Strav's blog

I have a number of WiFi to IR "blasters" in the house (Z-Motes).  They work, but they aren't super cheap (actually not too bad but they are shipped from India I believe so the shipping plus the base cost adds up).  I would like a cheaper alternative as… more »

How to Pair Android Wear Watches to New Phones without Factory Resetting more »

While my Home Assistant is running OK on my Raspberry Pi, I really want to be able to run the Visual Studio Code app and it only runs on x86 architecture.  Additionally, it would be nice to have a little more power behind HA.  I acquired an Intel Atom… more »

On my work computer, there seems to be a Windows policy that sets my default browser to Internet Explorer on bootup.  Since Internet Explorer doesn't work for many of the applications I support, this is a silly policy and wastes my time as I either need… more »

I have a first gen Mac Mini (2006) that I use for Mac specific software on occasion.  It's so old at this point that I can't install most new software, webpages won't load because the browser is so outdated, etc.  With a few modifications, I can get OS… more »