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1st official release of my home automation software: cloverleaf

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Brandon — No Comments ↓

I had some time to kill this evening while waiting on a flight and decided that I may as well show the world my terrible code. Introducing cloverleaf version 0.3 aka “gort”. Rather than go down the long list of things that are not yet functional I will stay positive and list the things that are.

toggling insteon or z-wave devices via an ISY home automation controller
support for some low cost color LEDs
control of any IR device via LIRC
various API: for text to speech, playing of files, notifications…
each of the above via the provided sample web interface or api calls
scheduling of repeated tasks via a cron like interface
and a dent has been made on documentation

Please test, submit issues, and above all; have fun.

HeatSync Mini-Client 2500

Posted on December 17, 2008 by Brandon — 11 Comments ↓

HeatSync Mini-Client 2500.

This is it folks. This is the case that we have been waiting for to build the HTPC of the next five years. There are no negatives here. It is completely fanless (read silent), yet can handle a modern Intel DG45FC mainboard with a 3GHz dual core processor and decent video card. I am convinced that a machine built on this can can fulfill all of your xbmc, mythfrontend, windows mce, blue ray playing, and gaming needs. There is nothing that the right setup in this case would not be able to handle in your living room, silently.

ZFS in practice – installation under ubuntu

Posted on December 15, 2008 by Brandon — No Comments ↓

1. vim /etc/apt/source.list.d/zfs-fuse.list
add
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/brcha/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/brcha/ubuntu intrepid main

2. update

sudo apt-get update

3. install it

sudo apt-get install zfs-fuse

4. Enjoy

1 part Sam Adams Boston Ale + 1 part Welch’s White Grape Peach Juice.

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Brandon — 5 Comments ↓

I know it sounds bad, but try it. It really works.

Go splunk yourself.

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Brandon — 4 Comments ↓

Splunk is google for logfiles. Even the free license is all I would ever need with syslog configured properly on each server.

I am still alive.

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Brandon — 2 Comments ↓

I am looking for an 1100 sq ft+ loft on a decent block in brooklyn. Any takers?

I brought another server out of retirement.

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Brandon — No Comments ↓

I brought the old mythtv backend up with some updates. I managed to upgrade the thing from fedora core 7 to fedora 8 with the procedure I outlined here. I just had to modify the yum repos to point to the new fedora 8 repo. I bought a bookcase, an ikea made vesa mount, and a new 19 inch lcd. I mounted the lcd on the bookcase after some trouble, (note to self: tin screws work will to hold in cheap particleboard). The result looks good and saves space.

Zen with Xen + a terrible perl program

Posted on December 9, 2007 by Brandon — No Comments ↓

I know I am very late to the Xen party. I try to stay on top of the life changing software, but there have just been so many new things out there over the past two years or so. I tried running a Xen kernel a while back under fedora core 6, but there were serious problems with xen and the ivtv kernel module driving my pvr500. I was using that for my mythtv backend, which the wife had gotten used to. Guess which had to go. FF >> 2007. I am priming my hardware for a complete replacement, and have already ebayed the tuner card. I figured what the heck; I have a free afternoon. Why not install a xen kernel, and experiment? Good times. Between xen and perl I blew the weekend. I started to write a screen scraper for surfthechannel.com but I got bored. Here is what I have so far….

Continue reading →

I like it here.

Posted on November 17, 2007 by Brandon — No Comments ↓

++
Living on Roosevelt Island….
cheaper; higher quality foods…
katz pastrami in any form…

—
The staff at Gabes school taught him to refer to Native Americans as “Indians”. They need to be corrected, and I need to find a better school for him. I thought that I would be able to try public school for a while until I found him something better; but it looks like that is not going to work out. That is unforgivable. Its something akin to saying colored. While most don’t care, the few that are affected take it at great offense. I do not want to offend anyone at all but if you still don’t understand the idea that I am trying to convey try one of these words. While they may mean nothing to you, they are very offensive to some and should just not be used. Bad form NYC Public Schools.

Google released the Android SDK today.

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Brandon — No Comments ↓

They have sample code and videos on the website. The points that I have gathered so far include…

Android applications are meant to be coded in java. They used eclipse in the sample video. I can learn java; this should be fun.
There is support for Opengl ES; this means if the hardware supports it you can get interfaces that are as good looking as anything on my iphone. (clutter??)
There is a high level java layer method to interface with the dialer. The sample app video shows one example.
There is a ton of available documentation already, and of coarse a google group.
Google is holding a contest for the best application. I for one am going to enter.