Aesthetically Clean Remote Switching Using MQTT with Sonoff and Shelly Modules

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Automation and technology are amazing, modern advances allow us to automate almost everything in our daily lives, before we get into this post, here is an end-2-end example of this solution, enjoy. So now you know what we will be building, lets get in to it. There are almost no systems in my house that … Read more

Using Flying Probes for Surface Mount PCB Flashing Of ESP32 & Beyond.

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The right tool for the job can make any job enjoyable. I often get sense if happiness using quality tools that make a job easy and painfree. Tools change, I am not just talking in the physical world. Take example my world, cloud computing, look at cloud networking, how we architect connections in the cloud … Read more

Building a Private ChatGPT Interface With Azure OpenAI

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TLDR – You can test my implementation at https://privategpt.baldacchino.net. If this appears slow to first load, what is happening behind the scenes is a ‘cold start’ within Azure Container Apps. Cold Starts happen due to a lack of load, to save money Azure Container Apps has scaled down my container environment to zero containers and … Read more

LLM’s Are Not Search Engines – Create 301 Redirects

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Are you looking to make a wholesale URL structural change to your website. Maybe you are chasing SEO optimisation, but please think twice when changing your URL structure in the world of LLM’s (Large Language Models). Are you taking the right steps to ensure a great end user experience? Technical debt, I know you are … Read more

Let’s Get Building🤖 – So you know the basics around OpenAI but where to from here?

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Change is constant, are you keeping up to speed? Today every organisation regardless if they are a tech organisation, is a tech organisation. Thats the reality, because their competitors are. It’s more than basic tech, AI is being infused in 2023 to amplify everyone’s secret sauce, their value proposition. If you are trying to get … Read more

Using an Arduino & A 1602 LCD Screen With Polyglot Code To Display Your Next Outlook Meeting

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In a prior post I discussed how you can connect a 1602 LCD screen via i2C to an Arduino compliant MCU, with the aid of MQTT and C++ to display metrics that matter. But I realised, other than wanting to know the temperature and metrics around energy consumption there was another key piece of information … Read more

Displaying Metrics With A 1602 LCD, I2C and MQTT

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A few months ago, I solved the problem of having to use a Home Assistant dashboard to view power related metrics that matter to me by using LED’s embedded into my desk. You can read about it here, and these LED’s work really well. The LED’s have saved me looking at Home Assistant, and they … Read more

Creating Interlocks In Code (C++) For Controlling Relays In the Real World

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[RELEASING IN MAY 2023] Work In progress Are you familiar with an interlocks? Interlocking is a safety measure designed to prevent signals and switches from being changed in an improper sequence. Interlocks are a staple of our modern lives, they exist in places you would or perhaps may not expect. In their most basic form, an interlock … Read more

IT Certification – Is It Even Relevant, Should You Get Certified, What Will You Learn And How Do You Pass?

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I pose a lot of questions in this title. IT certifications, do you have any? Perhaps you have none, perhaps you have 10, but does it really matter and what do they really prove? 23 years ago, two months after finishing high school I sat my first IT certification exam, and leading up to where … Read more