How Does Your Organization Value Technology?

Just a quick thought here today. Thinking about the organization you work for or the organizations you work with, how would you say they view technology?

1. Key to Success – Technology is an enabler AND a primary differentiator
2. Important – The core business requires a commitment to technology to succeed
3. Just Another Budget Item – Technology is a necessary evil

It is important to realize how valuable technology is to your organization or organizations we work with. If the business views our skills as key differentiators, work will be much more rewarding. If technology is just a necessary evil, it will be cut with everyone else’s budget.

Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical detail of Paul Stewart. This may or may does not reflect the position of past, present or future employers.

Viewing Cisco Proximity with SpectrumView

I wanted to share a quick trick for troubleshooting Cisco Proximity. For those that haven’t stumbled onto this particular technology, Proximity is a feature in Spark Connected and Traditional Cisco Video Endpoints that provides a pairing channel for screen sharing. Specifically, the codec announces its presence and connection information via 22khz audio stream. The client device then uses that connection information to make a connection over the network and share the screen with the codec. Since 22khz is beyond what the human ear can hear, there is a need for some other tool to check for its presence.

The tool I use to check for the pairing channel presence is SpectrumView and is available in the Apple App Store.

SpectrumView

There are a couple options that need to be manually configured before the tool displays the higher frequency used for the pairing process:

• Recording – Audio Sampling Rate 48000
• Display – This may be necessary to adjust if you don’t see anything. I typically set mine to about 15dB

With the proper settings and within range of a proximity enable device, some output should be visible just above 20kHz.

Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical Continue reading

Viewing Cisco Proximity with SpectrumView

I wanted to share a quick trick for troubleshooting Cisco Proximity. For those that haven’t stumbled onto this particular technology, Proximity is a feature in Spark Connected and Traditional Cisco Video Endpoints that provides a pairing channel for screen sharing. Specifically, the codec announces its presence and connection information via 22khz audio stream. The client device then uses that connection information to make a connection over the network and share the screen with the codec. Since 22khz is beyond what the human ear can hear, there is a need for some other tool to check for its presence.

The tool I use to check for the pairing channel presence is SpectrumView and is available in the Apple App Store.

SpectrumView

There are a couple options that need to be manually configured before the tool displays the higher frequency used for the pairing process:

• Recording – Audio Sampling Rate 48000
• Display – This may be necessary to adjust if you don’t see anything. I typically set mine to about 15dB

With the proper settings and within range of a proximity enable device, some output should be visible just above 20kHz.

Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical Continue reading

Viewing Cisco Proximity with SpectrumView

I wanted to share a quick trick for troubleshooting Cisco Proximity. For those that haven’t stumbled onto this particular technology, Proximity is a feature in Spark Connected and Traditional Cisco Video Endpoints that provides a pairing channel for screen sharing. Specifically, the codec announces its presence and connection information via 22khz audio stream. The client device then uses that connection information to make a connection over the network and share the screen with the codec. Since 22khz is beyond what the human ear can hear, there is a need for some other tool to check for its presence.

The tool I use to check for the pairing channel presence is SpectrumView and is available in the Apple App Store.

SpectrumView

There are a couple options that need to be manually configured before the tool displays the higher frequency used for the pairing process:

• Recording – Audio Sampling Rate 48000
• Display – This may be necessary to adjust if you don’t see anything. I typically set mine to about 15dB

With the proper settings and within range of a proximity enable device, some output should be visible just above 20kHz.

Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical Continue reading

Firepower FMC API – Initial Observations

As many of you know, I am not a developer but I do occasionally hack stuff together. This article is just some of the initial things I have learned working with the Firepower Management Console API.

A good place to start is the Firepower REST API Quick Start Guide. This can be found at the following URL.

Firepower REST API Quick Start Guide

One thing to note is that there is a recommendation to use a dedicated username for the API. I would go a step beyond that with a recommendation for testing and development. During development, I currently have a username for the FMC UI, a username for the API Explorer and a username for whatever tool I’m working with (Postman or a Python Scripts). The reason for the extra accounts is that logging in to any of the UI’s tends to generate a new token (and invalidate the old one). This causes a constant reauthentication to the Web Interfaces.

Here is a screenshot of Postman doing an initial authentication — Post to retrieve an access token.

