Occasionally someone will be brave enough to ask why I give my sexuality top billing in my Twitter profile and bios:
It probably seems a little out of place given that if you search the word “gay” on my blog you’ll find the only hit – singular – is on my “about” page (until now that is).
That I’m gay isn’t relevant to what I do for a crust – no questions about that.
It’s purely a visibility thing.
This is part 2 of a 2-part series covering how we built the “Disco Death Star”:
Part 1 – The Build – construction and assembly
Part 2 – Control, programming & examples – (this post)
Here’s the final version of the control PCB. It’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast, but it’s what you get when your proof of concept morphs through prototype stage to become the finished product.
At the left is the Teensy 3.6 that’s running the show, and on the right is the “Octo Level Shifter FeatherWing“. The level shifter is there purely to convert the Teensy’s 3.3V IO pins to the 5V required by the LED strips. I SHOULD have used a “Teensy 3.2 OctoWS2811 Adaptor“, but I didn’t know at the time it existed – and of course that explains why there wasn’t a Teensy version in the store and was forced to compromise on this Feather version. (D’oh!)
To the right of the Level Shifter are 8 header pins – those are the data feeds to the ball.
As it was initially built, that’s all there was. When you applied power the ball ran the chases in a random order, each for a semi-random period of time (in between two bounds I’d hard-coded).
If you’re new to the “DHMG” – our annual housewarming party – and its attendant excuse for some crazy home-brew tech, there’s some back-story and an index of the things we’ve done here.
This is part 1 of a 2-part series covering 2019’s “Disco Death Star”:
Part 1 – The Build – construction and assembly – this post
Part 2 – Control, programming & examples
Continue reading ‘DHMG2019 – the Disco Death Star – Pt.1’ »
I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting any younger, and my eyes often glaze over when faced with a table of numbers to compare for differences.
This is often the case when I issue one of my fave p$ shortcuts to test my SfB server’s databases:
Test-csDatabase -LocalService | ft *name,*edver*
Do this on every server in a large pool – or every server in a vast environment – and you might start to experience the same optical distress.
Here’s a variation on the above that ONLY reveals the Databases that fail to match:
Test-CsDatabase -LocalService | where-object {$_.InstalledVersion -notMatch $_.ExpectedVersion} | Select *Name,*edVersion
Replace “-LocalService” with “-ConfiguredDatabases -SqlServerFqdn”, etc, for an Enterprise Edition pool and for Monitoring or Chat databases. (Cmdlet reference).
– G.
One of the significant enhancements delivered in today’s Skype for Business Server 2019 CU1 is the new “Modern Administration Control Panel” or MACP.
This is a new HTML5-based admin interface, which shares a particular visual familiarity with the SfB Online and Microsoft Teams Admin Centres – and does so without requiring Silverlight.
Thankfully it still co-exists with its long-established Silverlight equivalent the CSCP, so you can choose between them.
Continue reading ‘SfBS 2019 MACP – Modern Admin Control Panel’ »
Added to Skype for Business Server 2019 from CU1 is “SEFAUtil” functionality in native PowerShell. No longer do you need to install a clunky “Trusted Application”.
Such innocence. You don’t know the world of pain you’ve missed!
“Secondary Extension Feature Activation Utility” – to give it its full name – has historically shipped in the Lync and Skype for Business “Resource Kit” (“ResKit”) download pack. When correctly integrated into the topology it gives support staff the ability to query, set and cancel all manner of call-forwarding and team/delegation settings from the comfort of their cube, without needing to visit the user or reset their AD password in order to do it remotely (after signing in as that user). It’s a godsend when someone goes on leave unexpectedly or has a catastrophic PC failure with an urgent incoming call pending, and as equally helpful when configuring the settings for executives and other ‘sensitive’ users.
Continue reading ‘SfBS 2019 SEFAUtil in PowerShell’ »
Last month we saw an interim hotfix that took SfB 2019 Server from its initial “dot-zero” release to 7.0.2046.116, and this July update (officially CU1) is the one we’ve all been holding out for, updating *everything* on my SE Front-End as well as adding some long-awaited functionality. The new build number is 7.0.2046.123.
We have another update to the Office 2013-based Skype for Business client. Our last update was May, and this one (Kb 4464593) takes us from 15.0.5137.1000 to 15.0.5145.1000.
Nothing documented.
Nothing documented.
Continue reading ‘Lync 2013 / SfB 2015 Client Update – June 2019’ »
I’ve been building electronic kits since I was a kid, and even designed a couple that made publication. A very relevant example of the latter is my Telephone Intercom. It’s been a long time between drinks though – and I’ve been lamenting that since 2011 apparently, if you read the aforementioned post. Ahh, fate…
Wind forward to 2018 and some friends of ours have fled overseas to build their dream home in rural New Zealand, off-grid and with no network connectivity.
Wisely or otherwise, we thought that a time-lapse movie of the building of said home would make a great housewarming present, and so a not inexpensive rig based on a GoPro was procured, tested, personally delivered to New Zealand and installed.
After its first images were received and processed, Rocky – the photographer in the family – decided he wasn’t happy with the video quality out of the GoPro, and that a DSLR would capture a better image. The only problem is that comparable rigs cost MANY thousands of dollars – and that’s before you add the camera and lens.
Not to be confused with the somewhat overdue arrival of a CU1, this release – the first for SfBS2019 – is but a hotfix.
This took only one component on my Standard Edition Front End from 7.0.2046.0 to 7.0.2046.116.
This update enables Location-Based Routing to support Skype for Business mobile clients. It also fixes the following issue:
Nothing noted. No new commandlets are added to the PowerShell module in this update.
Continue reading ‘SfBS 2019 HF1 – June 2019’ »