https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/oldblogposts/ Recent content in Oldblogposts on Matthijs's Blog Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Matthijs Hoekstra Mon, 27 Apr 2020 16:01:06 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2020/04/27/v1-and-v2-identity-and-access-tokens-with-azure-active-directory/ Mon, 27 Apr 2020 16:01:06 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2020/04/27/v1-and-v2-identity-and-access-tokens-with-azure-active-directory/ This has caused me a ton of confusion and my customers keep getting confused as well. Azure Active Directory has been around for some time now. Some time ago we added a new endpoint (V2) which is more standards compliant and supports both AAD and MSA accounts and for example features like incremental consent. Still people get confused about our numbering scheme and I totally understand why. Let me try to explain a little bit how this all works. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2020/04/14/authenticate-an-azure-ad-user-with-saml-for-asp-net-core/ Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:12:44 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2020/04/14/authenticate-an-azure-ad-user-with-saml-for-asp-net-core/ The other day I needed a test application to try something with SAML support in Azure Active Directory. I started looking how to configure an ASP.NET Core webapplication to support SAML. It’s very easy to set it up for OIDC authentication but I found out ASP.Net (core) doesn’t support SAML out of the box. Google to the rescue and ignoring the blogpost from my colleague Christos (he’s wrong, it’s WS-Fed not SAML he’s using in his blogpost) , I found a few 3rd parties who build support for ASP. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2020/04/11/unable-to-connect-to-synology-smb-share-from-windows-10-pro-solution/ Sat, 11 Apr 2020 21:21:51 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2020/04/11/unable-to-connect-to-synology-smb-share-from-windows-10-pro-solution/ One of my machines was giving me a headache. I could not connect to my Synology file shares. All my other machines in my could just fine except this machine. Even after a reinstall it didn’t work. I kept getting the error: The specified server cannot perform the requested operation. The difference between the machines working and not working was the machine not working was Azure Active Directory Joined. The other machines weren’t. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/08/03/how-to-integrate-the-microsoft-identity-platform-aad-or-b2c-with-custom-jwt-authentication-for-realm-cloud-in-net/ Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:51:38 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/08/03/how-to-integrate-the-microsoft-identity-platform-aad-or-b2c-with-custom-jwt-authentication-for-realm-cloud-in-net/ Wow that’s the longest blogpost title I have ever used. Hopefully this will help finding this page if you are searching for a solution I am describing here. One of our customers came to us with a question how to integrate our B2C product with Realm Cloud. I had looked at this product before but didn’t know what technically was possible for integration with B2C. The request was to use B2C tokens with the custom JWT Authentication Realm cloud supports. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/07/18/create-a-user-delegated-permission-and-an-application-permission-with-the-same-name-in-azure-active-directory/ Thu, 18 Jul 2019 20:15:08 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/07/18/create-a-user-delegated-permission-and-an-application-permission-with-the-same-name-in-azure-active-directory/ For a training we are delivering I tried to create a little sample where I show how to create an API and protect it with our Microsoft Identity Platform. We have 2 kind of permissions we can support with our consent and permissions framework. User delegated permissions and application permissions. This is what we use for MS Graph as well. User delegated permissions are used if you want to grant the app running the permissions in name of the user. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/07/08/little-update-about-my-job-after-8-months/ Mon, 08 Jul 2019 14:27:59 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/07/08/little-update-about-my-job-after-8-months/ End of June our fiscal year ended. After a lot of travel this month I finally had some time to spend time with my family. My mom is visiting and was able to watch my daughter Lisa so my wife could join me in Washington, where I was for Identiverse and later travel to visit friends near New York. June was the heaviest travel month for me so far. I spend 2 nights at home. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/05/02/configure-domain_hint-in-asp-net-core/ Fri, 03 May 2019 01:10:38 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2019/05/02/configure-domain_hint-in-asp-net-core/ This took me way to much time to figure out since there is a ton of old information on the internet. I wanted to change the default behavior when people are logging in to my ASP.NET Core website using Azure Active Directory (or Microsoft Identity Platform). After some searching I figured out how to change this setting. You have to add the following piece of code to the ConfigureService method in your Startup. