After installing a Windows Remote Desktop client access licenses, commonly known as CALs, on an AWS EC2-based Windows machine, I made a mistake of not specifying my RD license server in the terminal server settings. Once the demo licenses ran out, the CALs did not take, and I ended up with a valuable machine, used by 4 people daily, locked out and impossible to login into.
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Boot Ubuntu 18.04.1 Live USB on MacPro 1,1
Problem – MacPro 1,1 is 32-bit EFI while having 64-bit architecture. There are other ways to boot that bypass EFI mode, but – booting in EFI mode on MacPro 1,1 allows for 2 more SATA ports (located on motherboard).
To run a live Ubuntu 18.04.1 USB on MacPro 1,1, one needs to add a 32-bit EFI boot loader, here is how to do it:

Monitoring Backyard Soil with Xiaomi Mi Flora Plant Monitor, InfluxDB and Grafana
Xiaomi Mi Flora plant monitor is a cool high tech device for measuring plant’s soil moisture, and fertility, as well as light and temperature. The data is accessible via Bluetooth using the mobile app. The device is waterproof, the battery is said to last at least a year, and it costs about $17 on Amazon or Ebay.

How I Built a Thermostat for NuHeat Floor
NuHeat floor thermostats are great but have a couple of drawbacks: they cost a lot and they fail from electricity spikes. After two replacements, I decided that a cost of a NuHeat thermostat is sufficient budget for making something cool while not paying NuHeat for their extortive designs.
How 1/9 arc sec elevations data looks in Qmapshack
Jailing IoT devices with OpenWRT
Most IoT devices communicate with servers on the Internet. How to ensure they are not used for malicious purposes by the manufacturer, government, or some random hacker?
X-Fusion Hilo vs Rockshox Reverb – A Technical Analysis
I just overhauled my Rockshox Reverb seatpost, and found out how it works in the process. I own an X-Fusion Hilo too, so after I finished, I got curious and watched a video of its overhaul, so I now know how both seatposts work. In addition, I have a long-term perspective, as I rode each seatpost for about a year.
Coffee with crema from an Aeropress – a howto
What makes crema?
Crema is a foam comprising coffee oils, carbon dioxide created during coffee roasting and air trapped in coffee grounds. There are several exhaustive Coffeegeek articles in the subject. (I also think electric-pump-based coffee/espresso machines increase crema by aerating brewing water.)
Why there is little crema in coffee from Aeropress?
Oils and bubbles, being lighter than water, travel up when brewing. When Aeropress is used as described in the manual, crema is filtered last and gets absorbed in the grounds and paper filter.
Video Stabilization with Deshaker in Blender
Action video is often lacking clear persistent references to stabilize video with – they either are not present in the frame for very long, or often compressed out of frame as the codec is trying to spend most of its bandwidth on moving objects in the shot.
Deshaker, a plugin for Windows program VirtualDub, with its capability to find and track multiple visual references (literally hundreds of them) automatically from frame to frame is the king of action video stabilization. (It works on Linux, too, see below).
OpenWRT QoS – a Simple Recipe
Low priority traffic is clogging your Internet connection? Read on.