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0 pointsordinaryperson6y ago0 comments

Four things:

1. Pihole to ad block ads (useful for phone browsing) https://pi-hole.net/

2. Custom Weather conditions dashboard, using Dark Sky's API

I'd love to replace the weather dashboard with one of my integrated work / personal calendars so I could see what meetings I have each day but work won't expose that data, claims it's a security risk.

3. Custom NYC subway dashboard, showing me estimated train arrivals for trains at the 2 closest stations.

The MTA has free apps which also show estimated train arrivals but only for one station at a time. Also, the MTA's train estimation methodology isn't as accurate as it could be.

4. Retro Pie, to play NES and SNES games https://retropie.org.uk/

0 comments

aoeuidiue6y ago

Have you experienced any issues using PiHole? I would imagine some apps etc would go to lengths to prevent their use. But if it works I'll set one up for my partner who plays way too many spammy games.

yvan6y ago

I have two Raspberry Pi with PiHole (for redundancy) and it works very well.

But still find something a bit annoying and there is little we can do about it.

1. YouTube Ads are still showing up (you need to maintain a list quite often to avoid those ads) 2. To maintain the software (update is simple), but you better update and then back up the SD card and replicate it to the second Raspberry Pi.

In terms of performance, I have not seen anything blocker, no malfunctioning app or the network getting slower. Time-to-time, I got angry wife that cannot click on ad links. :-)

ordinarypersonOP6y ago

Two areas where I've seen problems.

One, sometimes I want to browse/buy things via Google Shopping (or some other shopping interface) but the Pi-Hole blocks it.

Two, sometimes for work I will run a docker-compose script that say, downloads a copy of Puppeteer. For whatever reason the domain seems to be on Pi-Hole's blacklist.

Granted I could probably whitelist the domains but that seems like a hassle. It has the ability to disable blocking for periods (like 5 minutes or an hour) but that doesn't seem to solve the above problems.

Other than that, it works great. It probably won't affect a regular internet user. But occasionally you can run into problems.

nprateem6y ago

Maybe you could create multiple wifi networks, one that uses pi-hole and one that doesn't.

ascagnel_6y ago

> 3. Custom NYC subway dashboard, showing me estimated train arrivals for trains at the 2 closest stations.

A friend of mine is a big Mets fan with a home bar; I helped him build a sign that showed the countdown clock for the Willets Point subway stop for that room, which went nicely with the beer signs and other sports memorabilia he & his dad had been collecting for decades.

I also built a FE that scrapes bus/train/light rail arrival data from NJTransit's website (they don't have an API, but they provide some JSON in their web app responses).

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