http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/project-task-management-using-trello-for-kanban-boards

A non-asinine approach to kanban for personal task tracking using Trello and Toggl.

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http://revision3.com/diytryin/10-relay-board-arduino-or-raspberry-pi-switch-on/

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http://www.hoffmanonline.com/stream_document.aspx?rRID=233309&pRID=162533

Good read.

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http://myhomelab.blogspot.com/2013/05/installing-mikrotik-routeros-under-VirtualBox.html

Since I’ve finally gotten around to building a decent VirtualBox installation, this may be useful/fun.

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Amana SofSound II Door Latch Replacement

Posted April 19, 2015 By Landis V

I’ve had such a great response to my West Bend slow cooker lid replacement post that when I found a bargain alternative part replacement for my Amana SofSound II dishwasher door latch, I thought I’d share this information as well.

We inherited this dishwasher when we purchased our house a few years ago.  The handle was always a little finicky and was probably broken from the onset, but our toddler seems to have finished it for good so we can no longer manipulate it in any way so that the relays in the handle will switch to allow current to the assembly.  I’m a DIY’er, so I turned to the Internet first using the machine model/manufacturer numbers, ADW350RAB and PADW350RAB0 respectively.  These turned up part numbers such as R0000430 and W10208084, which were pricey at around $100.  Further searching led to the Whirlpool AP4357962 and related, but these were still pretty pricey coming in north of $90 for a few pieces of plastic and a couple of relays.  Finally I ran across the Electrolux 5304442175 Latch Kit on Amazon for less than $27, and decided that was about the best I was going to do.  It worked fabulously!

I should advise that there are some subtle variations between the original part (in pictures below) and the replacement.  Probably the most notable of these is the tiny missing clip from the back of the latch body, shown in picture four.  I don’t think this will ever make much difference, and I’m relatively confident the two large screws (torx T25 if memory serves) will adequately hold it in place, and that the tab wouldn’t do much if they were to fail.

In the pictures below, you can see that the white “legs” on the left of the picture no longer contact the proper locations on the switches (small black rectangles near the spring).  The second picture shows the part number I used (154361203D) that got me closer to real results after removing the failed switch, and the last image shows the broken white plastic crossconnect that used to hold the switch legs parallel.

2015-03-24 20.50.43 2015-03-24 20.51.20 2015-03-24 20.52.03 2015-04-19 18.10.46

Please note, I explicitly disclaim any liability if you undertake such a replacement yourself.  This replacement takes place in immediate proximity to electrical current in an appliance that uses water, substitutes a factory part for one that does not appear to be specifically designed for the appliance, and has been performed and described by an individual who is decidedly not an expert in home appliance repair.  If you are not confident in your ability to safely perform such a replacement, please contact a competent appliance repair person.

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VM System With VGA Pass-Through

Posted March 31, 2015 By Landis V

Hardware hangup note for Ctrl+C to get past.
http://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/25h49k/debain_wheezy_network_installation_freezes_after/

Configured LVM environment with /home, /usr/, and /var on spinning platter drive.

Configured an IP reservation on my DHCP server, though I may change this to a true static address at some point.

Instructions for linux-headers and virtualbox setup:  https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox

Downloaded the extension pack with wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.36/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.36-97684.vbox-extpack (NOTE:  you will need to download the appropriate version for your installed VirtualBox version.  Run vboxmanage -v and compare the output version to the versions available at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads; it apears you will need to match at least Major.Minor version numbers) and installed using instructions at https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#vboxmanage-extpack.

Created a separate logical volume on my SSD drive.  Dedicated it to the Win10 guest (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Create_a_VM_configuration_to_boot_from_the_physical_drive).

