@Danie
Testing out new the noStrudel web client
Relays (3)
- wss://nos.lol/ – read
- wss://relay.damus.io/ – read & write
- wss://nostr.wine/ – read & write
Recent Notes
Ordinary WiFi can now identify people with near perfect accuracy
“Unlike earlier experimental systems that relied on expensive sensors or specialised equipment, the new method works with ordinary WiFi hardware already found in most homes and businesses. Previous approaches often depended on channel state information (CSI), which measures how radio signals change after bouncing off walls, furniture, and people. The new technique instead takes advantage of normal communication between WiFi routers and connected devices.”
This a bit more problematic than previous such experiments, as not only is ordinary WiFi absolutely everywhere now, this also requires no special equipment nor even that the target is carrying device of any sort.
Of course it does involve some AI to assist with the heavy lifting of raw data and identification, but it does certainly raise the stakes by another notch or two. In some countries this could be used to track citizens without their knowledge.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/ordinary-wifi-can-now-identify-people-with-near-perfect-accuracy/
#privacy #technology #wifi
“Unlike earlier experimental systems that relied on expensive sensors or specialised equipment, the new method works with ordinary WiFi hardware already found in most homes and businesses. Previous approaches often depended on channel state information (CSI), which measures how radio signals change after bouncing off walls, furniture, and people. The new technique instead takes advantage of normal communication between WiFi routers and connected devices.”
This a bit more problematic than previous such experiments, as not only is ordinary WiFi absolutely everywhere now, this also requires no special equipment nor even that the target is carrying device of any sort.
Of course it does involve some AI to assist with the heavy lifting of raw data and identification, but it does certainly raise the stakes by another notch or two. In some countries this could be used to track citizens without their knowledge.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/ordinary-wifi-can-now-identify-people-with-near-perfect-accuracy/
#privacy #technology #wifi
MeshCore SAR – The final hurdle has been reached for MeshCore
I did a post about a week back when I started investigating a possible migration from Meshtastic radio to MeshCore radio network. I won't repeat that post here, but I'll mention two issues that often came up about MeshCore, and why this is just no longer true.
Myth 1: MeshCore is not open source – since about January 2026 there is an excellent fully open source mobile app called MeshCore Open. It was so impressive for me, that I've actually made it my daily driver, even though I'd paid for the official MeshCore app and the MeshOS app.
Myth 2: Because it does not flood fill locations you can't use MeshCore for search and rescue (SAR), hiking, EMCOMM, etc. Well the open source MeshCore SAR app blows that out of the water now.
MeshCore SAR has:
Rapid mesh chat for both 1:1 and group coordination
On-demand voice (Codec2) and image (AVIF) transfer tuned for low-bandwidth links
Offline-first mapping with tactical overlays and SAR incident markers
Live team location, movement trails, and shareable tactical drawings
It goes as far as low-res image sending as well as short voice clips too
It is not intended for daily use though, as it could be easy to abuse the limited duty cycle requirements in the license-free bands that MeshCore uses.
I did some wardriving today using the Meshmapper app, and managed to get a line of site ping from a repeater 111 km North of Cape Town. So our testing of MashCore so far has just been green ticks all the way.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/meshcore-sar-the-final-hurdle-has-been-reached-for-meshcore/
#emcomm #meshcore #opensource #sar #technology
I did a post about a week back when I started investigating a possible migration from Meshtastic radio to MeshCore radio network. I won't repeat that post here, but I'll mention two issues that often came up about MeshCore, and why this is just no longer true.
Myth 1: MeshCore is not open source – since about January 2026 there is an excellent fully open source mobile app called MeshCore Open. It was so impressive for me, that I've actually made it my daily driver, even though I'd paid for the official MeshCore app and the MeshOS app.
Myth 2: Because it does not flood fill locations you can't use MeshCore for search and rescue (SAR), hiking, EMCOMM, etc. Well the open source MeshCore SAR app blows that out of the water now.
MeshCore SAR has:
Rapid mesh chat for both 1:1 and group coordination
On-demand voice (Codec2) and image (AVIF) transfer tuned for low-bandwidth links
Offline-first mapping with tactical overlays and SAR incident markers
Live team location, movement trails, and shareable tactical drawings
It goes as far as low-res image sending as well as short voice clips too
It is not intended for daily use though, as it could be easy to abuse the limited duty cycle requirements in the license-free bands that MeshCore uses.