Generate Token URL

https://<server-ip>/api/fmc_platform/v1/auth/generatetoken

Sending a post with basic authentication to the URL will produce an “x-auth-access-token”. This is good for 30 minutes Continue reading

Firepower FMC API – Initial Observations

As many of you know, I am not a developer but I do occasionally hack stuff together. This article is just some of the initial things I have learned working with the Firepower Management Console API.

A good place to start is the Firepower REST API Quick Start Guide. This can be found at the following URL.

Firepower REST API Quick Start Guide

One thing to note is that there is a recommendation to use a dedicated username for the API. I would go a step beyond that with a recommendation for testing and development. During development, I currently have a username for the FMC UI, a username for the API Explorer and a username for whatever tool I’m working with (Postman or a Python Scripts). The reason for the extra accounts is that logging in to any of the UI’s tends to generate a new token (and invalidate the old one). This causes a constant reauthentication to the Web Interfaces.

Here is a screenshot of Postman doing an initial authentication — Post to retrieve an access token.

Generate Token URL

https://<server-ip>/api/fmc_platform/v1/auth/generatetoken

Sending a post with basic authentication to the URL will produce an “x-auth-access-token”. This is good for 30 minutes Continue reading

Firepower FMC API – Initial Observations

As many of you know, I am not a developer but I do occasionally hack stuff together. This article is just some of the initial things I have learned working with the Firepower Management Console API.

A good place to start is the Firepower REST API Quick Start Guide. This can be found at the following URL.

Firepower REST API Quick Start Guide

One thing to note is that there is a recommendation to use a dedicated username for the API. I would go a step beyond that with a recommendation for testing and development. During development, I currently have a username for the FMC UI, a username for the API Explorer and a username for whatever tool I’m working with (Postman or a Python Scripts). The reason for the extra accounts is that logging in to any of the UI’s tends to generate a new token (and invalidate the old one). This causes a constant reauthentication to the Web Interfaces.

Here is a screenshot of Postman doing an initial authentication — Post to retrieve an access token.

Generate Token URL

https://<server-ip>/api/fmc_platform/v1/auth/generatetoken

Sending a post with basic authentication to the URL will produce an “x-auth-access-token”. This is good for 30 minutes Continue reading

What’s Your Biggest Professional Challenge?

Now that we are in a new year (wow, it is hard to believe it is 2018), I want to ask a simple question. With what you are trying to accomplish at work or in your career, what is your biggest challenge? Is it something only you can deal with or is it something that someone can help with? Would you consider this challenge a personal challenge for your own career goals, or is it a challenge that you are trying to solve to further your employer’s objectives?

For me the answer would be something like this–

1. Biggest Professional Challenge–distractions
2. Who can help with this–mostly me, but my employer certainly doesn’t help and probably doesn’t truly understand the efficiencies that could be gained.
3. This is a personal challenge–but my employer could certainly reap the rewards if I could improve in this area.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider this my resolve for 2018. However, it is certainly an area that I will work hard to improve in this new year. 

What are your challenges? Maybe I could help. Maybe it could even be interesting enough to be a new distraction that steals all my attention and becomes a new area of complete Continue reading

What’s Your Biggest Professional Challenge?

Now that we are in a new year (wow, it is hard to believe it is 2018), I want to ask a simple question. With what you are trying to accomplish at work or in your career, what is your biggest challenge? Is it something only you can deal with or is it something that someone can help with? Would you consider this challenge a personal challenge for your own career goals, or is it a challenge that you are trying to solve to further your employer’s objectives?

For me the answer would be something like this–

1. Biggest Professional Challenge–distractions
2. Who can help with this–mostly me, but my employer certainly doesn’t help and probably doesn’t truly understand the efficiencies that could be gained.
3. This is a personal challenge–but my employer could certainly reap the rewards if I could improve in this area.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider this my resolve for 2018. However, it is certainly an area that I will work hard to improve in this new year. 

What are your challenges? Maybe I could help. Maybe it could even be interesting enough to be a new distraction that steals all my attention and becomes a new area of complete Continue reading

What’s Your Biggest Professional Challenge?

