Random projects and posts

Twenty Years of being Self Employed

Posted Wednesday 04 April 2018 20:34 Page View Counter 208

I don't normally write personal posts about myself but with 2018 being the 20th anniversary of starting my own business Apexweb, I thought I would write about the ups and downs of the past twenty years of being self employed. Twenty years ago in 1998 I took the huge decision of leaving my 30 hour per week job at the Wareham branch of Somerfield (supermarket) and to try to make a living from designing websites. Going from the security...

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Mosquitto MQTT and Home Assistant Data Logging

Posted Wednesday 14 March 2018 17:13 Page View Counter 732

We have removed the Raspberry Pi based data logger from our home and moved the logging hardware and new software to the Gigabit Internet Gateway Network PC which we installed in December 2017. The old Raspberry Pi system was initially designed...

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Goodbye Disqus, Hello HTTPS with Lets Encrypt

Posted Thursday 22 February 2018 16:03 Page View Counter 1289

I have decided to remove the disqus comment system from my blog posts. I have had a few issues with the disqus system including: Post order – oldest posts not always on top. Links to other sites and spam. Long load times Lot of external...

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YouTube demonetisation email arrived

Posted Wednesday 21 February 2018 16:51 Page View Counter 590

After a few weeks of reading about all the YouTube channels losing their ability to display adverts and receive a small income from their videos the email from YouTube has finally arrived for my YouTube channel to tell me that I can no longer access...

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Nest Thermostat and Smoke API with DotNet

Posted Saturday 10 February 2018 18:46 Page View Counter 609

This code example shows how you can use C# in either a Windows application or asp.net website to retrieve data from the Nest API to show information for your Nest Thermostat or Nest Smoke Alarms. Before starting to write your code, you need to create...

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Gigabit Internet Gateway Network PC

Posted Saturday 16 December 2017 17:12 Page View Counter 1332

Following from our home network upgrade in August 2017 we have been trying to find a way to add global adblocking for the computers, tablets and phones connected to our network and to run additional software. We had tried using Pi-hole® software...

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Blog and website upgrades to Bootstrap 4

Posted Sunday 12 November 2017 16:33 Page View Counter 1014

Over the past few weeks we have been working on some of our own websites to rewrite the code and pages to use Bootstrap which is an open source toolkit for developing with HTML, CSS, and JS. In the past we have always written our own responsive...

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Pick and Place Software Version 2-2 Update

Posted Monday 06 November 2017 16:04 Page View Counter 1617

Another software update to the Pick and Place Controller Software for the DIY pick and place machine. Since the UI redesign earlier this year I have now changed the vision system to use AForge.NET to read from the USB webcams and display on the screen...

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Google Analytics PageSpeed Insights Error Fix

Posted Thursday 14 September 2017 20:15 Page View Counter 1514

We test websites using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to check the speed of their websites and find any potential issues with the content or other issues. One problem we often find about regarding the Google PageSpeed Insights...

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tp-link LB130 Smart Wi-Fi LED Bulb Python Control

Posted Wednesday 30 August 2017 13:28 Page View Counter 2817

A few weeks ago, we purchased a tp-link LB130 smart bulb to use with the Home Assistant software we had been trying on the Raspberry Pi. The support for the bulb in the Home Assistant software was limited and so Andrew started to decode the data using...

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Milling Machine Ballscrew End Float Fix

Posted Monday 28 August 2017 13:19 Page View Counter 1333

We converted our Axminster SIEG Super X1 micro mill to use ballscrews back in 2010 and every few months of use we have had to adjust the bearings to eliminate any backlash on the X and Y axis drives. The original drive couplings fitted onto the...

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