Tech Library
All things related to tech, that does not involve web development, Raspberry Pi, or Arduino. Get the latest updates faster by subscribing to the Tech Library Feed.
Black In Tech 2024
Groups or content targeted for or created by Black people in the IT industry. Some of the resources apply to mutliple areas of tech, while others are specific. Some groups...
Lessons from Live Stream on Tech Thursdays
I completed another live stream this past week where I talked about tech. One thing that I have noticed is that there are some questions that get regularly asked. One...
Results from Foundational C# Certification Exam
Foundational C# with Microsoft Certification Exam: Passed Number of questions: 80 Correct answers: 67 Percent correct: 83.8% Time: 25:36...
Rebuilding My Home Network
Background I have been having issues with my home network. Running a TP-Link router with DD-WRT installed, for reasons unknown to me, the WiFi would randomly stop working....
Check For Power Outage, Shell Script
I havea computer that runs 24/7. It is connected to a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) so that it does go offline when there are momentary power outages. One problem...
Video Processor Application
Problem I wanted to have a way to render and batch process the videos that I create for my YouTube channels and other platforms without having to do a lot of manual...
My Docker Containers
At one point, I ran virtual machines for various services or installed them directly to the media computer that runs 24/7. I have gotten away from virtual machines because...
Disable Wayland Graphics on Ubuntu
I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS system. Overall the upgrade went smooth, but there was one thing that was off. That was the monitor setup. The computer that I have...
Put Your Documentation In Source Code
As I research various technologies and ways of doing things, one thing that I found is that people are putting their project documentation in with their source code. Now...
Using Microsoft Outlook as Intended
Having worked in IT for a number of years, one thing that is fairly common is having to use Microsoft Outlook for calendar and email. One thing that most do not realize,...
Compress All Files with XZ Compression
Problem I wanted to compress all of the tar files in the directories for video processor application. Given the number of files, I did not want to do this one by one....
Find Length of Shell (Bash) Variable
I was building an automation and needed to find the length of the variable. After doing some research, I found that you can do that easily with the commands below. $...
Batch Processing Videos with FFMPEG
As you may or may not know, I run couple of YouTube channels. One of the channels I post dash cam video of trips and bad driving. The other channel I post #"...
Automating Toastmasters Meeting Recordings
During the summer, I was nominated and eventually elected to be the Public Relations chair for the Toastmasters club that I am a member of. One of the duties that the role...
Roe V. Wade and Your Digital Footprint
Roe v Wade was overturned on Friday. That means that those to want to have an abortion will have to travel to states that allow it. That also means that in the states that...
Finding Thanksgiving Date in C#
I was looking for a way to determine the day of Thanksgiving for the current year. Looked online, but did not find a solution that worked. Thus had to come up with my own...
Tech Interview Tips
Having sat on both sides of the interview desk, there are certain things that I have learned and have created this resource to share those details. They are in no...
Getting Into Tech - Questions and Answers
Since first learning how to code in 2002, holding various part- and full-time paid positions since 2008, a follower of #BlackTechTwitter on Twitter, and participating in a...
Automate YouTube Video Creation
Background As some of you may know, I run two YouTube channels. One is Robinson Handy and Technology Services, which I talk about tech, do it yourself repairs and builds,...
Git Cheatsheet
Cheatsheet of commands to use when working with git. This is a quick reference for the commands that are most commonly used when working with Git. A description of what...
Adding GitHub Actions to Blog
Background As you may know, I use MkDocs to generate the static pages for my website. This means that the posts that I write are written in Markdown and then I have to run...
Got a 3D Printer. Now what?
An individual that know from the community reached out to me and said that he wanted to donate a 3D printer that he had to my NSBE chapter. This was unexpected and I had...
Cleaning Nuget Packages
Problem I noticed that the disk space on my development computer had significantly decreased. After running df -h . via the terminal, I found that there were a lot of...
Breaking Into Tech (A Perspective)
Yesterday I attended a session about breaking into tech. This is a topic that I frequently see asked on Black Tech Twitter and various tech Facebook groups that I'm in....
Fan Control Script for OpenWRT
The LinkSys WRT1900AC router comes with a built in fan. I wanted to find a way to be able to control the fan so that it would run based when certain temperature thresholds...
