Creating the awesomeness
Tim Theeuwes 
I have now multiple organizations in Azure DevOps that all have their own agent. This agent is used to build, test and release my projects. So the next option came to mind, build a virtual machine on my Unraid installation, with Ubuntu. Create multiple users in Ubuntu that all run their own agent that connects … Read more
I have this MacBook Pro 16″ 2019 over here.It has like 1TB disk and 32 gig of RAM First, I’ll freshly install macOS itself, it is stating that it wants to install Catalina After setting it up, it (of course) wanted to update Following many of the online guides, the Ubuntu installation had to be … Read more
I wanted to have a network at home that is dedicated to an always connected VPN environment. For this I picked PIA as they offer port forward (well… I’ve been told…) First I setup the VPN Client on my UniFi device Next, I’ve created a new VLAN I have a large Unraid tower at home. … Read more
Tja… there is another project. I want the supermarkt points to be captured and tracked by home assistant.The supermarkt is called PLUS, it is a Dutch supermarkt that sells bonus points (plus zegels) that you can later use to pay for products. The technical difficulties:– There is no website that has the information of points … Read more
What I want (all the red on one VM) Tja…. the docker version didn’t workI got stuck at the fleet configuration So now, lets try to install everything on aVM, in this case, an Ubuntu server installation Okay, it is in a separate vlan, but I can SSH to the machine after setting some unifi … Read more
One company I freelance for, have installed ElasticSearch, and they ‘harvest’ Windows clients information. I want this at home as well. In this post I’ll blog about the installation steps taken. Installation on unraid environment The ElasticSearch documentation has a section for docker. https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/8.17/docker.htmlBut its docker commands, and I want some docker compose file. ChatGPT … Read more
I have an unraid server and an active subscription at TransIP stack. Stack offers a WebDAV drive to backup your stuff.This post shows the steps to complete this task. 2. Overview of the active users 3. Create an access token as I dont want to supply my password later on 4. Setup docker container efrecon/webdav-client … Read more
On beneluxlaan.com I used to have a nice website, but is down for quite some while.Now that I have an extra server at home, lets host the website there, repair it, and use cloudflare to tunnel the traffic to the site itself. In order to setup cloudflare, I added the beneluxlaan.com domain: In order to … Read more
I wanted to use the Innr SP240 to get insights of the car chargers usage. This I want to accomplish with the help of my home assistant setup that is already in place. Setup Home Assistant Adding the Innr SP240 is not that hard, when it is added to the Zigbee environment, this is the … Read more
I do hate this, scrollbars and borders around my webpage.As I have a webpage that is adding every post at the bottom, the height is dynamic, i.e. is not every time an x amount of pixels. In order to remove some things, I turned myself into google. There are doznes of solutions, some work, some … Read more
What is it? Given the following situation, I have a website and want to get some analytics. One could choose to use Google Analytics, but this means giving all your data to a company. One of many options is to use Matomo, Matomo is a powerful privacy-first web analytics platform that gives you 100% data … Read more
For a while I was looking for a way to track my car’s whereabouts (nice word!) In order to do so, I started by looking how to have a server environment ready to capture and display this information, as it was clear I didn’t want to create a serverside solution by myself for this. Searching … Read more
What is it? I wanted to check a website if a change was made. Why?Renting a simple space is hard in the Netherlands, as there are many sites that offer appartments / houses / garages, I wanted one.After a while I found a company responsible for renting out storage spaces and garages. They told me … Read more
What is it? Structured logging is the practice of implementing a consistent, predetermined message format for application logs that allows them to be treated as data sets rather than text. (https://www.sumologic.com/glossary/structured-logging/) I wanted to have a good, like really good, but free, system to move my logs to. Over the years, I have used PM2, … Read more
What is it? For a couple of years I have a dual screen setup haning in my (very full) enterance. It ran two screens with two separate Raspbarry PI’s.Over the years the PI’s got some upgrades, but I found it time to install the latest Raspberry PI 4, so I can use both screens with … Read more
What is is? Steps: Create Xamarin.Forms app from Prism template Modify the template to show a browser and load my webpage Build app Publish app 1. Create Xamarin.Forms app from Prism template 2. Modify the template Modify the template– Change splash screen image– Load only a webpage– Block all external webpage calls and navigation– Navigate … Read more
What is it? For a while I am using MediatR to handle messages in my ASP.Net Core applications. (New to the Mediator design pattern, refactoring.guru has an exelent article about it)These messages (i.e. of type IRequest) need to be validated before the Handler processes them.In order to have this done, Fluent Validation is used and … Read more