Created a VM from the CLI.  Had to actually go into the BIOS and enable AMD-V on my Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 as it was disabled.  Could not get the version of VirtualBox included with the Debian distribution to give anything except the “Your PC needs to restart” 0x0000005D error, even when trying to force the NX bit using info for setting CMPXCHG16B as found at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/try-windows-10-youre-running-linux/.  Ultimately ended up loosely following instructions from http://www.admin-magazine.com/Articles/Server-Virtualization-with-VirtualBox but substituting “wheezy contrib” for “lucid contrib” early in the instructions, and substituting 4.3 for 4.1, then running a “modifyvm” and setting ostype to Windows81_64.  Once this was done, I was able to start the install process.  Yay.

Had to modify the e1000g0 adapter config from http://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/create-virtualbox-vm-from-the-command-line.html to instead be “eth0” since I’m on a linux box (also had to remove it before re-adding, got an error when even attempting to start the machine).

Mouse pointer was batty, like it was scaled.  Ended up downloading the appropriate VirtualBox guest additions to the host machine, mounting them in the DVD drive, selecting the AMD64 file, bringing up properties and setting to compatibility mode Windows 8 (can’t seem to locate where I found this), and was able to install.  Pointer synced, system is on the web.

Second Steps – Debian LXC Guest for KDE

Debian 7.8

#From https://wiki.debian.org/LXC - loosely

apt-get install lxc
apt-get install bridge-utils libvirt-bin debootstrap

# Failed with:
# Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/pool/updates/main/libx/libxml2/libxml2-utils_2.8.0+dfsg1-7+wheezy3_amd64.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 128.31.0.63 80]
# E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

apt-get
apt-get install bridge-utils libvirt-bin debootstrap

# Successful this time

echo -e "cgroup\t/sys/fs/cgroup\tcgroup\tdefaults\t0\t0" >>/etc/fstab
mount /sys/fs/cgroup
mount

# Confirmed that cgroup is mounted

lxc-checkconfig

# All show enabled
# Check out http://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/announcing-turnkey-lxc, maybe add
# Turnkey template for some other functionality on this box
# Switched tracks and decided to try out Docker
# From http://docs.docker.com/installation/debian/#debian-wheezystable-7x-64-bit

echo "deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install -t wheezy-backports linux-image-amd64
reboot

# SSH'ed back into machine, verify new kernel

uname -a
wget https://get.docker.com/
chmod +x index.html
gpasswd -a my-account docker
service docker restart

# Service apparently did not restart, so had to start it again manually

service docker start

# Now as non-root
# Determined the following from http://www.syncano.com/getting-started-docker/

docker pull ubuntu:14.10
docker images

# Lists the newly pulled image; attempted to run it.
docker run -t ubuntu:14.10

# At this point, continuously encountered an error similar to the following:
# FATA[0034] Error response from daemon: Cannot start container (container UUID here): [8] System error: write /sys/fs/cgroup/docker/(container UUID here)/cgroup.procs: no space left on device
# There is definitely space left on the device, I do not appear to be lacking inodes as others seem to have encountered similarly, and permissions look OK.
# Started to install strace to troubleshoot further... but I need to get an accounting system back online.
# Switched to a VirtualBox KDE environment plan.  I guess I can always kill it later :)

lvm lvcreate -L 10g -n kmm
wget http://peppermintos.com/iso/Peppermint-5-20140623-amd64.iso
vboxmanage createvm --name kmm --register
vboxmanage modifyvm kmm --memory 1024 --acpi on --boot1 dvd --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/kmm/kmmSSD.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/amdfx/kmm
vboxmanage storagectl kmm --name "SATA Controller" --add sata
vboxmanage storageattach kmm --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/kmm/kmmSSD.vmdk
vboxmanage storageattach kmm --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium ./Peppermint-5-20140623-amd64.iso
vboxmanage modifyvm kmm --ostype Ubuntu_64 --vrde on --vrdeport 22888
vboxmanage startvm kmm --type headless

# Able to RDP in and started Peppermint install process.
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http://www.cyberciti.biz/cloud-computing/use-vagrant-to-create-small-virtual-lab-on-linux-osx/

Good step through on a Vagrant setup.

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