I’m excited to share that I’ve just given Sonar—a FastAPI-based BLE device counter I built years ago—a full overhaul and relaunched it as an open-source project on GitHub: https://github.com/viktopia/sonar Why Sonar? When I first created Sonar, the goal was simple: track Bluetooth Low Energy devices nearby to estimate foot traffic in a space …
I’ve been using split keyboards for about 20 years now, a journey sparked by the all-too-common wrist pain that plagues many a nerd hunched over a standard keyboard. This quest for ergonomic nirvana led me down a rabbit hole of different keyboards, culminating in my current mechanical setup, and even prompted me to switch my mouse to my left hand (more …
When I wrote A Decade of Remote Work back in 2019, I had no idea a global pandemic would soon thrust remote work into the spotlight, turning it from niche to necessity overnight. Now, as I mark 15 years of building and running remote teams, I find myself revisiting and refining many of the lessons from the past and adding new insights gathered from recent …
I recently helped a team migrate their Git repositories from Phabricator to GitHub. While Phabricator was a great tool that combined code reviews, task management, and repository hosting, its official deprecation in 2021 has left many teams looking for alternatives. While moving directly from Phabricator to Phorge is often the simplest path (here’s a …
I recently got a few affordable G3 Pro cameras to replace some less-than-stellar G4 Dome units I had in my setup. Once I hooked these cameras up to the network, they appeared in my UniFi Console (Dream Machine Pro) without issue. However, after clicking the “Adopt” button, they became stuck in “Restoring” mode for quite some time. …
TLDR: I wanted to generate an up-to-date disk image for a Rock Pi 4 using Yocto that included CUPS and Docker to both get a better understanding of Yocto and test the new SBOM generation feature. As with many single-board computers (SBCs) from China, the issue often isn’t the board itself but rather the software. RockPi from Radxa is no exception. If …
I’ve been using Home Assistant for about seven years now, starting back when I was living in a small apartment. At the time, my setup was modest: I used the IKEA Smart Hub (when it first launched) to tie together all my apartment’s lights. As I got more comfortable with automations, I also began building custom hardware like temperature and …
Over the last decade, I’ve spun up quite a few landing pages to gauge interest for upcoming products and features. Back in the day, there were platforms like Launchrock that made it simple to collect email addresses and maintain a waitlist. While Launchrock (and later Typeform, etc.) provided decent user experiences at the time, the end goal was always …
In my previous article, Launching a Video Podcast in 2024: My Journey and Lessons Learned, I shared my experience of starting a podcast. Since then, I came across some intriguing research revealing that 43% of podcast listeners prefer audio-only formats. This got me thinking—by offering my podcast solely as a video feed, I might have been missing out on a …
Update: Check out my blog post All Roads Lead to DSLRs This blog post is inspired by the new wave of “Build in the Open” movement, where I want to share my experience and data. In 2023, I embarked on a new adventure: launching a podcast. The idea was simple yet exciting — bring friends and experts to discuss topics they’re passionate about, …
A while back, I wrote about how I’m using Tailscale to secure my local service, thanks to Tailscale’s built-in certificates. This greatly improved the security of my local environment. Combined with the rather sophisticated ACL policies, you can lock things down pretty well. That gets you pretty far, but I wanted to secure some services that …
A decade ago, I created “Are They Using Google Apps” to address a simple yet crucial need: determining whether a remote party was using Google Apps (now Google Workspace) to decide if I should send them a Hangout invite for a meeting (or something else). Fast forward to today, and I am thrilled to introduce a revitalized and enhanced version of …