hardware, technology

New Toys – Myo Armband & Leap Motion interface devices!

| be3n

Myo Armband & Leap Motion interface devices

Trading technology with my friends left me with some exciting new toys.  Now with a bit more time since these devices were introduced there are lots of interesting demos for each. Though similar, these are very different devices and not intended to be used together.  I am excited to see what they are capable of.  Anything to replace the flat pointer driven systems we seem to be stuck with. I think I’ll integrate my Leap Motion with the Oculus i have on loan.  So far, it’s hard to type without triggering my Myo Constantly.

Software, technology

Just keep cobbling

| be3n

Aerial AnimationI rebuilt my Mac Pro software completely and it appears to have resolved the idle hanging problem.  It is alway an annoying amount of work getting everything up and running again.  It’s nice to have everything fresh and clean and worth it to finally have a stable desktop.  The most frustrating part of this kind of solution is that nothing is learned.  How?  Why?  No answers, but at least an end to the frustration!

UPDATE!  – Nothing is resolved!  it just took over 48 hours for the problem to return. 😤

Silver lining was my brief use of screensavers and discovering John Coats work to bring the beautiful Aerial flyovers from the Apple TV to all macs.  Looks amazing on 3 screens!

Update! – It’s finally fixed!

Software, technology

Sometimes I feel like the cobbler with no shoes

| be3n

High Sierra InstallI upgraded my Mac Pro to High Sierra.  For the most part it was seamless.  The installer automatically migrated the HFS+ file system to AFPS and everything appeared to be working great.  As it turns out. . . I have a new intermittent problem that causes the computer to become unresponsive while idle.

It presents primarily as a failure to wake from sleep (backlit black screens instead).  Display sleep is actually all that is required to present and of course it is not every time.  It is often enough for me to return to the 90s habit of shutting down my computer after I finish using it lest I cause irreparable harm to my mounted file systems.  Here are some things i have discovered while trying to resolve.  Sometimes i can access the computer remotely, other times not, never graphically.  Sometimes the system hangs as soon as it goes idle, sometimes it continues to operate.  Sometimes it restarts from “sudo reboot” from an ssh session, other times it just hangs completely when i try.  The console logs are useless.  Nothing at all before the reboot.  When unresponsive, there is nothing to do but hold the power button.

The difficulty i am having at discovering the core of the issue combined with the fact that my remote backup has gotten stale is driving me crazy.  There seems to be people complaining about this on every Apple forum there is.  I am not alone:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8085995
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/300199/mac-pro-on-high-sierra-doesnt-wake-up
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/73094p/mac_pro_2013_high_sierra_wont_wake…
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/high-sierra-causing-blank-screen-macpro.2073218/

UPDATE:  It’s finally fixed!

Security, Software, technology, Wi-Fi

Stepping back into Wireless Security

| be3n

wifi-crack Believe it or not, my home network actually used Radius authentication many years ago. Before I got a Nest (which still cannot connect to anything that isn’t open, WEP, or WPA/WPA2).  At the time, I assumed the Nest app talked directly to the thermostat.  Not true.  It just needs internet to talk to it’s servers where it receives the commands and preferences from the app.  Armed with that knowledge and recent revelations about the security of WPA2, I set to the task of reimplementing Radius on my network.  First, I needed to asses which devices, like the Nest, would be unable to make the transition.  Luckily, most of these devices don’t need anything more then internet access.  One was moved to a hard line and the last attached to a Radius capable wireless bridge.  I added a internet only wireless network for my embedded devices and moved my privileged network to Radius authentication. It was time to change my password anyway. Stay safe!

Continue reading “Stepping back into Wireless Security” →

hardware, technology, Wi-Fi

My favorite products play well together!

| be3n

DiskStation and Amplifi

Ubiquity’s Amplifi wifi mesh system is awesome and incredibly easy to setup. It also looks great next to Synology’s DiskStation product line.  Together they make the most amazing Time Capsule replacement. The functionality doesn’t stop there.  The DiskStation does so much more then just backup.  As a backup however, it allows you to mirror the disks for extra protection as well as synchronize between other servers, DiskStations, cloud storage, or even AWS S3!  Getting nearly 200Mbit everywhere!  Already backing up three computers.  What other services should I add to the Synology?