This article explains how to set up an auditing (change-tracking) system for Samba file shares that shows who created, deleted, or changed a file or directory and when. The solution is optimized for security, high performance, and low maintenance.

This article explains how to set up Sambee in a Docker container as a web interface for browser-based access to a Samba or SMB file server, complete with automatic HTTPS certificates (via Caddy) and OpenID Connect single sign-on (via Authelia).

If you know a bit about my professional past (hint), you may have wondered when something like this would be coming. As for me, I was baffled to find that Home Assistant has no entity monitoring capabilities whatsoever. Nor do many third-party solutions seem to exist. This is all the more astonishing because the desire to be informed when things break should be a strong one among smart-home owners.

Sambee is a browser-based viewer and manager for files on SMB network shares and on your computer’s local drives. It supports single-pane and dual-pane views and can replace Windows File Explorer as well as Norton Commander-style tools on your PC and on your phone. And yes, it’s free and open source.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) stores its virtual hard disks in the user profile on drive C:. These VHDX files can grow up to 1 TB in size, making it necessary to clean up and reclaim space occasionally. This article shows how.

A PowerShell profile is an init script that is executed when the shell starts. PowerShell searches for profile scripts in hard-coded locations. This article explains how to move profile scripts to any directory of your choice.

Windows Terminal stores its settings in configuration files that resides in the Windows user profile. This article explains how to move them to any directory of your choice. Where are the Settings Files Located? The location of the Windows Terminal settings file is hard-coded. The exact path depends on the app variant you installed, but it’s always in the user profile:

This micro-series explains how to turn the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90t Gen 6 into a smart workstation that consumes only 5 Watts when idle but reaches top Cinebench scores while staying almost imperceptibly silent. In the first post, I showed how to silence the machine by replacing and adding to Lenovo’s CPU cooler. In this second post, I’m listing the exact configuration that achieves the lofty goal of combining minimal idle power consumption with top Cinebench scores.

This micro-series explains how to turn the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90t Gen 6 into a smart workstation that consumes only 5 Watts when idle but reaches top Cinebench scores while staying almost imperceptibly silent. In this first post, I’m showing how to silence the machine by replacing and adding to Lenovo’s CPU cooler. In a second post, I’m listing the exact configuration that achieves the lofty goal of combining minimal idle power consumption with top Cinebench scores.

After having published in WordPress for almost 20 years, it was time for a change. This site is now rendered by Hugo, a static website generator built for Markdown content hosted in a Git repository. The migration from WordPress (HTML) to Hugo (Markdown) was far from trivial. Since I couldn’t find any tool for the job, I developed my own set of migration scripts that fully automate the migration process. You can find them on GitHub along with extensive documentation.

This article shows how to get detailed information about your Mitsubishi heat pump’s status and operations into Home Assistant. Prerequisites You’ll need a Mitsubishi Modbus interface, either the older A1M (serial Modbus/RTU via RS-485 only) or the newer A1M+ (Modbus/TCP via Ethernet in addition to Modbux/RTU). I’m using the Ethernet variant.

This article describes how to set up authenticated access to a (private or public) GitHub repository from Linux. Create & Set Up an SSH Key SSH Key Creation Create a new SSH key:

This article shows a simple solution to a weird networking problem that plagued me for hours: IPv6 packets were sometimes lost; IPv4 was not affected. Problem: IPv6 Ping Timeouts and Packet Losses Symptom: Teams Issues I noticed the problem first when there were intermittent connectivity issues in Teams during a meeting.

This article shows a simple solution to a problem that doesn’t seem to be adequately documented: VS Code UI lags, freezes, and delays caused by the GitHub Copilot extension. Problem: VS Code UI Becoming Slow Having worked on a Python project for a while, I noticed that VS Code’s UI was frequently freezing for seconds at a time. This was happening in various places of the UI: the editor itself but also in the GitHub Copilot Chat window. Copilot also seemed to be taking more and more time getting ready to answer, and the extension-host process would fully saturate one CPU core for long periods of time.

Bitmaps tend to have noise and imperfections, especially if they’ve been generated by AI. Vector graphics, on the other hand, trace the outline of elements with elegant curves. Converting from the real world of bitmaps to the ideal world of vectors requires ignoring the actual pixels and seeing an idealized structure instead. That is not something automated conversion tools can do today, at least not those I’ve tested. Instead of converting a PNG to SVG you should, therefore, recreate it in a vector graphics image editor. This article shows how to do that in the free Inkscape.

This article describes how to perform a factory reset on the Zehnder ComfoClime 24/36 Arduino board. I find it necessary to document the steps as the description in the installation manual is incorrect.

While most of this content is still relevant, I’d recommend using my Smart Cover Automation integration as a starting point instead of the template mentioned in the article. My integration is much more advanced in many ways. It comes with a document that explains how to use it as a template.

This article explains how to set up a Samba file server as an Active Directory domain member in a Docker container. This newer configuration differs from my earlier setup in one essential point: it uses POSIX instead of Windows ACLs, simplifying the administration and making it possible to modify files via other protocols than SMB. This post is part of my series on home automation, networking & self-hosting that shows how to install, configure, and run a home server with dockerized or virtualized services.

This article explains how to set up Filestash in a Docker container as a web interface for browser-based access to a Samba or SMB file server. Please note that in my own use this configuration has been superseded by Sambee, my very own browser-based file viewer and manager. Sambee has a more polished and user-friendly UI, is optimized for desktop and mobile, displays Markdown not as code but rendered, has powerful search and navigation capabilities, keyboard shortcuts, and much more.

Tabby stores its settings in configuration files that reside in the Windows user profile. This article explains how to move the configuration files to any directory of your choice. The Tabby Config File(s) Tabby stores its configuration in the file %APPDATA%\tabby\config.yaml. It also keeps a backup in the file config.yaml.backup in the same directory.

KNX is a core Home Assistant integration that only recently reached the silver quality rating. This means that it is well-maintained and stable. Just what you’re looking for when you’re thinking about extending your home’s functionality.

A long time ago, when I was working as an IT consultant, a younger colleague asked me if I knew of a book that described how to set up an Active Directory domain so that it’d be ready for production and the setup incorporate all the best practices. I didn’t have an answer for him then. Looking back at what I’ve done in the past 30+ months I realized that I’ve compiled what he asked for - just not on the topic of Active Directory but on building a self-hosted home server that provides all services locally without any reliance on cloud services.

LED lights that still glow faintly when switched off seem to be a fairly common problem. This article describes possible solutions including the unlikely fix I found for our Vibia Duo ceiling lights.

This is an attempt to bring some clarity into the various APIs, apps, interfaces, and Home Assistant integration options that are available for the Zehnder ComfoAir Q ventilation and ComfoClime cooling units.