Wild Tech Garden

Daniel F. Dickinson

Realizing a passion for life and tech for the common good

A cleanshaven middle-aged man wearing glasses and a dark green sweater

Daniel F. Dickinson1 (he/them) has been using and exploring computer and electronic technologies for over four decades2 while continuing to learn and update his skills. ( see Daniel F. Dickinson’s resume). This has included recently obtaining his CompTIA A+ • ce Certification, cross-skilling on Microsoft’s Power Platform, re-learning Yocto (Linux), maintaining websites built using Hugo, getting up to speed with current OpenWrt, and working as the IT Manager / Integration Analyst at Ambient Activity. Daniel also maintained the Node.js package perfectionist-dfd on NPM and ensured his proficiency with modern Windows as well as various flavours of Linux (for desktop, server, and embedded systems).

This is all layered on top of Daniel’s Bachelor of Computing from the University of Guelph.

Computer code Daniel has written and other technical work is present in various open source and proprietary3 projects. He has also has many of his own repositories on GitHub under the username danielfdickinson as well as on Gitlab, also with the username danielfdickinson.

Daniel also enjoys sharing his knowledge with others. This included being a critical member of a team of volunteers that created and implemented a successful robotics programme for kids 8-12 (eight to twelve) called Bots and Bytes (offsite PDF) at the Midland Public Library. In the same vein, Daniel volunteers with the Gateway Centre for Learning in Midland, Ontario. Daniel has also been serving as a board member for the Midland Public Library since appointed for this term of (Town of Midland) council.

On a completely different note, Daniel occasionally volunteers at the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre for special events where he greets and processes admissions for guests. He hopes to be a Trail Ambassador at the Wye Marsh, but so has had too many other commitments to do so, to date. He believes it would be good for him, enjoyable, and be a service to the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre and its guests.

  1. Daniel uses his middle initial online because there are a surprising number of people named Daniel Dickinson to be found in online searches, including a historical figure and a character in a TV series. ↩︎

  2. Daniel’s interest in tech began in grade school with the Commodore 64 (for which he wrote a hidden TSR4 early in his high school career, not realizing the implications of what he was doing). This interest carried onto PC’s with DOS, then Windows 3.1, and continues with the current generation of desktop, mobile, and embedded (smart) devices and covers multiple operating systems. ↩︎

  3. Since the proprietary projects are not owned by Daniel, he can’t show them to you. ↩︎

  4. People will tell you that this is technically impossible. If you have the right documentation (Daniel had the Jim Butterfield books), use the chainable hook (wedge) for the keyboard, and (prevented on modern operating systems and hardware) use self-modifying and self-relocating code (and you don’t know or believe that it’s impossible) you can make magic happen. Of course the technique ends up meaning you have to use special tricks if you cannot avoid using the kernel routines (because part of the secret was that Daniel had to swap out the kernel ROM to access the RAM underneath). Daniel thinks there is even a printout of the code in a relative’s stack of boxes in the house where Daniel lives. ↩︎

Modifying install images

Modifying packages that are part of the install diskless boot (e.g. on install media), or the parameters that can be accepted by the boot process, is a little more involved than modifying individual packages, especially for netboot images.

July 9, 2022 by Daniel F Dickinson4 minutes

Just a Quick Note

Just a few odds and ends to go with 'the great trimming' (in which many weeds are pulled from wildtechgarden.ca)

November 25, 2025 by Daniel F Dickinson1 minute

Busy, Busy, Busy

Daniel F. Dickinson has been keeping extremely busy with employment, other technical activities - not the mention the snow removal that is required in Midland - and his self-motivated volunteering hours.

December 12, 2024 by Daniel F Dickinson2 minutes

Song of natural freedom

Finished Second Week New Job

I finished the second week of my new job! Though I did contract work for the same company a week before the holidays, at a very needed moment. So, I will have worked with them for three weeks, now.

January 13, 2024 by Daniel F Dickinson1 minute

Facebook "meltdown"

Facebook "meltdown"

If my feed was showing me what 'engaged' me why did I get fed up and leave? There are several parts to the answer, but an important piece is that Facebook's algorithm is largely an uncontrolled 'positive feedback loop'.

February 10, 2021 by Daniel F Dickinson3 minutes

Data Responsibly

We need mandatory third party security and privacy audits to matter as much to directors and shareholders as financial audits.

January 2, 2021 by Daniel F Dickinson2 minutes

Princes and Madmen

Princes and Madmen

A strange idea came to me in conversation the other day, namely that my schizophrenia helps me understand what it must be like to be Prince William.

March 4, 2021 by Daniel F Dickinson3 minutes