Posts on Matt Brunt - Developer & Problem Solver

I’ve used Google Workspace for email on my own domain for years.

I was tagged to complete this challenge (modern day chain-letter?)

I’ve been through a few ‘phases’ of a workflow for storing, editing, and backing up photos I take.

I’m a hobby photographer.

I got a new laptop (a refurbished MacBook Pro 14" with M2 Pro) and was setting up the little tools and pieces of software that just make using it nicer.

My wife is also playing a new character in our D&D campaign, here’s her new backstory!

I’m going to be playing a new character in a D&D campaign I’m in with some friends, I wrote the backstory to send to our Dungeon Master so I figured I’d post it here too as I’m pleased with it!

Bee happy 🐝 Inspired by my friend Carol and her lifenotes :) ✨ Highlights Started my new job at 🐝 Bumble!

The Internet-of-Things sucks.

I started monitoring my energy usage last year out of curiosity, but with how prices have risen this year, it feels less like a “this would be fun to know” situation and more of a “where are we using energy that we shouldn’t be” situation now.

I use Signal as my message app of choice.

I run 2 copies of AdGuard Home for ad-blocking on my local network.

Well well well, what do we have here?

I had a Netgear Orbi router and satellites running my home network, but things were becoming unstable.

I’m moving from macOS to Windows for my work computer, while I use Windows personally with my gaming systems and have used Windows for years, on an average day I was using macOS more than Windows.

Having snagged a 3080 Ti for MSRP recently, I ended up building a new system completely, rather than just upgrading the GPU from my old system.

Since Home Assistant announced energy monitoring was being added, I’ve been super interested in what sort of data I could get out of my energy system.

I’ve recently started using some Tasmota plugs for power monitoring using Home Assistant, in setting them up I found (and was shown) some useful commands!

I’ve recently dived into MQTT.

Time moves on.

Previously my phone-photo-backup process involved connecting it to a computer, then manually copying photos to a folder on my NAS.

The past few weeks have been quite a ride.

I’ve worked with code for a long time now, I’ve come to realise that every ‘simple’ request is only simple on the surface.

I’d previously set up an If-This-Then-That (IFTTT) integration with Monzo to put 20p into a pot every time I tweet.

In part 1 of this series of blog posts about Home Assistant I got setup and created an automation.

I’ve had various ‘smart’ devices in the house for a while, but they’re all separate systems that don’t talk to each other.

It’s been one month since I went #FullMonzo, I’m thinking of periodically writing posts on my findings both in my own spending habits, but also in how I’m using Monzo to better manage my money.

I recently wanted to be able to control whether a route was available based on an environment variable, in dev I wanted it available, but in production I wanted it turned off (for now).

I’ve used Monzo for a number of years, but never as my primary account.

I’ve been using a Bullet Journal for a few years now, what started off as something to try turned into something I rely on day to day.

A couple of bits of software I have on my systems that once installed, I kinda forget they’re there, but they’re very useful Greenshot Link: https://getgreenshot.org I loved the screenshot capabilities of macOS.

As part of the DDD East Midlands speakers workshop we were asked to write a 3 minute talk on any subject of our choosing and we had to deliver it without slides.

Docker volumes are fiddly and just don’t work out-of-the-box with WSL.

For our project at work, we needed to set up Xdebug in Docker.

Getting things set up and rolling at my new job, the test setup and how to do some things was something I was especially interested in.

My ‘old’ laptop was a Macbook Pro from late 2013.

There’s been a couple of things recently that have got me to this point Hype around serverless functions My growing interest in OpenFaaS So here I am, sat in a coffee shop in central London tinkering with OpenFaaS and PHP - here’s how it went.

People often comment on how it must be so great to be able to travel to speak, educate others and have the time and support to do so.

Hack 24 time is upon us!

Packing light this year… The little thing in the middle is my iPad mount: The Mountie Plus from @TenOneDesign is so good.

We’re looking for a rockstar ninja superhero programmer wizard who can save our failing company.

I’ve been using Kahlan for testing a bit recently, I really like the describe-it style.

Inspired by something I saw a friend write in Go, I’ve written a small smoke testing tool in PHP.

When developing, sometimes you might find yourself repeating things within the same context.

Transformers can provide a lot of helpful utility in Behat, reducing the work required to get what you need within your step definitions.

When working with web pages in behat, you can use something such as Mink directly to drive the browser and navigate around the site.

It’s been a month since I started bullet journalling - it’s been good for my motivation, keeping track of what I’ve got going on, as well as making me mindful of all the things I’m doing.

Recently I’ve been using Dokku to deploy some of my side-projects, I wanted a simple deployment procedure that didn’t rely on complicated build systems, as these were just small apps that I needed to host somewhere easily.

When giving talks, I’ll often give a demo, when asking if anyone has questions at the end of the talk, often I’ll be asked “what is your prompt and where can I get it?”

Hack 24 is here once again!