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/12/22/switching-to-google-fi/ Sun, 23 Dec 2018 00:53:57 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/12/22/switching-to-google-fi/ Last week I switched all the mobile lines of my family to Google Fi. We had t-mobile for some time but I wanted to try and see how Google Fi works. Since I am going to travel a bit for work, I was looking for a new phone which could work at least a working day without charging and gives me great coverage. I also wanted a plan with works great when abroad. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/11/24/what-to-pack-for-business-travel/ Sat, 24 Nov 2018 17:00:35 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/11/24/what-to-pack-for-business-travel/ For my new job, I need to travel a lot again. So instead of giving tips on how to fold your underwear so you can travel 3 weeks with only carry-on, I will share some of the stuff I take with me during travel. Since I will be delivering presentations, demo’s and give training I travel with at least 2 laptops. In case 1 stops working, but also to have 1 ready to download stuff you might need to recover the other device in case you get a corrupt OS or something like that. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/10/21/how-to-detect-if-your-devices-are-trying-to-circumvent-your-pihole/ Mon, 22 Oct 2018 01:48:46 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/10/21/how-to-detect-if-your-devices-are-trying-to-circumvent-your-pihole/ As I described in my previous blog post, you can set up a pi.hole DNS server to optimize your network traffic and your browsing experience. But not every device will be respecting your DHCP DNS settings it seems. Some devices have hardcoded DNS entries and just ignore your settings. Scott Helme wrote on his blog how to redirect those naughty devices and redirect their traffic to your pihole instead. But before we start doing that I was curious to find how many of those devices I actually had on my network. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/10/07/installing-pihole-on-your-cloudkey-gen2/ Mon, 08 Oct 2018 00:14:09 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/10/07/installing-pihole-on-your-cloudkey-gen2/ The other day I bought myself a Gen2 cloudkey plus from Ubiquiti and replace my old cloudkey. It comes installed with the Unifi SDN and the new Unifi Protect. The device looks really nice and has a little display which shows you information about the applications running on the device. Since I have been playing with pi-hole lately on one of my Raspberry Pi’s, I was wondering if I could install pi-hole on the cloudkey so I would have everything from my network on a central place. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/10/05/new-job-in-the-azure-identity-team/ Fri, 05 Oct 2018 17:20:59 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/10/05/new-job-in-the-azure-identity-team/ Just posted the email to my colleagues and send an email to our wonderful Windows Development MVPs. Today is my last day in Windows (DEP, developer platform team). I am starting a new job in the Azure Identity organisation in the CxP team. I will be working with developers to evangelize and drive adoption of our Azure Active Directory platform. The full job description is below: Senior Program Manager Azure Active Directory Premium, B2C The Digital Transformation era is upon us! https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/01/01/adding-flightradar24-feed-to-my-flightaware-raspberry-pi-piaware-install/ Mon, 01 Jan 2018 22:34:41 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2018/01/01/adding-flightradar24-feed-to-my-flightaware-raspberry-pi-piaware-install/ Since a week or so I am running PiAware from FlightAware on 1 of my Raspberries. It’s running fine. Thanks to Chris Johnson I also managed to feed Flightradar24 from the same feed. This are the steps I did on my raspberry through the shell. I don’t run a fancy container solution like Chris does on his setup so I had to steal some configuration and instructions from his github page. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/10/30/creating-my-config-gateway-json-provisioning-file-for-my-usg/ Tue, 31 Oct 2017 03:49:44 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/10/30/creating-my-config-gateway-json-provisioning-file-for-my-usg/ As described in a few previous blog posts I needed to set some configuration through the command line for my USG. But every time you provision the USG the changes will be lost. This can be solved to store the changes in the config.gateway.json file on my cloud key. Since the cloud key is running Ubuntu I can find that file in /usr/lib/unifi/data/sites/default (your site can be named differently, but mine is the default). https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/10/29/configuring-source-address-based-routing-on-my-unifi-usg/ Mon, 30 Oct 2017 06:26:50 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/10/29/configuring-source-address-based-routing-on-my-unifi-usg/ Updated 10/24/2018 since routing didn’t work anymore. You have to disable source-validation, thanks to Roelf for the comment with the correct command. For some time now I wanted to be able to test some network stuff. I want to be able to connect certain devices over a VPN to the Netherlands but without the need to configure every client with VPN connections. With this scenario it is possible to test different geo stuff accessing my network from different places in the world, it also helps me test the different latencies when going across the ocean and back. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/10/29/creating-2nd-network-with-seperate-ip-range-on-my-unifi-network/ Mon, 30 Oct 2017 05:57:59 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/10/29/creating-2nd-network-with-seperate-ip-range-on-my-unifi-network/ Some time ago I bought new network gear for my home from Ubiquiti. The Unifi range of hardware is very nice. It’s a bit pricy but you can do so much interesting stuff with it and the hardware is rock solid. At home I have the following hardware running: Unifi Security Gateway (USG) Cloud Key The 8 ports PoE switch to power access points and some security cameras Unifi 802.11ac Dual-Radio PRO Access Point (UAP-AC-PRO) Unifi AC In-Wall Pro AP And later I need to add a 24 port switch I am configuring my network to be able to use a VPN connection to The Netherlands depending on what wireless network or what physical network port the client is using. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/05/18/build-2017-videos-from-windows-uwp/ Thu, 18 May 2017 15:21:27 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2017/05/18/build-2017-videos-from-windows-uwp/ As every year, Windows was a big part of BUILD. For convenience (and my own) I listed all recorded and pre-recorded sessions from Windows below. Enjoy (Click the title of the session to go to the Channel9 page). Breakout Session Title <td style="background-color: #4472c4; border: 1px solid;"> <span style="font-weight: bold; color: white;">Speakers</span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 436px; background-color: #b4c6e7; border: 1px solid;"> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2017/B8004" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">App Model evolution</a></span> </td> <td style="background-color: #b4c6e7; border: 1px solid;"> <span style="color: black;">Andrew Clinick</span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 436px; background-color: #d9e1f2; border: 1px solid;"> <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://channel9. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/11/27/how-to-enable-ipv6-from-comcast-on-your-unify-security-gateway/ Mon, 28 Nov 2016 06:52:08 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/11/27/how-to-enable-ipv6-from-comcast-on-your-unify-security-gateway/ Since a while I run my home network on Unify hardware. I have got the UniFi security Gateway 3P, 1 (but soon 2) UniFi AP-AC-Pro and a UniFi Switch 8 POE-150W. Of course a Cloud key to manage it all (so I don’t need to install Java on my PC). Update (11/22/2017) for Unifi 5.7.7 or higher which added ipv6 support in the UI. FInally ubnt added IPv6 support to the UI of Unifi. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/11/09/how-to-set-configuration-in-your-universal-windows-application-through-mdm/ Wed, 09 Nov 2016 22:13:54 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/11/09/how-to-set-configuration-in-your-universal-windows-application-through-mdm/ One thing I hear over and over again when talking to (enterprise) developers is that they struggle with configuration management for UWP applications. In the past they just edited a app.config (or web.config) file on the machines to point an app to a test, acceptance or production environment. In UWP we have a app.config file as well but it’s hidden away in some obscure directory protected by some more restricted ACL. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/11/08/interesting-shortcut-on-windows-windowsctrlshiftb/ Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:27:34 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/11/08/interesting-shortcut-on-windows-windowsctrlshiftb/ The advantage of working inside the Windows engineering group is you stumble upon some cool or weird new and old features you never knew about. One of this nuggets is the keyboard shortcut Windows+Ctrl+Shift+B. So what does it do? It resets the graphics subsystem on your machine (and makes your machine say Beep!). Apparently this was introduced in the Vista timeframe where we introduced the new Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) in Vista. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/09/27/auto-updater-for-my-side-loaded-uwp-apps/ Tue, 27 Sep 2016 23:57:42 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/09/27/auto-updater-for-my-side-loaded-uwp-apps/ As I described before, i have a few tasks to solve for my home automation project. One of the things I wanted to do is to be able to update my application on the different devices easily. I could publish my home automation app to the store, but it’s hard to provide a test environment for the store testers and it takes a while when the app gets certified before i can roll it out to all my devices. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/28/how-to-use-any-app-in-assigned-access-mode-in-windows-10/ Mon, 29 Feb 2016 04:18:06 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/28/how-to-use-any-app-in-assigned-access-mode-in-windows-10/ As I wrote before, by default when you setup assigned access the UI only shows app which have the aboveLockScreen extension registered. I talked to the PM who owns this feature to ask why and the reason is because we changed the behavior of how assigned access works (lock the screen and launch the app above the lock screen) we found out a lot of existing apps crash when running on the lock screen, so we changed the UI to only show apps which are designed to run above the lock screen. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/27/how-to-debug-dirextx-on-windows-10-mobile/ Sat, 27 Feb 2016 19:31:25 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/27/how-to-debug-dirextx-on-windows-10-mobile/ Another one of these little ‘gotchas’. Morten asked the question why he couldn’t debug DirectX on mobile, but it was possible on desktop and the IOT version of windows 10. I am not a DirectX expert at all, but this was weird. So I asked around internally what was going on. First, if you want to do this on Desktop you need to install the graphics tools as an additional feature before you can do this. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/17/why-do-i-only-see-onenote-and-skype-when-setting-up-assigned-access-in-windows-10/ Thu, 18 Feb 2016 00:25:18 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/17/why-do-i-only-see-onenote-and-skype-when-setting-up-assigned-access-in-windows-10/ edit; this now just works for any application in the latest version of Windows 10. So the manifest is not needed anymore. If you are trying to setup assigned access in Windows 10, you go to settings, accounts, Other Users and there is a link to ‘set up assigned access’. First you need to create a local account you can use for assigned access. You can do that at this ‘Other users’ dialog as well. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/14/screensaver-for-my-app/ Sun, 14 Feb 2016 23:20:01 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/14/screensaver-for-my-app/ One of the things my Home Automation app needs to do is run forever. But I don’t want the screen to burn in either. I can allow the phone to lock the screen but at that time my app isn’t running. I could run some background tasks but there is no way to wake up the app and dismiss the lock screen automatically. Therefore I want an app which runs all the time but has some kind of build in screensaver. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/14/list-of-tasks-i-need-to-figure-out-for-my-home-automation-project/ Sun, 14 Feb 2016 21:55:40 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/02/14/list-of-tasks-i-need-to-figure-out-for-my-home-automation-project/ As I described before I am working on a little project to use some Lumia 640s in the house to control the home automation. Besides figuring out how to configure and roll out the devices, and figuring out how exactly I am going to put them in the walls, I also have a laundry list of items I need to figure out for the app on the device. Instead of waiting before everything is done I thought it might be useful to take you along the ride. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/01/30/fixed-my-bryant-two-stage-furnace-with-my-nest/ Sun, 31 Jan 2016 01:11:01 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/01/30/fixed-my-bryant-two-stage-furnace-with-my-nest/ When we bought the house we learned it had a fairly new Bryant furnace installed. The previous owner upgraded from an electric furnace a few years ago. When we had an HVAC guy over for an AC quote he mentioned it was a good two stage furnace, better than the one we had in Bothell. Ok, I didn’ really think about until a recent discussion with some colleagues at Microsoft. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/01/24/how-to-disable-the-sim-error-message-on-your-windows-mobile-device/ Sun, 24 Jan 2016 23:18:14 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/01/24/how-to-disable-the-sim-error-message-on-your-windows-mobile-device/ Some people use Windows Mobile devices without a SIM. I use it to test different things during my job and also on my developer devices at home. I just started a little project where I want to use the Lumia 640 as a control device and these devices will never get a SIM. So this pesky little warning prevents the device from automatically starting up and run my control software. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/01/24/new-project-lumia-640-as-touch-control-device-for-my-home-automation/ Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:38:50 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2016/01/24/new-project-lumia-640-as-touch-control-device-for-my-home-automation/ The other day I was chatting with Morten Nielsen on twitter about some ideas for home automation. I want to be able to control lights, temperature etc in some rooms in my home. Ideally that would be done with some kind of easy to use touch screen device. The Raspberry Pi came to mind. There are some screens you can attach to it. It’s low power and pretty easy to put inside the drywall and make the screen look nice on top of that. