today's howtos

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 07, 2023

• You can't paste enter into a Linux terminal

  I could have plugged in a USB keyboard. Or even a Yubikey. But where's the fun in that? Similarly, I could have rebooted and manually changed Bash's behaviour. Or done some weird config which turns a middle click into an enter. Or SSH'd in from another machine. But I like a challenge!

• How to Setup Netatmo in Home Assistant

  Netatmo is a company that produces a range of smart home products. They have many products, such as weather stations, switches, roller shutters, and more. You can integrate most of their devices into Home Assistant, but they require a connection to the cloud.

  You can do quite a bit with the Netatmo devices you import into Home Assistant. For example, you can build a fancy dashboard to display all the data gathered from your devices. You can also automate switches, shutters, thermostats, and more.

  Before you start this tutorial, you must have Home Assistant set up on a device such as a spare computer or a Raspberry Pi.

  This integration requires a connection to the cloud. If this requirement bothers you, look into other products that do not require a connection to the internet.

• DisplayLink Video on openSUSE Tumbleweed

  My journey with DisplayLink started in 2012 with a USB 2 interface on a Dell Latitude D630. It was rough and quite fiddly to get working. When you did, it was slow but usable. I really wanted that third monitor and worked quite hard to make it happen.

• Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

  • shell tip: print json with printf

    i am commonly consulted when people are having strange issues with shell.

• Programming

  • What is in that .git directory?

    Well, I think most of you reading this blog use git more or less on a daily basis, but have you ever looked into what is in the .git folder that git creates? Let's explore it together and understand what is going on in there.

    This is a blog version of a talk that I recently gave. Unfortunately I can't link to the recording :(.

  • Getting started building a data-driven business

    You know you should work more data-driven. You hear it everywhere. A manager or an investor probably urged you to do so at some point or another. But turning this wish into reality is hard. Hiring data analysts and data engineers is expensive. Buying a ready solution is overwhelming. There are so many products, they all use the same confusing buzzwords. You might have a setup for data analytics already, but getting people to actually use it is another story.

    I spent the last 6 years as one of the early engineers at a startup figuring out through trial and error how to enable the rest of the company to use data effectively. Let me share what I would do if I would start over: