Teams, AV2, Firewall, Mitmproxy, ZAP, ESU, API

1. Microsoft Teams - Had serious issues again setting up push notifications and connections for Teams, it's just very complex and brittle system. Mostly leading to serious annoyance. Earlier bots worked just fine, now those are broken. No bot image possible, all posts must be implemented as cards etc, which is sub optimal format. I would have just preferred posting a message and so on. - Just indicating practical issues when dealing with these annoying and frustrating platforms. I've got "all other messengers" integrated, and Teams is absolutely the worst one, even if it really shouldn't? - But now it's finally working, even if it was long and unholy operation.

2. AV2 video codec (@ Wikipedia). Yeah, it's going to supersede AV1. It's still in making, just checked what they aim. So they aim to beat the H.266 VVC, that's quite obvious. AV1 is already great, it's nice to have even better option in years to come.

3. Firewall fun: on first network, network outbound firewall, routing, VPN tunnel entry firewall. On the second network, VPN tunnel exit firewall, generic untrusted network sources traffic entry firewall, routing, server network VLAN firewall and finally the server firewall. All of these layers have dozens of rules, with ports (and services), and sources (IP addresses and named networks and groups), and destinations (same as previous), and states (based on multiple factors) and other conditions. But finally I got it all to work. - Phew! - And when it works, after that starts the meticulous recheck that it doesn't work "too well". Because disable firewall would have been the easy way. Lol. After that detailed documenting. - Oh joy.

4. Spent weekend morning playing with mitmproxy and OWASP ZAP. Basically I've done from scratch usually what mitmproxy does, but this is much better alternative. Earlier for simple use cases I just used Python, to host a site and forward requests, but no point reinveting the wheel. So mitmproxy provides out of the box "platform" for the Python code. The support for transparent proxy is also very nice. My old solution needed direct pointing directly to local end point and accepting any certificate. Some claim it's hard to use, but compared to my DIY solution this is nicer. I'm already well familiar with Python and CLI. As well as when I use it, I usually already know exactly what I'm looking for. Like the intentional fuzzing and or modifying requests on the fly trying to break (or fix) something. Based on this background I found out the OWASPS ZAP to be overkill for my needs, it's just like the GUI version of WireShark, duh. Good to know that it exists, if and when needed.

5. Windows 10 ESU - Activated it on many devices. Those devices will be renewed which require Windows 11 later, when ESU runs out. But the old hardware is most likely going to be used just with Linux instead of Windows. This is the direction Microsoft is pushing us. Only the systems which absolutely require Windows, are installed with new hardware and Windows 11 / Windows Server 2025.

6. AI APIs, lots of tinkering with AI API integrations and scripting, batching, docker, podman, etc. Automation, tooling, cli helpers... Let's see what comes out of this.

7. Home automation, confirmed that everything is now properly working with 15 minute pricing accuracy. System fetches daily the daily price chart, and then turns difference devices based on program on as necessary. Multiple rules can be defined, like on between times, off between times, on if price, and or as example on 4 hours daily, when the power is the cheapest (4 * 15 = 60 pricing segments), non-contiguous individual cheapest 60 segments or contiguous windows can be also defined (averaged), for that check etc. - Why? Finland moved to use 15 minute electricity pricing, earlier it was hourly. Yet the prices are announced in advanced, allowing efficient daily optimization.

8. Something different? AGM-183 ARRW canceled? Duh, I thought it had fine capabilities at least on paper. Geran-2 design aspects, capabilities, features, range, speed, flight profile, navigation systems, etc.

2026-03-01