SSL Certificates with Let's Encrypt
You probably noticed a microscopic difference when accessing the site: suddenly, when you type in mrgazz.com, you get redirected to the secure site, <>. Why, and how? First the why: Google announced it was going to prioritize search results according to the security of the site. That makes a lot of sense: “secure” sites have a modicum of respectability and require extra work compared to plain HTTP sites. You have to set up a secure server, which means you have to do more than simply point a DNS name to an IP address. Continue readingCreating Pebble Apps: A Guide for the Novice (Like Me)
Great News! The intro I had written about smartwatches in general and why the Pebble is better than others is gone! Now more Pebble App Development tips! Developing for Pebble is fun! No, really! It’s complicated, but it’s fun. It has lots of moving parts, but it’s fun! I am going to skip the part where I tell you why you should develop for Pebble. Because it’s fun! And that’s all anyone needs to know, really. Continue reading
Automate Instant Messages with Pidgin and DBus
Despite being an overall fan of KDE, I always preferred the Gnome version of the Instant Messenger, Pidgin. It is really designed for ease of use, it is extensible with incredibly useful plugins, and is available on a ton of platforms. Also, it can be easily configured and you can synchronize the configuration files with no issues, even using OwnCloud or Dropbox. No surprise then that I would use Pidgin to automate all sorts of tasks. Continue reading
Turning a Fixed Width Site to Variable Width Using Web Technology
I love my Y50. The 4k screen resolution gives me both a chance to see a lot more on a single page and much better and crisper text if I want to see it normal size. The only downside? Software that assumes pixel sizes. It doesn’t really matter what I am looking at: anything that comes with predefined pixels turns into a microscopic smudge. It’s completely impossible to realize what the buttons do in the Gimp, for instance. Continue reading
Speedtesting Your ISP, Command Line Version
I currently pay an obscene $66 for 25 MBit/sec Internet. On top of that, I had to pay a mandatory $99 equipment fee for an enormous modem, and another $99 fee for mandatory installation. Just as I was done with my first year promotional price and things “reverted” to the “regular” price of $66, I received a message. I had been underbilled, apparently, but I was lucky and they were not going to backcharge me. Continue readingEmergency Update
In case you were on here yesterday, for a brief period (a very long hour for me) the site was down. What happened? A confluence of things: The main hard drive filled up with an ever-expanding collection of source code I split said source code onto several machines, requiring a re-installation of the SCC software I ended up with repositories incompatible with the old version of the SCCS So I had to update the operating system Which updated everything, making my configuration files pretty much unusable Here is the skinny. Continue reading