Author: Carl

Each time I install another internet-of-things (“IOT”) device in my home, it is always the same:  the device requires that I tell it the wifi password for the Internet connection in my home.  The app that needs to be installed on my smart phone to get the IOT device working also asks lots of intrusive things, and demands to be given access to my “location”.  This leads to a situation where the IOT device could be a security risk for trusted devices on my local area network.  What can be done to reduce or eliminate the security risks presented by the dozens of IOT devices in my home?  Part of the answer is to set up a VLAN (virtual local area network).  Then the IOT devices are denied any opportunity to have any access to my trusted devices.  I will describe how this is done.

Continue reading “Setting up a VLAN for your IOT devices”

Forty-one years ago, I co-authored a law review article in the Harvard Environmental Law Review promoting the use of wind energy.  You can see it here:

Carl Oppedahl & Mary E. Tarduno, Wind Energy Conversion, 5 Harv. Entl. L. Rev. 431 (1981).

This blog article talks about a situation that comes up frequently in all of our daily lives — removing the front cover of a circuit breaker panel and working on the panel.  The main point of today’s article is that in the circuit panel shown at right, we recently added the two yellow caps shown at A. This makes the circuit breaker panel less dangerous. Continue reading “Making a circuit breaker panel less dangerous”

I was astonished to hear from D-Link that it has shut down its cloud that makes its smart plugs work.  Pictured at right is one of the three DSP-W110 smart plugs that I purchased from D-Link in 2016.  I still own the plugs and one of the plugs still has a device plugged into it — a table lamp.

But as of today, I cannot turn the lamp on or off using the app on my smart phone.  As of today, the D-Link smart plugs don’t do anything any more.  Continue reading “D-Link IOT cloud evaporates”

Many readers know that during World War II, military aircraft used red internal lighting.  Pilots used red flashlights to view maps while in flight.  The reason for using red is that if ordinary full-spectrum (white) light had been used, this would spoil the “night vision” (vision using rods instead of cones).  Red light does not harm night vision as much as white light.  This blog article talks about using night lights around the house that are red instead of white.  Continue reading “Red night lights”

I enjoyed immensely my first viewing of Glass Onion.  I then enjoyed immensely my second viewing of Glass Onion.  In this blog article I will reveal how you can get an identical copy of the digital voice recorder (seen at right) that appears on the screen in this movie at 42:14.  Continue reading “Heavens, the dog ate the caviar again”