I did some wardriving today using the Meshmapper app, and managed to get a line of site ping from a repeater 111 km North of Cape Town. So our testing of MashCore so far has just been green ticks all the way.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/meshcore-sar-the-final-hurdle-has-been-reached-for-meshcore/
#emcomm #meshcore #opensource #sar #technology
2
Putting Aluminium Foil Under Your Wi-Fi Router: What It Does and Why Experts Recommend It
“The trick sounds like something from a frugal grandparent: put aluminium foil behind your Wi-Fi router to make the signal stronger. For years, tech experts said don’t bother. Then in 2017, researchers at Dartmouth College ran actual measurements. A curved piece of foil, shaped correctly, pushed signal strength up 50 percent in one direction. The same reflector cut signal bleed into unwanted areas by about 75 percent (a 6 dB drop), according to TechCrunch. The study did not test crumpled foil. It used 3D-printed plastic forms covered in aluminium foil, designed by an algorithm called WiPrint.”
So maybe not of real practical use for everyday Wi-Fi users. It may be more useful for those needing actual directional Wi-Fi over longer distances. But as they say, it then also requires proper shaping, not just crinkled foil behind the antennas.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/putting-aluminium-foil-under-your-wi-fi-router-what-it-does-and-why-experts-recommend-it/
#technology #wifi
“The trick sounds like something from a frugal grandparent: put aluminium foil behind your Wi-Fi router to make the signal stronger. For years, tech experts said don’t bother. Then in 2017, researchers at Dartmouth College ran actual measurements. A curved piece of foil, shaped correctly, pushed signal strength up 50 percent in one direction. The same reflector cut signal bleed into unwanted areas by about 75 percent (a 6 dB drop), according to TechCrunch. The study did not test crumpled foil. It used 3D-printed plastic forms covered in aluminium foil, designed by an algorithm called WiPrint.”
So maybe not of real practical use for everyday Wi-Fi users. It may be more useful for those needing actual directional Wi-Fi over longer distances. But as they say, it then also requires proper shaping, not just crinkled foil behind the antennas.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/putting-aluminium-foil-under-your-wi-fi-router-what-it-does-and-why-experts-recommend-it/
#technology #wifi
The Virtual OS Museum opens its doors
“The Virtual OS Museum is an epic collection of historically significant operating systems, representing more than 600 OSes across upwards of 250 platforms. It’s all local, so you’ll need a good few gigs of space. The Virtual OS Museum is a giant mixtape for enthusiasts of the history of OS evolution. As an indication of its breadth of coverage, it reaches all the way back to the Manchester Baby – from 1948. Multics, the Xerox Alto, NeXTstep, PowerPC Mac OS X, early versions of Windows NT and Android, and more.”
It looks fascinating with a bit of info too about each OS. It runs locally so you may have to download the biggest download you've ever made if you to try them all out.
Furthermore, it seems like the work is not done yet, as there are many more OSes to include.
See or
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/the-virtual-os-museum-opens-its-doors/
#operatingsystems #technology #vintage
“The Virtual OS Museum is an epic collection of historically significant operating systems, representing more than 600 OSes across upwards of 250 platforms. It’s all local, so you’ll need a good few gigs of space. The Virtual OS Museum is a giant mixtape for enthusiasts of the history of OS evolution. As an indication of its breadth of coverage, it reaches all the way back to the Manchester Baby – from 1948. Multics, the Xerox Alto, NeXTstep, PowerPC Mac OS X, early versions of Windows NT and Android, and more.”
It looks fascinating with a bit of info too about each OS. It runs locally so you may have to download the biggest download you've ever made if you to try them all out.
Furthermore, it seems like the work is not done yet, as there are many more OSes to include.
See or
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/the-virtual-os-museum-opens-its-doors/
#operatingsystems #technology #vintage
Yes pretty much. The Postiz side is very heavyweight as they seem to have pushed AI and Elasticsearch into it. The real work for me is done in n8n and it is very lightweight. It posts better to Nostr ...
