Sunday, November 4, 2018

Simple review of the Netgear Nighthawk A7000 WiFi USB adapter

Why get a USB adapter instead of PCIe?

My PC motherboard has a Broadcom 2T2R mini PCIe WiFI+BT card (BCM43xx) that supports up to 866Mbps data rate since it only has two antennas. Instead of trying to find a mini PCIe card that supports a 1300Mbps data rate, bluetooth, and some coax cables and antennas, I decided that a simpler USB WiFi adapter would be good enough.

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Hard Drives for use in my Synology NAS

 Why I purchased Seagate IronWolf drives

I recently purchased two 6TB Seagate IronWolf drives. They are similarly priced to the WD Reds but have a faster RPM of 7200 compared to 5400 on the Reds. The IronWolf also have 128MB of cache vs 64MB on the Red. To get a drive similar in spec to the IronWolf would require purchasing Red Pro drives, which are a lot more expensive.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Getting Synology PhotoStation to use the same directory as Lightroom


Photo Station does exactly I want. It provides a web interface to look at all of my pictures and also provides iOS and Android apps. I already use it for my iPhone and iPad automatic photo backups, so I wanted to use it for all my pictures imported with Lightroom as well.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Updates in automating my life (HomeBridge,SmartThings, Sonarr, etc...)

I usually like to set up a new project, write a blog post about it, and then move on. But once in a while it is a good idea to go back and see if anything has changed or if anything newer/better has come along.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Setting up a CUPS server with Docker on a Synology NAS for my Brother printer

My Brother Printer made for Windows


I made the unfortunate mistake of purchasing a cheap brother printer, the Brother HL-L2300D, which is USB only. And not only is it a USB printer, it is a Winprinter which makes it very limited in anything other than Windows. The laser printer is great for printing, but purchasing the cheapest feature-limited version was a bad decision. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to purchase a Brother network printer and save myself the trouble and hassle trying to network share a USB printer. I encourage you to do the same. But if you are reading this page, you probably made the same mistake I did, so read on...

Monday, July 25, 2016

Controlling Philips Hue lights with an Amazon Dash button

So I have read around online that people have found a way to hack Amazon Dash buttons. Without doing much research, I jumped on buying a few Amazon Dash buttons for $1 during Amazon Prime Day. Once I got them and started working on hacking them to do what I wanted, I realized things were not as clear-cut ready as I thought it was. But luckily a few people had a great head start and it didn't take much tweaking in order to succeed.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Trying to charge my MacBook 2015 with a Quick Charge 2.0 USB wall charger

What is Quick Charge 2.0?


The Apple MacBook 2015 charges using a USB-C cable and a 30 watt wall charger. When using a generic USB charger, they usually output 10 Watts at 5 Volts and 2 amps. Maximum possibly being 12 Watts at 5 Volts and 2.4 amps. Quick Charge 2.0 is capable of outputting a maximum of 18 Watts at 9 Volts 2 amps. Since that is more powerful than generic USB charging, can the MacBook take advantage of it?

Monday, June 20, 2016

Running HomeBridge on my Synology NAS to interface SmartThings with HomeKit

I have gone through a few platforms and configurations in my home automation adventures. I've used openHAB and the Wink Hub. Recently, I have stuck with the SmartThings Hub V2 for almost half a year. Apart from some instabilities, which they have been working on, I have been happy with the setup. It interfaces with my Amazon Echo perfectly for voice control, which is great! Because of this, I have not really bothered with trying to get Apple's Siri plugged into my home. But I have been seeing HomeBridge come up in many discussions which allows Apple's HomeKit to work with devices that are not approved. Since it got me curious, I decided to set it up and see what it's like!