ffmpeg: Width or Height not divisible by 2

If you’re trying to shrink a video by half along the lines of this, you may encounter an error about “width not divisible by 2” during processing, or you just might get an empty mp4 file: The problem happens when you get interesting video dimensions, such as a vertical video that might be 1080 wide […]

Monitoring Solar Panels with NodeRed + InfluxDB + Grafana

This post will guide you through how to monitor your solar panels using some free open source tools running on your local network. Required technical level: Moderate to Advanced experience with programming/networking/sql/docker. This certainly isn’t a point and click solution. Here’s a summary of the setup: Solar System: 18 x REC 350W panels 18 x […]

Load data into Google Spreadsheet from PHP

Lets say you have a PHP script that returns a value, based on a query string: Getting the result of that PHP script into Google Sheets is rather easy. Open Tools > Script Editor in Google Sheets and create a function like this: function getMyQueryValue(value) { var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(“https://mysite.com.com/query.php?string=” + value); Logger.log(response.getContentText()); return JSON.parse(response); […]

Linux: Monitor what is using your webcam

If your curious what programs are attempting to read your Linux webcam then it’s possible to use the auditctl and ausearch tools to see what process is using the webcam. First install the auditd package: sudo apt-get install auditd Then run auditctl to start monitoring the /dev/video0 device for access: sudo /sbin/auditctl -w /dev/video0 -p […]

Fix “orphan image” in unraid docker

This can happen if you’re manually messing around with the location of docker configuration files on the hard drives. If the orphan image is from a Community Applications installed docker image, simply follow these steps: Go to the App menu Choose Previous Apps on the left hand side Click the reinstall icon on the app […]