Now that we are in a new year (wow, it is hard to believe it is 2018), I want to ask a simple question. With what you are trying to accomplish at work or in your career, what is your biggest challenge? Is it something only you can deal with or is it something that someone can help with? Would you consider this challenge a personal challenge for your own career goals, or is it a challenge that you are trying to solve to further your employer’s objectives?

For me the answer would be something like this–

1. Biggest Professional Challenge–distractions
2. Who can help with this–mostly me, but my employer certainly doesn’t help and probably doesn’t truly understand the efficiencies that could be gained.
3. This is a personal challenge–but my employer could certainly reap the rewards if I could improve in this area.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider this my resolve for 2018. However, it is certainly an area that I will work hard to improve in this new year. 

What are your challenges? Maybe I could help. Maybe it could even be interesting enough to be a new distraction that steals all my attention and becomes a new area of complete Continue reading

Reading EEPROM – Obtaining the GE Concord Express Installer Code

One of the more frustrating things for me is when someone, or some company, attempts to control me. Typically having the desire for less responsibility, I have no desire to control individuals in this way. Recently, I started looking into what moving my alarm system to a new monitoring service would entail. The primary goal included eliminating the dependence on a landline and getting the flexibility to do reconfigurations myself. I own the alarm system and I felt like I should be able to make those changes.

Upon investigation, I found that my alarm system was a bit challenging to reset the installer code. Searching the Internet yielded several options to try–1234, 9876, 4112 and 6112. Unfortunately, none of those worked for my system and a call to my current alarm service company was met with, “We don’t provide those, we want to protect you from

making accidental changes.” They eventually agreed to try to change the code to another value  and called me back a few times. Eventually, their remote effort fizzled out, but I’m

sure they would’ve changed them with an on-site visit and a $75 service fee.

A few searches on the internet suggested copying Continue reading

Displaying Pi Output on an LCD

A few weeks ago, I shared an article about leveraging the Meraki API and a Raspberry Pi to create a Dummy Light for My Network. Today’s article expands on this slightly by adding a 16×2 LCD Display for additional output flexibility. For the sake of demonstration, we will continue to use the Meraki API as the source of what will be displayed. An example of what I have built is shown immediately below in this short video.

TL;DR

To accomplish this, I added the HD44780 to my Raspberry Pi (Pi 2 Model B) using the following pinout.

#connect LCD Pin 1 (VSS) to Ground
#connect LCD Pin 2 (VDD) to 5v rail
#connect LCD Pin 3 (VO) to potentiometer
#connect LCD Pin 4 (RS) to 37
#connect LCD Pin 5 (RW) to Ground
#connect LCD Pin 6 (E) to 35
#connect LCD Pin 12
#connect LCD Pin 13
#connect LCD Pin 14
#connect LCD Pin 15
#connect LCD andode (a) to 5v rail (Phy Pin 2)  with resistance
#connect LCD cathode (k) to Ground Rail (Phy Pin 6)
#connect potentiometer to 5v and ground rails

Next, I wrote the following Python Script.

import requests
import json
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import  Continue reading

Displaying Pi Output on an LCD

A few weeks ago, I shared an article about leveraging the Meraki API and a Raspberry Pi to create a Dummy Light for My Network. Today’s article expands on this slightly by adding a 16×2 LCD Display for additional output flexibility. For the sake of demonstration, we will continue to use the Meraki API as the source of what will be displayed. An example of what I have built is shown immediately below in this short video.

TL;DR

To accomplish this, I added the HD44780 to my Raspberry Pi (Pi 2 Model B) using the following pinout.

#connect LCD Pin 1 (VSS) to Ground
#connect LCD Pin 2 (VDD) to 5v rail
#connect LCD Pin 3 (VO) to potentiometer
#connect LCD Pin 4 (RS) to 37
#connect LCD Pin 5 (RW) to Ground
#connect LCD Pin 6 (E) to 35
#connect LCD Pin 12
#connect LCD Pin 13
#connect LCD Pin 14
#connect LCD Pin 15
#connect LCD andode (a) to 5v rail (Phy Pin 2)  with resistance
#connect LCD cathode (k) to Ground Rail (Phy Pin 6)
#connect potentiometer to 5v and ground rails

Next, I wrote the following Python Script.

import requests
import json
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import  Continue reading

Displaying Pi Output on an LCD

A few weeks ago, I shared an article about leveraging the Meraki API and a Raspberry Pi to create a Dummy Light for My Network. Today’s article expands on this slightly by adding a 16×2 LCD Display for additional output flexibility. For the sake of demonstration, we will continue to use the Meraki API as the source of what will be displayed. An example of what I have built is shown immediately below in this short video.