Ditched Postiz as it was hitting 2.5 FB ram on my VPS. Migrated everything to n8n now.
South African app AutoFinders helps people identify problem cars before they buy them
“Capetonian Eugene Zoghby launched an app to address a common problem in the South African automotive retail market: the many used vehicles sold with hidden historical damage and other issues.”
Yes dealers and insurers have had access to this type of data, but for ordinary buyers, they've had to take big chances on expensive purchases. This type of app is also incredibly useful even if buying from a second-hand car dealer, because not all of them have exemplary ethics.
Just nothing wrong with more honesty in the second hand car market!
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/south-african-app-autofinders-helps-people-identify-problem-cars-before-they-buy-them/
#cars #southafrica #technology
“Capetonian Eugene Zoghby launched an app to address a common problem in the South African automotive retail market: the many used vehicles sold with hidden historical damage and other issues.”
Yes dealers and insurers have had access to this type of data, but for ordinary buyers, they've had to take big chances on expensive purchases. This type of app is also incredibly useful even if buying from a second-hand car dealer, because not all of them have exemplary ethics.
Just nothing wrong with more honesty in the second hand car market!
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/south-african-app-autofinders-helps-people-identify-problem-cars-before-they-buy-them/
#cars #southafrica #technology
8 LEGO 3D printing projects to build this weekend
“LEGO and 3D printing may seem like a perfect combination, but there’s more to it than first meets the eye. While you can 3D print LEGO blocks, tight tolerances can produce disappointing results if you aren’t prepared to experiment a bit first. This week’s 3D printing projects are all about making the most out of the LEGO you already have.”
So yes, not about actually printing your own LEGO, but rather supplementing what you have, with 3D printing. There are quite a few innovative ways of replacing tools, and creating pieces that look like LEGO and which enhance what you have.
See
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/8-lego-3d-printing-projects-to-build-this-weekend/
#3dprinting #lego #technology
“LEGO and 3D printing may seem like a perfect combination, but there’s more to it than first meets the eye. While you can 3D print LEGO blocks, tight tolerances can produce disappointing results if you aren’t prepared to experiment a bit first. This week’s 3D printing projects are all about making the most out of the LEGO you already have.”
So yes, not about actually printing your own LEGO, but rather supplementing what you have, with 3D printing. There are quite a few innovative ways of replacing tools, and creating pieces that look like LEGO and which enhance what you have.
See
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/8-lego-3d-printing-projects-to-build-this-weekend/
#3dprinting #lego #technology
Switched my social media posting from paid Make to self-hosted n8n and Postiz
For the past few years I've been using the paid service called Make to pull my blog posts from my RSS feed in WordPress, and push that out to various social media services. I am on a grandfathered legacy plan, so I am paying only half of the normal cos, but it was especially complicated to set up for Bluesky. So much so, that in the end I actually ditched make for that and set up a free Buffer account just to post to Bluesky. And make had no support at all for MeWe or Nostr, so those I did manually.
Previous site routing with Make and Buffer
In the end I was posting to 16 places, but doing a manual process for 6 of those services.
I've been eyeing out Postiz for a bit, and finally realised yesterday that it could handle 8 of my destination sites in one go, including MeWe and Nostr. I'd have to drop Tumblr, but to be honest a full year goes by before I get any reply or response on Tumblr. I now only need to manually do the post creation on 4 sites, and that anyway includes my WordPress blog post.
New posting wityh n8n and Postiz
But one thing I realised is that with Make I had tweaked the code so that it shortened posts for Mastodon and Bluesky, and it also picked up that if I used a tag like opensource, it would send that post specifically to my Bluesky open source profile. Postiz could auto-post from my RSS feed, but it would not do the processing to shorten posts for some sites, and route others based on a tag.
Enter n8n. So n8n watches my RSS feed, and does all that logic processing for me. I just needed a code block for the processing, and a switch block to route to the different sites depending on whether it was a technology and/or opensource tag being used. n8n then pushes out to each channel in my Postiz service (see featured image top of this post for the n8n layout). It arrives in Postiz already formatted with the image, tags, etc.
Postiz's view of posts scheduled and sent
There is one thing that is not working, and that is the alt-text for images. Although that is processed inside n8n fine, the final Postiz node in n8n, seems to strip away the alt-text. I've logged an issue for that as I'd like it sorted out.