Montgomery River Region Digital Marketing 6-Weeks Cohort
The local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in partnership with mutliple sponsors, held a digtal marketing course of the span of 6 weeks. The reason that I signed...
Calendar Versioning Works
I have been working on several size projects. One of those projects, related to the Christmas Light Show called Falcon Pi Twitter, has custom built software that runs it....
Ubuntu Automation Scripts
Solution The purpose of this repository is to hold scripts that use for routine tasks, such as updating packages, starting virtual machines, and automatically commiting...
Kdenlive to YouTube
Problem As a content creator, creating content can be a time consuming task. Wanted to come up with a way to improve the efficiency of this task by creating an automated...
Coding Challenges
Problem I found that people want to learn about software development, web development, and programming. I decided on creating tutorials that show people how to learn and...
Linux Resources
Wanting to get a Linux certification, but do not have any experience with it? The resources below will get you on the way to learning Linux and what all it has to offer....
Find SQL Server Stored Procedure or Function by Contents
Find SQL Server Stored Procedure or Function By Contents Problem I was working making changes to a table function that is in a SQL Server database. This update was being...
Black In Tech 2021
Groups or content targeted for or created by Black people in the IT industry. Some of the resources apply to mutliple areas of tech, while others are specific. Some groups...
Remove Duplicate Files on Linux
Problem I was cleaning files on the system. Wanted to get rid of files that were duplicated as I had two computers that had gotten out of sync with each other. Solution...
Why Do Coding Challenges?
What is a coding challenge? A coding challenge strives to test ones ability to be able to solve a problem using a defined set of criteria. Often times, coding challenges...
Automatically Commit Files with Script
Problem While having backups are important, the problem that I had was that I would not remember to do the backups on a regular basis. The Christmas light show has lots of...
Automatically Transfer Files via SSH
Problem I have files that I load from my dash camera and phone. I have an application that will assemble those files into a tarball that would then be processed into a...
Removing Linux Kernels
Problem I noticed that I could not connect to one of my virutal machines (VM). I have a script that checks to see if the machines were offline and if so it will start...
How Programmers Can Stay In Shape
When you have a desk job for a living, sometimes you get tired of sitting down all of the time. I know that I do. Often times when I go out and everyone around me is...
Get A Tech Job with No Experience
Background In a Facebook group that I am a member of, someone asked the following: Web Developer's How are you all preparing for interviews? I have no actual web...
Coding Challenge Generate Random Passwords
Links Mentioned Coding Challenge Repository Transcript (Unedited) what's going on good people this video i'm going to continue building out a coding challenge that i did...
Git Local Branch Cleanup
After you create a number of branches with git, it becomes outdated and a maintenance issue since local branches are not synchronized with branches on the server or...
Coding Challenge Create Hangman Game
Links Mentioned Coding Challenge Repository Transcript (Unedited) what's going on good people this video will be a coding challenge video the challenge is actually a...
Commit Without Files
I was recently looking into whether it was possible to write commit messages without actually commiting files. Come to find out, it is possible. You're probably thinking,...
Coding Challenge Fizz Buzz with .NET Core
Links Mentioned Coding Challenge Repository Transcript (Unedited) what's going on good people so this video will be another coding challenge this coding challenge will be...
Internet Monitor Project
Problem My router would occasionally disconnect any of the wireless clients that were connected to it. Since I have wired and wireless devices connected, some of the time...
.NET / .NET Core CheatSheet
Cheatsheets have useful commands to do tasks that you may forget. This cheatsheet consisits of commands that I use when buidling .NET Core applications using Visual Studio...
Control GPIO with .NET Core on Raspberry Pi
Background I wanted to convert the Python code for the Traffic Pi over to .NET Core with C#. These are the steps that I followed to get it set up on the Raspberry Pi 3...
FFMPEG for Image Slideshow
Background I needed to create a YouTube channel trailer for another channel that I manage for an organization. The channel already existed for some time, there was not...
Git: Change Master Branch to Main Branch
Background The racial interactions that have taken place in the United States during 2020 have prompted a number of changes to take place. Calls for police reform, better...
Prune Branches In Visual Studio
Background Majority of my experience with Git has been via the command line. As you may know, Git was created by the same person that created Linux, Linus Torvalds. Thus...
