Note: instructions for installing and configuring phpMyAdmin also included below. Related Artices in Debian Services and Applications - Debian on AWS Lightsail - OpenVPN on Debian + UFW Firewall - Nginx and Letsencrypt on Debian - PHP & MariaDB on Debian - Grav CMS on Debian As of December, 2018 there are decent performance gains ... Read more
It is a good idea to get PHP and MariaDB on Debian set up before Nginx (except the PhpMyAdmin which can come after). Related Artices in Debian Services and Applications - Debian on AWS Lightsail - OpenVPN on Debian + UFW Firewall - Nginx and Letsencrypt on Debian - PHP & MariaDB on Debian - ... Read more
The book is "Sapiens" and it is all about humans. Fascinating and eye-opening, it provides enormous perspective for us humans today. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari I agree that there are things to disagree with in the book (my Kindle version is littered with notes where he is wrong, or possibly wrong) but the sweep ... Read more
The thing about history is that there is a lot of it. And prehistory, well, so much more. The highlights: carbon/methane sequestration 50mya seas and temperatures Return of the wooly mammoth Arctic resources Emigration for the next 1,000 years O Canada Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) > At least since 1997, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum has ... Read more
10 trillion galaxies times 100 billion stars. One trillion squared. That's what we are talking about. In addition, the universe is possibly 250 times larger than the observable universe. Mind boggling. First Observed Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua is possibly a lightsail object sent for observation, and in any case is definitely from outside the solar system ... Read more
Google likes to remove functionality on free products to induce upselling. This is a common tactic in many software/SAS models. However, the cost of adopting Gsuite is very high, relative to free. Essentially a 5-10 pack of mailboxes with $5/month for the least expensive Gsuite paid option. That's $300-$600/year. What is sadly missing is a ... Read more
By Amazon Canada, I am referring to the Amazon Advantage Canada operation. Pure, unadulterated incompetence. Support requests go something like this: - Me: Here is my problem, with detail - AC: Request for information (which is already in the detail) - Me: Submission of requested info, again - AC: Thank you, please wait - AC: ... Read more
Read This Book on Sleep (2020) Bill Gates recommends the book Why We Sleep, and it is excellent. All of my notes above need to be revised with this book in mind. I highly recommend reading it, to get more science, less psychobabble. How Much Sleep is Enough? (2018) Now that my eldest son is ... Read more
A sampling of Debian + Cinnamon keyboard shortcuts (incomplete) Function LMDE3 ChromeOS Refresh Ctrl+R Task List Partial Screenshot Debian Terminal Under Edit > Preferences > Shortcuts set the Edit > Copy, Edit > Paste, and Edit > Select All accelerator keys to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, and Ctrl+A respectively. Screenshots Under Keyboard > Shortcuts > System > ... Read more
Update November 2023 This particular device has really held its value and its performance. By value I mean that the same device costs nearly the same five years later (about 8,000 THB, though there are newer, larger screen devices that cost around the same). LineageOS on this has not had any difficulties over this same ... Read more
Note: I've replaced Fish Shell with Bash in my personal technology stack, as of March 2018. Ha ha, back on Fish Shell. Fish Shell is a very useful shell. I use it on OSX and Linux. Provides for some sanity at the command line. For an editor I use Nano. Note that there are some ... Read more
Firefox has dramatically disintegrated under the so-called leadership of Mitchell Baker, enriching herself to the tune of millions while the market share (and revenue) of Firefox plummeted and 250 employees were laid off. This alone is reason enough to avoid such a toxic software environment. There is no need to coddle multi-millionaires in order to ... Read more
Bash being the most common shell, it makes sense to learn bash shell scripting. I didn't think this at first and later came to the conclusion, having spent time with Fish Shell. However, Bash is definitely old and creaky with some frankly ridiculous implementation details. Fish can be installed most everywhere, and is generally superior ... Read more
This article briefly describes some issues with managing portable music players on Linux, particularly the Apple Ipod Shuffle and the Sandisk Clip Jam (it's replacement). Note that the Ruizu x52 is the proper replacement for the Sandisk Clip Jam Quod Libet Quod Libet is absolutely zero help with managing portable music players (with a single ... Read more
How to manage fonts in Debian (installing/removing/refreshing). See also Fonts, Typefaces, Typography Microsoft Core Fonts Installer Check to see if this is installed via apt-cache sudo apt-cache search ttf-mscorefonts-installer Emoji fonts Yeh, I don't like them but people use them so need to see them. sudo apt install fonts-noto-color-emoji Debian and application fonts There is ... Read more
Tools change over time, but it seems that in the Epub world we have more of the same. As of November 2018: - Calibre's Epub Editor is pretty nifty - Sigil development stalled, then picked up again - Pagina Epub Checker is still under development and useful - Pandoc with or without some kind of ... Read more
Update Aug 2024 - Both of my children now have the latest (5th gen) Paperwhite and use it well. I still have my 4th gen, because it works and I can't justify paying another 5,000 THB for something a bit better when what I have works and has life in it -- if any comparison ... Read more