What is it? At home I have a Synology DiskStation DS215j, and I have installed Cloud Sync in order to synchronize a directory on my Synology with a webdav connectoin.I used this guide to connect my Cloud Sync to a webdav connection. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Cloud Sync stated ‘Up to … Read more
What is it? For many years I had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) laying around somewhere, I wanted to use the original hardware case to make a RetroPie. So I did! Project costs in € or $ Object Price Raspberry Pi 4 Model B v1.2 – 4GB € 62 Micro-HDMI to HDMI cable- 1m € … Read more
What is it? Code coverage, it is this magical number that will never hit 100% for a larger project, but near 100% should be doable right? One of my projects is setup using the Clean Architecture and has a separate front end and back end test project. For this article I will focus on the … Read more
What is it? Working on an one-man projects is easy, you build it on your own machine and deploy it manually to your server environment. This is a method I used to use for quite some time, but I now have noticed that setting up an CICD pipeline benefits also the one-man projects. Microsofts Azure … Read more
What is it? Running a SPA (Single Page Application) on APS.NET Core is easy, it even comes out of the box. But I wanted to run two Angular SPA’s next to each other without having to setup a complete new ASP.NET Core project. Currently APS.NET Core does not support hosting multiple SPA’s on the same … Read more
What is it? At home I have some smart mirrors, and they display some form of a birthday calendar. The calendar I use is a simple google calendar, and not the google birthday calendar (as is uses the contacts information to get the birthdays). As it is a simple calendar, the events I submit to … Read more
What is it? A while ago I created a simple application to reduce the size of images as I wanted more and more of them stored on my mobile phonehttps://timdows.com/projects/resizing-photos-to-have-them-all-on-your-32gb-storage-phone/ Using this application again, I wanted it to be running in dotnet core, but the System.Drawing library is not yet available on the dotnet core … Read more
What is it? Hosting some aspnet core webpages, it made me realize that I never documented any of the actions needed to set it up. My servers run Debian with DirectAdmin, configured with apache and nginx. This post will show how my TimelapseMP4Webpage is published to https://vwp.timdows.com/timelapse. Configuring DirectAdmin as a user Upload the aspnet core webpage … Read more
My local ISP, Ziggo, uses a stupid way to force using a strong WiFi password. First of all, I want to be in control of the password, I can set the security to none, but if I want to use WPA2 the system forces me to pick a password with 10 characters and 3 other … Read more
What is it? For a long time I wanted to run my own Docker server. My first attempt was running it on a virtual box setup on my Windows machine. Next try I wanted to run this on a server environment. I tried Windows server 2016 with the container service, but I didn’t feel like … Read more
What is it? Having some spare monitor’s laying around (from the dumpster), I did already make some nice projects with them. In the Dual photo webpage with Angular project I added some nice tvservice magic. I thought it was worth having its own place. This project is nothing more than a webpage (not even a page, … Read more
What is it? Having some spare monitor’s laying around (from the dumpster), I decided to make a dual wall screen project, but after that I still had some more. I wanted to have an extra monitor in my study, and a spare Raspberry PI 2 was just waiting to be part of it.
Nested linq expression My clientModel has a list of MotionDetections that contains a date. I want to get a list from the database where the min and max of this date are used. The first code looks like this: [code lang=”csharp”] // Get the existing values from this device between the clientModel dates var motionDetections … Read more
What is it? Having some spare monitor’s laying around (from the dumpster), I decided to make a dual wall screen project. The idea came from the magic mirror project, and was accompanied by a simple image webpage project. The hardware 2 x 19″ monitor with DVI connection 1 x Raspberry Pi 3 1 x Raspberry … Read more
What is it? This project, called IdealistaManager, is a private project, used to search houses in Spain. The backend is a simple mysql database is accessible via a .NET Core WebAPI project. It is being served by Apache via a PHP proxy, I described that in another blogpost I made. The frontend is a Google … Read more
What is it? For a couple of year I got some virtual servers for my own company. On one of those I run Debian 8 (hosted via kvm) with DirectAdmin. In this article I’ll write how I managed to get a sample .NET Core WebAPI running on this environment. Update 2017-03-27: Used Apache as proxy Steps … Read more
What is it? For almost a year now, I’m running Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi 1 (yup, the first version) to block all ads and malicious domains completely. Installing and running Pi-hole doesn’t need any explanation, setup a Raspberry Pi and run the command as mentioned on https://pi-hole.net With the SPI enabled, I was able to get … Read more
I’ve got a cronjob running to sync the images from my Raspberry Pi Timelapse project. The cronjob does nothing more than calling rsync. [code lang=”bash”]#!/bin/sh if [ "$(pidof rsync)" ] then echo "process already running" else rsync –remove-source-files -chavzP –stats pi@10.0.0.27:/home/pi/capture/ /volume1/projects/VWP\ Timelapse/timelapse\ construction fi[/code] Now I want to export information regarding the amount of … Read more