TL;DR

To accomplish this, I added the HD44780 to my Raspberry Pi (Pi 2 Model B) using the following pinout.

#connect LCD Pin 1 (VSS) to Ground
#connect LCD Pin 2 (VDD) to 5v rail
#connect LCD Pin 3 (VO) to potentiometer
#connect LCD Pin 4 (RS) to 37
#connect LCD Pin 5 (RW) to Ground
#connect LCD Pin 6 (E) to 35
#connect LCD Pin 12
#connect LCD Pin 13
#connect LCD Pin 14
#connect LCD Pin 15
#connect LCD andode (a) to 5v rail (Phy Pin 2)  with resistance
#connect LCD cathode (k) to Ground Rail (Phy Pin 6)
#connect potentiometer to 5v and ground rails

Next, I wrote the following Python Script.

import requests
import json
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import  Continue reading

A Dummy Light for My Network

I’ve always heard the red lights in car dashboard referred to as Dummy Lights. One example might be the use of a light to indicate high temperature in lieu of a temperature gauge. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time doing unique things with hardware and software. Yesterday I challenged myself to build an indicator light to show health issues with my Meraki MX.

Before I get into this, the cool factor here is not what I have built. The cool factor is that someone with very little experience, driven by curiosity, can build this in a very short period of time. I’m neither a professional developer nor someone with deep knowledge around hardware hacking. So before I get too deep into this, I want to solicit thoughts, feedback, and recommendations.

The Trigger

After a little research, I found that the Meraki Dashboard provides a “Load Monitor” that is returned via a perfScore value. This feature is in beta and there’s not a lot of information on it. Therefore, consider your own data source that you would like to use as a trigger value. The following python code will store a numeric value (score) between 1 and 100 (with a Continue reading

A Dummy Light for My Network

I’ve always heard the red lights in car dashboard referred to as Dummy Lights. One example might be the use of a light to indicate high temperature in lieu of a temperature gauge. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time doing unique things with hardware and software. Yesterday I challenged myself to build an indicator light to show health issues with my Meraki MX.

Before I get into this, the cool factor here is not what I have built. The cool factor is that someone with very little experience, driven by curiosity, can build this in a very short period of time. I’m neither a professional developer nor someone with deep knowledge around hardware hacking. So I want to solicit thoughts, feedback, and recommendations.

The Trigger

After a little research, I found that the Meraki Dashboard provides a “Load Monitor” that is returned via a perfScore value. This feature is in beta and there’s not a lot of information on it. Therefore, consider your own data source that you would like to use as a trigger value. The following python code will store a numeric value (score) between 1 and 100 (with a lower number being a better score).

import  Continue reading

A Dummy Light for My Network

I’ve always heard the red lights in car dashboard referred to as Dummy Lights. One example might be the use of a light to indicate high temperature in lieu of a temperature gauge. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time doing unique things with hardware and software. Yesterday I challenged myself to build an indicator light to show health issues with my Meraki MX.

Before I get into this, the cool factor here is not what I have built. The cool factor is that someone with very little experience, driven by curiosity, can build this in a very short period of time. I’m neither a professional developer nor someone with deep knowledge around hardware hacking. So I want to solicit thoughts, feedback, and recommendations.

The Trigger

After a little research, I found that the Meraki Dashboard provides a “Load Monitor” that is returned via a perfScore value. This feature is in beta and there’s not a lot of information on it. Therefore, consider your own data source that you would like to use as a trigger value. The following python code will store a numeric value (score) between 1 and 100 (with a lower number being a better score).

import  Continue reading

Back In The Future

There are several good nuggets that can be found in this Ted Talk. I particularly like the impetus on local communities and the idea of a Business Plan contest for high school students.

Innovation: Five Steps to Get Your Local Economy Back to the Future

Share your crazy ideas for building local economies and enabling one another by commenting below.

Disclaimer: This article includes the independent thoughts, opinions, commentary or technical detail of Paul Stewart. This may or may does not reflect the position of past, present or future employers.

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