Techie Mike - Techie Mike - The IT guy in Thailand

Running AI Models on Old Hardware — A 10 Year Old Xeon Is All You Need

public

hardware • 8 min read

•

Running AI Models on Old Hardware — A 10 Year Old Xeon Is All You Need

A post hit the front page of [Hacker News yesterday](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48353348) with a title that made a lot of people stop and stare: *"[A 10 year old Xeon is all you need.](https://point.free/blog/gemma-4-on-a-2016-xeon/)"* It racked up 685 points. The author ran **Gemma 4 (26B…

Techie Mike • 02 Jun 2026

Switch from pip to uv — Python's Rust-Based Package Manager Guide

public

Python • 9 min read

•

Switch from pip to uv — Python's Rust-Based Package Manager Guide

# Switch from pip to uv — Python's Rust-Based Package Manager Guide If you've ever sat waiting for `pip install` to finish building wheels in a Docker build, you know the pain. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Sometimes longer, depending on how many native extensions your project pulls in.…

Techie Mike • 02 Jun 2026

Binary, Hexadecimal, and Number Systems — Visual Guide for IGCSE CS

public

Computer science • 8 min read

•

Binary, Hexadecimal, and Number Systems — Visual Guide for IGCSE CS

# Binary, Hexadecimal, and Number Systems — Visual Guide for IGCSE CS Number systems are one of those topics that show up in **every** IGCSE Computer Science exam. Binary to denary. Denary to hex. Binary arithmetic. And I've seen students lose easy marks because they rush the conversions. In this…

Techie Mike • 31 May 2026

Teaching Python File Handling for IGCSE & A-Level CS — Worked Examples

public

Python • 6 min read

•

Teaching Python File Handling for IGCSE & A-Level CS — Worked Examples

File handling is one of those topics that always shows up on Cambridge CS exams. Whether you're sitting IGCSE 0417 or AS/A-Level 9618, you need to know how to open, read, write, and append data in a file using Python. In this post, I'll walk through everything you need, with the kind of worked examp…

Techie Mike • 29 May 2026

How to Set Up a Test Pipeline That Actually Catches Bugs

public

Python • 7 min read

•

How to Set Up a Test Pipeline That Actually Catches Bugs

You push code. Tests pass. Merge. Deploy. It feels good when it works. But if you've ever pushed a change that broke production because "nobody ran the tests," you know the pain of a missing CI/CD test pipeline. I've been there — releasing a Python script that worked on my machine but crashed on th…

Techie Mike • 28 May 2026

How to Set Up Hermes Agent on a Mini PC Home Server

public

linux • 5 min read

•

How to Set Up Hermes Agent on a Mini PC Home Server

Set up Hermes Agent on a BMAX Pro 8 mini PC and run your own autonomous AI assistant 24/7. This guide covers hardware, installation, AI provider configuration, and Discord gateway setup.…

Techie Mike • 26 May 2026