Tools I Use on DVLUP

Windows Subsystem for Android and .NET MAUI

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know you can deploy and debug your Android projects from Visual Studio 2022 (17.3+) to WSA (Windows Subsystem for Android)? This is a quick post to show you how to have your WSA appear in the list of target Android devices in Visual Studio.

WSA as the target device

First, make sure you have WSA installed and enabled, find the instructions here Windows Subsystem for Android™️ | Microsoft Docs . Once it is installed, start the Amazon App Store app to ensure WSA has been started.

Free Yourself With DevOps

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As you evolve as a developer, you start to venture into the world of CI-CD. This is because you want to spend more time coding and less time with the repetitive and tiresome nature of compiling for different targets, packaging and publishing.

I frequently write content about CI-CD; whether it is Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions or just a PowerShell command that does a ton of work for you. In today’s post, I’m going to take you on a journey that shows you how to use Azure DevOps to automatically build, package and publish your app to the Microsoft Store.

Automatic OneDrive Backup

Sun, 09 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As a part of my ongoing “Tools That I Use” series, I wanted to share another favorite, RichCopy 360 . On premise, I have a 80 TB HDD array, separated into multiple drive pools by Stablebit DrivePool (post coming soon). However, to meet the critical Rule of 3 , I needed to add a 3rd off-site option.

I considered several different ways to do this and decided on taking advantage of my OneDrive for Business disk space (OneDrive gives you up to 5 TB). So, what do I use to copy that data up to OneDrive?

Scott's Ultimate Tools via Winget

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As a nice year-end present for us, he has done it again, visit Scott Hanselman’s 2021 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows .

Someone had left a great comment about compiling a list of all his suggestions as Windows Package Manager (aka winget) or Chocolatey package IDs. I mentioned this to Scott and he thought it was a great idea, too. So I offered to compile the list.

Why is this a wonderful suggestion? You only need to run a quick one-liner command, winget install <id> or choco install <id>, and you have installed the software.

USB Support for Home Assistant in Hyper-V

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re running Home assistant in Hyper-V, you’ve probably encountered a significant limitation… Hyper-V doesn’t let you pass-through a USB device, so you can’t use your Z-Wave dongle or zigbee dongle.

So why am I writing this blog post? I have found a way to make it work, feast your eyes on the following screenshot!

Click to enlarge. Z-Wave USB dongle available to Home Assistant container inside Hyper-V

The left side is Home Assistant’s frontend in the web browser, open to the Open Z-Wave Add-On page. Notice in the yellow highlight, that is a Z-Wave USB dongle plugged into the Windows 10 machine.

Installing Home Assistant on Hyper-V

Mon, 25 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This post is a quick tutorial you can follow to get Home Assistant working on Hyper-V so you can take advantage of your PC’s compute power instead of running it on a Raspberry Pi. This installation method is really quick and doesn’t require any command line setup.

**Important**: If you want to use USB devices in Home Assistant, please this different tutorial -> [USB Support for Home Assistant on Hyper-V](https://www.dvlup.com/2020/10/23/usb-in-hyper-v/). The approach used in this article doesn't allow for USB devices.

Step 1 - Create Hyper V Machine

Download the VHDX file (hassos_ova-[version].vhdx.gz) from the home-assistant GitHub Releases page .
- I recommend only using the latest non-beta release so you won’t have trouble with HA’s built-in updater. As of writing this, that is version 3.13:
Right-click on the downloaded .gz file, select “Properties”, check the “Unblock” checkbox and click OK.
Extract the .vhdx file from the.gz file (you can use 7-Zip to do this). Don’t worry about where you extract it to, Hyper-V will make a copy.
Open Hyper-V Manager app on Windows 10.
In the right pane, select Quick Create (at the top right).
Choose “Local Installation Source” option for an OS and use the extracted .vhdx file.
You’ll be presented with the VM’s Settings window before starting it up. Here are some recommendations:
- In the Memory tab, set the RAM to at least 2048 MBs or higher and disable Dynamic Memory
- Under the Security tab, make sure Secure Boot is disabled:
- Under the Automatic Stop Action tab, change the setting to “Shut down the guest operating system”:
- Finally, select the Automatic Start Action tab and set your preferred option:
Start the machine and wait for initial setup to complete and you see the Welcome to HassOS prompt.

Migrate to Unraid from openmediavault

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have stopped by the Unraid website several times, longing for those the features on offer… like Charlie looking into Willy Wonka’s front gates imagining the wonders that lay beyond.

However, I got scared off each time when I read the setup instructions and never took the next step to implement it. I wish I had done this sooner, it was really easy… literally plug and play (with a couple button clicks to confirm I wanted to format the drive 😊).

Setting up Home Assistant in Docker for Windows with Port Forwarding Enabled

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I hope that you’ve landed here before spending hours/days trying to find a solution as to why you can’t forward the Home Assistant port in Docker. The solution is frustratingly easy.

Problem

The install Home Assistant in docker on Windows instructions are great, with one exception. It explains the required prerequisites to make sure docker has access to a host disk. However, those instructions have outdated instructions to setup the port-forward rules, which ultimately makes it a waste of time.

Creating 3D Icons for your Mixed Reality UWP app

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has opened up the ability to have a 3D app launcher to all developers in the Fall Creator’s Update. In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to build your own 3D app launcher from scratch (accompanying YouTube tutorial video embedded below).

What is a 3D app launcher?

App Launchers

Up until now, you’ve only been able to have a regular 2D tile in the Start menu and the user could place a 2D frame of your app on a surface in the Cliff House (the Mixed Reality home) or on a surface in your HoloLens mapped area. Clicking the app frame would launch the app in the same frame.

Surface Dial and Real-Time Video Effects

Fri, 11 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I was given a Surface Dial the other day and I thought “what can I do with this to create a better experience for the user”. One thing came right to mind, applying real-time video effects.

I have a UWP app in the Windows Store, Video Diary , where you can apply real-time video effects while recording a video. One of the features of these effects is to increase or decrease the video effect’s properties. For example, the intensity of a Vignette effect, here’s what I want: