I had a recent task to automate building a custom Debian image, using some custom software wrapped up as *.deb packages. These packages are stored in an local APT repository via reprepro (also created and populated by our script). The problem I kept running into was my script would prompt for the GPG key’s passphrase. This breaks the automation efforts we were striving for.

I’ve over simplified here for the sake of keeping this article short and concise.

It took a lot of digging, but the “fix” for the situation above was to use a passphrase-less key. Most of the…

For when you have many network interfaces

The short version:

ip addr show $(ip route | awk '/default/ { print $5 }') | grep "inet" | head -n 1 | awk '/inet/ {print $2}' | cut -d'/' -f1

• We use ip route and awk to determine the name of our default network interface
• We use ip addr to get the IP details for that interface
• We grep for only the line(s) that indicate “inet”
• We then make sure we are only dealing with one line via the head command. …

I have been writing code for the past couple of decades. Through it all I pushed myself to be able to create applications that would solve more and more complex needs. I have done a great deal of research to expand my dev skills and knowledge to the point that I’d guess 95% of what I know is “self taught” (aka not learned through traditional academic routes). My focus has been web based applications. …

I recently updated my Intel NUC (model NUC6i7KYK) to run MX Linux instead of the original Debian install I had on the box. Everything is running great out of the box. Except Blender. Finding out why took a bit of sleuthing.

Short form — firing up Blender with the INTEL_DEBUG=reemit environment variable *may* clean up the crashes.

Every other box/laptop I have is running MX Linux already, and only my desktop — the Intel NUC — was still running Debian. I had just picked up a 1TB M.2 drive for that box to replace the two smaller drives (120GB and…

Last month I installed the Ender Extender 400 kit on to my Ender 3 Pro. When I wrote up my original article I was still working through the last couple of tweaks I needed to ensure the printer would work as expected. Since then I’m happy to report that the printer is working out amazingly.

Here is my very first successful print on the HUGE new build space.

I have applied the Ender Extender 400 to my Ender 3 Pro. There are some gotcha’s that need to be considered over and above the extender kit.

The Creality Ender 3, Ender 3 Pro, Ender 3 V2, and Ender 5 printers are popular 3D printers. These are relatively simple to assemble, setup, tune, and get printing with good output. And they are inexpensive compared to other vendors providing similar specifications. The Ender 3 models come with a 220mm X 220mm print bed (or a 235mm X 235mm). This is good for most prints, but can require some models to need…

I have just started another Node.JS project and noticed how fast I was able to go from concept to writing productive code. By productive code I mean code that applies to the project, not “foundational” work needed to get the coding environment ready for your project. I’m sharing how I did that here. Let me know if you have any tips to speed up that process even more.

The project

This is a research project diving into the guts of e-commerce. This is a large topic that has more steps than “just post a product” to it. …

I recently dusted off a 3D Printer I had sitting in the basement. It was placed there because it had many challenges to it and I just didn’t have the time to address them. Thanks to the pandemic I had an opportunity to get back to it. I got my start with 3D Printing in 2012 with a Makerbot Replicator. By 2014 I had to set aside 3D Printing to focus on some family issues that had come up (and have since been resolved in a positive manner). So my skills were quite dusty as well.

The printer is a…