you can pull it off. Also, get an avatar, you look like a random. How's MiniRob?

Corrected for accuracy 😄

Best start a new thread then. This is more of a journal of what I'm doing, what I want to do, any challenges and stuff along the way. If it helps someone then great 🙂 First off, I absolutely loved it. It felt so good to be coding again, I forgot how much I enjoyed doing it, even if it's been 25 years or so since I last did anything. So after spending a few hours this weekend coding and fiddling, I now have a very basic COVID statistics tracker and a very basic weather app. The reason I did this is because I just can't stomach a full 8 hour lesson to have a simple bit of text saying "hello world" at the end as that's always been where I've lost interest in the past. I wanted something that although pretty much useless, is an actual piece of software that works, and also provides real time information. For this I had to use API calls. So I set my sights a bit higher and went for it. All I can say is that it's piss. It's really so much easier than I'd have anticipated, what would've been a 500 page project before was done with no more than a single page of code. The tools nowadays are so much easier too, making it a lot easier than I'd have anticipated. I'm shuffling things around a bit in order of what I would say is the easiest, then the most difficult, in case anyone else wants to have a go. If you're keen, then follow this guide: 1: Download Python from their website. 2: Download PyCharm. This will be your code writing software. 3: Start writing code! This COVID tracker is extremely basic and simple to make, you can have this up and running in an hour or less: If you have problems running the code with something about the requests package not being installed, then simply right click on the word "requests" in the code, click on "context options" or something similar, then "install requests package". Try again. Took me a little while to figure out, I installed the requests package on my PC which didn't work, until I realised that PyCharm is a closed working environment when testing, so it has to be installed inside Pycharm. 4: If you've got all that up and running and want to try a new project, then sign up to Openweathermap.org. Do this first as there's a two hour delay after signing up until you can actually use their facilities. Then follow this video: IMPORTANT: Since the vid was made, a few things have changed in how the API calls work. These will be in the API URL, most notably where it'd say "London" before, it'll now say "London,uk" - small little things like that will drive you nuts. I'll post up anything else in here, but this is a fantastic little side hobby. Even if you just spend an hour doing the COVID thing to see if it's for you or not, it's worth it.

8/10, thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm the furthest thing away from a fanboi that there is. A few little niggles in the directing but I'm chalking that down to pressures and time constraints due to the 'rona. If you're a bond fan you'll love it, from the shit bond theme that'll no doubt clean up at the music awards to the bond girl who's supposedly a bombshell but is just mediocre and who nobody's ever heard of outside of a bond film, to the cars and gadgets and of course the shaken, not stirred line. Very good, go see it.

BOOM! Fuckin' five years baby! That's gotta be a record shirley? I found this video which is really good. It walks you through a fairly simple project from start to finish and you have an actual working project at the end, so it's pretty motivational too. @GazzaGarratt @Dr Diamond @BO7H B4RRELS

Oooooh, I like hitting stuff. Might hafta pick this up.

Hahaha console peasants

Remember this? 😄 Honestly for a 10 year old boy that monitor is more than enough. However, there are a few ways of looking at this. The first being that you can buy him a nice fancy monitor, but he won't be able to use it to its full potential as his PC won't be powerful enough. In order to get the most out of it, you're looking at a £1500+ PC at minimum. Then factor in the £600+ or so for the monitor itself, and you're very easily staring down a £2.5k bill. Before all the accessories. That said, you can buy a nice fancy monitor with all the bells and whistles with a view of upgrading the graphics card in the PC (the graphics card is what puts out all the pretty images, the stronger they are, the more images and better images they can put out) and use it as it is now, however it'll only be a matter of time before he goes "mum I want to play at 4k" and then you're looking at insane costs. You can very easily spend £2500 on a graphics card alone, which is like buying an engine for a car, and then still needing the rest of the car. If this is a one-time purchase that's got to last him a few years, then it wouldn't hurt to maybe spend a bit extra to make sure that's at least one component that won't need upgrading for a while. Tell us how much you'd like to spend, and more importantly how much space you have, and let's go from there.

Nice, well done 😄

I've no idea where the 13 came from, but I'm a bit odd like that 😛 You know where to find us, happy to help any time 🙂

Nice, that's gonna be one very happy 13 year old lad this Christmas, hope he enjoys it 😄

That's a Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 headset. It will likely have come with a little bluetooth dongle which you plug in to a PC (it might be plugged in to his playstation). If you have it, it'll work. Great headset too 🙂 Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 2 review - SoundGuys WWW.SOUNDGUYS.COM The Turtle Beach Stealth 600 was a great wireless gaming headset. Is the second generation version a worthy successor?

Steam = Netflix for games, except that you purchase them outright rather than pay a monthly fee. Install on PC, punch in some card details and you can start buying games. Keep those card details under wraps though, kids have been known to bankrupt their families with in-game junk. There are other platforms which give you access to a plethora of games for a monthly fee but honestly that's Phil's bag, he's like The Wonderful Wizard when it comes to that. I wouldn't worry about a webcam yet, maybe some speakers if you want. Loads of creeps on the internet and 13yo boys are very gullible so simply don't even have the hardware to snoop and it'll never be a worry.

