Whatever comes to mind while I'm at a keyboard
With the SunPower bankruptcy and many users being left with no great support options (unless they pay a subscription), I am getting more and more people landing and commenting on my earlier SunPower PVS6 posts. So, I m providing an update for what I recommend today, and I am including some (maybe a little janky) pages Continue reading "Self Hosting PVS6 Monitoring (software included!)" The post…
I wrote You Are Wrong About Your Stupid Account about eight years ago, and since then I have had more than a few friends use it as a guide to upgrade their account security, although a few of them turned to the posting after an exploit that could have been prevented. The world has changed Continue reading "Basic Security Tips for Your (not so Stupid) Accounts" The post Basic Security Tips for Your…
The Winnebago Solis 59P comes with two Group 31 AGM batteries for running the house power and eventually, those batteries are going to need to be replaced. I found that it seems to be possible to replace these with LiFePO4 batteries, which likely have some advantages. I won t go into to many details, but AGM Continue reading "Upgrading Winnebago Solis 59P Batteries to LiFePO4" The post Upgrading…
One of the more practical and super easy to use AI tools I ve seen is NotebookLM, where one can add documents, text, websites, and more to a notebook and then tell AI to do something with all of the content. I ve found this incredibly handy for things like adding a link to a keg distributor Continue reading "The magic of NotebookLM (and my first podcast)" The post The magic of NotebookLM (and my…
If you ve ever wanted to see a figurine of yourself but you have no artistic talent, AI image generation can make that dream come true, and you can try it for free. I jump right into the how to and add my boring commentary to the end of this post, so you can skip it. Continue reading "Make Yourself into an Anime Figurine with AI Image Generation" The post Make Yourself into an Anime Figurine with…
Update November, 2025: see my most recent post on self-hosting PV6, which has my latest recommendations following the SunPower bankruptcy. In my continuing adventures trying to add better monitoring to my SunPower solar farm, I took a slightly different approach that what seems to be the common path on the Home Assistant Options for Sunpower Continue reading "Very Basic SunPower and Home…
Update November, 2025: see my most recent post on self-hosting PV6, which has my latest recommendations following the SunPower bankruptcy. Well, if you landed on this post you either have a need to cure your insomnia or you have a very specific problem. I recently decided to become a sun farmer, and went with SunPower, Continue reading "Getting Administrator Access to SunPower PVS6 with no…
For the 3 people that have been reading my posts, you know my journey from ESP8266 hacking off the shelf smart switches to creating custom devices, most of which I connect to Home Assistant so that smart devices are secure and don t rely on the existence of any particular vendor. The next step in this Continue reading "ESPHome Temperature and Humidity with OLED Display" The post ESPHome…
When it was clear that nobody was asking for or needed my BART Train Monitor with ESP8266 and SSD1306 display, I knew the obvious response was to invest more time into the project by creating a model for a 3D printed case. I made a few hardware adjustments from the original build, and I am Continue reading "3D Printed Case for ESP8266 and SSD1306 display" The post 3D Printed Case for ESP8266 and…
I frequently commute on BART and wanted a convenient way to tell when I should start walking to the train station, ideally something that is always accessible at a glance. A gloomy Saturday morning provided some time to hack together something I had already purchased a ~1 inch SSD1306 display and had extra ESP8266 boards Continue reading "BART Train Monitor with ESP8266 and SSD1306 display" The…