I recently released MMM-PageBtn, a MagicMirror module that uses a physical GPIO button to control page rotation. If you use MMM-Pages to organize your modules across multiple screens, this adds a simple hardware interface—press a button to flip through pages without touching the display. Why a Physical Button? I wanted to control which page was… Read more: Control Your MagicMirror with MMM-PageBtn

I recently released MMM-Fintech. It’s a MagicMirror module for displaying consolidated cryptocurrency and traditional investment holdings. It includes real-time pricing, exchange rates, and 24-hour change indicators. The Problem I wanted a single view of my portfolio on my MagicMirror—crypto from Coinbase alongside stocks and ETFs from my brokerage. The existing options weren’t quite right. MMM-AVStock… Read more: MMM-Fintech: Consolidate Your Crypto and Stock Portfolio

I have been running a MagicMirror in my home for a while now. One thing that always bothered me was the lack of a well-maintained module for displaying SmartThings device status. The existing options were either abandoned. Some required workarounds that broke every few months. Others stored API credentials in plain text config files. So… Read more: MMM-STStatus: Secure SmartThings Integration Made Easy

My lovely wife bought me a Breville Duo Temp Pro BES810BSS. I was using some other simpler devices. Here’s the old gear I used: They worked OK. The grinder was not the best, but I got it at Kohls for like $30 with a pile of discounts. When I first got the espresso maker I… Read more: Improved Coffee Station

I was interested in setting up persistent storage for some containers like WordPress, NextcloudPi, Pihole, and UnFi. My research lead me to GlusterFS using replicas. I borrowed from these sources: Gluster’s docs describes their product as “a scalable, distributed file system that aggregates disk storage resources from multiple servers into a single global namespace.” What… Read more: Add Persistent Storage Using GlusterFS

I was trying to see if there was better OS for Pi4. I’ve been using RaspberryOS, they have a beta 64 bit version with a pretty long bug list. So I thought I’d give Ubuntu a try and see if it would be good for day to day use. My initial impression is it’s soooo… Read more: Raspberry Pi4 4GB and Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS ARM64

I was using a couple of Raspberry Pi4 4GBs and one Pi3+ single board computers for various tasks within our home network: A NAS running SMB, NFS with Apple Time Machine and Bittorrent support Ubiquiti UniFi Network management Pihole DNS server Foldforcovid instance It occurred to me that I wasn’t fully utilizing the hardware. So… Read more: FrankenPi Lives!

I finally decided on a replacement for Frontier Cable TV. I’ve been using YouTube TV for about 2 1/2 months. It’s pretty responsive compared to Hulu TV. It’s fairly flexible in recording content. It supports multiple profiles with separate recording of programs. It’s still slow compared to cable TV in starting up, changing channels, or… Read more: YouTube TV

I am absolutely in love with the Instant Pot! Great soups and stews using one of the pressure cooking settings, Perfect rice automatically. Slow cooker settings with a delayed start, timed cook, switches to warm then auto shut off in an intelligent way. I’ll prepare the ingredients for a stew or soup in the pot,… Read more: My Take on the Instant Pot

I’ve been looking for an alternative to cable TV for some time. I want to be a cord cutter. I have no desire to rent cable boxes and pay for their overpriced DVR service indefinitely. I don’t want to pay for 300 channels of crap I never watch anyway. I want access to local TV,… Read more: Hulu Live TV