Updated 15-Aug-2026 Mammoth vs. Mastodon Mastodon is software for microblogging. It is a server and comes with a web client (though not required). There are myriad web and native clients for various operating systems. I use the web client in deck multi-column mode (akin to tweetdeck, though less configurable and single account), and Moshidon as ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Install a repository to manage Zotero via apt. Install Chrome Zotero connector
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In January, 2022, a German Court Fined a Website Owner for Violating the GDPR by Using Google-Hosted Fonts. The fine was 100 Euros, but could be much higher, based on German law. The lesson here is to self-host all content (including Google Fonts), and/or stop using Google Fonts.
Updated 17-Sep-2025 Typing in English Typing Club The key to this is to not register, and then use the basic instructions. My then-7 year old became quite proficient only using this site, and then transitioning to copywork typing and dictation typing. Typing in Thai Typing in Thai (Lanna Innovation) provides information on sites and such. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The Linux Mark The Linux Mark is a protected (reserved) mark and beyond fair use, requires a sublicense for its use. The Debian Logo and Trademark The Debian Logo and Debian trademark are protected (reserved) and require licenses (or may not be used) in certain ways.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Balena Etcher is software to flash Operating System images to USB drives and SD cards. It works well. Normally it is offered as an AppImage, but it is also possible to add the Balena Etcher github repository and install as a .deb file from there. Installing Balena Etcher on Debian with apt Debian ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Beneath every window-based Desktop Environment (DE) there is a windows manager. And beneath the windows manager, is a display server protocol such as X.org, Mir, and Wayland. When choosing a Desktop Environment, one can simply choose a windows manager and then add various other utilities such as menus, panels, search interfaces, configuration interfaces, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Previously named Gimp Print, Gutenprint is a high quality package of printer drivers for CUPS on Linux, Macintosh OS X, and other POSIX-compliant operating systems. This project also maintains an enhanced Print plug-in for GIMP 2.x from the same code base. Gutenprint includes a large number of printer drivers for Canon, Epson, Lexmark, ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In Linux, a standard shortcut is to use Alt + F7 and then drag the window back onscreen. Obviously some small bit of the window needs to be visible, but that is almost always the case. This works with Openbox and LXDE.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Playing internet radio from the command line is quite a thing, especially the excellent Soma FM. Unfortunately there are some problems of late with various clients including: Uscheck, my favorite until this issue in October, 2021 Rocky Madden, who also suffers from the problems of October, 2021 Also see this gist with some ... Read more
Updated 12-Jul-2026 See also Audiobooks - Mono in a Stereo World OBS Studio Podcast Platforms Podcasts Introduction OBS (Open Broadcaster Studio) Studio is a popular, open source multiplatform broadcasting and recording control panel. Note: use of deb-multimedia apt source Currently I prefer to use the excellent 3rd-party apt repository dmo.sources, aka deb-multimedia as follows: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dmo.sources ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Snake games are quite popular. The first widely played snake game is of course snakes and ladders which originated in 2nd century CE India. The game was imported into the UK in the 1890s and made its way to the US as chutes and ladders, snakes apparently too scary for small children. Snake ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Diagrams.net -- previously draw.io -- is a neat web/web 2.0 diagram editor. It supports Google Drive and also VSCode integration. Currently I usually just use Inkscape and draw whatever I need by hand. It is usually faster, and can embed as an SVG or simply output a PNG file. However, if one does ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Play The Oregon Trail (1990) Online at Archive.org I Designed The Oregon Trail, You Have Died of Dysentery - The lead designer of The Oregon Trail explains his team's process for creating the most successful educational computer game of all time.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 LibreOffice is marginally (though noticeably) better than OpenOffice. That said, it definitely has more signs of life and so it is the incomplete product which one is better off choosing, when given choice. Installing LibreOffice Installing LibreOffice is a bit strange. First off, the default gateway in Asia hasn't worked in months if ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 Turns out there are several ways to flush the DNS cache on Linux, depending upon what service is being used for DNS caching. In some cases, no services are being used, which means resetting the network should do the trick. sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart Google Chrome Browser DNS Caching However, Google will have its ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Update April 2025 To be honest, I no longer use Nemo as the dependencies became super-annoying. Thunar is more than adequate and actually has a lot of extensibility. It is also the default file manager in XFCE, my current desktop of choice. Nemo File Manager Nemo file manager is made for Cinnamon by ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Pix is another Linux Mint application (the second I use, along with Nemo) that is a useful, lightweight, simple image editor, good for cropping, scaling, and converting between filetypes. However, for actual editing, Inkscape is my editor of choice (I find GIMP hard to use). The latest versions of Inkscape may not be ... Read more
Updated 11-Jul-2026 How to set and modify hostnames hostname commands hostname and hostnamectl will display the static, transient hostnames (hostnamectl also provides other host information). sudo nano /etc/hostname can be used to edit the hostname that will be displayed upon reboot or restart. This can be done more easily from the command with sudo hostnamectl ... Read more