Home Theater Computer (HTPC)

Home Theater Computer (HTPC) - it's a journey!

I'm currently battling my way through building a Home Media/Automation Center PC. As usual I don't take the easy route and buy something off the shelf. There seems to be a switch within me that flicks on when approaching situations, rather than trying to solve the immediate issue, I step back and look at what I can encompass beyond the initial opportunity, and then resolutely pursue a course of action that I know in my deepest innards will cause me blood, sweat and tears, and leave me feeling that I should have just done what millions of people do and buy a product that works out of the box. Perhaps there is a masochistic streak in me, or perhaps tinkering with technology is my yin and yang, but here I am again, and my feet keep plodding forward :-)

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Setting up NUT on a Raspberry Pi for Greencell USB UPS

Background This article provides a guide for installing a USB UPS attached to a Raspberry Pi. In my case I had purchased a GreenCell 600 360W USB UPS. Integrating the USB UPS requires using NUT (Network UPS Tools). This UPS uses the blazer_usb driver. Installation NUT Plug-In the UPS USB-Connection to the host. My device showed up as Device 006 below: # lsusb Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0001:0000 Fry's Electronics MEC0003 Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:0309 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. USB3.0-CRW Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0658:0200 Sigma Designs, Inc. Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 (ZW090) - UZB Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Microchip Technology, Inc. (formerly SMSC) SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Microchip Technology, Inc. (formerly SMSC) SMC9514 Hub Install the NUT package with the apt package manager: sudo apt-get install nut Make some configurations and changes in the nut directory /etc/nut: # cd /etc/nut drwxr-xr-x 2 root nut 40...

Sending SMS Messages from openHAB

Background So I setup sending SMS messages from my Raspberry Pi (see article I wrote here ) and have a bash script to automate this. The next step is to integrate this into my openHAB server, so I can send SMS messages to my mobile phone when my UPS system (managed by openHAB) is on battery power (e.g. due to a mains network failure). Installing the EXEC Binding to openHAB See here . Note especially the requirement to add commands to the whitelist. Adding a Thing to openHAB Once the EXEC binding is installed the next step is to setup a thing file to use the binding for sending bash shell commands: $ nano /etc/openhab/things/exec.things Add the following line: Thing exec:command:sendsms [ command="/usr/local/bin/sendsms.sh %2$s", autorun=true, interval=0 ] Save the file. As you can see this thing is used to pass the command to run the bash shell script to send an SMS and pass the text sent as "%2$s" to the script. Adding Items to openHAB Two items are required, one...

SMS messaging on Raspberry Pi with Gammu

Background Ever wanted to be alerted when the power fails at home? I typically worry that food in the freezer will go off when I am on vacation! (Yep, that's how I tick). I have recently installed a UPS system which I use to protect various IT and network devices from instant power loss, enabling them to shutdown gracefully. This is particulary important for my Raspberry Pi (Pi) devices, which are sensitive to this issue, as SD-Cards can be corrupted and then not re-boot. The UPS I have installed interfaces via USB with my Raspberry Pi server using the Linux Network UPS tools NUT so that I can monitor status changes (e.g. grid power loss) and this is further integrated into my openHAB -based home automation system. This setup will be covered in another post. I wanted to additionally be alerted when grid power fails via SMS to my mobile phone. To do this I have purchased a pre-owned USB Internet Surf Stick and a pay-as-you-go SIM card (zero cost) which I can load with credit...

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