Adding ZWave devices to my Home Assistant smart home
There are some quirks related to running standalone Home Assistant (HA) from a Docker container. I found that the route to enable support and add a device using ZWave is not well documented for this HA configuration, especially for someone new to and unfamiliar with ZWave. Running ZWave JS server My biggest bugaboo was that… Without a ZWave hub on the network, a standalone ZWave server is needed to mediate the ZWave network and communicate with HA. I was able to run an official zwavejs/zwave-js-ui container image, and pass my ZWave USB dongle device through to “/dev/zwave”.
February 19, 2025
Installing the new Go-based Fabric LLM cli
Fabric’s installation instructions from its website make it appear that installing this new version rewritten in the Go language should be easier than it was with the original Python implementation. Although pipx made things relatively easy before, I ran into trouble when my installed version of Go did not meet the requirements of the newer Fabric package. # Old Python-based implementation # git clone https://github.com/danielmiessler/fabric.git && # Clone Fabric to your computer # pushd fabric && # pipx install . && # exec zsh && fabric --help # New go version # Install Fabric directly from the repo go install github.com/daniel/miessler/fabric@latest My solution was to try out PKGX which was something that I had been looking for an excuse to try.
September 19, 2024
"teethis" script is one of the most useful tools I've created
tee is a GNU tool to piggy back stout off of a pipe. The following example shows the basic pattern for using it, where the stout is printed to the terminal and written to a log file. mycommand | tee mycommand.log “teethis” script I frequently want to run shell scripts where I can see both the stdout and stderr immediately while preserving the output to refer to later. While the tee command to do this is relatively simple, it can be a pain to type over and over again, so I created the following teethis script.
September 5, 2024
`apropos` is an overlooked Linux command
Search for Linux command that does what you need Sometimes the challenge of using the Linux command line is knowing what commands you need to do certain things. The apropos command lets you search the available commands by matching key words. ❯ apropos csv # bench_wcsv (3tcl) - bench::out::csv - Formatting benchmark results as CSV # csv (3tcl) - Procedures to handle CSV data. # csv2rec (1) - csv to rec converter # rec2csv (1) - rec to csv converter ❯ apropos environment # 0desktop (1) - add programs to the desktop environment # 30-systemd-environment-d-generator (8) - Load variables specified by environment.d # byobu-janitor (1) - script for cleaning and upgrading environment after upgrades # byobu-reconnect-sockets (1) - Sourcable script that updates GPG_AGENT_INFO and DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS in the environment # check-language-support (1) - returns the list of missing packages in order to provide a complete language environment # clearenv (3) - clear the environment # dbus-update-activation-environment (1) - update environment used for D-Bus session services # Dpkg::Build::Env (3perl) - track build environment # env (1) - run a program in a modified environment # environ (7) - user environment # pam_env.conf (5) - the environment variables config files # ... The command checks all of the installed man pages and package descriptions, however there are circumstances where this could leave out some relevant commands.
August 27, 2024
Feynman on Responsibility
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.”
July 16, 2024
Simon Pett About Being a Geek
Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.
July 16, 2024
Toni Morrison on Empowerment
“ If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else”
July 16, 2024
Traditional Girl's Skipping Rhyme
I have a deadly nightshade, So twisted does it grow…
July 16, 2024
Sharing **vscode** extensions
Microsoft created a modular text editor (referred to as vscode or just code on the command line) that is easy to install and use across platforms including integration with Docker containers and WSL2. Install Use this link and follow the instructions to install vscode for your platform/OS: https://code.visualstudio.com/download Ubuntu For Ubuntu, choose either CLI/x64 or .deb/x64 options. Basic usage Icons along left-side: Open different editor environments or side-bars including extension browser, file explorer, and git information. Command palette: Most actions or options are available from either shortcut-key-combinations or the command palatte which is a fuzzy-matching command search accessible with CTL+SHIFT+p. Extensions vscode provides a mechanism to install official and community extensions to tailor the editor for specific code/development tasks and support for enhanced features when editing a multitude of plain text formats.
May 21, 2024