As a disclaimer, I didn’t have any real reason to do this, but I found it fascinating. These automatic air fresheners come in different forms, colors, and sizes. Still, the internals are almost always the same: An LED indicating the spray was triggered, an IR led to sense light in...

My home server has a Netgear ReadyNAS NAS where I store sensitive data. The volumes are encrypted, so if someone steals the NAS, they won’t determine the disk’s contents. ReadyOS 6.x (the NAS software, based on Debian) can encrypt the volumes with an encryption key. While this is a great...

Following my journey in the Ham Radio operation world, given that I now have a VHF/UHF antenna, I thought it would be awesome to spin up a VHF and UHF Internet-enabled SDR receiver. Software Install Configuration Hardware Insertion loss Conclusions I think it is a great tool for people testing...

This year, I finally started a ham radio course to obtain my ham radio license. I have always found ham radio operation fascinating; hence, it’s been a while since I played with software-defined radio. I also gave a talk at Nerdearla last year about decoding satellite signals! When I decided...

Since I was a kid, I have been amazed by home automation. I was surprised by being in control of a house with a centralized panel, automatic behavior depending on external factors, and the robotics behind moving parts such as roller blinds and irrigation systems. A bit of history Choosing...