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/05/23/posting-blog-posts-through-onenote/ Sun, 24 May 2015 02:50:03 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/05/23/posting-blog-posts-through-onenote/ Microsoft introduced a new plugin for WordPress. This plugin lets you use OneNote pages as input for your posts. That’s pretty convenient. You can write and scribble in OneNote every time you want and once you’re finished you can just move that page over to WordPress with a single click. To make this work you need to install the OneNote published plugin in your WordPress blog. After you have installed it you need to configure the plugin according the instructions (you need to create an application so WordPress can access your OneNote files which are stored in your OneDrive) After this you can add a post in WordPress and select one of the pages from OneNote. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/04/05/smartthings-how-to-handle-guests-and-nannys-in-your-house/ Sun, 05 Apr 2015 21:39:36 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/04/05/smartthings-how-to-handle-guests-and-nannys-in-your-house/ Using SmartThings lets you automate most of the stuff in your house. Leaving the house automatically turns of all the lights and heating, but only when all of us leave the house. When one of us returns in the house, the lights go back on and the heating is on as well. The last few weeks my mom was visiting and when both me and my wife left the house she got stuck in the dark because both presence sensors connected to our keys were gone and the rule in SmartThings is when everybody leaves the house switch everything off. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/04/04/my-new-intel-nuc-desktop-computer/ Sat, 04 Apr 2015 17:32:32 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/04/04/my-new-intel-nuc-desktop-computer/ A while ago my desktop at home started to acting up. So I decided I wanted it to replace it with something new. I was looking for something small yet powerful and it needs to be silent!. My colleague Galileo recommended the Intel NUC. So after some searching and reading reviews I decided it looked good and would fulfill my requirements. It needs to be silent, powerful enough to use Visual Studio, enough memory, enough disk space. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/03/04/how-to-use-a-video-as-your-account-picture-in-windows/ Wed, 04 Mar 2015 19:32:22 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/03/04/how-to-use-a-video-as-your-account-picture-in-windows/ I just found out you can use a video instead of an image as your account picture in Windows (works with Windows 8.1 and up). Pretty neat effect. Post by Matthijs Hoekstra. So this is how you set it up. Go to your start screen, click on your name, choose ‘change account picture’ Instead of browsing for a picture you click on camera. In the camera screen make sure you switch to vide mode. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/02/18/pibow-coupe-enclosure-for-my-raspberry-pi-2/ Thu, 19 Feb 2015 06:04:23 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/02/18/pibow-coupe-enclosure-for-my-raspberry-pi-2/ When I ordered my Raspberry Pi 2 I also ordered a little enclosure called the Pibow Coupe. Since the layout of the Pi 2 is the same I assumed every case would fit. Unfortunately that was not the case for this specific enclosure. But with a little help of my Dremel I managed to adjust it a little bit and it now fits perfectly. When you build the case around your Pi board they little layers are numbered. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/02/18/raspberry-pi-2-arrived/ Thu, 19 Feb 2015 05:57:14 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/02/18/raspberry-pi-2-arrived/ Last month Microsoft announced support for Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2. That was a perfect excuse to order one myself as well (I ordered mine at MCM Electronics). Although it was in backorder it took less than a week to arrive. I also ordered a good power supply and a nice little case. Of course you need a memory card. 8Gb micro SD card should be enough for most situations. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/02/15/smartthings-switch-dimmer-to-100-and-return-to-original-value-when-contact-closes/ Mon, 16 Feb 2015 04:15:44 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/02/15/smartthings-switch-dimmer-to-100-and-return-to-original-value-when-contact-closes/ This was bothering me for some time. In the hallway we have a wardrobe closet but that part of the hallway is kind of dark. I was already planning to change the dimmers (2 way) for z-wave ones, but I want to have something smart here as well. Whenever I open the closet I want to lights to go to 100% but when I close the closet they should return to the original value (either it off, or dimmed etc). https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/01/17/my-smartthings-setup-for-my-home-the-logic/ Sat, 17 Jan 2015 19:09:06 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/01/17/my-smartthings-setup-for-my-home-the-logic/ In the recent blog posts I described how I setup the different sensors and connected my Nest thermostat. But the real automation or getting things convenient is by tying everything together. I have been struggling to get everything to work. One time 1 part was working but it didn’t go