Uninstall Java from Ubuntu
Background Due to a change in job, I will be doing more coding in C# and .NET Core instead of Java. That being said, you probably will not be seeing any more Java...
HP Wireless Printer Problems
Background I had a job for a chair assembly for a customer. The only problem was that the customer had not received the chair. It was scheduled to be delivered on the same...
Generate Timelapse with FFMPEG
I run multiple YouTube channels. One of which is the dash cam channel where I post videos of my travels. #!/bin/bash ############################################### ##...
Linux Training Session, April 2020
MARCH 20, 2020 23:14 UPDATE Due to the concerns and gathering restrictions that have been put in place by the local government due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19), this...
Linux Training Session Notes, March 2020
Linux Training Session Notes, March 2020 Background Information As mentioned in the training session, I am providing the output from the terminal from the commands that...
Linux Training Session
Linux Training Session UPDATED MARCH 6, 2020 Notes from this training session are now available. ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FEBRUARY 29, 2020 On March 1, 2020, I will be hosting...
Developer Uses Page
Developer Uses Page Background Recently, I was browsing GitHub to see how others had done their blogs and personal websites to brand themselves. In the process, I came...
7 Lessons Learned as Production Support or Help Desk Agent
Background I worked for 7 years in Production Support role. When I explained the type of work that I did, I often related it to calling customer service when your internet...
Automate Unattended Upgrades on Ubuntu
Summary I cover how to set up your Ubuntu system to automatically update itself so that you have less maintenance to perform. Transcript (Unedited) what's going on YouTube...
Copying Infested Code
Background As some of you may know, my current role consists of me building and maintaining automations. The thing about writing code is that at some point, maintenance...
When Deploying Before Testing
When Deploying Before Testing As you may know, on July 3, 2019, Facebook, Instagram, Down Detector, and a number of other websites were partially or fully unavailable....
7 Reasons I Can Do That Without The App
7 Reasons I Can Do That Without The App These days, everybody wants you to download their app. However, before installing an app, I ask myself whether I really do need the...
Sow, A Planting Companion
What is the Cooperative Extension? The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) is based out of Auburn University (it hurts to type that... Roll Tide... That's better!)...
Use Gparted to Partition USB Drive
Summary This tutorial shows you how to format or partition a USB thumb drive using Gparted on your Linux.
Set Timezone on Ubuntu 18.04 Server
Summary This video tutorial shows you how to set the timezone on an Ubuntu Server. The server used in this video is an Ubuntu 18.04 server. The process for setting the...
Archive Project in Kdenlive
Summary This tutorial shows you how to archive your video project within Kdenlive. Most of the time, when creating a video project, videographers will pull all of the...
Upgrade Ubuntu Script
Summary This video shows how to upgrade Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Server Edition to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Server Edition. This video does not have any verbal commentary as the purpose...
Power On Wemo Switch After Power Failure with Home Assistant
Summary This tutorial shows you how to power on a Wemo switch after a power failure. When a power failure occurs, the Wemo switch will default to the Off state. I'm using...
Install HDHRViewer Plug-in for Live TV on Plex Media Server
Summary In this tutorial, you'll see how to install the HDHR Viewer plugin in Plex Media Server. This plugin allows you to watch content cable or OTA (over the air)...
Install Seven Square on Ubuntu
Summary This tutorial shows how to install Seven Square on your Ubuntu machine. Seven Square allows you to view your Android device on your PC. This is great if you have...
Music Library Cleanup with fdupes
Summary Show you how to remove duplicates from your music library collection on a Linux / Ubuntu computer. The software used in this tutorial is called fdupes. Commands...
Configure HDHomeRun Connect with Kodi on Ubuntu
Summary This tutorial shows how configure the HDHomeRun Connect to work with Kodi on Ubuntu. For more information about the HDHomeRun Tuners, visit the product's website...
Replace Optical Drive in PC
Background This tutorial shows you how to replace a DVD-ROM drive in with a Blu-Ray drive in a computer. This step by step tutorial covers removing the computer case and...
Setup MyQ with Home Assistant
Background This tutorial shows you how to set up MyQ to work with Home Assistant. The opener that is connected to in this tutorial is of the Liftmaster brand.
