TECHNICAL

My dot Files

Originally published: 2021-11-27. So that I can share how I’ve configured several of my applications and systems on my laptop, I’ve created a new Git project for my dotfiles. Hope you can use them to find a different way to accomplish your goals or, even better, you find a bug or have a suggestion for me. What are dotfiles? “dotfiles” are generally files that being with a period in the filename. By starting a filename with a period character, they are hidden by default from many graphical file managers and the ls(1) command. With ls specifically, you can list “dotfiles” by running ls -a or ls -al.



My Move to Hugo

Long gone are my days of hosting my website using a dynamic web content management system like Wordpress or some custom PHP thing. My needs are simple and a static site generator is perfect. A couple years ago, I was trying to decide which one to choose and started with Pelican and it worked fine but I wanted something that felt a little more modern. Enter Hugo.



Privacy Journey

It’s 2025 and the need for privacy is more important the ever. Over the next few weeks, I plan to document the things I’ve done to add privacy to my life. I’ve made changes to my mobile phone, smart speakers around the house, services I use, and more. This is my first Privacy post, but I plan to expand on my journey as I go.



My Favorite Smart Home Automations

As I wrote in my Home Automation Story post, I use Home Assistant to automate my Smart Home. I’ve done the usual things like installing smart light switches and outlets and have certain lights come on and go off at set times. The easy stuff. But I have a few automations that I’m really happy with and proud of. Better still, it has a high AF (Approval Factor) from my wife.



Why I Chose Home Assistant OS

For setting up Home Assistant, there are several choices: Home Assistant OS, Home Assistant Container, Home Assistant Supervised, and Home Assistant Core. I chose Home Assistant OS for a few reasons. First Choice Home Assistant Container For those that know me, you’d probably be surprised that I went with Home Assistant OS. I’m a tinkerer and like to have full control over my systems.



Password Management with Bitwarden

In a past life, I managed both Lastpass and 1Password. Neither of them were something I wanted to use personally, so I was looking for something better. In the mean time, I was using KeePassXC stored in Google Drive. And Holly and I also had a shared Keepass file stored in a shared directory so we could share passwords between us. But then I learned about Bitwarden.



Wireguard: Home VPN Server

I used to use OpenVPN as a means to connect to my internal network from outside of my house. It worked really well, but managing its configs was a little bit of a hassle and, frankly, OpenVPN is old news (/s). I wanted to play with a new toy. So I looked into Wireguard. Server Config Since I use Home Assistant and it has Add-Ons available available, I decided to use its Wireguard Add-On.



Centralized Bookmarks with Linkding

As I mentioned in my Qutebrowser article, my browser doesn’t have the ability to share bookmarks with my other browsers. I run Chrome on my phone and Chrome on my Chromebook. And I have a second Linux laptop that also runs Qutebrowser. I needed a solution to share bookmarks between them. And I settled on Linkding. My Search I looked through Reddit r/selfhost and scoured the web looking at different self-hosted bookmark services I could run at home.



Qutebrowser

These days, it’s more important than ever to find a good web browser: one that’s easy to use, has the functionality you want, and, most importantly, is reasonably secure. It’s also a good idea to consider the privacy features the browser has too. Too many of the popular browsers have privacy issues (Chrome sharing info with Google, Edge sharing info with Microsoft, Brave sharing info with…).



Applying style to ssh-askpass

ssh-askpass(1) is a graphical program that prompts the user for their SSH Key passphrase and passes it to the ssh-add(1) command. Out of the box, ssh-askpass is pretty ugly, but I’ve managed to make it look dark, modern, and good. A screenshot This is how my ssh-askpass window looks: The code SshAskpassDialog.font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal---120-----iso8859-1 SshAskpassDialog.label: Please enter your authentication passphrase: SshAskpassDialog.title: SshAskpassbackground: #000000 SshAskpassforeground: #cccccc SshAskpass.Buttonbackground: #000000 SshAskpass.Button*foreground: #cccccc The above code goes in your ${HOME}/.Xresources file.



Qtile Window Manager

For most people, their window manager is something they probably don’t think much about. Consider all of the Windows and Mac users out there. They may or may not think about the fact that they appreciate how using Windows is different from using a Mac, but they may not be able to explain exactly why (Though over the past few years, it feels like Mac and Windows interfaces are slowing becoming very similar).



I use Arch, BTW

My journey to using Arch Linux took a round about path: Windows, MacOS, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, Fedora, and finally … Arch. I have not used Windows as my primary Operating System for many years (since around 2003). Sure, I’ve had to run Windows on a work laptop here and there, but for anything personal, I’ve been non-Windows. I used a Mac for a while and as a Unix-based OS, MacOS is pretty nice. Not exactly what I like, but I much prefer it to Windows.



My Desktop/Laptop

I went a few years without a computer at my desk at home. I lived off a laptop and never sat at my desk with a proper keyboard, mouse, and monitor setup. But as I started working from home more, I wanted a nice, comfortable setup in our office, so I started looking for a computer for my desk. I settled on a huge, powerful gaming laptop: an MSI GT76 Titan DT



Withings Sleep Tracking Mat with Home Assistant

I have really been wanting to get bed occupancy working with Home Assistant for a while. I have some lights around the house that are triggered by motion detectors. Especially for the one in the bedroom, I thought it would be nice if I could disable the motion-activated light whenever someone is in bed. Additionally, I thought it would be a good idea to disable some other triggers if both of us are in bed (like motion sensors elsewhere in the house that the cat would set off) or disabling turning on the bathroom fan automatically (due to humidity) if someone is sleeping.



Local Control

When it comes to Home Automation, many solutions available rely on “The Cloud”. These solutions have issues ranging from cloud services being inaccessible to companies stealing your data to companies ending support for a product you may rely on. To quote DigiBlur, “Get your shit out of the cloud!” The Issues Many Smart Home devices use “The Cloud” and a Smart App on your phone to manage them. However, what happens when the cloud provider decides to shut down their service, breaking all of your devices like Lowes did with its Iris product in 2019.



My Story with Home Automation and Home Assistant

I started with Home Automation in December, 2017. It started slowly. But as we started to see the benefits to what home automation can do for us, it quickly became almost an obsession. Now I have a Home Assistant system with a couple hundred devices, almost 100 automations, and some cool technology that has really enhanced our lives. Background So, my Home Automation journey starts like may others: I bought one smart plug.