to another state automatically and suddenly the lights went out when I didn’t want it to happen etc. What helped me was drawing the following diagram and after that go through the app to define/configure all the different states (in the end, SmartThings is nothing else than a state machine) https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/01/03/get-the-device-name-of-your-windows-phone/ Sun, 04 Jan 2015 03:45:16 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2015/01/03/get-the-device-name-of-your-windows-phone/ I am updating my rubber duck app and I want to store the amount of ‘squeeck’s per device in roaming settings. So you can see the total but also how much you squeezed the duck on every device. I am storing this as key value pair and the key is the device name. So how do you get the device name? You can’t. There is (as far as I know) no API to get the device name. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/26/hmm-no-neutral-wire-for-my-z-wave-onoff-switch-now-what/ Sat, 27 Dec 2014 02:29:00 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/26/hmm-no-neutral-wire-for-my-z-wave-onoff-switch-now-what/ I tried to add another z-wave switch to my SmartThings network. I bought a on/off switch at Lowes (all the ‘works with Iris’ stuff you can use in your z-wave network), this is just a GE 1-way on/off z-wave switch, to connect to my outdoor lights so I can switch them on/off automatically with sunset/sunrise. When I connected it to the 2 black wires which were used to the existing switch the lights didn’t come on. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/23/installing-my-240v-electric-vehicle-charger-and-extra-40a-breaker/ Tue, 23 Dec 2014 18:46:03 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/23/installing-my-240v-electric-vehicle-charger-and-extra-40a-breaker/ A couple of months ago I bought a Nissan LEAF. It comes with a trickle charger you can connect to your 110V outlet but it takes a bit of time to completely charge your car (over 12 hours). I leased the car with a fast charger pack which makes it possible to charge the car in a couple of hours if you have a 240V charger. I decided I wanted to install this myself. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/21/added-2-smartsense-presence-sensors-to-my-smartthings-network/ Mon, 22 Dec 2014 03:59:47 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/21/added-2-smartsense-presence-sensors-to-my-smartthings-network/ There are still a couple of things I would like to automate in my house. For one when everybody leaves the home the home should switch to ‘away’ mode. The other one which would be nice is if I get home with the car the garage door opens automatically or closes when you leave the house. First thing I tried was setting up the Windows Phone from me and Sandra to use as a presence sensor. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/20/adding-the-ecolink-z-wave-pir-motion-detector-pet-immune-pirzwave2-eco-to-my-smartthings-network/ Sat, 20 Dec 2014 20:03:52 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/20/adding-the-ecolink-z-wave-pir-motion-detector-pet-immune-pirzwave2-eco-to-my-smartthings-network/ Last week I ordered this motion detector for my home. I want to use it to automatically switch some lights etc in my SmartThings network. Connecting the motion detector to the network is easy. Just follow the instructions. I use this for 2 different scenarios. 1st scenario is when I go downstairs in the morning, the sensor detects me coming down the stairs and tells the house ‘Goodmorning!’, that turns the lights on, turns the Nest to 69, if it isn’t already and turns on the Sonos on my favorite radio channel. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/15/setting-the-nest-to-away-and-home-in-combination-with-smartthings/ Mon, 15 Dec 2014 05:15:53 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/15/setting-the-nest-to-away-and-home-in-combination-with-smartthings/ I wanted to make it even easier for myself when I leave and enter the house. What we do now when we leave the house we set the Nest to away and when we return we set it to Home. That’s something we can automate with SmartThings. I found this script on github: https://github.com/pstuart/smartthings/blob/master/set%20tstat%20to%20not%20away.groovy So when I set my home to goodbye the Nest goes in ‘away’ mode and when ‘I am back’ the nest goes in to ‘home’ mode. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/15/build-first-smartthings-scenario-turn-offon-lights-at-sunset-and-sunrise/ Mon, 15 Dec 2014 00:45:37 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/15/build-first-smartthings-scenario-turn-offon-lights-at-sunset-and-sunrise/ As I described in my previous post I want to create a couple of scenarios in my house. The first one is a simple one. I want my lights at the front of my house automatically turn on and off when the sun sets and rises. I replaced my outlet switch with a z-wave switch and connected it to my SmartThings hub. After that it’s easy. Go to your SmartThings apps. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/14/wish-list-smartthings-scenarios-in-my-house/ Sun, 14 Dec 2014 19:38:40 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/14/wish-list-smartthings-scenarios-in-my-house/ Since I bought the SmartThings hub and several switches and sensors I was thinking which scenarios I exactly want to work. So far I have been fooling around and I found out if you want a complete working set of scenarios without me using the app all the time to set my house in a state I want, I need to think it through and build all the scenarios from the beginning. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/12/adding-my-aeon-labs-dsb09104-zwus-z-wave-smart-energy-meter/ Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:16:02 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/12/adding-my-aeon-labs-dsb09104-zwus-z-wave-smart-energy-meter/ As I mentioned earlier, I bought a SmartThings hub and want to connect a couple of sensors and devices. One of the devices I bought is an energy meter. Since I drive an electric car I wanted to get some more insights in how much energy I use charging my car (and also what I use in the house). I found the Aeon Labs energy meter on Amazon for $35.00. Aeon Labs does have a newer version (V2) but I could not figure out why that would be a better deal for me. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/08/bought-a-smartthings-hub/ Mon, 08 Dec 2014 04:09:22 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/08/bought-a-smartthings-hub/ Last week I got myself a SmartThings hub. I was already looking for some time to get into to home automation. I have a NEST thermostat, some Philips Hue lights but wanted something more. These are the scenarios I want to try to solve: I would love it when I come downstairs in the morning the lights come up (but only when it is still dark) and Sonos starts playing my music. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/07/moved-my-blog-and-i-will-try-restart-blogging-here/ Sun, 07 Dec 2014 04:09:01 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2014/12/07/moved-my-blog-and-i-will-try-restart-blogging-here/ It’s been a long while since I blogged here. After we moved to the US keeping up with our family blog, work and starting a new life here in the US, blogging here wasn’t a high priority. Since we are more or less settled down and I have a little bit more time doing some technical stuff it might be a good time start blogging again. As you can see the blog moved from www. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/04/01/bing-com-april-fools/ Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:07:25 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/04/01/bing-com-april-fools/ This is one of the funny April fools jokes I found today. Most jokes aren’t that funny. But this one is subtle. Go to http://www.bing.com/ Search for google. This will be the result. Michael Kroll, Principal UX Manager from Bing explains the ‘Introduction Bing Basic’ in his blogpost 🙂 Oh and if you check the bing.com page the statues smile once in a while 🙂 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/03/22/adding-videos-from-your-sd-card-to-your-videos-library-on-your-surface-rt/ Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:13:34 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/03/22/adding-videos-from-your-sd-card-to-your-videos-library-on-your-surface-rt/ My daughter watches a lot of videos on the iPad (youtube and some local stored videos) today she wanted to watch the videos on the pink iPad (our Surface RT with pink touchcover). I have an SD card with videos inserted in the Surface but they don’t show up in the videos library. When you try to add the SD card to the videos library Windows complains it can’t do that because it’s removable media. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/02/11/wifi-enabled-my-roomba/ Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:46:39 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/02/11/wifi-enabled-my-roomba/ A month ago I purchased my Roomba 780. At home we have a dog (German Sheppard) and we had to vacuum at least once a day (ok my wife did that :)) I thought; let me help a little in our household so I bought this device. At nights it automatically cleans the floor and when we leave the house we can manually start it as well by hitting the clean button or using the remote. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/02/10/nerd-tracert/ Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:17:26 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/02/10/nerd-tracert/ Ok I know I am a nerd but this is just funny 🙂 open a command prompt and run this command: tracert –h 100 obiwan.scrye.net it will result in this: https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/20/where-are-all-the-windows-8-apps/ Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:23:04 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/20/where-are-all-the-windows-8-apps/ We get a lot of questions from people they see less apps in the Windows 8 store than their friends and are wondering what’s going on. It’s pretty simple. By default the Windows 8 store only shows the apps which support your Windows Language preferences. So if you install a Dutch version of Windows the store only displays apps which support the Dutch language. There are 2 ways you can show more apps. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/13/how-to-play-a-wav-sound-file-with-directx-in-c-for-windows-8/ Sun, 13 Jan 2013 17:14:27 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/13/how-to-play-a-wav-sound-file-with-directx-in-c-for-windows-8/ Many people use the Mediaelement to play soundfiles in their apps. For my liitle app this wasn’t good enough. I build an app where I want to be able to press a button very fast and everytime a sound should be played. Mediaelement didn’t handle the soundplaying fast enough for me. On Windows Phone I could use XNA but that’s not available on Windows 8. The alternative is DirectX, since I don’t want to write any C++ code anymore I needed to find something else. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/13/how-to-increase-your-windows-8-app-ratings/ Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:14:28 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/13/how-to-increase-your-windows-8-app-ratings/ Today I described a trick for Windows Phone how to increase the numbers but also the average rating of your app. It worked very well for the my rubber duck app I wrote. A little over 11000 downloads with over 1000 reviews is a ratio of 1:11 which is very good. The trick is to ask people to review your app (and provide them a very simple way to do it) after they start your app 5 times. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/12/how-to-increase-your-windows-phone-app-ratings/ Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:09:36 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/12/how-to-increase-your-windows-phone-app-ratings/ UPDATED (18-1-2012): Jason mentioned in the comments this doesn’t work for Windows Phone 8. He is absolutely right. If you check the documentation on MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/ms598674(v=vs.105) it tells you for Windows Phone 8 you can’t use the MessageBox.Show in the Application_Launching event. So you should place your code in the OnNavigatedTo event of your first page. I changed the code below to reflect that. One of the really important things people look for when looking for an app is good rated apps. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/06/making-a-backup-of-my-hp-ex470-homeserver-disk/ Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:58:30 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/06/making-a-backup-of-my-hp-ex470-homeserver-disk/ Update: make sure you follow this post when finished cloning your drive otherwise WHS won’t run as you would expect. One of my colleagues Homeserver crashed and he doesn’t have the restore DVD anymore. I happen to have an EX470 homeserver from HP as well. My colleague asked to copy the C drive (that’s the only drive HomeServer doesn’t create a duplicate for). Lars Stolwijk recommended using EaseUS ToDo backup to clone a disk on twitter. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/06/little-fun-with-nfc-and-windows-phone-8/ Sun, 06 Jan 2013 16:38:15 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/06/little-fun-with-nfc-and-windows-phone-8/ Since Windows Phone 8 supports NFC I wanted to see what I could do with it. I ordered a bunch of NFC stickers online from Special Line. You can use your own app to program the stickers but there are also a few in the store already. NFC Interactor or NFC Launchit. NFC Interactor is the most flexible but you need to do most of the configuration yourself. NFC Launchit has a lot of predefined action you can write to your tag (but only app launches) for example go to your wifi settings or Kid’s corner. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/05/youless-and-bidgely-in-the-house/ Sat, 05 Jan 2013 20:26:37 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/05/youless-and-bidgely-in-the-house/ Around the end of the year we will get the final calculations from our energy supplier and you will know if your monthly bill was too high or too low the last year. My energy bill is quite expensive I think and that has mostly to do with me using a lot of energy (and all the taxes of course). When I log in to the website of Eneco I can see what the average usage of houses in my neighborhood is. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/03/about-this-blog-its-wordpress-running-on-microsoft-azure/ Thu, 03 Jan 2013 21:07:04 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/03/about-this-blog-its-wordpress-running-on-microsoft-azure/ Why not describe how I installed this blog? Perhaps you are surprised I run this blog on WordPress while I am working at Microsoft 🙂 that’s ok but I like to play around with other stuff than just Microsoft technology. It helps me being informed about what people are also using (and yes I know not the entire world is using Microsoft technology) and WordPress actually runs perfectly fine on Microsoft Azure. https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/03/welcome-to-my-blog/ Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:30:03 +0000 https://matthijs.hoekstraonline.net/2013/01/03/welcome-to-my-blog/ Yes, finally, after many years I am starting my own blog on my own domain hoekstraonline.net. I have been blogging for a while on my Microsoft blog but I decided this holiday I wanted to blog in English (the MS blog is only Dutch) and want to write about more than just the MS work I do. I will still be posting on my MS blog and perhaps do some crosspostings once in a while too.