eXecute Read Write

Homekit and Hue dimmer with LivingWhites Plug

2019-08-27T05:09:35+00:00

As of firmware 1933144020 for the Philips Hue Bridge, it no longer allows dimming functionality on the LivingWhites dimmable plug.

Fortunately this can be negated in OpenHAB (assuming correct bindings in the items xml) with the following Node-RED flows. []

Using a Logitech K750 PC Version on a Mac

2015-09-02T06:58:39+00:00

Probably one of the nicest full-sized wireless chiclet keyboards for PC (which used to come in a Mac version, however Logitech stopped selling them)

So I’m forced to use the PC version on a Mac, which comes with a few gotcha’s. For one, the PC version has a hardware-based FN key (the OS doesn’t know you’ve pressed it until you press the corresponding blue-text key as well)

Oh and the Vol Up/Down/Mute keys are one position left on the keyboard than the Mac equivalent.

Mac: F10 = Mute, F11 = Down, F12 = Up.
PC: F9 = Mute, F10 = Down, F11 = Up.

Ugh….
Enter Karabiner

With it, you can remap your keys and make customisations more relevant to the Mac world.

I find the Home/End re-mapping great.

There are some exceptions where this shouldn’t be remapped of course, and that’s Remote Desktop sessions (which I use RoyalTSX for - see my previous blog post)
So we had to add an exception into the XML file - easy!

In the following example I’ve remapped the following;

F3 = Spotlight
F4 = Launch Calculator.app (always found that handy in Windows)
F9/10/11 = Mute, Vol Down, Vol Up
PrtScr = OSX Screenshot to Clipboard
FN+PrtScr = OSX Screenshot to File

Put this code in your private.xml file;

Hit the Reload XML button and enable the “K750” options to suit you.

Using Royal TSx to administer your Windows network, from your Mac

2015-08-20T11:43:10+00:00

Recently moved over to a Mac exclusively for my workstations, despite being a sysadmin for a medium-sized Windows Active Directory network.

Remote Desktops are tools-of-the-trade, and coming from Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMAN) console, I was struggling to find a suitable alternative for OSX.

Until I found Royal TSx.

This is essentially RDCMAN for OSX, on steroids.

Relax, it also comes in Windows edition (Royal TS) so die-hard windows nuts can keep reading.

I found it fits my workflow perfectly with the following features;

* Organise RDP connections (and inherit credentials) by folders

* Organise Terminal, SSH and Telnet connections by folder

* Ability to sync your .rtsz data file to your work PC (via Dropbox)

* Can also use a “gateway” application (Royal Server) to tunnel to your network, and access other things like Event Logs, Terminal Services admin, and Windows Services - right from your Mac!

Price isn’t too bad (29EU for a personal use license, client only, no gateway server)

There’s also a 10-connection trial you can use.

Check it out at http://www.royalapplications.com/ts/osx/features

Automating Maxmind GeoIP downloads on Windows

2015-08-20T10:05:51+00:00

Sure - there’s lots of snippets for automating the GeoIP database downloads (with your Maxmind subscription) for your *nix boxes, but not many for Windows.

Here’s a simple PowerShell script that you can pop into your favourite job scheduler application (Batch Job Server, JAMS Scheduler, or *ugh* Windows Task Scheduler)

It’s pretty rough and not much error handling (I wrote it quickly) but it does the job to;

Download the latest GeoIP file
Unextract the double-zipped tar.gz file
Copy the unextracted .dat file to a location for you to use

(We use this in a webfarm environment, which is replicated to each web server via Microsoft’s DFSR)

It’s posted here on GitHub, so feel free to make improvements and collaborate :)

AFP setup on CentOS 7

2015-08-10T05:09:35+00:00

Finding an accurate how-to for the minefield that is, open source software is sometimes terrible.

Documentation is hard to read, and often isn’t updated for point releases, which is often out of date.

Thank god this blog post from Zit Seng explains exactly how to setup Netatalk on CentOS 7.

https://zitseng.com/archives/6182

Except for the afp.conf file, which sometimes needs a little more massaging to be usable as a bare minimum config.

I found it needs the uam list property present in the file in order for AFP clients to connect successfully.

I’m using OSX 10.10.5 (Yosemite) and found without these config directives accessing the shares would fail.

Here’s a working usable config you can use;