Exploring computers, electronics, code, the internet, and the world around us
So I’ve been borderline obsessed with power monitoring since we started our solar panel installation – and to an extent before that. I installed an Efergy Elite several years ago and figured out how to tap into its RF signal and pull that data into my Home Assistant instance to track power usage. But recently…
It’s been the better part of a year in the making, but as of yesterday morning our household is a little less reliant on grid power. Yes, our solar panel install is finally active. Unfortunately, being November now, the best time of year for full solar collection has passed for 2022. It should help a…
I recently came into ownership of a 2008 unibody MacBook. One of the first aluminum ones. It’s been serving me well, and I recently replaced the unused DVD-ROM drive with a drive caddy containing a second SSD I had lying around. I didn’t really have a use for the space so I thought I would…
This is just a small update relating to Bell/Aliant FibreOp service in Canada. I’ve had FibreOp service since May of this year and I’ve been thoroughly pleased with it for the most part. The only real issue I’ve had is lack of support for standard features in the provided router like DHCP reservations and some…
So we bought a new home in July. Shortly after moving in, I noticed a few peculiarities in the electricals of the house: a string of electrical outlets downstairs had no ground. Two circuits on the panel could not be enabled simultaneously and after installing a 3-way capable dimmer in a 3-way lighting circuit, I…
As a follow-up to the previous entry where I wrote about trying to maintain a c++ application for work, I’ve begun a complete rewrite using C#. And not even a rewrite so much as a reimplementation. I’ve only been working at it for a few weeks now and already I’m pretty much at feature parity…
So I decided to order a new router on Wednesday. Yesterday (one day later) it arrived at my door! It’s the Asus RT-N16 SuperRouterN. What makes it super? It has 32MB of flash and 128MB of RAM. This is about 4-8 times more than most standard routers. It opens the door for a lot of…
So I signed up with Hurricane Electric’s tunnel service to get myself on the IPv6 bandwagon before Eastlink is able to. For the uninitiated, IPv6 is a new version of Internet addressing to replace the current IPv4 address scheme (192.168.0.1, etc) which is only 32 bits with a 128 bit address scheme. 32 bits only…
Read More “18 Quintillion Addresses and they’re all MINE!” »
I’ve been spending the better part of the day wrangling with MS Visual Studio 9 as I try to become the maintainer for the client application written in C++ used by my company. Let me tell you, if that doesn’t sound like much fun, it’s even less. Generally things are working relatively well, but occasionally…