Just what i find

When Function App updates won’t save…

I accidentally deployed a dodgy bit of code to one of my function apps. Then, even when I tried to revert to a “known good” version of my code via the GUI, it still didn’t work. No matter what I did, I kept getting the dreaded “Compilation Failed” error – but there was no more information. No Continue reading →

October 28, 2016
National Rail LDBWS to Twitter

I’ve been playing around with my Nextion and a Particle Photon for a while. The idea is to pull data from a variety of services and have it available on a display by the front door – things like the weather, the outside temperature (from my Netatmo), and the next 3 trains to Seven Sisters from our station. Continue reading →

October 23, 2016
missing dependencies Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Scripting

While trying to install the C# scripting package Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Scripting from nuget, but was getting odd messages about missing dependencies. I spent ages trying to figure it out as all the dependency versions appeared to match (e.g. however, eventually I discovered that you neeed .NET 4.6. Doh! Continue reading →

October 23, 2016
Logic Apps are so expensive!!

I started writing EnfieldTownBot using Azure Logic Apps. It’s pretty easy, but i soon hit a challenge – it’s so expensive! My app was pretty simple – a trigger, a “for…each”, a condition and a http callout to my Twitter Poster Function App: So – if there are no delays, that’s (recurrence + httprequest + foreach + 3 x Continue reading →

October 20, 2016
Quick and easy way to tweet from a function app

After my last post, I spent some time looking through this. Eventually, I found a really lightweight class which does what i need. After spending some time adding some error handling to the api.request() method, I then wrapped a webrequest around it and created a function app. You can find it here: https://github.com/mnbf9rca/TwitterFunctionApp the app takes a simple JSON: Continue reading →

October 19, 2016
BMW API now requires location, no bypass available

Earlier this year, we got a new car, a BMW 3 series. It came subscribed to the BMW ConnectedDrive service, and that comes with an iPhone or Android app. So, of course, I immediately set about deconstructing the traffic to figure out what was going on, inspired by the work of Terence Eden. Unfortunately, BMW appears Continue reading →

October 18, 2016
Twitter API without libraries – for posting as yourself (e.g. a bot)

I have to say that the twitter API documentation is absolutely abysmal. It’s impossible to navigate – calls make reference to other calls but the major problem is that there are almost no examples – they almost all recommend that you use a library. So how on earth are you supposed to learn how the API Continue reading →

September 18, 2016
How to: access the Honeywell Evohome API documentation

Since writing this post, Honeywell has sold their products to Resideo, the new URL is: https://tccna.resideo.com/WebApi/Help/ApiIntroduction After my last post, I did some more digging. I found that the API is actually documented at https://tccna.honeywell.com/WebApi/Help/ApiIntroduction you need an APP ID to log in with (or OAuth app ID+secret). Continue reading →

April 18, 2016
How to: Manage Honeywell Evohome with Azure Logic Apps

When we bought our house a few years ago, we totally gutted it and one of the things we installed was an evohome heating system. Honeywell has an iphone app for the evohome, so recently, I decided to explore the API. Unfortunately, Honeywell doesn’t seem to offer a public API, so I spent a bit of time Continue reading →

March 12, 2016

About me

I’m rob. I spend my time exploring the world, playing board games with my family, solving complex technical problems, and learning new things. Sometimes i write about them here, or code them on GitHub. I believe a few things that guide what I do and how I do it:

Hard things are hard. It takes time, effort and practice to be good at them.
Everybody can learn something new every day. When we’re born we know how to eat and cry and that’s about it. Everything else we’ve learnt, and we can keep doing that all our lives.
Great teams are fun to work in, and great teams achieve great outcomes. The wider the range of people and perspectives in the room, the better the work.

Look back