Articles posted on 2016

Building Signed APKs

Building signed APK's for Android is easy if you know what you are doing. This article goes over the preparation steps and the additional build instructions needed to created signed APKs. Preparation First you need to have a keystore. Use this command: ...

Archiving DVDs and CDs

Since now I have a Android TV I put away my HTPC and with that the capability to view DVDs or listen CDs directly. So I converted my entire CD and DVD library to media files and stored in my home NAS. Since we are talking hundreds of DVDs and CDs, I was using some tools. CD ripping For CD ripping, pretty much everything can be done with abcde. ...

Writing Safe Shell scripts

Writing shell scripts leaves a lot of room to make mistakes, in ways that will cause your scripts to break on certain input, or (if some input is untrusted) open up security vulnerabilities. Here are some tips on how to make your shell scripts safer. Don't The simplest step is to avoid using shell at all. Many higher-level languages are both easier to write the code in in the first place, and avoid some of the issues that shell ...

MariaDB Quickest Quick start

This article outlines the bare minimum to get a MariaDB or MySQL database up and running. It covers a CentOS/RHEL and an ArchLinux installs. Make sure your system is up to date: ...

Jaxon: Call PHP classes from JavaScript using AJAX

Jaxon is an open source PHP library for easily creating Ajax web applications. It allows into a web page to make direct Ajax calls to PHP classes that will in turn update its content, without reloading the entire page. Jaxon implements a complete set of PHP functions to define the contents and properties of the web page. Several plugins exist to extend its functionalities and provide integration with various PHP frameworks and CMS. ...

Building chroots with yum

Building CHROOTs with Yum in a single command: yum --releasever=7 --installroot=/chroot/jail2 -y install httpd Will install httpd with all its dependancies. If you are on x86_64 and want a 32 bit chroot: setarch i386 yum --releasever=6 --installroot=/chroot/jail32 -y install httpd ...

My WordPress plugins

For my own purposes I have written a number of WordPress plugins. S3Copy - Makes backup copies of your pictures to an S3 Compatible server. I use sirv.com myself. It also mangles tags so files are server from the S3 bucket. wptools - A collection of WordPress related functionality. ...

game lists

Cybernator Darius Twin Another World | Out of this World Front Mission Series Strike Gunner ...

Managing our personal finances

During my last vacation I wanted to move how we manage our personal finances away from the ad-hoc spreadsheet that we had been using for the past few years. I envisioned something server side, so I wouldn't need to add software on my wife's computer. And initial quick run through of server side software did not yield anything that interested me. In general I could only find full accounting applications, which ...

Starting with 3D Printing

So I finally tried my hand at 3D printing. Obviously I did not buy at 3D printer. These are either quite expensive or you need to assemble them yourself, which I don't think is in my capacity level. To get started, you first need a 3D model to print. There are several 3D models available in Thingieverse, however I actually wanted to make my own model. After all, that is the whole point of 3D printing. Custom made parts/objects that can be printed as needed. To create a 3D model you need some 3D modelling software. For my very first model I opted for TinkerCAD. This is software that runs on the cloud that lets you create your own 3D models. This is particularly interesting because you don't need to install anything on your computer and it would essentially run on anything where a web browser runs. For a web based application, it is quite responsive and feature-full. You can use (like me) a facebook account to sign-in. Models can then be downloaded as an ".stl" file (the format used by 3D printers) or send directly to 3D printing service such as 3D Hubs. 3D Hubs, is an online 3D Printing service which facilitates transactions betwen 3D Printer owners (Hubs) and people who want to make 3D prints. Printer owners can join the platform to offer 3D printing services while customers can locate printer owners to get their 3D models printed nearby. ...

Windows administration from the command line

Windows system administration is very mouse driven and to reach all tools you need to browse through Windows explorer. If you are like me and prefer to log on a limited privilege account and use Runas to perform admin tasks, you can open these consoles with the .msc file names. Here is a list of admin tools with their .msc file names. domain.msc: AD Domains and Trusts ...