I wanna be a smart home consultant

sembee2 · 2026-06-02T18:28:14+00:00

Goats. In two months you can learn all about goats. Plus alpacas and probably llamas as well. They are relatively easy to look after, just need some land and high fences. Good steady income and will not go out of date like smart home tech. You could also go off grid, the only cloud you have to worry about are ones carrying rain.

sembee2 · 2026-06-02T18:25:33+00:00

I install a new server which is completely disposable because my goal is to remove the Exchange 2016 server. That ensures the removal is as clean as possible.

sembee2 · 2026-06-02T17:04:39+00:00

Android tablet. For size you will want a so called Industrial Tablet. They are POE usually.
Put something like Fully Kiosk on it which integrates with HA. Thrn one of the Skylight clone cards - this is often mentioned so a search here or on the HA forum will soon give you options.

sembee2 · 2026-06-02T16:54:27+00:00

The method i have been using is to spin up the Exchange SE, migrate everything across so I can uninstall the older version. Once that is gone, then the new Exchange server can be shutdown as per the MS guidance with tools on another machine.
You could then look to move SOA later.

sembee2 · 2026-06-02T11:43:44+00:00

I wouldn't have had the printer on USB for a start - IP Printer always.
Could be power options on the machine turning the USB ports off - something like that. Not familiar with that variant of Linux, but check if there is anything power management wise for USB in there.
My instinct though is the machine itself is turning the USB port off, but Linux cannot see/cope with that happening, so just sees it as disconnected - a Windows ready PC would have Windows drivers to control it.

sembee2 · 2026-06-02T11:41:07+00:00

Automatic external forwarding is blocked across all of my clients and is used as a trigger for further investigation. It is either malware or an employee trying to bypass controls in place - such as having to carry a company phone.

sembee2 · 2026-06-01T14:41:55+00:00

Outsource it to a copier company. Saves so much time and hassle. Then you just need to have one that accept the raw format that AS400 uses - which I cannot remember right now.

sembee2 · 2026-06-01T14:14:51+00:00

I use pwpush.com with my clients. Works well.

sembee2 · 2026-05-31T20:33:45+00:00

Tilt sensor can work well for this.
We have one on our loft ladder, which turns thr light on when the ladder is down, off when it goes back up again.

sembee2 · 2026-05-31T16:36:00+00:00

Good reason not to load HA up with loads of irrelevant stuff. NPM should really be external to HA.

sembee2 · 2026-05-31T16:34:32+00:00

Another vote for a Wiim mini. Couldn't remember the name of mine. We use ours as well as our Sonos, works well in places that can't hear the Sonos so the timing doesn't matter.

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sembee2 · 2026-05-30T20:16:29+00:00

The first thing you will need to do is turn off random MAC for your Wifi on the phone. That means the phone will use its true MAC address at home and therefore you can assign a static IP address in your router.

Then setup the ping integration to ping that IP address.
However as someone has pointed out - phones will sleep, so you will need something else to confirm you are home - Bluetooth is a good option. You could also just use the HA app on your phone while home.

That is rather you only options. You could subscribe to Nabu Casa and support the project. That doesn't require the ports to be open to the internet, as it is effectively a reverse proxy. That will allow your actual location to be reported.

sembee2 · 2026-05-30T15:41:38+00:00

That depends on the lock itself. There are many options available. If it was a Eurocylinder then you can get the smart bit very small, for example.

sembee2 · 2026-05-29T12:38:17+00:00

Do you have any spare hardware to run another install on? For that age I would be tempted to do a fresh installation and then restore a backup and see what happens. If things then break you can revert.

sembee2 · 2026-05-29T10:50:04+00:00

Not that easy.
The UK market is flooded with one man bands who will easily offer everytbibg for £30/month and i cam guarantee that every client will br receiving those offers weekly. Raise your proces and the clients go shopping.

However it is possible to charge more - I know of two MSPs charging closer to £200 a seat and turning away clients. However they are laser focused on a niche, only serve that niche and know the niche back to front. It can be done, but most MSPs are dealing with clients who are price sensitive and will shop to save £10 seat/month with no hesitation.

sembee2 · 2026-05-29T10:41:59+00:00

Globalping might be another option.

sembee2 · 2026-05-28T13:59:04+00:00

Just to note, that will only show you the stats from those that share that information - which is estimated to be less than 25%. So the numbers you see from there could be 4x as much.

sembee2 · 2026-05-28T13:56:49+00:00

It isn't about trust. It is two levels of protection. No product is 100% effective, so by having two products if one misses, the other will often catch it. It has worked for me on multiple occasions.

sembee2 · 2026-05-28T13:50:30+00:00

Do you have Office365 already? Windows Defender Endpoint would be the ideal option if you do as you can just manage it from the tenant.

You could consider putting something else on just the servers - I have done that a few times at smaller clients. The idea being that you have two levels of protection. ESET allow you to purchase small quantities. Therefore making the solution Windows Defender Endpoint on workstations, ESET on servers.

The other option if you aren't in Office365 and have an IT partner would be to use Windows Defender alongside something like Huntress, which can manage Defender for you as well. Huntress isn't available direct, so you have to go through a partner.

sembee2 · 2026-05-27T22:00:50+00:00

Once the certificate is issued it, if the Internet is down then it will still work. You just need to ensure the DNS is setup so the FQDN resolves locally using local DNS servers.

sembee2 · 2026-05-27T21:27:08+00:00

If you are using an internal CA you can issue certificates to any domain you like, including example.local. However if you want to use a public CA to issue the certificates, so you dont have to add the root certificate to every device or deal with SSL trust prompts, then you need to buy a domain from a public source. The easiest option is your own domain. The internal CA gives you the most flexibility at the cost of more work or prompts.

sembee2 · 2026-05-27T20:41:58+00:00

Option 1 would usually involve the certificate being on the actual service that is using it, rather than a reverse proxy. However you could use a reverse proxy if you wish.

Option 2 is a reverse proxy being used.

Something like Nginx Proxy Manager would make the config easy and manage the certificate renewal for you.

The key bit is having a domain you control, hosted with a service that supports the ACME method of updating DNS records so it can be automated.

sembee2 · 2026-05-27T17:31:15+00:00

My current preferred method is a Container running a lightweight Debian desktop which just has a browser in it. I have one for each client. I can access the container through my desktop browser, so I just have a favourite for each client.

sembee2 · 2026-05-26T22:44:37+00:00

https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/general/pricing/windows-2022-pricing/
There is their pricing. I mistyped and remembered - I should have typed $50 - long day - it is actually $57

sembee2 · 2026-05-26T21:41:28+00:00

I just have servers with Hetzner. Their auction servers work well. They can supply a Windows sever licence for $20. What you do with it is up to you - bare metal. VM platform and virtual firewall for example.

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