David Williams - DEW IT | DEW IT & Web Services

Sonoff Switches with Tasmota and new MQTT Addon Home Assistant

David Williams - DEW IT Home Automation Central Coast September 3, 2019Hass.io, Home Assistant, MQTT, Sonoff Tasmota 0 Comment

Originally posted 2018-11-14 12:41:45. I know I have done a few articles now about Sonoff switches and MQTT in Home Assistant. However a lot has changed – also my understanding has changed and so it’s time for another post about this. I’m also going to take a crack at making a video showing how to flash a sonoff switch with Tasmota. For reference, my previous posts can be found here: Home Assistant Updates May 2018 and Sonoff-Tasmota update How to use a Sonoff Switch with Home Assistant So lets look at the changes in MQTT introduced with the new MQTT

Media Centre

David Williams - DEW IT Home Theatre Setup Gosford September 3, 2019Kodi, Streaming Video, XBMC 0 Comment

Originally posted 2017-06-27 15:39:23. One of the best purchases you can make is a media centre and a NAS (Network Accessible Storage) if you have a network of course. A media centre like Kodi (the new name for XBMC) allows you to streal all kinds of media to your TV (I think some people still like a big screen). This includes streaming of movies or TV from tv-catchup services or youtube. You can also put all your MP3 files or CD rips on the NAS so they can be streamed to your sound system. Kodi is a great, free media

How do I pick a great host for my website?

David Williams - DEW IT Web Design Kariong September 3, 2019Hosting, SSL, Website 0 Comment

Originally posted 2017-11-16 15:03:16. So after my ‘rant’ about HostGator and the trials and tribulations I have experienced with them, it begs the question “What should I consider when selecting a hosting company?” Well I’m glad you asked! I have finally bitten the bullet and signed up for a new hosting company myself. The pain of staying with HostGator finally became greater than the pain of throwing away 3 years of pre-paid hosting. If you signup to inmotion hosting by clicking the link I will get a small commission. First, you need to consider what type of hosting you require.

Setting Home Assistant up for Secure access over the Internet

David Williams - DEW IT Home Automation Central Coast September 3, 2019Home Assistant, Home Automation, Security, SSL 4 Comments

Originally posted 2018-06-05 15:35:04. Lets have a conversation about security when your Home Assistant is opened up so you can access it over the Internet. If you take a look over on the Home Assistant Community forums here there are threads about user’s home assistant instances being hacked with ‘friendly’ hackers who have just changed a few things and left some warnings about their insecure home assistant setups. Traditionally or ‘normally’ external access to your system over the internet means that you would open up some ports on your router so that you can connect over the internet. This would

Connecting to Linux using PuTTY & WinSCP

David Williams - DEW IT Computer Service and Repair Gosford September 3, 2019Hosting, Linux, SSH 0 Comment

Originally posted 2018-02-13 11:37:17. The purpose of this post is to help you set up a Linux system, maybe a VPS or even just a humble Raspberry Pi so you can connect to it using PuTTY or WinSCP or even a terminal on a Mac PC in a secure way using a private key. There are a lot of how-to’s on the internet showing you how to do this however they often seem to miss that critical step or they assume a level of knowledge. So as much for my own benefit as anything else, here is my complete how-to