Trevis Rothwell's weblog – Page 2 – Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea

May 10, 2021

Great Lakes Engineered Hickory Flooring

Another engineered hardwood flooring project is coming to an end. Tonight I laid the final board of Great Lakes Flooring engineered hickory in the basement studio / bedroom area. This is nearly five years after laying the same flooring in the larger main area of the basement.

Of all of the engineered flooring products I have used, the Great Lakes Flooring engineered hickory has been my absolute favorite. It assembles easily, and has a classic wood appearance that I really enjoy.

I was sad to learn that apparently this fine flooring product has now been discontinued! I am very thankful to have placed my final order a few weeks ago, and received all of the flooring that I needed to finish my job here, but after putting down on the order of 1000 square feet of this material, I am sad that I could no longer recommend it to anyone else.

Perhaps Great Lakes Flooring is only discontinuing it in order to release a new and improved version. We can hope!

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April 3, 2021

Abstract URLs with Apache .htaccess files

I moved my web pages to a new server, but neglected to copy my Apache .htaccess files. For WordPress, no problem, since the WordPress software itself reminds you of what .htaccess content you need. But for generic abstract URLs, such as letting users request www.example.com/foo and serve them www.example.com/foo.html, what do you do?

After several attempts, I found, as usual, the answer at Stackoverflow:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f
RewriteRule (.*) $1.html [L]

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February 20, 2021

The Polar Vortex Has Departed

After two weeks, the polar vortex has departed the area, leaving us with seasonably-comfortable temperatures in the upper twenties and low thirties. Samantha the border collie and I took a long walk around a nearby park.

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February 18, 2021

Planning Sound Panels

I have had two boxes of Roxul Rockboard sitting in the garage for two years, in preparation for making sound panels. Now I am wishing I had just bought sound panels, instead of material for making sound panels. The cost difference isn’t that much, but it would be a lot easier.

But there they are, the two boxes of Rockboard. So use them I shall!

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January 4, 2021

Linksys AC750 WiFi Extender

Over the recent holidays, I set up a couple of Ring devices: a doorbell, and a camera overlooking our hard-to-see-from-inside-the-house driveway. Both devices worked generally well, but it often took several tries to connect to a live view of the camera video feed. Both devices showed fairly low WiFi RSSI signal strength numbers, which was not that surprising given that they are outside above ground level, and the wireless router (hooked up to the Internet connection) is in the basement.

So I installed a Linksys AC750 WiFi Extender in the garage. Contrary to some of the Amazon reviews for the AC750, I found the setup process clear and easy to do… for a software engineer! The instructions probably could have more clearly explained some steps for general readers, but nevertheless I have it up and running.

It only boosted the RSSI numbers a little bit (about 5-10), but it was apparently enough to give much better response time on connecting to the camera live views. A solid addition to the home doorbell/camera system! Perhaps Ring should offer their own especially-easy-to-set-up WiFi extender?