I have some WiFi cameras that can be added to a router via WPS. Here’s how I got it to work with one of my LEDE routers. On the other one, somehow, I broke its ability to do WiFi completely, so this can be dangerous — I had to re-install LEDE. YMMV. OpenWRT/LEDE Instructions: https://github.com/patrikx3/lede-insomnia/blob/master/docs/wps.md …
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It’s Christmas day, and we have my wife’s siblings and their children at our house. We’re doing a Google Hangouts call with their parents, who are on an LDS mission in Vanuatu. Microsoft Windows asks when to schedule an update. I try to select 2 am, but whoever designed the software decided, in their wisdom, …
Continue reading “Windows: The OS you can’t rely on when you need to get important things done”
I use the python requests library to make HTTP requests. Handling exceptions and giving the non-technical end user a friendly message can be a challenge when the original exception is wrapped up in an exception chain. For example: import requests url = “http://one.two.threeFourFiveSixSevenEight” try: resp = requests.get(url) except requests.RequestException as e: print(“Couldn’t contact”, url, “:”, …
I’ve been a happy Comcast ISP customer for more than ten years. I was impressed that they continued to invested in their infrastructure and that they supported IPv6. Even today, many ISPs don’t support IPv6. Today, I switched to a wireless ISP that offers better pricing and faster upload speeds. They don’t support IPv6, and …
Here’s a useful presentation on Linux debugging tools — tools that don’t require source code, additional prints or logging. http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/09/17/strange-loop-talk/ strace has a new flag that I didn’t know about: -y, which prints the paths that are associated with file descriptors. opensnoop lets you see the details of open() calls across the entire system, or …
I’ve been following the Ars coverage of the Oracle v Google trial regarding whether Google’s use of Java APIs is “fair use”. I didn’t think Google would win, but was pleasantly surprised when the jury decided in their favor. Hurrah! However, just because Google won, doesn’t mean that companies can indiscriminately copy APIs and have …
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In September, my son started junior high, and he craved having a smartphone. His lawn-mowing money was burning a hole in his self-made duct-tape wallet. So I googled for inexpensive options. Freedompop sounded like a great deal — free phone service (500 MB data per month), based on VoIP over cellular data. Too good to …
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I changed my password on my Ubuntu system this week, and then found that I couldn’t log in, except on a virtual terminal. My home directory is encrypted, and apparently, it’s better to change a password using the graphical utilities, rather than the command line utilities. The following article was quite helpful in recovering: http://askubuntu.com/questions/281491/cant-log-in-after-password-change-ecryptfs
My last remaining grandparent, Artha Robinson, passed away last Saturday. I’m glad to have known her and my grandfather well, to have been able to visit with them and laugh together. I will miss grandma, although I’m glad that she is free from physical pain. As my grandfather often said, “growing old is not for …
In the past, I’ve had trouble getting my Ubuntu machine to resolve the .local hostnames at work. I didn’t know why Ubuntu had this problem while other machines did not. When I did a DNS lookup, it failed, and ping of host.something.local failed. Yet ping of the hostname without the .something.local extension worked. Odd. I …
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