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Category: Tech

Hyper-V, USBIP & Home Assistant

Hyper-V, USBIP & Home Assistant

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I recently purchased a number of Zigbee 3 bulbs to install around my house, but unfortunately the Philips Hue hub seems to be locked down to only support lights from their preferred manufacturers. So, I’ve started setting up Home Assistant, installed within a Hyper-V virtual machine. The idea is to eventually replace the Hue hub with a more flexible and less expensive system. Home Assistant supports loads of Zigbee gateways, so I grabbed a Sonoff Dongle P from Amazon. This…

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Brew Day: Nuka Berry II

Brew Day: Nuka Berry II

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Since my last blog post, I’ve brewed a few more beers: A Saison smash for the Smash-Off 2018 competition/beer-swap.  This didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, so that’s being disposed of and I’ve brewed a replacement. An English Barleywine for the Black Beer of Christmas 2018 beer-swap.  At time of writing, this has been in the FV for just over 2 months and I’m planning on bottling it this week. My Eyes Are Pies! – A Brewdog Jet…

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Something different for 2013 – Windows Phone 8

Something different for 2013 – Windows Phone 8

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Last November the Orange contract on my old HTC Desire-Z phone came up for renewal. I’ve been intrigued by the new Windows Phone system since its original launch but never really though about switching, at least until a friend lent me his old Samsung Omnia 7. This phone runs the older Windows Phone 7.5 system, but is good enough to get an idea of what switching to a new Windows Phone would be like. I really liked the new system…

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New year, New Theme

New year, New Theme

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I’ve finally found a new WordPress theme that I like.  So out with the old fixed-width(ish) browns & greens, and in are the new dynamic-width whites & blacks of the Atahualpa Theme. I’ve also replaced the default banner images of fruit & trees with some banners snipped from my photo collection.  They’ve turned out much better than I thought they would. Not bad for 5 mins work with Paint.NET 🙂