This weekend we learned that Bram Moolenaar had passed away at the age of 62. And this news affected me more than I expected. Like so many: I did not know Bram personally. But I’ve been using a tool made by Bram for more than half my life — at least weekly, sometimes daily. That tool is a text editor. The best one there is: Vim. Vim For those wondering:… Read More »The Legacy of Bram Moolenaar
Yes, you read that correctly. Firefox on a Chromebook! Without tricks. Or at least, not many tricks. Why? When you want to use the SonicWall Connect Tunnel software (from the SMA 1000 Series) on your Chromebook the suggested SonicWall Mobile Connect app does not work properly. I don’t know why, but there is a solution. The solution In one sentence: install the (Java based) SonicWall VPN Connect Tunnel software and… Read More »Using the SonicWall Connect Tunnel with Firefox on a Chromebook
The Debian documentation is sparse on how to correctly configure incoming SPF checks in the Debian Exim package. It is sparse in the sense that it tells you what to install (spf-tools-perl) but it is not clear WHERE to put the very important macro. It only says: This is provided via the macro CHECK_RCPT_SPF, set it to true. Fine, but where!? Answer: you should put this macro at the top of your… Read More »Correctly configuring incoming SPF in Exim on Debian
This is a public note to myself for working with Audacity; which I don’t do too often, and I want to make sure I don’t forget it. I recently created a 5 hour music project: a DJ radio show. What I need from Audacity is: That’s mostly it. Audacity is a very powerful tool, but also great for just these few things. Tips The biggest challenge when working with different… Read More »Audacity Tips
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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