At the end of 2015 I’ve tried to install ASP.NET vNext (later renamed to core) on a Raspberry Pi, but recently .NET Core 2.0.0-beta version came out and some people already had a play with this on an ARM32 environment. Arranging myself a Raspberry Pi 3 and trying this out was next! The environment Prepare the Raspberry … Read more
I hit my head two times on this, getting serialdata via an Electron app, time to put the taken steps on paper. Demo project I found this demo project and used it aswell: https://github.com/johnny-five-io/electron-serialport I implemented some changes to push the data to a table. The project code can be found on my github pagehttps://github.com/timdows/webpages/tree/master/ElectronSerial … Read more
What is it? My Samsung Galaxy S6 has 32GB build in storage, and I can only use 25.4 GB of it apparently. This very nice phone has everything, except external SD card storage. In order to have all my images, from even before my S6 on my phone, I thought why not resize them. I … Read more
What is it? A follow up on my old project https://timdows.com/projects/timelapse-camera/, this project is going to capture the construction across my apartment. You can see this as rev3 of this project. In this project I’ve upgraded the Raspberry Pi 1 to a 3, eliminating the wireless issues that I had, and gaining more overall processor power. Starting … Read more
What is it? In Spain the typical celebration at new years midnight is to eat twelve grapes, one at every strike of the bell. Wiki even has some pages of it https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doce_uvas and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Grapes In order to achieve this celebration in places without a big bell in the square or TV, I have created this … Read more
On my VPS, running Debian with DirectAdmin, I noticed I got an F on the SSL Server Test After applying the steps from https://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=1 it changed back to a nice A. It took me around 15 minutes in total to find the steps to complete and execute them: Note to self: check your server’s configuration … Read more
What is it? For the Dutch Sinterklaas surprise (like secret Santa or invisible friend), I had to create something new. I found https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino a while ago and decided this was a perfect opportunity to work with it. This project lights 8 led’s red upon booting, spawns an WiFi access-point and hosts a website. The website … Read more
I didn’t find how to disable the autoplay of video’s on LinkedIn on the first page on Google. As I’m so annoyed by this and I can’t remember seeing a good video, I just spend 2 minutes to disable it via the Firefox plugin Stylish. Disaster avoided
What is it? My objective consists of two parts, load the Angular2 template while it is being served by Razor and also apply lazy loading of the template itself. I followed the post from Victor Savkin on https://vsavkin.com/angular-router-declarative-lazy-loading-7071d1f203ee Lazy loading speeds up our application load time by splitting it into multiple bundles, and loading them … Read more
What is it? Everybody has some existing project that would be suitable for an ASP.NET Core application. For my work I had a project that uses Linq to SQL with some weird database access layer (don’t get me started about that). After two minutes I had around 60 models and a fully stuffed DataContext. Wow … Read more
What is it? The guys from https://ngrok.com have done some great work. Their slogan: I want to expose a local server behind a NAT or firewall to the internet. Don’t constantly redeploy your in-progress work to get feedback from clients. ngrok creates a secure public URL (https://yourapp.ngrok.io) to a local webserver on your machine. So … Read more
Errors while doing a json request They suck! You are waiting on your webpage for a XHR request to complete, but without knowing it failed. Angular has some functionality that you can catch any result code outside 200 – 299, but than you’ll give a general error to the user. What if you could really … Read more
What and why? In one of the projects I’m currently working on, I wanted to protect data that is stored in a database. In this case it is a password, required to access an external API, that I would not want to save as plain text in the database. As this password is user specific, … Read more
Overview Why? MIFARE Classic? MIFARE Ultralight? Reading and capturing contents of the card About this manufacturer block (Sector 0 – Block 0) The UID thing that messes with my head Writing a 4Byte dump on a different card Why? The MIFARE NFC card is used in many environments. I got a trash card, a card … Read more
What is Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF or XSRF) There are numerous reasons why you should implement an Anti Forgery Token. With ASP.NET Core and Angular this is almost possible out of the box. As I did not find any basic examples, most where creating a full webpage application, I have decided to write a … Read more
Table of contents What is it? C# and javascript code How does it work the players perspective How does it work the quizmasters perspective How does it work the Dennis and Sandra’s perspective What could be better What is it? This webpage is a simple question game based on the MJAGame. All normal players can … Read more
