Extracurricular Activities

Why You Should Use Component-Based Design in Unity

Traditionally, inheritance is leveraged within object-oriented programming to reuse code without rewriting it. In Unity, however, it’s better to use a composition-based approach. At a high level, components in Unity are just C# scripts that can be added onto a GameObject; they can be designed and implemented in many ways. Building up game features using […]

How to Run the Unifi Controller via LinuxServer.io’s Docker Image

In late 2019, I decided to upgrade my home network to use Ubiquity’s line of Unifi equipment. Hardwiring several access points to cover my sprawled-out, L-shaped ranch house has gone a long way to improving WiFi coverage. I’m also using a fair amount of the Unifi routing and switching equipment. Today, I’ll explain how I […]

Self-Hosting Your Own Cloud – Part 8: Monitoring Your Internet Traffic with ntopng

Recently, I discovered that a family member’s device on my home network had been DNS-hijacked. This was only brought to my attention because some sites on that machine were resolving to fraudulent servers. This made me concerned about what the other devices on my network may be up to. I decided to do some research […]

Self-Hosting Your Own Cloud – Part 7: Building a Personal Private Network with WireGuard

About a year ago, I wrote about how to use OpenVPN to provide secure remote access to your home network and its resources to start building your own private cloud. I have been incrementally adding network services since. Recently, I’ve started using WireGuard instead of OpenVPN. I’ve found that the configuration is far simpler, while […]

Using SQL to Look Through All of Your iMessage Text Messages

iMessage is one of my favorite things about having an iPhone and a Mac. It’s also one of my least favorite things. I love being able to send messages from my computer, and the integration between the two devices is seamless. What frustrates me is the inability to efficiently search through old messages. iOS 13 […]

How to Host a Zoom Concert with High-Quality Audio

At Atomic, we’ve been staying connected with “Quarantunes” — mini live concerts given by employees and streamed to the entire company over Zoom. These concerts are a fun little pick-me-up during the week that help many of us get through the emotional roller coaster brought about by current events. Zoom is a great platform for […]

How to Keep Home Stuff off Your Work VPN while Social Distancing

All of us at Atomic have been working remotely for a couple of weeks now. In that time, we’ve learned a lot about what works really well (team Discord servers, Zoom happy hours, lots of affirmation) and what doesn’t work quite so well. One of the things that I’ve found troublesome is using whole-network VPNs. […]