Category Archives: Geek

“We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.” –Carl Sagan

What I Did on My Mid-Summer Vacation: Day 3

Posted on 5 August 2022 by matthannan

If I had a late start yesterday, I was even more delayed on the third day.

First, I was informed that “the family” had decided that they wanted ad-blocking turned back on on the pfSense firewall. I was told to turn this off several months ago.… Read the rest

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Neofetch: For Super-Cool Login Banners

Posted on 17 July 2022 by matthannan

While I am writing blog posts, this is one that I find myself searching for quite often. Be another one to bake into the Ansible template. If you want a wicked awesome login banner, like this one:

sudo apt install neofetch
sudo bash -c $'echo "neofetch" >> /etc/profile.d/mymotd.sh
… Read the rest
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Fun with Proxmox, PRTG, SNMP, and a boatload of Mea Cupla

Posted on 17 July 2022 by matthannan

The Elitedesk 800 G4 Mini PC is just about 100% built, hardware-wise. I am waiting for the VGA Flex IO port to arrive. Looks like I put it in the cart, but did not press “Buy” for a few days, so, mea culpa.… Read the rest

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Home Assistant 2022.7 Update: History

Posted on 10 July 2022 by matthannan

Learned about the update to History via this YouTube video.

Holy crows, this is a good one! I quickly noticed some expected things missing from the graphs, so I ran back through my device “Locations” and found a bunch of them either not set or not accurately set.… Read the rest

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A New Toy: HP EliteDesk 800 G4 Mini PC

Posted on 8 July 2022 by matthannan

I just bought a thing.

It has been a refresher lesson in Intel CPUs for me, as well as a revisitation of what my financial pain threshold is. Even this ($288) is a bit above what I wanted to comfortably pay, as I need to drop more RAM into it.… Read the rest

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Let’s Encrypt V3

Posted on 1 June 2022 by matthannan

The Acme script that I use, like many people out there, to keep my Let’s Encrypt TLS/SSL certificate updated has recently had a breaking change of an upgrade. Namecheap, my hosting provider, is using an older version of OpenSSL. While this does not sound awesome, it is the upgrade from the previous version of OpenSSL that had a mega bug in it, so this isn’t too terrible.… Read the rest

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Like Frankenstein’s Monster, Just Zap It With Electricity

Posted on 19 January 2022 by matthannan

Electricians are arrived at the house at about 8:00AM. Told me it’d be about four hours to install the 240-volt from the circuit breaker panel to the outdoor heat-pump. They were done a touch past 10:00AM.

I turned the Nest thermostat, which drives the oil burner, down to 58F and ran around setting the head-units to 66F.… Read the rest

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And the Next Day, Mini-Splits

Posted on 17 January 2022 by matthannan

Everything happens at once. Yesterday we took down a 75′ spruce tree, and today they started installing our ductless mini-splits.

Today, they installed the four head-units, the backer plates for the exterior channels, and the pad for the outdoor compressor. Tomorrow they install the line sets and hopefully the outdoor compressor.… Read the rest

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Modernizing My Temperature and Humidity Sensor

Posted on 18 September 2021 by matthannan

My basement temperature and humidity sensor has been up and running for 2.5 years now with hardly a hiccup at all. But, it is time for an upgrade.

I’ve made some tweaks to the page over the years, but I ‘ve grown less and less happy with the matplotlib implementation.… Read the rest

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Installing Unifi controller Docker container on Synology NAS – Thiago Crepaldi

Posted on 17 July 2021 by matthannan

Really, I used this just as a guide to update the Unifi controller in the Docker container. You could do that a time or two before it gets simple, which it is. Just a new way of doing things, I guess.… Read the rest

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