Configure Simplisafe with Home Assistant
Background This tutorial shows how to setup Simplisafe with Home Assistant. Walkthrough of adding the lines in the configuration file is shown, as well as the icon that...
Configure DD WRT with Home Assistant
Configure DD WRT with Home Assistant This tutorial explains how to set up DD WRT router with home assistant. Using this setup, Home Assistant can react when certain...
Belkin Wemo Switch Unboxing
Background This video is the unboxing of the Belkin Wemo Switch. This unboxing is of the full size Belkin Wemo. It shows the size of the Belkin Wemo relative to the size...
Configure etckeeper with Gitlab
Background This tutorial shows how to configure etckeeper and GitLab to manage configuration files stored in the /etc directory on your Ubuntu desktop or server. Commands...
Redirect to Home Assistant using Apache
This video tutorial provides steps on how to set up your Home Assistant server to redirect to the appropriate port number so that you don't have to manually enter it when...
Upgrade Home Assistant
Background This tutorial describes how to update Home Assistant that is running in a Python virtual environment. Commands Used The commands that are entered in this video...
install Kodi on Ubuntu
install Kodi on Ubuntu This video shows you how to install Kodi (formerly XBMC) on your Ubuntu device.
Setup HP Network Printer on Ubuntu 16.04
Background This tutorial shows how to set up an HP printer on Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop. The HP LIP can be installed from the Ubuntu Software Center. The installation of the HP...
Setup SSH Key Authentication
Background This tutorial shows how to set up SSH authentication between two Linux servers. This allows for a connection between servers to be done without the use of a...
Uninstall Plex Media Server from Ubuntu 16.04
Background This tutorial shows how to uninstall Plex Media Server from Ubuntu 16.04 using the command line.
Install Plex on Ubuntu 16.04 Server or Desktop
Install Plex on Ubuntu 16.04 Server or Desktop This tutorial shows how to install Plex Media Server on Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop or Server. If you have comments or questions...
Install Postfix to Use Gmail as SMTP server on Ubuntu 16.04
Install Postfix to Use Gmail as SMTP server on Ubuntu 16.04 This tutorial shows how to install Postfix as a SMTP server on Ubuntu 16.04 Server and Desktop versions.
Install Home Assistant on Ubuntu 16.04 VM
Install Home Assistant on Ubuntu 16.04 VM This tutorial shows how to install Home Assistant on an Ubuntu 16.04 Virtual Machine using the steps provided on the Home...
Setup Ubuntu 16.04 on VirtualBox
Setup Ubuntu 16.04 on VirtualBox This video shows Ubuntu 16.04 being installed on a VirtualBox virtual machine. This video does not provide detailed instructions. This...
Install VirtualBox on Ubuntu 16.04
Background This tutorial shows how to install Oracle VirtualBox on Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop.
Install Webmin on Ubuntu 16.04
Background Webmin is a great web-based, system administration tool for Ubuntu-based desktop or servers. Since Webmin is web-based, you don't have to be familiar with the...
Use Twitter and Rules for FarmOS Notifications
Use Twitter and Rules for FarmOS Notifications Intro This tutorial allows you to use Twitter for notifications. Using the Rules module, FarmOS can send notifications for...
Install MySQL Server on Ubuntu 16.04
Background This video tutorial shows you how to install MySQL on an Ubuntu 16.04. The installation is really simple and requires just a few commands to be entered. This...
Command Line Internet Speed Test
Problem I wanted to be able to run speed tests to make sure that I was getting the internet speeds that I was paying for. While a speedtest can be done from the web...
Enable and Setup UFW on Ubuntu
UFW or Uncomplicated FireWall, comes with Ubuntu and some other Linux distributions. This video shows how to install and configure it on your system. The Script...
Update Repository Script
Needed a script that would automatically pull the latest version of the repository into a folder. This script was created in an effort to automate the deployments for my...
Linux rm Argument list too long
Linux rm Argument list too long A problem that occasionally occurs is that when attempting to remove files in Unix or Linux system is that when you attempt to remove files...
Setup SSH on OpenWRT
Setup SSH on OpenWRT This video shows how to set up SSH on OpenWRT version Chaos Calmer. Router used was TP-Link TL-WD4300.
