Using Esphome in HA, you can flash arduino’s using your browser.
I wanted to test with a M5stickC because of the intergrated sensors.
Steps to take:
Install Esphome add repo from https://esphome.io/guides/getting_started_hassio.html
Connect M5Stick to usb ( you can do this from the same machine where your browser is running ), i connected the device directly to the NUC where Home Assistant is running.
Open EspHome integration
New Device (First time it will ask for your default Wifi credentials)
Give it a name, and select Pick specifiec board (M5Stick-c)
When presented a edit field with yml, past below for first test
The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) is a fictional rogue computer operator created by Simon Travaglia, who takes out his anger on users (who are “lusers” to him) and others who pester him with their computer problems, uses his expertise against his enemies and manipulates his employer.
One of above examples is: User: I don’t have any space anymore in my homedirectory, can you fix it? Operator: Sure, .. logging in, deleting everything in users directory .. “fixed” User: Oh, thats fast, thanks (Unaware of empty directory)
Stuff i did
Hidden micro switch keyboard
A keyboard matrix has unused positions, i made a small microswitch in the hole of those little keyboard feet. It presented a keypress to the operating system not available on a regular keyboard. It unlocked my system. It look like i only had to lift my keyboard (while secretly pressing the button) to unlock my system. Another unlock/lock trick i used was a bluetooth ping to my phone. Leaving or coming back to my system was enough to lock/unlock screen.
Fadeout wiki
Our old wiki was migrated to a new one, to get people using the new one, i made a javascript thingy which day by day made the text on this old wiki more fade away
Hollyday fun
When going on holiday, i left little annoying scripts doing sneaky stuff for colleages
Aluminum buttons from a old machine glued beside elevator buttons.
Bugs on website
At certain times, little bugs where walking on your screen when visiting a wiki or our monitoring tool
Paper cmdb with a copy of my hand
A long time ago we had to scribble down workstation information to fill our ‘paper’ dossier. It contained a printed template with all the information. At one time i forgot to bring a template. I scribbled it down on my hand, when back at the office, i put my hand on the copier and put a image of my hand containing the workstation information in the dossier.
Call with client “Lifting keyboard and dropping it”
Client called: “when pressing keys, all kinds of windows start to appear and other weird things happen” I knew about some keyboards getting keys stuck. Looked like the windows key was the problem. (Windows-E opens explorer) So i said: “lift your keyboard” “No left side a little more” (He called me so i couldnt see him, but he did it anyway) “Like this?” “Yes, now drop it” i said Big noise of keyboard hitting desk .. (apparently unstuck said key) “Well?” i said “How did you do that? … it .. it worked!”
Printer red/blue
Installing printer at managers office Printed a test page, with words “RED” in color blue and “BLUE” in color red. Had to report back to him asap!
Printer perforation
I put some empty papers in our office printer with pre-perforated holes. Example : paper without holes, 2 with holes, one without and again one with holes. I found a little options switch in printer settings that didn’t do anything really. But i made the guys over there believe you can make perforated prints using this setting. Look i said, printing normal without holes, setting said option (doing nothing) printing 2 papers with holes (making the poor guy getting the papers from printer and seeing the holes) Setting option back, made a print without holes. So now you can do it. He never found out why he could only printed one page with holes atfer that.
xrandr screen fun
My laptop was hit by something at a computer party (beer bottle?) i could not read my screen on the left side lower part. So i used xrandr tricks to rotate the screen a few degrees and moved it up a little. Same tricks i’ve used at work, to fool around with our monitoring screens.
Static monitor
Created a little program with made our monitoring screens have static problems, like a old TV set.
Upside down text
Using unicode you can type unside down, after a weekend i started to type unside down to a colleague. Line after line, being serious about a problem. At the end i managed to make him believe it was a problem on his side.
