Building, Programming

Using an Adafruit NeoTrellis Keypad with MQTT

Apr 26, 2021 - 2200 Words -

I’ve been building a light-up keypad for home automation devices (and Zoom sessions). Last time, I gave an overview of the project. This entry will detail the hardware itself, completing a basic remote-only setup, while the next post adds more advanced features and connects it to a server. You can browse the entire series from the link in the header, or by clicking here. Hardware I spent some time trying to find just the right hardware for this toy.

Building a remote-control home automation keypad

Apr 25, 2021 - 1100 Words -

I use Zoom. A lot. Obviously, a whole lot more since we all started working from home. It’s not a big deal – I’ve gotten pretty used to it, and it’s a good system. So much better than the PictureTel VTCs I occasionally used in the early 90’s. What’s annoying, though, is when someone asks a question and I’m on mute. Suddenly, there’s a scramble to figure out which monitor the mouse pointer is on…jiggle…jiggle…JIGGLE!

Infosec Conference Badge Display

Oct 17, 2017 - 600 Words -

My first infosec con was the first ShmooCon, in 2005. Then I went to Black Hat and DEFCON. Then ShmooCon again. Then Vegas again. And before long, I had a whole lot of badges cluttering up drawers. Probably a code violation. (Circuit breakers are behind these doors). In 2010 I won, as part of the ShmooCon crypto contest, a stuffed moose head for the wall (“But not a real moose head, that’s cruel 🎶”).

New Website Engine

Aug 7, 2017 - 800 Words -

A few years back, I moved from a fairly generic Wordpress-based blog to a statically-generated system based on secondcrack. It was a fairly simple system, that I immediately hacked up to add different post types, lists, and other taxonomy-like things. And I pretty much stole the look and feel of the primary site secondcrack was built for. It worked out pretty well, overall, but I did notice at times that it was a little too bare-bones.

New Standing Desk

Aug 3, 2017 - 1100 Words -

A few months ago, I set up my computer on a counter-level table in the home theater for a few days, to see what I thought of the idea of a standing desk. I liked it, but definitely didn’t want to be standing all the time. I needed something adjustable. Then a couple months later, The Wirecutter posted a review of standing desks, and their top pick was the Fully Jarvis Bamboo desk.