What is it? When we first used this device, a Medisana Humidifier AH 665, around the house, you could notice the increased level of humidity. I guess it was really needed as I did not really measure the humidity before that good. After using this humidifier for a couple of days, it woke us up … Read more
Table of contents What is it? Setting up the Arduino NRF24Sniffer Running the ASP.NET Core 1.0 website Install .NET runtime if you are not on Windows Download and run the application Configuring the settings Explanation of the data on the NRF24Sniffer page Explanation of the data on the MysensorListener page Understanding the raw package information … Read more
What is it? An easy webpage that shows the messages send and received by the Mysensor gateway connected to my Vera3 in a human readable way. The gateway acts as the glue between your controller and radio network. It translates radio messages to a protocol which can be understood by a controller. This protocol used … Read more
What is it? It is a very easy way to measure the temperature outside of my apartment. The protoboard is placed in a tupperware style box to protect against the rain and placed in the shadow part of my balcony. In my Vera3 environment this looks like Eagle layout Most of the projects I use … Read more
What is it? My radiators are all equipped with a measuring device, making it possible to measure the used heat by a single radiator and once per year device the costs between different apartment owners. This device measures the temperature of the radiator, and compares it (with some kind of formula) with the room temperature. … Read more
Table of contents What is it? How does it work from the players perspective How does it work from Martens perspective C# and javascript code Small hacks to get it working Database What could be better What is it? This webpage is a simple question game. All the players, except for Marten, can answer a … Read more
What is it? A small tutorial how to get Cyanogenmod 13 (Android 6.0) on a Samsung Galaxy S3. The steps taken were described at https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_i9300 Steps to perform Boot the phone normally and upload the cm13.zip package to the internal storage. I used cm-13.0-20160110-NIGHTLY-i9300.zip from https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=i9300 Download and extract Meimdall Suite from http://glassechidna.com.au/heimdall/#downloads In the … Read more
ASP.NET vNext on a Raspberry PI Try number 1: raspbian with mono Try number 2: Windows 10 IoT Core on a Raspberry PI 2 with ASP.NET 5, Kestrel and DNX All done and time for the first test console application Lets create a Kestrel MVC application with DNX Publish the MVC application to my Raspberry … Read more
What is it? This small webpage is used by some of my domotica projects. For now, it contains a small database that holds information for my 7Segment power meter. Created in Symfony2, it also holds a command that is executed every 5 minutes to refresh several caches. By doing this there is no need to … Read more
What is it? So I own two of these nice Philips Living Color gen2 lamps. They come with a remote and if you have two, you can pair them up and control them with the same remote (having both of the lamps outputting the exact same color). Now I wanted this to be part of … Read more
What is it? The wifi button controller project is a button pad / slider controller for some of the lights around my house. Every button (in a 4 by 4 grid) represents a light source around the house that can be controlled via my Vera3. Upon a button press, the 100mm linear motorized sliders will … Read more
What is it? This project is used a couple (mabye around 10 times) in my house. It makes sure I can controle a WS28xx ledstrip via the mysensors environment. I have called the project WS2801, but I have to agree that most of the ledstrips I use are WS2812 versions, still I refuse to change … Read more
What is it? Every 10 seconds my smart home power meter sends out data, this can be captured by a simple serial connection. This project aims to get the latest data from my Vera3 via wifi. Every 10 seconds a webpage is requested, this page returns a json object with all the information of my … Read more
What is it? In the remote connection / VPN world, RSA tokens and other two-way authentication methods are used to increase security. Sometimes a sms (text message) is send with an one-time-password. This box is able to receive these smses and display them over a telnet session, making it unnecessary to find that one specific … Read more
What is it? With a couple of dozen sensors and actors around my apartment, I found the need to create an app that runs on a mobile hanging in my entrance. I found a nice place, between two doors, to place a mobile (I did some tests with the Touch Display Scene Controller project from … Read more
What is it? Across my apartment a demolition is going on. I took this opportunity to start a timelapse project of the demolition. The rev1 was a simple setup with a bash script making a picture every 5 minutes. After a while I found it hard to get the camera positioned good (I had to … Read more
What is it? This box, called the orangebox, was created to solve a simple problem: Find which pin of a cable is connected to which pin on the other side of the cable. The cables involved typically look like DB9 to RJ45, but can come with some other connectors as well. An example schema of … Read more
What is it? In the remote connection / VPN world, RSA tokens and other two-way authentication methods are used to increase security. At my work we have a box full of these tokens laying around. I had an old scanner laying around, and decided that it would be a good project to create someting that … Read more
