Old Photos Of Ratby Village, Leicestershire

3 Replies

Another project I started recently was the purchasing of old postcards and photographs of Ratby, Leicestershire in the UK. My original aim was to frame them and have them on display in my house, however some of the post card and photos were in poor condition or damaged, so with trusty Photoshop I set about restoring them. Each restoration is fairly time consuming I will add more as I complete them.

This is dated on the rear of the postcard 1960 (hand written) however I assume this picture to be of a much earlier date. The picture depicts the junction of Desford Lane, Main Street and Station Road. The picture was taken looking down Main Street towards Station Road, with the road to Desford Lane on the right of the picture.

Junction of Desford Lane, Main Street and Station Road, Ratby, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Original – Click image to view at high resolution.

Junction of Desford Lane, Main Street and Station Road, Ratby, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Cleaned – Click image to view at high resolution.

Junction of Desford Lane, Main Street and Station Road, Ratby, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Finished – Click image to view at high resolution.

How To Flash Update The BIOS On GIGABYTE BRIX

4 Replies

A quick quide to flashing the BIOS on your GIGABYTE BRIX. I’ve had a number of these and they make great little servers or media streaming PC’s, however it really is best to update the BIOS on these little boxes as it fixes a number of issues the tiny PC’s have.

Firstly you will need your specific BRIX models BIOS file.

Click here to download Gigabyte Brix BIOS files

Select your the BRIX model from the list then click on the tab “Support” next choose BIOS and download the latest BIOS file.

You will also need these:
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
Win98Boot

  1. Run hpusb.exe to install the utility.
  2. Plug in you USB flash drive to your computer. (all current files will be deleted)
  3. Run the program you just installed (HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool).
  4. Select your USB flash drive as your device.
  5. Choose FAT32 as file system.
  6. Under format options, choose create a DOS startup disk.
  7. Select ”using DOS system files located at” and point the program to the folder ”win98boot” which you just downloaded (you need to unzip this file).
  8. Click the start button.

Part 2:  Flash the BRIX using the bootable USB flash drive:

  1. You now have a bootable USB flash drive, next copy the BIOS and other files over.
  2. Download the latest BIOS for your BRIX.
  3. Unpack the file you just downloaded.
  4. You now see three files, AFU303.exe, flash.bat together with the BIOS file. Copy all three files to the USB flash drive.
  5. Choose ”replace all files on destination” if you get this option.
  6. Reboot your computer, and during boot press ″F12″.
  7. Choose ”boot from USB”.
  8. You will see a Windows 98 loading screen very briefly and then get a C: prompt.
  9. Type flash.bat then press return / enter.
  10. The AMI firmware update utility will now update your BIOS.
  11. All done!

Minnie’s Friends Charity New Website Launched

Having been recently introduced by the Vicar to a gentleman from her congregation who was looking to have a holding page produced for his charity Minnie’s Friends in Loughborough which was about to be relaunched. I jumped at the chance to help, always happy to support worthy local charities by giving my time and skills freely, so I produced them a quick and simple holding page.

Minnie's Friends Website

Aerial Photos of Bury Camp, Hillfort, Ratby, Leicestershire

Leave a Reply

Unbeknownst to me Bury Camp the oldest known human settlement in Ratby, is a probable Iron Age encampment dating back approximately 3000 years, the site was also adapted by the Roman army for use as a temporary fort in around 50 AD. As this interesting historical location is only a stones throw away from my front door my interest was piqued, armed with this knowledge my companion and guide for the morning was Mr Alan Sims, after a coffee and with all the equipment loaded it was time for our little adventure, sadly our first aerial escapade was cut short suffice to say it involved a low battery and an emergency landing! After we recovered the downed quadcopter it was back to base to view the limited footage, upon investigation and making matters worse we found no footage had been recorded for the short first flight.

Take two, batteries charged and the camera double checked, it was now time for the money shots. Thankfully after an uneventful 15 minutes flight time and reaching heights in excess of 170 meters our mission was a success, below are the photographic fruits of our labour, we hope they are of interest.

The photos were taken using a GoPro Hero 3+ mounted on a Zenmuse H3-2D Gimbal all attached to a quadrocopter. Clicking the picture allows you to view the full sized aerial photograph, depending on your web browser you should then be able to zoom in.