I've been using a Dvorak keyboard layout for close to 30 years. Ever since I started, I've relied on software to remap the keys on standard keyboards.
Computer Hardware
12 posts
I wanted a music player with the following features:
- Inexpensive (less than $40)
- Low power (1 watt)
- Plugs in to a audio system (no batteries, not a portable player)
- Runs 24/7
- Automatically starts playing again after losing power
- Expandable storage
- Web interface
I built it on a Raspberry Pi Zero W. It is a full computer that is only 2 inches long
I use external drives to backup everything on my Synology NAS. My data easily fits on a single large drive so:
- I put two large drives in my NAS and use raid1 (mirrored disks)
- The entire backup (or even multiple backups) can fit on an external drive.
I recently purchased a Unitek USB hard drive bay to use with my Synology NAS. I give it five stars. (★★★★★). I was worried that it wouldn't work because Synology's help documents state:
USB devices should be connected to your Synology NAS directly. Connecting any devices through a USB hub is not supported.
I'm pleased to report that it works just fine.
I recently upgraded my NAS from a 15 year old Infrant ReadyNAS to a new Synology DS218+. I give it five stars (★★★★★) with a few minor complaints from the perspective of a Linux power user.
If you are using Route53 for DNS, it is pretty easy to update a route 53 DNS record with your current IP address as a dynamic DNS service. Here is a script that does so. It
- Looks up your current IP address
- Looks up the IP address in DNS for your host name
- Uses the AWS command line client to update the DNS record if it needs to be changed
After replacing the TDS router with a Tomato powered device TV shows were no longer getting recorded properly on the TDS DVR. The behavior I was seeing was that recorded programs had no video (black screen) and played at an accelerated rate.
I wanted to add a second router to my home network such that:
- Devices that connect to it get put on the main LAN network
- No double NAT
- A single DHCP server doling out IP addresses
- The administration panels of all routers are accessible
When you log into an Ubuntu box on the command line, the first thing you see is the "message of the day" (motd). It may have something like this in it:
*** /dev/sda1 will be checked for errors at next reboot ***
which doesn't go away even after rebooting. Here is how to solve that problem.
Ubuntu has started to support USB audio. When I plug in a USB speaker or headset (such as my Pyle USB gaming headset), it gets recognized and installed automatically. However there are some bugs:
- The USB sound device does not get selected automatically. This is especially annoying for headphones. When you plug in analog headphones, the sound automatically switches to them and the main speakers turn off.
- The volume settings are turned way up for the device. Ideally it would remember the volume settings from the last time the device was plugged in.
- When the computer goes to sleep, the volume of usb devices gets turned way up on wake.
I discovered that I could address these shortcomings by creating a script.
I try to script everything I can on Linux. When I install something on my desktop, I like to be able to run a script to install the same thing on my laptop. When a computer breaks, I like to be able to run all the scripts to have it set up again just the way that it was. Here is how I scripted the installation of my printer.
The wireless network on my laptop has always been unreliable. When I open the lid of the laptop and the computer wakes up from sleep, there is a 10% chance that the wireless network won't be able to connect. In the past, the only thing that works in this situation is a full reboot of the laptop.