Ray recently contacted me to get some help upgrading his WordPress based Photocrati website from version 5 to version 10. Ray wanted to ensure his theme was upgraded properly so that the print sales system on his website kept working. Photocrati has good instructions on the version upgrade. We followed…
Installing ApexCharts Card on Home Assistant Core
Beginners guide to installing ApexCharts in Home Assistant Core
New Zealand Plant Based Protein Powder Reviews
Recently I’ve been trying different plant based protein powders. In general the plant based protein powders are somewhere between okay and awful, with most of them closer to awful than ok. I share this information to help others choose from the better protein powders available in New Zealand. It’s a…

Protecting WordPress Websites using CloudFlare Firewall Rules
Overview This blog posts shows how the CloudFlare firewall can increase website security and reduce server resources required to run a WordPress website. Introduction I’ve recently set up a new web server for PTS, an AWS t3a.nano – a virtual server with 0.5GB of RAM and 5% of a processor…

Panasonic Comfort Cloud Setup with Ducted HVAC and General Tips
Introduction We recently installed a Panasonic ducted HVAC system, referred to as a “heat pump” in New Zealand. We had a lot of problems getting the WiFi connected and working. It eventually took about four visits and help from Panasonic New Zealand (thanks Mark!) who got help from Panasonic Japan.…

Benchmark AWS A series AMD EPYC EC2 Instances instances : t3a / m5a vs t3/m5 vs t2
EC2 AMD Epyc vs Xeon Introduction The reservation for the t2.nano that powers this and a number of other websites finished this week. Of course I wanted to try the new t3 series EC2 instances which are meant to be both cheaper and faster than t2, and I was curious…
Protecting your Amazon Linux WordPress server using fail2ban and Cloudflare
Servers on the internet are under constant attack, usually from automated scripts trying to make use of your resources. WordPress installations are doubly attacked, because they’re often out of date and are relatively easy to take over. This article describes how to use fail2ban and Cloudflare to protect your Amazon…
Using ntpd with AWS Amazon Time Sync Service
Amazon has introduced the Amazon Time Sync Service that is accessible within your VPC by default. It’s a highly accurate time server accessible via NTP. Here’s how to configure ntpd to use the new AWS time service.

Solution – Google reCAPTCHA V2 Problem – Works in Internet Explorer but not Firefox or Chrome
Today I had a Google reCAPTCHA V2 problem – it was only working in Internet Explorer (IE), but not Firefox or Chrome. Short Answer: Content Security Policy (CSP) was blocking the resources from loading or displaying.
Apple Time Machine Review – MacOS Backup Software
Apple’s Time Machine is not a backup product, and doesn’t provide comprehensive protection for your data. Read this Apple Time Machine review to find out more, and find a more effective backup system for your Mac.