Getting WordPress Brute Force Login Attacks Down to Zero
I was always mildly concerned of the brute force logon attempts to my blog. Using plugins, I renamed the login page and disabled the XML-RPC API calls that require login. As a result, I was able to bring attacks down to zero.
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CEC-like Power Features with Non-CEC-Equipment
With a Raspberry Pico, I monitor my Sony amplifier from the 90s and my 2013 Dell monitor, and switch on my NUC-based media center if any of these devices are switched on. This is comparable to the CEC functionality that more modern devices provide via the HDMI port. I also utilize the USB/serial interface of the Pico to check if any of the two devices is still on to include this into my auto-shutdown script logic.
As a result, my media center boots up as soon as I switch on my amplifier or my monitor, and only auto-shuts down if both are off.
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Media Center Auto Shutdown and RTC Wakeup Based on tvheadend Recording Schedule
I created a script that runs via cron job that will power off my media center if it is not in use, but will program the real time clock (RTC) on the motherboard to wake up the system in time to run a scheduled recording, and/or to update the EPG data, and from that derive potential new or changed auto-recordings. To determine if the system is currently not in use, I
- Check if the monitor is off
- Check if any audio is playing, e.g., Spotify or KODI is playing anything
- Check if the wireless keyboard is connected
- Check if tvheadend is currently recording something
Also, the shutdown processing can be blocked by creating a flag file. If that file exists, no shutdown will happen.
The wake-up time is either the next recording time plus some allowance for boot time, or every 24 hours, whatever comes first. This makes sure that at least once a day the EPG is updated and tvheadend can update its auto-recording-schedule.
As a result, I reduce power consumption of the media center considerably.
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My Next Media Center Iteration: Intel NUC8i3BEH
My Raspberry Pi 4 based media center has some issues, which I was able to resolve by switching to an Intel NUC8i3BEH platform. I was able to make the device quiet despite of its fan, and set up everything to have live TV and PVR, a web browser, Spotify and other DRM content in a very usable and performant setup.
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Simple Capacitive Water Sensor for a Water Container
From simple, standard electric cable I built a capacitive sensor to assess the water level in my water container. While the circuit was replicated from this blog (thanks for sharing!), I’d like to share how I built the actual capacitor.
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Replacing Fabtotum Hybrid Head v1 Hotend with E3D Lite6
I replaced the stock hotend of the Fabtotum Personal Fabricator Hybrid Head v1 by an E3D Lite6 hotend (The full metal V6 should work the same way). In this post I describe the steps to remove the old hotend, get in the new hotend and the simple modifications to the firmware that were required.
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Quick Note: Modify the WordPress Comments Cookie Consent in an Update-stable Way
It always bothered me that I could not modify the text (“Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.”) of the cookie consent checkbox in the WordPress comments section to explicitly mention that it uses cookies. Continue reading “Quick Note: Modify the WordPress Comments Cookie Consent in an Update-stable Way”
Floating Table of Contents
I wanted to have a floating table of contents for my posts, but could not find any free plugin that allowed me to do so. Using a combination of plugins, I created a floating TOC myself, which is not perfect, but good enough.
Hiking Maps Follow-Up: Large Area Maps
The approach for creating feature-rich hiking maps described in my earlier post was limited in area, since it uses the Overpass API to download OSM data. The Overpass API has a restriction with regard to the amount of data downloadable in one go. In this post I describe a way to download a much larger area if needed, using the PBF files available from Geofrabrik and processing them with Osmosis.
Legal EPG Scraper for ARD TV Stations to Use With tvheadend External XMLTV Grabber
I wrote a Python EPG scraper for the EPG data of the German TV stations broadcast by ARD. It is legal for private use. Here I share the code and my thoughts behind it.