How to pass through a drive to a UNRAID VM

I recently migrated my ‘physical’ Windows 10 desktop to a ‘virtual’ machine running under UNRAID (libvert). This is a quick guide on how I was able to use my existing installation on a SSD and pass it through to a VM. Why passthrough a drive to a VM? In some cases, it might be beneficial to start from scratch when creating a Windows 10 VM on UNRAID, creating a new virtual disk and having a fresh install. I chose to take an alternative path because I was contempt with my Windows install as it was. I had my Steam/Epic Games library downloaded onto one of the two disks already in the system and a number of applications installed and configured just the way I like them. ...

12 December 2020 · 3 min · Tom

[FIXED] Bose Bluetooth headphones with Windows 10

I recently moved to a new Windows 10 laptop and experience a number of problems with my Bose SoundLink II, Bluetooth headphones. Fortunately, after some playing around with drivers I was able to solve my problem and this post explains how… The Problem Poor sound quality – with the default drivers, the sound quality was poor and there was a considerable amount of audible noise being delivered to the headphones via the Bluetooth interface. The audio was very lo-fi and the frequency range was dramatically reduced. This resulted in a very thin, tinny sound. ...

30 August 2020 · 2 min · Tom

How to force the Windows 10 2004 update

Note: Windows 10 mainstream support ends October 2025. If you’re on Windows 10, consider upgrading to Windows 11 rather than installing older feature updates. Are you still waiting for your Windows 10 computer to receive the 2004 update? Eager to play with WSL2 like I was? Here is how to force the windows 10 2004 update. Microsoft is staggering the over-the-air update as they usually do with new major releases. However if you are tired of hitting ‘check for updates’ in the windows 10 update settings, there is a way to press the issue: ...

4 June 2020 · 1 min · Tom

How to check if RAM is running in ECC mode

Error Correcting Code (ECC) RAM is a variation of coputer memory which helps to ilimintate data curruption or ‘bit rot’, but it is not always imediately apparent if your system memory is running in ECC mode; here is a quick guide on how to check if your system memory is running in ECC mode. This guide covers Windows and Linux systems, but please ensure that if you are running either system in a virtual machine configuration that this command is ran on the host machine. ...

30 May 2020 · 2 min · Tom

Adding WMIC command to the Windows path

Note: WMIC is deprecated as of Windows 11 22H2. For equivalent functionality use Get-WmiObject or Get-CimInstance in PowerShell instead. wmic is not recognized as an internal or external command – I was quite shocked to find that a command I use on a very regular basis was not working on a fresh installation of Windows 10 1909 on my trust old ThinkPad. I don’t want to spend hours trying to find out why this was not correct in my system path, but instead, I fixed it and spent the time sharing how to fix the problem. ...

30 May 2020 · 2 min · Tom

How To: Raspberry Pi boot from USB

The Pi enthusiasts have been waiting for official USB boot support on the Raspberry Pi for what feels like a lifetime, but finally it is on the horizon. In this post I will explain how to make your Raspberry Pi boot from USB. WARNING: Although this is official, it is still in beta testing, so rock-solid stability is far from certain. Learn more about this beta release here. ...

23 May 2020 · 4 min · Tom

Copy Paste in vSphere before installing VMware tools

I’ve spent enough time building VMs in vSphere to know that the first few minutes between starting the VM and getting VMware Tools installed is agonising. Similar to my ‘Copy Paste With Powershell Sendkeys‘ script, I have another tool written in AutoIT which sends defined keyboard strokes to the system. So this is not exactly ‘copy paste in vSphere’, but it achieves the same goal. If you actually want to enable clipboard sync between host and VM, you can follow this guide here: Enable Copy and Paste Operations Between the Guest Operating System and Remote Console. This is going to need VMware Tools installed on the host though. ...

18 May 2020 · 2 min · Tom

Automatically pause Spotify with the 3CX client

Note: This article covers an older 3CX CTI integration method from the Windows 10 era. The 3CX client has changed significantly since this was written — the core AutoIT approach may still work but exact steps may differ. This is a really old script that I just found in my archive, but it still works all the same. The goal was to write a small script that would automatically pause Spotify with the 3CX client when there was an inbound call. ...

16 May 2020 · 3 min · Tom

Python 3 SSH with Paramiko

I have a number of projects which I am currently working on which usually involve a raspberry pi and so other TCP enabled object. One project, in particular, is to control a KVM server with buttons connected to a raspberry pi (follow on social media or RSS for that future post). I have been using Python 3 SSH with Paramiko to send commands KVM server from the pi. Here is how I do that… ...

15 May 2020 · 3 min · Tom

How To: Python infinite loops with while true

Here is a quick guide on how to create an infinite loop in python using a ‘while true’ statement. There are number of reason that you might want to implement this; a great use case would be outputting a fluctuating variable to the terminal such as a temperature reading from a sensor. loops that make your brain hurt A ‘while true’ statement allows us to run a sequence of code until a particular condition is met. In order to make that sequence of code run in an infinite loop, we can set the condition to be one that is impossible to reach. Better still, we can simply omit the condition altogether to ensure that the while true loop never ends. ...

5 May 2020 · 2 min · Tom