In this post I outline what I would consider a compelling form factor, one which existed for a while, but which may be is returning for certain niche uses. Usability and Useful Form Factors While the term notebook has been taken over to mean a laptop computer that is much larger on average than a ... Read more
Here are some ways of getting things tweaked. Your mileage may vary. Mint-Y-Dark This theme has some hardcoded colors in PNG files. Grayscale them with ImageMagick, as follows: for file in /usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark/gtk-2.0/assets/*.png; do convert "$file" -colorspace Gray "$file"; done for file in /usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark/gtk-3.0/assets/*.png; do convert "$file" -colorspace Gray "$file"; done Edit the /usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark/gtk-2.0/gtkrc file for ... Read more
Scrollbar usability is shoddy and slipping across wide swaths of the web and software in general. Of course I am getting older, which means this is more and more of an annoyance. We know already, and for some time, how to do scrollbar usability and accessibility. Putting aside voice commands, just the bare minimum of ... Read more
OpenVPN on Debian is the second step in securing an operating system. Below we include ufw firewall installation and configuration as well. Related Artices in Debian Services and Applications Debian on AWS Lightsail OpenVPN on Debian + UFW Firewall Nginx and Letsencrypt on Debian PHP & MariaDB on Debian Grav CMS on Debian Note: install ... Read more
This is a setup of several items, starting with Debian 9 on Amazon AWS Lightsail. This has server basics and apt, and then follows with links to additional articles. In general, after several years of running CentOS on Linode, and then Amazon Linux AMI on EC2 and Lightsail, I find that Debian 9 is simply ... Read more
Well, it turns out, there is no such thing, per se, as an IPA Keyboard Layout, at least not in the sense that there are keyboard layouts for various languages and layout styles (e.g., English, Dvorak, etc.). This seems to me to be a tremendous oversight, though it obviously came about because someone thought supporting ... Read more
I'll come back and write more about this later (especially how to help with this with one's children), but for now here are some resources: Submenu Navigation - Nielsen Norman Group Seeking information online: the influence of menu type, navigation path complexity and spatial ability on information gathering tasks Online Spatial Reasoning Task Recognizing Spatial ... Read more
Note: since Debian has Cinnamon built-in as a desktop choice on install, and since the rest of Mint is Ubuntu or Debian (LMDE), it seems a bit nonsensical to go Mint when I can go Debian +Cinnamon. For Cinnamon interface changes, see: LMDE Cinnamon Modifications This document will be somewhat regularly updated with information, and ... Read more
There are significant differences between high-achieving, gifted, and highly gifted children. When one recognizes unusual, advanced early development, understanding what one is seeing is important. There are different vulnerabilities and burdens for each of these groups: - The Burdens of Gifted Children - The Truth About Gifted Versus High-Achieving Students - Vulnerabilities of highly gifted ... Read more
Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs have similar insights when it comes to hiring the best. This is equally relevant when one is building a school. Hire the best teachers possible, if you want a high-performing school. Three Questions When Making a Hiring Decision From the 1998 Amazon Shareholder Letter: It would be impossible to produce ... Read more
There are several white label options for search and if one considers advertising a viable business model to engage in, then consider Bing or Infospacehttp://www.infospace.com/partners/. Consider the case of Izito and related country code tlds, as well as MonsterSpace, both are pure play partner deals with nothing technical in their own right, with traffic and ... Read more
Dealing with a Kindle (and ebook collection) on ChromeOS requires a different set of tactics than the more straightforeward use of Calibre (unless using it in Crostini is a choice). Functionality Required for Kindle on ChromeOS The basic functionality required includes: Uploading to Kindle device; Downloading from Kindle device; Converting files from epub to mobi ... Read more
For various reasons, now is a terrible time (in the world). (Note: this is 2018, and we thought that was terrible. 2020 laughs hysterically at you.) At the same time, my own time horizons have shifted due to having young children. My eldest may graduate from high school in 15 years, give or take a ... Read more
This is a brief overview of ChromeOS Keyboard Shortcuts / Keystrokes. Hardware Key Differences No Windows key, no Command key However external keyboards can have these mapped to other keys Capslock Key replaced by Search Key Shft+Search = Capslock Remap Keys > Settings > Device > Keyboard Remap Capslock to Search key on external keyboards ... Read more
Moving from OSX to ChromeOS can be complex because the ChromeOS ecosystem includes Android and Linux applications, though support for those platforms are not fully implemented as of July, 2018. Nevertheless there enough advantages to make a comprehensive attempt at such a migration desirable at this point in time. My personal reasons include an upcoming ... Read more
Blast from the past, this request for smartphone/netbook recommendations comes from May, 2009. Updated below with comments from July, 2018. Note that we've updated the title from Netbooks to Chromebooks. Help! Too Many Choices > Jeff, I am in need of a portable device for accessing email when I'm on the road. Of course it ... Read more
