Welcome to Picks of the month, where I share a few things I have found useful the last month.
It can be anything from blog posts and software tools to books and techniques.
#1 OpenHAB
I have spent some time playing with OpenHab in my Smart Home series, and found it quite powerful. Not that easy to use, but very powerful and flexible.
It can do so much.
OpenHAB, in their own words is:
“a vendor and technology agnostic open source automation software for your home”
It’s basically a very powerful home automation hub that works with a bunch of different types of technologies.
It’s not the easiest to set up, because you have to fiddle with a bunch of configuration files. But it works, and it can do everything you want a hub like this to do.
I hope the next version of OpenHAB (OpenHAB 2) is a bit simpler to set up, with less configuration files to fiddle around with.
But at least for now, it’s the best option I’ve found.
#2 Angular 2 Upgrade
For my personal project - and for work too, actually - I have had the pleasure of playing around with Angular 2 upgrade path.
It’s an upgrade adapter that allows you to run Angular 1 and Angular 2 side by side. It’s very fascinating. And super practical if you don’t want to do a ‘big bang’ upgrade.
It allows you to create component structures like this:
That means that you can mix and match Angular 1 and 2 while upgrading at your own pace.
And you might not want that, because rewriting your Angular 1 application to Angular 2 is not exactly trivial.
I will be writing more about this in other posts coming soon.
If you want to learn more about the Angular 2 upgrade path, take a look at this document:
https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/guide/upgrade.html
#3 Denon AH-MM400
I recently purchased a new headset, because I was sick of poor sound quality and extreme leakage (people started to complain…).
I listen to music every day at work, at home, and anywhere else it might make sense. I love music. Therefor I felt it might be justified to spend a little extra on a great headset.
I bought a Denon AH-MM400. It is very easy on the eyes, and luckily also very powerful and great on the ears.
They are also very comfortable, and having them on for many hours isn’t a problem.
Like I said, they are not very cheap, going for $399 on Amazon, but they are well worth the money in my opinion.
(I bought mine at a Norwegian store called HiFi-Klubben)
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AH-MM400-Maniac-Over-Ear-Headphones/dp/B00NWROP5Y
#4 MobaXterm
I have used Windows for work and home for a few weeks and I felt horrible without a practical way to SSH into my different Linux boxes (the server that runs this blog for instance).
I have found that MobaXterm is the best option for SSH on Windows. At least for now. When BASH On Ubuntu On Windows comes along, I might change my mind!
It allows me to set up sessions and access them easily. I can even save all the computers I access, so that I can easily get back to them later.
If you are using a lot of SSH on windows, you might want to take a look at this fine application.
Take a look, it has a great free version that should work for many people (me included):
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