2019: My Year in Review I started putting a list of each years primary achievements on Facebook a couple of years ago and it's a nice tradition. 2019 has been one helluva year for me personally, here's a
home assistant Backing up Home Assistant HASSIO is probably the easiest way to run Home Assistant. It's a pre-packaged appliance aimed at a few key devices such as Raspberry Pi and so on. Being an appliance has pros and
xiaomi Getting a Xiaomi API Token for a Roborock S5 to link with Home Assistant On Black Friday the Roborock S5 was discounted heavily enough that I bought one. I gave the Home Assistant Xiaomi Mi Robot Vacuum integration a look over before I did and browsed some
golf r 3D Printing a custom Vantrue S1 dash cam bracket for a Golf R The bracket uses a tiny bit of hot glue just to ensure the camera boot has a nice tight fit in the slot so that it doesn't vibrate around too much in there. The footage that came out the other end is remarkably smooth and stable and the bracket attaches with no screws or other adhesives.
home assistant Home Assistant Smart LEDs using WLED and ESP8266 WLED library gets native Home Assistant API integration. This post walks you through everything you need to get up and running.
apple Switching to iOS I just got back from the Apple Store where I returned $2781.72 worth of merchandise.
photography My Photography Workflow I received a tweet asking me about my photography workflow and whilst this is something that is constantly evolving I thought it might make sense to at least capture what I’m doing at the moment and share it with the world.
vw Custom lighting coding with an OBDEleven on a 2019 Golf R I'd highly recommend anyone with a VAG car to get this OBDeleven Pro device. VCS used to cost $$$ thousands and require a laptop. But here all you need is an Android device, what's not to like?
terraform Calculate Terraform count using the length of a list during interpolation How do you use Terraform's count feature and have custom attributes per system? Use arrays and the length function, that's how.
linux Gotchas when migrating Fedora qcow2 images to vmware My issue was that the initramfs didn't contain the necessary drivers for the emulated hardware and as such the VM refused to boot except into emergency mode.
Migrate qcow2 images from KVM to VMWare I recently switched from Proxmox to ESXI for my primary Hypervisor due to better support for automation tools like Ansible and Terraform plus better integrations with Red Hat Satellite. I didn't fancy rebuilding
linux Make your forward / back Mouse Buttons work with Synergy Synergy is an application I use to share my keyboard and between a VFIO guest and host system. One thing has bugged me about it for ages but today I found a solution that...
linux Self Hosted Today is a big day. I can finally share the details of a project that's been in the works for what feels like forever. I'm launching a brand new podcast on Jupiter Broadcasting called Self Hosted with Chris Fisher.
3d printing Disable autofocus in Octoprint with a Logitech C920 webcam Whilst 3D printing I often check up on the print from another location and rely on being able to get a clear, high definition and sharp image. The C920 webcam from Logitech delivers great image quality but unfortunately the auto focus algorithm almost always choose the wrong focal point.
hardware Awesomo Server - Build Log Entry #2 Things were getting a bit toasty in there. The watercooled Xeon E5 2690 v2 CPUs themselves were fine sitting at around 40c but the PCH (kind of like the Southbridge) and RAM were hitting 70c+ constantly.
woodworking Building my "Ultimate Mega Desk" (Part 1) Ok, that took way longer than I expected but I now have a chronological history of my desks. I didn't realise until tonight that desk making was a hobby of mine.
3d printing How to fix OctoPrint keeps running into communication errors and timeouts I run OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi connected with a USB cable. If you are doing this you must ensure that Settings -> RPi [off] is set.
3d printing Eliminate 3d Printing Mesh Bed Leveling Globs on a Prusa i3 MK3 What am I talking about? These little dots that appear at every mesh bed leveling point where your nozzle is oozing a little filament out every time. They are annoying and can cause issues with larger prints.
3d printing Printing a Temp Tower to get better quality 3D prints In order to get the best quality prints it's important to know the correct temperature to print each filament at. Even just a 5c change can make all the difference to the performance of a filament. Here's how to slice and print a 'temp tower'.
usa Our State Grading System We've visited so many States now we figured it was time to devise a system to track them.
usa-roadtrip-2019 Yellowstone to Bozeman Don't be in a hurry here. This park demands time. If you give it that you'll have a very rewarding trip here. You never know what will be around the next bend in the road.
usa-roadtrip-2019 The Only Rodeo in Town Neither of us had ever been to a Rodeo before. The child in the seat next to me positively bounced with glee at the possibility of going. So, we did.
usa-roadtrip-2019 The Beartooth Highway Loop The road from the North East entrance leads directly through Lamar Valley. A very famous place in park for watching wildlife.
usa-roadtrip-2019 Bears, Otters, Wolves and Mammoths Wow, what a day. We saw several Bears, an Otter, a Wolfpack (no, not the NC State kind) and Mammoth Springs. It snowed blizzard style, in June.
usa-roadtrip-2019 The Yellowstone Geyser Basins En-route to the West we passed by Old Faithful and the main geyser basins in the park. They are something to behold. Steam emitting from seemingly every orifice the ground has to offer.