Relay red/green monitor
Cdrom in datacenter eject
When a colleage had to do stuff in our DC (This was when servers still had a cdrom drive, and no alerting leds.) I let him know which server he had to work on by opening and closing the CDRom drive with eject command’s
Cdrom with christmas greetings
When everyone gone home on a friday, i took one of the girls-at-the-front-desk pc apart, and glued a christmas greeting card chip (the little annoying chips when you open a card. ) in the drive. Whenever she had to use the cdrom drive it played music.
Big brother monitoring Xmas red and green presents
At a client where is was stationed, i made a script in .. maybe june it was. Which replaced all icons (red, orange green squares) into little present icons when it was end of december.
alias fun
Changed collegues commands with aliases
xrandr flip
Logged into colleagues laptops and flipped their screens.
Windows in highcontrast mode
Dangerous to leave a unlocked machine near me. Pressing Β left Alt key + left Shift key + Print screen Makes a machine highcontast and bigger letters. People try to fix this bu editing the theme/color/font settings .. ultimately making things worse.
Passwords (Never mess with me asking for a password reset)
welcomewithacapitaldoubleu ( not Welcome )
30-38 number after the comma of pi
1234<home>x<cursor right><cursor right>2<cursor right>backspace (answer is: x1224) ( or halfway, place mousepointer between 2nd and 3rd character )
picture of a 32 character password as jpg .. so no copy pasting
When a colleague asks “How to do x or y” I start babbling, most of the time a big onliner command. Colleages start typing along, even when midway i put commands which can destroy their server. Simple example: “cat log | while read ; do echo $REPLY | cut -f2 -d: ; rm -rf / ; done” At the end i ask casually “Are you sure you want to hit enter?”
Created a web MP3 player in our office. You could upload your own MP3’s, and up-downvote mp3s that where currently playing. Some users uploads never arrived in the list π Some users coudn’t vote. π Player was called Badly Designed Sound Machine (BDSM) When i was not in office in december, only xmas tunes could be played.
When sitting opposite a colleage, i switched mouses. Put mine on his desk and his on mine. Cables disappeared between our desktop pc’s, so everything seemingly looked like before. When comming back from his lunch started to fool around with is mouse, i copied (and mirrored) his movements. So his mouse seemed to work, until i started to mess around.
Made a blender animation with a chain which hangs on one loop. The pole is also a collision object. I still got a problem with the chain breaking at the end of the animation.
Today i talked about creating apps for mobiles with a colleague.
I made me wonder what programming IDE i’ve used in the past.
Things i’ve made:
clog killer – a game application i made while working at a job. It was the name of a process on our servers we all hated. It was slow and messed up your terminal.
Webled – have to install this one again, to see what its purpose was π
Whistle hole calculator – When making your own tinwhistle/lowwhistle you had to calculate diameters and positions. I will make another post about this.
Made a Multiple-Choice Quiz tool, for learning Iai-do positions/terminology. (Japanese Martial Arts – See other posts)
A iscp Onkyo controller (see post about my web controller)
Tools used:
Android IDE
App inventor
??
And mobile applications using html5, php, css3 and jquery mobile
App ideas, not started or not completed:
Game for blind people (Or people who are bored out of their skull going to meetings) It involves a evolving maze game on a black screen, you have to remember the way. Hitting a wall, buzzz .. dead, start all over again. So you can hold your phone under the table or behind your back. (Black screen and no sound, just the little vibrating thinghy.)
New way to select app’s using a widget.
Pull down search game. (Have to look at the source again, i forgot what i did)
Downloads and screenshots:
Version 0.1 of gameTakeda quizzer
I’ll post more/better examples
Other:
Reversed engineered a tool found on a ‘hackers’ phone. Apparently it was a security test setup nobody was aware of. I was able to find urls and domains where some call-home functionality was involved.
Inkscape and some measurements. Use some control points to check for deviation. Choosing bigger distances gives greater accuracy! Add radius of trees to your measurements
Inkscape gives you length and angle degrees. Check your measurements : https://www.calculator.net/triangle-calculator.html