> There is no evidence that fever itself worsens the course of an illness or that it causes long-term neurologic complications. Thus ... improve the child's overall comfort rather than focus on the normalization of body temperature. - Pediatrics research article
Dokuwiki, over the last 10 years, has become the canonical wiki. By this I mean that Dokuwiki is the go-to wiki for most uses. While there are many other wikis which are popular and in use (e.g., Xwiki, MoinMoin, TikiWiki, etc.), the competitors (other than Mediawiki) do not exceed half of Dokuwiki's popularity. The only ... Read more
The Asus C101PA is a Rockchip (arm) and has the same baseboard as the Samsung Chromebook Plus. Both of these are up next for getting Crostini / Linux Containers. As a sub platform of ChromeOS it turns out that this is a very good device that is fairly high up in the stack of platforms ... Read more
See also LineageOS on Xiaomi The Xiaomi Redmi 4A (aka Rolex) is a cheap (~100 USD) and lightweight (131.5g) 5" phone. For price, weight, and size, there is not much competiton. The screen is a 720 x 1280 px 16x9 screen that is pretty decent. Its got a Snapdragon 425 and 2gb of RAM with ... Read more
This is meant to help with the conversion from OSX to ChromeOS. For background on ChromeOS and Chromium, see chromium.org. See also a hardware discussion on Chromebooks, Chromebits, and Chromeboxes. What Chromebooks Can't (Yet) Do Note: the Crostini project means that a host of Linux apps and functionality can/will/may be on tap, which can affect ... Read more
Note: 43" 4K monitors are likely taking over this WQHD space. Also beware the VA panels, they just don't perform as well as IPS. Second Note: the problem of using a 4K TV for a monitor is in the viewing angles. Also Chroma subsampling is needed for decent support of text. What appears to be ... Read more
Air Purification has a myriad of purifiers. There are roughly two kinds: Organics (formaldahyde, etc.) Particles (pm 10, pm 2.5, pm 1.0) Resources The effect of surface charge, negative and bipolar ionization on the deposition of airborne bacteria Air Quality Index (AQI) Basics Air Inoizer Ozone generators sold as air cleaners
As of early 2018, ChromeOS and Desktop Linux have both crossed the 3% threshold. Android is approaching 50% for OS market share, and is in excess of that in terms of new devices. Heady times for the Linux Kernel indeed. While Android uses the Linux Kernel, nearly everything else in Android is customized, and therefore ... Read more
See also OpenVPN on Amazon Linux Complexity with a Simplistic Solution OpenVPN on ChromeOS and Android has become a bit complicated, since ChromeOS now supports Android. However, Android seems to live inside its own environment within ChromeOS, accessible to other Android Apps, but without the ability to modify the larger ChromeOS environment. This means that ... Read more
Caret the Chrome App vs. Caret the PC App -- not sure which came first, but they are very different (except for the name, and the fact they are open source). Caret the Chrome App Note that Caret may possibly replace Atom in my workflow - Caret in the Chrome Store - Caret website - ... Read more
Note: other titles (with different duties) for the household staff include: Au Pair, Governor/Tutor, Nanny, &c. We are looking (again) for someone to perform the duties of Au Pair. Unfortunately there are two aspects we've been getting wrong: - An Au Pair is not usually expected to do general cleaning, and - An Au Pair ... Read more
Note: as of 2022, our household moved from Xiaomi to Samsung phones (similar spying, different government), and ditched the increasingly annoying Mi Box for a Google Chromecast (and Google Nest in a different room). We still love things like wired earbuds and backpacks from Xiaomi, but are suspicious of anything with any greater electronic footprint. ... Read more
This is about linux desktop issues (as opposed to server), and mainly deals with desktop-style configuration. See this post about shell and command-line utilities and environments. See also ChromeOS - Apps, Config, Utilities for the companion article on ChromeOS. Android Apps Android Emulators for Linux This is pretty much unneeded these days. Apps and Utilities ... Read more
Update early 2021 - Apparently ChromeOS outsold OSX in 2020. This makes sense as the strength of the ChromeOS is primarily in the education market, and that market exploded with demand because of Covid-19 school closures and the need for devices for remote schooling. This is an overview of what Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, and Chromebits can ... Read more
This post will be frequently (or infrequently) updated. It is meant to help me learn Grav and Gravcart, and in particular migrate off of WordPress and Woocommerce. Related Artices in Debian Services and Applications - Debian on AWS Lightsail - OpenVPN on Debian + UFW Firewall - Nginx and Letsencrypt on Debian - PHP & ... Read more
First steps after logging into an Amazon Linux box: Set up the Name Services (DNS, Hostname) Properly Note there are several places this needs to be set. nano /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 Make this look as follows: DEVICE=eth0 BOOTPROTO=dhcp ONBOOT=yes TYPE=Ethernet USERCTL=yes PEERDNS=no DNS1=84.200.69.80 DNS2=84.200.70.40 DHCPV6C=yes DHCPV6C_OPTIONS=-nw PERSISTENT_DHCLIENT=yes RES_OPTIONS="timeout:2 attempts:5" DHCP_ARP_CHECK=no Note that this fixes the general VPC ... Read more
On a new Amazon Linux AMI installation, there is a useful ec2-user account configured. However, in order to make it more useful, there is a need to edit some .bashrc files, as well as create a new user for sftp and scp, as those will produce errors using login scripts that we will set for ... Read more