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Yesterday I decided to play with the Common Unix Printing system (CUPS). I followed this tutorial and within a reasonable amount of time I had set up a pi 3 to serve as a print server for an old printer. Sometimes you use printers and scanners by plugging them in to the laptop you’re currently using. With modern macs this means finding a USB 2 to USB C connector, moving to the room with the printer or scanner, plugging in, printing or scanning and then moving on.

When walking and listening to the 2.5 Admins I heard about the concept of going from treating servers as pets to treating them as cattle. They discussed the habit of giving servers functional names, rather than emotional ones. The examples were similar to DR-1 for for Disaster Recovery one, prod 1 for production one and related names.

Servers as Cattle, Not Pets

They spoke about the legacy habit of building a server up over a period of years to the modern habit of spinning up instances and containers that can easily be replicated within minutes, independent of hardware. They spoke about the need to take notes and set up an environment once, and then destroy it, and set it up again, and to follow the notes exactly. The concept is that you don’t set something up just once, you set it up over and over, and over again, until you have the work flow perfected, and written down, for repeatability, three years down the line.

Traccar is an open source fleet management solution that allows you to track vehicles and devices via a self-hosted server without using Google, Apple, Garmin, Suunto or other brands. If you setup your own server you can track as many vehicles as you like, and even track their live movements.

Options

I did not use it as a vehicle tracker. I used it as a personal GPS tracker, as I went for my daily walk yesterday afternoon. The tracker allows you to set how often it refreshes based on time in seconds, distance travelled in meters, or course changes in degrees.

For a long time I wasn’t tempted to play with Home Assistant or the Apple Home app. I don’t have smart light bulbs, or a smart fridge, or a thermostat that I can control remotely. I don’t have solar panels that are feeding a battery. In essence I thought that if I played with Home Assistant I would not be able to do anything. Now I see that this idea was wrong.

Today I installed Pi Hole on a Raspberry Pi 3 and configured it so that the router routes traffic through the Pi Hole before returning to the devices on my network. Installing Pi Hole on a Raspberry Pi 3 is relatively straight forward. Find the two or three lines of code, run them, and a minute or two later the device is ready and waiting.

You’re then asked to give the Pi a static IP address, and to modify the DHCP DNS listing so that traffic from the Swisscom router, in my cae, passes through the Pi Hole before arriving at the desired machine. I had to reboot the router to get traffic to go from the router to the Pi Hole and from the Pi Hole to the laptops and mobile phones. I write laptops but I have used just one laptop and mobile phone.

I knew that it would rain heavy yesterday (at the time when you read this) so I considered running so that I would spend less time in the weather. The issue, at this time of year, is that if you run you need to do so before the sun sets but you also want to wear lighter clothes, for running to be easier.

Ready for Rain

For these reasons I went for a walk instead. I rolled up the trousers to avoid contact between the socks and trousers. I wore waterproof trousers, and a good rain coat. I walked for an hour and a half in the rain and crossed almost no one. In this weather even the dog walkers stay home. That is what I want. I like when the paths are empty of people, when I can enjoy my solitary walks in solitude, without being reminded of my isolation.

It rarely happens. I rarely forget my airpods at home, and when I do I usually turn around to get them. Yesterday I didn’t turn around. I went for my walk anyway. You might think “so what?” and you’d be right to. It doesn’t change much. I usually listen to podcasts and audiobooks, rather than music. I like my walks to be intellectually stimulating, as well as physically good for me.

If you’re wondering why one of the tags in my post is “Day 388” it’s because I shifted from WordPress to ClassicPress once again. In so doing I lost access to Akismet and Jetpack. By losing Akismet I lose comment spam filtering. I also lost access to the Jetpack app so I lost access to my streak info. That’s why I included it as a task.

Astronomy Wallpaper

If, like me, you’re using the Astronomy Wallpaper on your mobile phones you will have noticed that the shadow over the Northern hemisphere has shifted. It has gone from being a south to North shadow to an East to West shadow from the top of Europe. You can see how parts of Norway, Sweden England and Finland are now in the dark for longer and longer parts of the day. It’s rational that we would see it, but it’s interesting that we can see an illustration of how seasons change the pattern of daylight on earth.

For a long time I thought that driving would give me freedom. I was impatient to be old enough to drive, and then I was impatient to pass my driving test. I failed the theory three times in Switzerland, zero in England, and the practical in England once, and once in Switzerland. Eventually I did pass my driving test in England, on Valentine’s day. I then drove to see the girlfriend of the time.

I quite like Garmin devices. I like that my Garmin Instinct Solar can run forever in summer, and less time in winter. I like that the Garmin Etrex SE can last for days or even weeks with my type of use. I also love the idea of the Garmin Etrex Solar. They make the claim that you “Get unlimited battery life when used in sunny 75,000 lux conditions or up to 200 hours with no solar charging.”