Good morning 🙂 For a desk, get something to your or your parents' budget. Provided the chair offers some adjustment, I wouldn't worry about it being all the blingy. This is fairly affordable, comes in black or white and has some cable management to tidy up the inevitable rat's nest under the desk: UTESPELARE Gaming desk, black WWW.IKEA.COM UTESPELARE Gaming desk, black Raise the large, sturdy UTESPELARE gaming desk to a height that optimally suits you. The metal mesh at the back of the table top allows air to circulate and cool your PC when the... Unfortunately the Playstation VR headset won't work on the PC, and a PC model also requires a fairly chunky graphics card to run as it's a much more demanding application. Remove that from the needs/wants list and suddenly you'll get a lot more bang for your buck. I'd expect his headset to work on the PC as well, but if you're unsure, post a photo of it and we can let you know. Ok, the PC then. I'd recommend this one: CCL Hyper Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB RAM, 480GB SSD, GTX 1650, Windows 10 Gaming PC WWW.EBAY.CO.UK Amazing Gaming PC with the latest AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Processor and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. This processor features turbo boost technology which cleverly increases the speed from 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz to give you... This has a decent processor, loads of RAM and a decent graphics card. The SSD (which is how much stuff you can store on the PC) isn't the biggest, but upgrading this is easy as pie. It has solid bones upon which to build, looks fancy and will deliver. It's not the cheapest, but going cheaper will sadly bring in too many compromises, like not enough RAM, much smaller hard drive, no Windows, etc. For a monitor, I'd suggest MSI's 24" curved 1080p monitor: MSI Optix G241VC Curved Gaming Monitor - 23.6 Inch, 16:9 Full HD (1920 x 1080), VA, 75Hz, 1 ms, 1800R, AMD FreeSync, VGA, HDMI, Black - MSI WWW.AMAZON.CO.UK Buy MSI Optix G241VC Curved Gaming Monitor - 23.6 Inch, 16:9 Full HD (1920 x 1080), VA, 75Hz, 1 ms, 1800R, AMD FreeSync, VGA, HDMI, Black at Amazon. Again - not the highest spec, but it looks fantastic and is a decent price with loads of gaming features. I might be wrong, but I think @GazzaGarratt has one, he can chime in on it too. For a keyboard and mouse, I'm a bit out of the loop with these but I'll say avoid wireless as the batteries on the cheaper models die out very quickly, leaving your son with a 10 minute play time between charges. Also avoid mechanical keyboards as they just make a racket with their clickety clackety noise (I used to be a fan of them until the non-mechanical technology caught up to the point of having the same feel, but without the irritating noise). Honestly I'd say keep it cheap and cheerful, in this field you want a good reliable brand with less gimmicks, than a fancypants model with lights and stuff which will break after a month. When it comes to mice and keyboards, the rule is generally that the cheap stuff is good as long as it's brand name, and to get top quality stuff you're looking at £80+ for a keyboard alone. All the stuff inbetween is cheap Chinese stuff and that's always a bit of a lottery. If I had to recommend one, I'd say go for this Microsoft combo: Microsoft Wired Desktop 600 Keyboard and Mouse Set, UK Layout - Black : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories WWW.AMAZON.CO.UK Buy £20, will work a treat, no mechanical noise, no constant charging and can be replaced later on. That brings the total up to £882. I must be honest, this is a lot more than I was expecting at this price point! Let me know if you need anything else. Order quick if you can, I am fully expecting a massive shortage the closer we get the Christmas. Actually, I should probably start ordering some stuff for my wife too 😛

Holy moly, I just had a deeper look at this, and if the fact that a computer specialist is using Gmail wasn't enough of a red flag, the fact he's charging £200 to build it certainly is. This whole build is covered in red flags, whatever you do, stay away from this guy. He saw you coming a mile away, that Intel platform is a dead-end system so he's likely flogging unsellable stock to you. Half the "features" he's listed are built in to the motherboard too. That's a £700 system before he adds in his wholesale discount, another £50-75 to build it takes it to £775 at most. £900 is taking the piss, and that hardware is a joke. Run a mile.

That PC above is a plug & play model so is a complete computer. You'll still need a monitor, mouse, keyboard, mouse mat (and perhaps a desk & chair, depending on what you guys have at home. What headset does he have for his PlayStation? Most will work on PC so that's another item he can get later on with his birthday money if he even needs to. As for the VR, if he plays with that on his PlayStation then you shouldn't need to purchase anything for the PC for a while and rather save it for another time. If it holds his interest on the PlayStation then it might be worth looking in to, but for most folks it's one of those gadgets you use until you smash your mum's favourite vase to bits and fling it in a drawer only to be used on sleepovers and bragging sessions. If you list out exactly what you need, I am happy to list out a bespoke list of items to buy. Not needing VR opens a lot more, as it's graphically very demanding and needs more expensive hardware. That PC on Ebay is a solid buy, but if you already have a desk / chair then you might be able to get a higher performing model. Don't buy anything off ebay unless you speak to us first, loads of crap on there from sellers who live in countries where warranties are merely suggestions. The only reason I linked that one is because it's from CCL's own official store and they're a pretty reputable company with whom you shouldn't have any problems with warranties or support. Here's their site if you're interested: Please Wait... | Cloudflare WWW.CCLONLINE.COM For info, a lot of PC manufacturers (or System Integrators as they like to call themselves) have official ebay stores. Sometimes it's just additional revenue for them, but more often than not they use it to sell their less glamourous systems, often built out of last-generation hardware (still brand new with proper warranties, just older models). Like I said though, run it by us first so you don't get burned. Happy to help with anything, always a pleasure to help someone get their kids in to one of the world's best hobbies 🙂