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Bridging the Gap: Retrofitting a 1993 Home with UL 217 Smoke Alarms and Home Assistant

My old smoke alarms finally reached their 10-year expiration mark, and the replacement process turned into a full-blown engineering project. If you live in a home built in the early 90s—specifically around 1993—you’re likely in the same “infrastructure gap” I was. My house in Houston was originally hardwired for only three spots in the hallways, but modern fire codes now mandate smoke alarms in every bedroom.
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Deploying a Qt App to the Microsoft Store with CPack and MakeAppx

As the maintainer of an open source Qt application, I’ve run into a common problem: Windows users often get blocked by security warnings because the software isn’t digitally signed. The cost of a code signing certificate can be prohibitive, but there’s a fantastic alternative — the Microsoft Store. By submitting your app to the Store, Microsoft signs it for you, eliminating trust warnings and giving users a clean, familiar installation experience.
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