Dustin.lol

Automated Podcast Downloading

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My kid loves the Story Pirates podcast, and listens to it as she goes to bed. I used to manually download new episodes and add it to my media library, so she could listen to it on the Sonos speaker in her room. It took very little time to download the file and add it to my server, but I thought, it’ll be easy to automate this.

Automating my printer with Linux and Home Assistant

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For years I’ve used a smart plug with my old, dumb printer. I used an Alexa or Siri voice command to turn on my the smart plug, and another automation at 11pm to turn off the plug. This worked great with no complaints from my family. Of course, I wasn’t satisfied with this solution, and wanted to automate the voice command part out.

Home Assistant powered meeting lights

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My wife and and I both work from home. We enjoy it, but it’s not without it’s issues. Using Home Assistant, I’m trying to create automations that make our work day smoother. The first automation turns on a light to notify us if we have an upcoming meeting.

Zoom with The Key v2

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Originally an April Fool’s joke, Drop and Stack Overflow released the second version of their compact macropad, The Key v2. I missed the original run of The Key, but I preordered the v2 and recently received it.

Siri Activated Apple TV Sleep Timer

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I recently added an Apple TV to my bedroom TV. The Apple TV interface is so much better than the ten year old LG Smart TV software. The one issue I have is using the sleep timer. When the TV’s sleep timer turns off the TV, it doesn’t always stop the Apple TV. This led me to look into Apple TV sleep timer options.

Upcoming meetings on an epaper display

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I really got interested in epaper recently and wanted to do a project with an epaper display. Using an extra Raspberry Pi Zero W I had lying around, I was able write a little Python to display upcoming meetings from my Google Calendar.

Adding AirPrint to my old printer

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have a perfectly good printer. It’s cheap to own and meets all my printing needs. The one thing I wish it had was AirPrint. After a lot of effort, I was able to setup my Raspberry Pi as an AirPrint server so I can easily print from my iPhone.

Homekit Support for my Flic buttons

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve owned a Flic smart buttons since they were an Indiegogo project back in 2015. I use them as a light switch for my smartlights, but I wished I could use them to control more of my Homekit devices. Luckily there’s a Homebridge plugin that adds Homekit support.

Adding AirPlay to my outdated Sonos

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Other than running Homebridge, my Raspberry Pi has been mostly untouched since I setup my Sonos Volume Automation. I’ve been seeing what I can do to make my devices smarter using my Raspberry Pi as a bridge. I’m starting with AirPlay for my older Sonos system.

Creating a timer shortcut in MacOS Monterey

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I recently upgraded to MacOS Monterey. It’s ok. The most exciting thing is that MacOS now supports Shortcuts. A Redditor in r/shortcuts asked if there was a way to set a timer with Shortcuts on a Mac. This started my quest to figure it out.

Using iPhone Shortcuts to build a better timer

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My wife and I set lots of timers. Timers for cooking, timers for the laundry, timers for pour over coffee, timers to remind us that our daughter has been watching tv too long and needs to go to bed, and many more. While it’s not exactly difficult to set a timer on my iPhone, I wanted a shortcut to speed up the process.

Double Tapping Shift for Caps Lock

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I recently rediscovered the hyper key on MacOS. Most suggestions remap caps lock to the hyper key, but I occasionally need caps lock ensure random people in the comments section know I’m yelling at them. This started my quest to figure out how to double tap shift to enable caps lock on MacOS.

Reviving a Pebble Time

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Way back in May of 2015, I received my Pebble Time. The Pebble Time was a smartwatch with a color e-paper screen and the most successful Kickstarter campaign of all time. Unfortunately for my Pebble Time, I received an Apple Watch as a gift a few days later. After six years with an Apple Watch, I decided to revisit the Pebble Time.

Using Homebridge to turn down my soundbar

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have a Sonos Playbar connected to my TV. The living room TV is right under my daughter’s bedroom. If I forget to turn down the volume, the Playbar can be loud enough to wake her up when I turn on the TV. Using Homebridge and some iOS Home app automations, I was able to prevent this.

Google Apps Script

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My primary email address is a Gmail address, but I have an old Yahoo email address that still gets the occasional email. Rather than check both accounts, I use a Gmail feature called Gmailify that lets me use Gmail like an email client to check another service’s mailbox.

Mobile Verification Toolkit

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

After the incredible investigation by the journalists associated with the Pegasus project, I got super interested in the Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT) released by the Amnesty International Security Lab. I’m definitely not deluded enough to think I’m important enough to be targeted, but I did want to try the tool.

A Better Zoom Mute Indicator

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I originaly thought my last attempt at creating a Zoom mute indicator was good enough, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to rebuild the whole thing with something new.

Quarantine Crafts

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the course of being stuck at home during Coronavirus pandemic, I had a lot of hours to fill with my daughter. She loves crafts, but, unfortunately for her, I can’t craft anything to save my life. I’ll be updating the post as I create more masterpieces.

Zoom Mute Indicator

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Anyone that’s seen the pop up above knows the shame of trying to speak when on mute in a Zoom call.

Booting up a vintage eMate 300

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If I described an Apple device with a touchscreen, stylus, handwriting recognition and a keyboard, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I was talking about an iPad Pro.

AI Powered Note Taking

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve all been there

Running a meeting and taking notes the traditional way is tough. You’re sharing a demo with your computer, taking notes in a paper notebook, asking people to repeat themselves to write it all down. Maybe you’re sharing your screen and furiously flipping between your browser tabs to show the web app and take notes in a Google Doc.

There has to be a better way!

A QuickTake 100 in the MacOS era

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Sat, 26 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

When my parents were moving out of my childhood home, I raided my dad’s electronics closet. Over the years he’d collected a few great relics. One of the most mysterious items in his collection was the Apple QuickTake 100.

Creating a Website with Grav

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A big part of my job is running a team that builds websites for academic departments at Stanford. I’m pretty comfortable building websites, but at work we exclusively build on Drupal. I wanted to try out a different CMS.

About me

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi, my name is Dustin. I’m an accidental program manager that just needed a project to keep busy during quarantine. I decided I’d rebuild my personal blog using Hugo.

I (infrequently) write about pretty random stuff. You won’t find any ads here (mainly because I’m too lazy to figure out how to add ads to my site). If you really liked something you saw here, you could buy me a coffee.

Your entry has been recorded. High Five

hi@dustin.lol (Dustin) — Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I really didn’t expect anyone to actually submit this form. I’m kind of stunned you’re seeing this.