Skip to content

Tech

Floccus is the bookmark manager you have been looking for

Floccus does exactly what you want because Floccus doesn’t break your bookmark management flow. The flow being: adding, changing, removing, moving bookmarks *in* your browser, straight from the bookmark bar and with the shortcuts you already know. Because Floccus is nothing more than a browser extension. How does it work? Floccus is actually not a bookmark manager — because your browser does that already! FLOCCUS IS JUST A SYNC TOOL.… Read More »Floccus is the bookmark manager you have been looking for

Simple jumphost ssh-agent config

You can find many tutorials online on how to use ssh-agent or ssh-ident correctly. This is a short and simple two line fix aimed at a specific use i.e. a single connection to a jumphost. Add this to your .bashrc So now when you type jumphost: And from the jumphost you can ssh connect to anywhere because you forwarded your keys. Possible drawbacks: Drawbacks: This setup works for quick access… Read More »Simple jumphost ssh-agent config

Compact WSL partition and reclaim storage space

Start PowerShell Find where your WSL vhdx file is located. Usually under: C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Local\Package\Linuxdistroflavour\LocalState\ext4.vhdx Start diskpart (from PowerShell or CMD): diskpart.exe Run: select vdisk file=”C:\Users\Jan van den Berg\AppData\Local\Packages\TheDebianProject.DebianGNULinux_76v4gfsz19hv4\LocalState\ext4.vhdx” and next: compact vdisk

I don’t understand terminals, shells and SSH

Confession time: I don’t fully understand how terminals, shells and SSH really work (and my guess is you don’t either). And I don’t mean the cryptography behind SSH. I mean how SSH and the terminal — and the shell for that matter — interact with one another. I recently realized that even though I’ve been daily remotely logging into Linux systems for all of my adult life (and type in… Read More »I don’t understand terminals, shells and SSH

ChatGPT and humans as prompt fodder

  • Tech

I woke up Sunday morning with an unnerving feeling. A feeling something had changed. A disturbance in the force if you will. Mainstream media seems blissfully unaware of what happened. Sure, here in the Netherlands we had a small but passionate demonstration on primetime TV, but e.g. the NY Times so far has *nothing* 🦗🦗 But something most definitely happened. My personal internet bubble has erupted the last few days… Read More »ChatGPT and humans as prompt fodder

Five things I’d like to see in Mastodon

  • Tech

I love Mastodon. I am a believer. Not that I think it will replace Twitter or anything like that. But it is definitely its own thing. True to the original ideas of the internet. There are however a few things I would really like to see. In no particular order. Threads Threads in the timeline feel clunky. I see replies to long running threads scattered through my timeline. They are… Read More »Five things I’d like to see in Mastodon

How to get green links on your Mastodon profile with WordPress

The green links on your Mastodon profile indicate that you are the owner of that link i.e. that website. You can achieve this by adding a little line of code to your website (see Link verification). When you have a basic HTML website, adding this piece of code is this trivial. However when your site runs on WordPress, it’s a bit different. I found a tutorial that only works with… Read More »How to get green links on your Mastodon profile with WordPress

Welcome to the Fediverse

  • Tech

It was 2017 when I signed up for the Dutch instance of Mastodon. The newfangled thing. But it wasn’t until last week that it *clicked*. It clicked for two reasons. Forget the Metaverse Mastodon is part of the fediverse. Meaning it shares the core principles of the fediverse. With a little bit of reading, I got a better understanding of what the fediverse actually is, and how Mastodon fits in.… Read More »Welcome to the Fediverse

Using Windows OpenSSH Agent with Windows Terminal and Cygwin

  • Tech

I am back to running Windows Terminal + Cygwin, after a stint with MobaXterm. I blogged about it before. Why: In the end MobaXterm just had too many quirks. Specifically when changing screens — docking / undocking which I do a lot during the day. However, one thing I really did like about MobaXterm was the integrated SSH agent (MobAgent). That part worked really well. That was what kept me… Read More »Using Windows OpenSSH Agent with Windows Terminal and Cygwin

WhatsApp should really fix these issues

WhatsApp is my most used app, but its development seems stagnant. Which is not always a bad thing for software, but WhatsApp could really improve some things, especially when those improvements seem trivial. Some wishes could even be classified as bugs: which they should really fix. In no particular order (for iOS). Multi-select on media searchWhen you use the global search (pull down on iOS) and select a category (Photos,… Read More »WhatsApp should really fix these issues

Reaching 100 stars on GitHub: what I learned from putting code online

When the pandemic started in early 2020, I needed something to get my mind off things. Frustrated with most database form generation solutions I created Cruddiy and put it on GitHub. Two years later Cruddiy reached 100 stars on GitHub. Something which I did not expect. We could argue a long time on what a GitHub star as a metric actually represents, but for this post it represents: hey, more… Read More »Reaching 100 stars on GitHub: what I learned from putting code online

Windows Terminal + Cygwin

[UPDATE July 2022: I switched to using MobaXterm which does the job just fine. I don’t like that it is not free/open but I do like that it comes with an integrated SSH agent, which makes life a lot easier] I had been a happy WSL1 user for many years, but after switching laptops I more or less had to upgrade to WSL2. Which is the same thing but not… Read More »Windows Terminal + Cygwin