Find Lines Longer than Specified Length
Find Lines Longer than Specified Length When editing data files, sometimes you need to find the lines that are longer or shorter than a certain length to make corrections....
Install OpenWRT on Linksys WRT1900AC v1
Install OpenWRT on Linksys WRT1900AC v1 Video explains how to install OpenWRT on Linksys WRT1900AC Version 1.
Clean Linux Log Directory Script
Problem The more you use your Linux based system, the more files will be created. One thing that I noticed with mine is that the log directory would continue to grow. When...
SSH Connection Test Script
As a way to see if servers are online and can be reached for file transfers, I decided to create the script to do just that. The Script #!/bin/bash...
Automating Ubuntu 14.04 Automatic Updates
Automating Ubuntu 14.04 Automatic Updates sudo dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades If you receive an error stating that unattended-upgrades package cannot be found, then...
Automatic Ubuntu Update Script
Problem I have several Ubuntu (Linux) computers and systems that run on my home network. Now while I could manually perform updates on each of these, what I decided to do...
HDMI Sound on Ubuntu with Shuttle DS61
HDMI Sound on Ubuntu with Shuttle DS61 If you have issues getting the sound to work using Ubuntu via HDMI, perform the following steps in order: Confirm that the volume on...
Sample Interview Question Unix/Linux Experience
Sample Interview Question Unix/Linux Experience This is a sample interview question that has been given to those that are interviewing for an IT Consultant role. This...
Sample Interview Question SQL/Database Experience
Sample Interview Question SQL/Database Experience This is a sample question for interviewees that state that they have SQL and Database experience. Problem: Join the two...
Find lines that contain greater than specified number of characters in Unix
When working with files in Unix or Linux, sometimes you need to find the files that are greater than a specified number of characters. Unix or Linux systems are often used...
How to disable foreign key constraints in MySQL
How to disable foreign key constraints in MySQL Why would you want to disable a foreign key constraint? Well there are some scenarios... such as when you are refreshing...
Green Screen with Flash videos in Windows 10
Green Screen with Flash videos in Windows 10 Great!!! You've upgrade to Windows 10. No issues thus far. Then you go to one of your favorite websites to watch some videos....
Test Internet Script
I wanted to have a script to ensure that the internet connection was up and running. One way to do this quickly was to create a script that could perform a speed test to...
Oracle Holidays without Stored Procedure with 2 Week Notification
A client had a need for notifying others of upcoming holidays in some automated reports. Instead of manually adding these holidays to the reports as they were approaching,...
How To Synchronize Files Between Two or More Windows Computers
How To Synchronize Files Between Two or More Windows Computers Do you have two or more computers running Windows? If you do, do you hate having to backup or keep files...
Java Swap Values
Java Swap Values This program swaps the values of two inputs and then prints them back out to the console. package com.thealmostengineer.swapvalues; import...
Java Count Up and Down
Java Count Up and Down package com.thealmostengineer.countupdown; /** * * @author almostengr * @file Counts up and down to the specified provided number. */ public class...
Setup LDAP on Ubuntu 10.04
Setup LDAP on Ubuntu 10.04 I attempted to set up and LDAP server on Ubuntu, but apparently I skipped a step or missed part of the instructions because I could not get it...
Ubuntu Server
Ubuntu Server Recently managed to setup an Ubuntu 10.04 server for my business Black Box Innovation Technologies. It uses LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) for our hosted...
Image Rotator
Image Rotator I created a image scrolling script for a website. Below is the Javascript and HTML code to use it. Please leave the credits to me var indexBannersNum = 0;...
Rename A File - VB.Net
Rename A File - VB.Net ' Change "c:\test.txt" to the path and filename for the file that ' you want to rename. My.Computer.FileSystem.RenameFile("C:\Test.txt",...
Oracle PLSQL Commands
Oracle PLSQL Commands If you are unfamiliar with Oracle DB and/or PL/SQL Commands, you can go to http://www.techonthenet.com and look up a variety of commands to complete...
BIRT Reporting
BIRT Reporting If doing a BIRT report and you get a "+ There is no report design object available." error, then you have a version incompatibility. Chances are, there...
Free Software for Web Development
Free Software for Web Development Here is a list of some of the free, some which are open-source, software that I use for web development. An internet search will provide...