Hacker, Maker, Ex-Ginger
I have been writing this blog since 2008. That is over 18 years of posts — technical tutorials, product reviews, open apologies, legal battles, carbon footprints, and the odd bit of duck bacon. Reading back through them is a strange experience. Some posts make me cringe. Others surprise me with...
The native ESPHome PN532 component works — until it doesn't. After running PN532 readers over I2C and SPI on ESP32 devices in a real deployment, I hit every known upstream bug: tags flickering on and off while sitting still on the reader, I2C buses hanging after a few hours requiring...
I had a PN532 NFC Reader device on an ESP32 running ESPHome and wanted a way to notify Home Assistant if the Reader became unavailable (and therefore stop functioning). Always use legit Elechouse PN532 devices, most online stores are selling counterfeits that fail to perform. Place the following blob in...
As feed in tariffs are often offensively priced you might find that by using excess to dump into appliances you get better value of return than feeding back into the electricity grid. Here are some items you can use to improve the Quality of Life when you have excess energy:...
TLDR; - Stopping losing heat is much easier than generating heat. - Thermal imaging is better than leak testing. - The power infrastructure in the UK is not ready. - Sourcing the correct RCBO for an inverter can be tricky and Lead times for Renewable items can be long. In...
https://youtu.be/0ZRr4iqNC1s Follow along! Do each window in order # Window 1 ``` mkdir etherpadProxy git clone git@github.com:ether/etherpad-proxy.git cd etherpad-proxy && npm i && node app.js ``` ## Window 2 ``` cd etherpadProxy git clone git@github.com:ether/etherpad-lite.git 1 cd 1 && bin/run.sh # wait for this to show "Etherpad is running" ```...
Do you want to convert your Petrol or Diesel car to Electric? You might need to be a little naughty to get it fully registered and insured and it might be that a number of people skip these steps and we end up with electric conversions on that road that...
I will be offline as of 26/3 for a bit.
UPDATE: Me Gusta! All these things now exist. To improve your Etherpad plugin run ``` node bin/plugins/checkPlugins.js ep_whatever ``` In this blog post I will propose some methods to improve Etherpad plugins. This is a musing for myself a brain dump / wish list of things we might want to...
This is feedback for the authors of the paper on "[Spacetime Characterization of Real-Time Collaborative Editing](https://github.com/ether/RTCE/blob/master/paper/cscw-2018-rtce.pdf)". It is an excellent paper full of useful insight for [Etherpad](https://etherpad.org). I'm writing this as an author and maintainer of Etherpad, which for this study was primarily used for providing the data used…
So you have a really-real time web app. Let's assume your stack is built with something like SocketIO, Express, NodeJS. By default if you roll out this stack you will hit a soft limit at somewhere close to 10,000 messages per second per CPU core. You may think "well I...
This is a how to guide / hack approach for storing Etherpad contents as git commits. ## Create git repo Using your favorite tool / platform. In this instance we use Github to create a new repository called `etherpad-storage` ## Clone git repo `git clone repoURL ~/etherpad-storage` ## Edit Etherpad...
I was asked in a [tweet](https://twitter.com/johnjohnston/status/1246346490257321984) to touch on the topics of Etherpad and Security. I initially wrote this post explaining how Etherpad handles Security etc. but then I figured I should a side by side comparison with Zoom because that's the currently criticized product. Etherpad is not perfect, it's...
I contribute to a collaborative editor tool, Etherpad. It is excellent and really doesn't get enough love from educators Vs Google and Microsoft's offerings when I think it should. Etherpad has [video conferencing visible in the document editor.](https://video.etherpad.com)  Etherpad can be…
This is a follow up post to a previous attempt at [hacking the Peugeot Ion immobilizer.](/posts/trying-and-failing-to-hack-a-peugeot-ion-immobilizer/) This is the success story, I will explain where I went wrong and how we solved the problem. Before I get started I want to explain that by "Hacking" I mean gaining access to...
This was a journey I went on with Duncan, Duncan deserves the props for the technical understanding of the car security, I was just the wrench monkey and author. [Duncan runs Fobfix and if you need an immobilizer fix, replacement key or secondary key you should definitely check out Fobfix's...
 Making custom two-piece wheels is a lengthy process so in this post I'm going to brake it down step by step and provide a hopefully handy reference guide for you to make your own. DISCLAIMER: I am by no way warrantying or providing any form of guarantee, advice or...
In this post I will explain why dual screen phones don't need to exist, how they could be improved and what you compromise by choosing one. # Yotaphone & e-ink I'm on my second dual screen phone, first up was the [Yotaphone which suffered on a few counts](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18508418/yota-devices-bankrupt-yotaphone). Firstly the...
Useful for making transfer/conversion plates, this SVG can be modified to suit but it should be usable as is. I'm using it for an engine conversion that I'm playing with.  To use, copy / paste the below into an .svg file.…
While setting up some home automation I found the best way to remotely control my projector was to just hit up some conveniently exposed URIs. Thanks NEC! You will need to network your projector and you might need to turn some sort of web control, afaik I didn't but your...