This is my first post using n8n and Postiz, so hopefully it gets though. It will only include the featured image from my blog post (same as with Make) so one does have to visit my original blog link if it is a more complex post with a number of images in (like this post is).
So my social media posting is again free, open source, and self-hosted.
Strictly speaking I could even post directly from n8n, but some services would require HTTP POST and that can be a bit messy. Postiz gives easy management of reposting, as well as analytics from LinkedIn Pages. Postiz is pretty heavy on resources sometimes peaking to 2 GB of RAM because of Elasticsearch, whilst n8n is super lightweight to run.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/switched-my-social-media-posting-from-paid-make-to-self-hosted-n8n-and-postiz/
#opensource #selfhosting #socialmedia #technology
For the past few years I've been using the paid service called Make to pull my blog posts from my RSS feed in WordPress, and push that out to various social media services. I am on a grandfathered legacy plan, so I am paying only half of the normal cos, but it was especially complicated to set up for Bluesky. So much so, that in the end I actually ditched make for that and set up a free Buffer account just to post to Bluesky. And make had no support at all for MeWe or Nostr, so those I did manually.
Previous site routing with Make and Buffer
In the end I was posting to 16 places, but doing a manual process for 6 of those services.
I've been eyeing out Postiz for a bit, and finally realised yesterday that it could handle 8 of my destination sites in one go, including MeWe and Nostr. I'd have to drop Tumblr, but to be honest a full year goes by before I get any reply or response on Tumblr. I now only need to manually do the post creation on 4 sites, and that anyway includes my WordPress blog post.
New posting wityh n8n and Postiz
But one thing I realised is that with Make I had tweaked the code so that it shortened posts for Mastodon and Bluesky, and it also picked up that if I used a tag like opensource, it would send that post specifically to my Bluesky open source profile. Postiz could auto-post from my RSS feed, but it would not do the processing to shorten posts for some sites, and route others based on a tag.
Enter n8n. So n8n watches my RSS feed, and does all that logic processing for me. I just needed a code block for the processing, and a switch block to route to the different sites depending on whether it was a technology and/or opensource tag being used. n8n then pushes out to each channel in my Postiz service (see featured image top of this post for the n8n layout). It arrives in Postiz already formatted with the image, tags, etc.
Postiz's view of posts scheduled and sent
There is one thing that is not working, and that is the alt-text for images. Although that is processed inside n8n fine, the final Postiz node in n8n, seems to strip away the alt-text. I've logged an issue for that as I'd like it sorted out.
This is my first post using n8n and Postiz, so hopefully it gets though. It will only include the featured image from my blog post (same as with Make) so one does have to visit my original blog link if it is a more complex post with a number of images in (like this post is).
So my social media posting is again free, open source, and self-hosted.
Strictly speaking I could even post directly from n8n, but some services would require HTTP POST and that can be a bit messy. Postiz gives easy management of reposting, as well as analytics from LinkedIn Pages. Postiz is pretty heavy on resources sometimes peaking to 2 GB of RAM because of Elasticsearch, whilst n8n is super lightweight to run.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/switched-my-social-media-posting-from-paid-make-to-self-hosted-n8n-and-postiz/
#opensource #selfhosting #socialmedia #technology
2
Switched my social media posting from paid Make to self-hosted n8n and Postiz
For the past few years I've been using the paid service called Make to pull my blog posts from my RSS feed in WordPress, and push that out to various social media services. I am on a grandfathered legacy plan, so I am paying only half of the normal cos, but it was especially complicated to set up for Bluesky. So much so, that in the end I actually ditched make for that and set up a free Buffer account just to post to Bluesky. And make had no support at all for MeWe or Nostr, so those I did manually.
Previous site routing with Make and Buffer
In the end I was posting to 16 places, but doing a manual process for 6 of those services.
I've been eyeing out Postiz for a bit, and finally realised yesterday that it could handle 8 of my destination sites in one go, including MeWe and Nostr. I'd have to drop Tumblr, but to be honest a full year goes by before I get any reply or response on Tumblr. I now only need to manually do the post creation on 4 sites, and that anyway includes my WordPress blog post.
