DIY IOT Heated Towel Rail Timer

By davidgo | March 23, 2019

In order to save electricity I made a heated towel rail timer, and, because its 2019, made it controllable through a web page available on my home network. This project cost less then half the price of a basic timer. Here is how I did it and how you can leverage my experience and avoid…

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Free Roundcube Skin

By davidgo | June 12, 2018

I am quite used to the “Larry” Roundcube skin, and did not find the default theme to be as comfortable to use – however I have 2 mail boxes which I want to keep separate, but still use with Roundcube.   Looking for alternative themes did not yield an awful lot of options, and the ones…

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Oneplus 3 Nougat with R/W System

By davidgo | April 5, 2017

I recently upgraded my Oneplus 3 to OxygenOS 4.0.3 – which runs Android 7.0. I discovered that I could no longer write to the hosts file to do ad blocking and this was driving me crazy, so I set about changing the OS to allow me to do this – it required a single letter…

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Resolving shared WordPress Email issue

By davidgo | October 11, 2016

I like using a database to directly drive my virtual webhosting – this means that each account on the system has a UID and GID, but no username associated with it (ie in /etc/passwd or getent passwd) Because of this, when users try and send an email in WordPress (eg to reset their password), WordPress…

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Secret of Oneplus 3

By davidgo | October 10, 2016

The OnePlus 3 has had some interesting reviews and press coverage, and its very much a mixed bag, but, nowhere online have I read about its killer feature – FANTASTIC (Almost unbelievable) RECEPTION. I am blessed to live on a lifestyle block (ie semi rural), which gets marginal coverage from 2 Degrees Mobile – my…

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Hangsun S80 Lamp

By davidgo | June 22, 2016

I purchased one of these lamps in 2016.  Below details my findings and some help to others (maybe). The product is not good at all – indeed if returning it were a practical option I would – but because I live down-under, shipping costs make this prohibitive – so I’ve tried to make the best…

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Samsung 840 EVO Geometry

By davidgo | September 10, 2014

I recently had a need to upgrade a 500 gig (raided) hard drive to an SSD.   I noted that the standard geometry for a 500 gig hard drive presents as 500.1 gigs, while the data sheet for the Samsung 840 EVO MZ-7TE500BW SSD claims to be fractionally smaller on the detailed spec sheets I found.…

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Swap and Encfs mounting on Startup in Ubuntu

By davidgo | August 24, 2014

I use Ubuntu 14.04 on my laptop and I have a somewhat unique setup, whereby I use DRBD and encfs to mirror and secure my data as I understand that when SSD drives fail they tend to do so catastrophically and without warning.   I thus have a rather complex boot process. I spent the morning…

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BD-F6500 region free upgrade – Firmware 1010 / 1017 note

By davidgo | July 1, 2014

In case anyone has the same issue – A few months ago I purchased a SamsungBD-F6500 from Noel Leemings (A whiteware retailer in New Zealand).   A few days ago, we purchased some DVDs which were “region 2” and would not play on our NZ/AU – region 4 player(s). I attempted to region unlock the DVD…

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