Community Coffee Break

Topics Discussed:

bp9
- First coffee break for 2021!
- Reviews the work done on understanding the garage door opener
- drew schematic/circuit diagram by hand first, then KiCAD on linux
- 600 lb gorrilla is specialized IC with funny part number. Likely a on-off run.
- Sad thing is that searching for that part number on duckduckgo brings our coffee breaks up as nearly the first link!
- Back to square one: component level repair to fix the device.
- Suggested oshpark.com and PCBWay for building printed circuit boards.
- https://oshpark.com/
- https://www.pcbway.com/
- They can accept gerber files and construct your board by combining everyone's board with yours.
- Minimum order is something like three.
- Trackuino is a shield for an arduino for APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System).
- Notes that days are getting longer very quickly: 2 weeks after 21-Dec (shortest Day of the Year) and the sun is setting nearly an hour later now? Most likely just my perception, not reality :-)
- twitch + roku = twoku, an "unauthorized" app that you can add to your Roku channel lineup.
- You must sign on to your Roku account to add this channel, you cannot do it from the Roku device.
- Still having issues understanding TLS connections between client and server.
- Will most likely just move forward with the syncing process "in-the-clear", since that's the part that must work, then plug in the TLS secure connection later.
- After the coffee break was done, bp9 realized that he can use SSH Port Forwarding function to tunnel his connection through the SSH connection.

Doug
- Attempted to use his RasPi for a media center.
- Bought a wireless keyboard but it won't work on the RasPi.
- Researched and thought it might need a powered USB hub so he bought one.
- bp9 wondered why since it is a wireless keyboard - it doesn't use wires.
- Is it bluetooth or WiFi?? -- It's 2.4G WiFi.
- bp9's Roku remote is WiFi.
- Dougs PC is running Windows, and the keyboard works on that.
- Does has not tried the new keyboard on any linux distro, so bp9 suggests doing that (not the RasPi).
- Basically bp9 wants to know if this is a Windows vs. linux issue.

Peter
- Mentioned Robbie and Jeff's conversation about building Printed Circuit Board (PCB).
- Peter tried to warn them off that approach due to nasty chemicals that are needed for that process.
- Had no luck with an antenna switcher for his ham radio antennas. Cheap part from China.
- bp9 suggested MFJ Enterprises and Ham Radio Outlet but still have to deal with shipping from USA to Ireland.
- https://mfjenterprises.com/
- http://www.hamradio.com/
- Peter and another ham buddy built a home-brew version of that using relay from an Car Parts store?
- Temps were -7 degrees C and they got snow.
- Has built a password generator for his sister who works "for the Government"
- Uses a passphrase to generate a hash, then converts the hash to a secure password.
- bp9 uses a standalone password manager to generate passwords so never occurred to bp9 to write a password generator.
- Solbu uses a standalone pwd generator (APG, linux based) that generates pronounceable passwords.
- bp9 and Peter joked about NetworkHack.exe and IHateWindows.exe because there are so many executables called that!

Solbu
- Is still dealing with mouse issues, or has fixed the mouse issues.
- Lots of cupboard stuff all over his counters, he hasn't stacked them back into his cupboards yet.
- Watching lots of youtube.
- bp9 got twitch working on Roku again!
- Solbu is so far north that the sun goes down around 3:30pm!
- Is starting to use discord more: Coming over to the dark side! LOL
- Uses an application (lightcord) to log into discord, not using an browser.
- His channel icons are black and white, not color!
- bp9 still needs to pick Solbu's brains on using TLS.
- Solbu suggests "stunnel" for tunneling clear-text connections through TLS.
- bp9 notes that he already uses SSH on all connections to his server, even inside his own network, so it should be possible to forward connections through the SSH connection, thereby creating a secure tunnel.