New posting wityh n8n and Postiz
But one thing I realised is that with Make I had tweaked the code so that it shortened posts for Mastodon and Bluesky, and it also picked up that if I used a tag like opensource, it would send that post specifically to my Bluesky open source profile. Postiz could auto-post from my RSS feed, but it would not do the processing to shorten posts for some sites, and route others based on a tag.
Enter n8n. So n8n watches my RSS feed, and does all that logic processing for me. I just needed a code block for the processing, and a switch block to route to the different sites depending on whether it was a technology and/or opensource tag being used. n8n then pushes out to each channel in my Postiz service (see featured image top of this post for the n8n layout). It arrives in Postiz already formatted with the image, tags, etc.
Postiz's view of posts scheduled and sent
There is one thing that is not working, and that is the alt-text for images. Although that is processed inside n8n fine, the final Postiz node in n8n, seems to strip away the alt-text. I've logged an issue for that as I'd like it sorted out.
This is my first post using n8n and Postiz, so hopefully it gets though. It will only include the featured image from my blog post (same as with Make) so one does have to visit my original blog link if it is a more complex post with a number of images in (like this post is).
So my social media posting is again free, open source, and self-hosted.
Strictly speaking I could even post directly from n8n, but some services would require HTTP POST and that can be a bit messy. Postiz gives easy management of reposting, as well as analytics from LinkedIn Pages. Postiz is pretty heavy on resources sometimes peaking to 2 GB of RAM because of Elasticsearch, whilst n8n is super lightweight to run.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/switched-my-social-media-posting-from-paid-make-to-self-hosted-n8n-and-postiz/
#opensource #selfhosting #socialmedia #technology
For the past few years I've been using the paid service called Make to pull my blog posts from my RSS feed in WordPress, and push that out to various social media services. I am on a grandfathered legacy plan, so I am paying only half of the normal cos, but it was especially complicated to set up for Bluesky. So much so, that in the end I actually ditched make for that and set up a free Buffer account just to post to Bluesky. And make had no support at all for MeWe or Nostr, so those I did manually.
Previous site routing with Make and Buffer
In the end I was posting to 16 places, but doing a manual process for 6 of those services.
I've been eyeing out Postiz for a bit, and finally realised yesterday that it could handle 8 of my destination sites in one go, including MeWe and Nostr. I'd have to drop Tumblr, but to be honest a full year goes by before I get any reply or response on Tumblr. I now only need to manually do the post creation on 4 sites, and that anyway includes my WordPress blog post.
New posting wityh n8n and Postiz
But one thing I realised is that with Make I had tweaked the code so that it shortened posts for Mastodon and Bluesky, and it also picked up that if I used a tag like opensource, it would send that post specifically to my Bluesky open source profile. Postiz could auto-post from my RSS feed, but it would not do the processing to shorten posts for some sites, and route others based on a tag.
Enter n8n. So n8n watches my RSS feed, and does all that logic processing for me. I just needed a code block for the processing, and a switch block to route to the different sites depending on whether it was a technology and/or opensource tag being used. n8n then pushes out to each channel in my Postiz service (see featured image top of this post for the n8n layout). It arrives in Postiz already formatted with the image, tags, etc.
Postiz's view of posts scheduled and sent
There is one thing that is not working, and that is the alt-text for images. Although that is processed inside n8n fine, the final Postiz node in n8n, seems to strip away the alt-text. I've logged an issue for that as I'd like it sorted out.
This is my first post using n8n and Postiz, so hopefully it gets though. It will only include the featured image from my blog post (same as with Make) so one does have to visit my original blog link if it is a more complex post with a number of images in (like this post is).
So my social media posting is again free, open source, and self-hosted.
Strictly speaking I could even post directly from n8n, but some services would require HTTP POST and that can be a bit messy. Postiz gives easy management of reposting, as well as analytics from LinkedIn Pages. Postiz is pretty heavy on resources sometimes peaking to 2 GB of RAM because of Elasticsearch, whilst n8n is super lightweight to run.
See https://gadgeteer.co.za/switched-my-social-media-posting-from-paid-make-to-self-hosted-n8n-and-postiz/
#opensource #selfhosting #socialmedia #technology