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Post 1 – Introduction

Welcome. I intend to keep note of things I’m working on here. Mostly things I try in my own time but sometimes spilling over into work related things.

Certain projects may appear (here). Which is my private Github. Not everything I’ve been up to is visible or indeed interesting. You have been warned.

My blog (here) has long been dormant and I can’t promise this site won’t go the same way but paying for a domain hopefully provides a bit of incentive this time round.

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Docker 101

I've been making progress learning Docker. On my local machine this was fairly easy to set up and test with a python flask web app as a hello world.

I then tried to repeat the process on a VM in Google Cloud Services – the one running this website! The install seemed fairly straightforward but I had to troubleshoot an error regarding specifying the correct linux version.
I documented this in a github repo and will link when I write everything up.
Eventually I got the install working and tried to pull my recently created docker image from my docker repo. Unfortunately I got an error stated 'no space left on device' error. I think the image was really big as I didn't build it with slimmed down packages.
Once this error is fixed I'll update and link to a working guide.

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Moving data around

I managed to get my temperature monitor back up and running. It seems to be more stable than a year ago.

As a reminder I'm POSTing data from a Arduno WiFi connected to my local network which is sent to my Apache web server.
I have a PHP script that processes the data and puts it into a mySQL db which is then polled when the relevant test area page is accessed.
The next task is to graph the data to observe trends. I currently only see the last entry and time stamp.
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Custom Buttons

User Log In

I created this button to prove I could create a custom element for linking to the user sign in area. In the end a menu seemed to work better as otherwise I’d need to edit the WordPress template html on the VM.

It wasn’t totally clear when the button code should be placed to always appear in the right place so I’ll stick with the above approach for now.

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Atom and Github

I challenged myself to try and post something on here before 2020 was over. This is not an exciting update but I finally got round to using Atom as an editor again. I was able to link to my GIthub account and update some repos as a test.

After a bad experience with Atom over two years ago I decided to try again as it's become much more popular of late.

After I rushed things and couldn't get it working I then used this excellent tutorial to get back on track – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HsZMl-qV5k.

I will now try to use it as my main editor to get used to it for various projects.

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More post-by-email tests – Showing full posts roadblock

I’d been meaning to investigate a way of showing these posts (which are now successfully coming in via email updates), as full posts on this front page.

A pandemic gave me the perfect opportunity to pick up where I left off and try to fix the issue.
It looks like it’s not as simple as I thought – The default theme i’m using (twentyseventeen) asks you to pick either a static front page (which I had previously for contact details) or a ‘posts page’ where full posts are shown instead of excerpts.
This can be switched using the following menu –
Wordpress TwentySeventeen theme posting options.png
I’m sure there is a workaround and no doubt a bit of unpicking the code would give a decent solution but for now this will do.
I may use a ‘pinned’ post to outline what the site is about which my previous layout did in pretty simple terms.
Hopefully this will be the start of a bit more tinkering again now i’m house bound like the rest of country.
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Additional User Test

This test is from a new user I just setup that is NOT admin. It also includes some formatting and an image or two.

Liverpool John Moores University

David Copley
New Robotic Telescope – Systems Engineer
Astrophysics Research Institute
IC2 Liverpool Science Park, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L3 5RF
t: xxxxxxxxxxx e: d.copley@ljmu.ac.uk

Important Notice: the information in this email and any attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not an intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to an intended recipient, you should delete it from your system immediately without disclosing its contents elsewhere and advise the sender by returning the email or by telephoning a number contained in the body of the email. No responsibility is accepted for loss or damage arising from viruses or changes made to this message after it was sent. The views contained in this email are those of the author and not necessarily those of Liverpool John Moores University.

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This is a test

This is a test (for Helen)…

I wanted to prove I can post to the site via email. This test shows this feature working using the Postie Plugin. The next step is to test from multiple users and re-set gmail permissions after opening up due to debug with Postie.

I also need to test posting from emails which include images to check what kind of formatting is required.

This brief test is part of proving a system of updating the robotictelescope.org website in future, for multiple users.