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The reason why I didn't choose a career in Computer Science… 😩
Here you can find the previous diary's archives...
Dear fellow Geminauts and Capsule Captains, I renewed the certificate for OMG [dot] PEBCAK [dot] CLUB! 👍
Please ask to your favorite client to accepted the new issued certificate!
Thanks for your patience! 🙏
These days my interest for Gopher spikes consistently, reading and learning more about Gopher let me understood why other dudes came out with Spartan… Now, even though, at least my content, are mainly Gemini focused, I'd like to serve "Pebcak [dot] Club" for all the very low end computers that can't afford TLS.
I haven't talked with Cage about this yet, but I know that he's going to appreciate the idea! 👍
Don't get me wrong, my next goal is exclusively to make "Pebcak [dot] Club" accessible to any vintage computer, to make this happening I have some of options:
I'd like to serve both, but I believe that I am going to implement Spartan before because I don't need to redesign "Pebcak [dot] Club" structure since Spartan can read Gemini's capsules.
A Gopher hole, on the other hand, requires a gophermap in order to be accessible since the content is strictly organized and therefore a complete alteration of "Pebcak [dot] Club" is necessary. It would be nice if a script was able to convert a capsule into a well structured Gopher hole, unfortunately I haven't seen any gemini-to-gopher utility so far… 😟
Here some links:
spartan://mozz.us/software.gmi
gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/1/~johngodlee
https://www.ecliptik.com/Making-a-Gopherhole-and-Phlog/
Since the recent upgrade to FreeBSD 14 I have been afflicted by a nasty issue that prevented XFCE to be properly loaded after the login. 😩
It is just recently that I decided to dig more into this issue and to find a solution, but eventually I found it! 💪
In many years using XFCE with different class of GPUs (and operative systems) this is the first time I hit this problem, as a matter of fact I would ever thought the culprit was nonetheless the compositor! 🤔
I could solve this issue because I was helped by ToZ from the XFCE official forum, he was really dedicated to me — thank you very much ToZ! 🙏
For the ones who may have weird issues with XFCE the culprit might be the very compositor. Luckily ToZ wrote a general recommendation to troubleshoot XFWM4 compositor issues. The knob to change is the VBLANK mode, I solved mine selecting this mode:
xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/vblank_mode -t string -s "off" --create
Finally I can re-enjoy FreeBSD + XFCE4 💕
Apparently OP discovered a nasty bug on GMID 2 series that can cause a DoS… ☣️
From his words:
I've just released gmid 2.0.5 which fixes a logic error that can cause a DoS.
I do not believe this is exploitable. It is "just" an infinite loop.
It is a safe update for anyone running gmid 2.0.x since there were no breaking changes in the 2.0 series.
I'm not disclosing yet how to reproduce the DoS and under which circumstances (even if it should be pretty evident by reading the diff with 2.0.4).
I updated GMID so on our end we are just fine! 😉
GMID is running on version 2.0.4 now; it looks like when I updated to GMID 2.0 I spotted accidentally a bunch of minor bugs, for the joy of OP which released three version on a row on the same day… 😇
Now I had better to update the documentation instead… 😅
Electron is broken again on FreeBSD, this makes working on VSCode as multi-platform editor unfeasible, and the only alternative to work with XML schema is Emacs.
I try to learn it, but it is so convoluted that I believe it is easier, for me, if I spin up a VM to use VSCodium rather than try learning it…
Also the documentation regarding Emacs is convoluted, anytime I approach Emacs I feel only frustration. I don't know why it is so appreciated!
I do not have any sympathy for M$, Electron or Chromium, but an editor that you grasp in 5 minutes I believe is a good editor, I can't say the same for Emacs… There is a difference between a steep learning curve and being convoluted, perhaps you need an higher IQ to learn it which I evidently lack.
Nobody should learn anything that make you feel miserable and really Emacs makes feel that way… 😩
Also this upgrade/update has been full of PEBCAK which made the capsule unaivable for a couple of hours…
As usual the problem was myself… PEBCAK! 🪑 🤦 💻
Today I had to bring the car to the repair shop and what a wonderful occasion to work on my secret project? Exactly! 😎
Thus, after have been hitting the head, hard… but very very hard! Today I was finally able to achieve most of the features I need to my Table Of Content:
Unfortunately the last point wasn't totally successful, it loops across the sections because it creates all the section entries but all of them show only the last record. I am pretty sure it is a trivial syntax error I am totally unaware of… 😅
I hope anyone on the forum can help with this fixing… 🙏
This title really sucks…
For months I have been tempted to buy a Nintendo DS or a GBA, but it has been really frustrating following and losing all those auctions… Therefore I have been looking for some cool retro-alternative and through Friendica on the Fediverse I got to know a this hand-held retro console from Anbernic:
Eventually I bought one, which is basically a Linux OS running LibRetro, I hope to have fun with it, the cool thing is that it can be connected to a TV and paired with BT gamepads, therefore it might be used as portable console as well… 🎮
I am still alive, even though I have been a very hard time at my $JOB, and I was almost close to resign from it. After 3 people resigning, although one eventually came back, the situation has slightly improved. As a matter of fact I am completely left alone and isolated like a renegade… 👹 But is much better than the last four months!?!
The truth is this situation plus my pebcakness really forced me to take a hiatus… 😔
Luckily I recovered my focus and I've started working again on my Speedata Publisher project, I also published a new gemlog recently, I really hope to keep the pace and dedicate more time to my capsule. 🙏
See you around! 👍
A recent security Devuan update of `dropbear` and `dropbear-initramfs` compromised the ability to unlock the StealthBox from SSH during the boot time. Pebcakly, the documentation I made wasn't helping at all until I realized I missed to add an essential information.
There is a script that allows to unlock the board from SSH during the boot, and it is:
The initial script block didn't give me any issue with my Debian tests:
if [ ! -f "$TABFILE" ] || [ "$TABFILE" -ot "/proc/1" ]; then # Too early, init-top/cryptroot hasn't finished yet echo "Try again later" >&2 exit 1 fi
But with Devuan/OpenRC wasn't working, eventually, after countless attempts, and with the help of OP (GMID & Telescope author), a solution was found modifying the script:
if [ ! -f "$TABFILE" ] ; then # Too early, init-top/cryptroot hasn't finished yet echo "Try again later" >&2 exit 1 fi
OP suggestion was to remove this portion of the first line:
|| [ "$TABFILE" -ot "/proc/1" ]
Its intuition was right, this change allows to reach the board just right after GRUB and unlock it from an SSH connection!
Anytime Dropbear gets updates that script must be modified again!
I am a MonkeyNerd… 😔
This means that 99% of the time I do not understand what I read nor what I do. The only miserable method I developed to learn Computer Sciences stuff is copying something and start making simple changes and see what pebcak happens… Undoubtedly an awful method… 😔
I don't like being a MonkeyNerd… 😖
This is a quick and great news!
OP recently added the initial support for certificates on Telescope:
gemini://telescope.omarpolo.com/
To test it out, you must download the development version and compile it by yourself:
My Pebcak Guide to Telescope, old but still good! 👍
Only PEM certificates are accepted, you must store them in:
or
You can activate the certificates with: ALT+X (M-x) or typing "use-certificate" into the "mini-buffer".
Wrapping this up, I had the honor to post the absolute first public post with Telescope! 😁
very first post made with Telescope 😎
2024 here we are! 🎆
Sweet… I archived another year of pebcak(s) and I am ready to make new ones although I made stunning progress as well!
Do you remember my journey with "Speedata Publisher"?
I am still actively learning and working on it, and for the first time in my life time I actually tasted a bit of the opensource development, since my incessant stream of pebcak helped the main developer to improve — a bit — this magnificent opensource project.
As a matter of fact I contributed to spot out a couple of bugs on almost every platform since I constantly jump from Windows to Linux and FreeBSD. This uncommon behavior has revealed to be very useful for the main developer since he works mainly on MacOS and doesn't have much chances to test its project on the other platforms.
Honestly I am very satisfied and I hope to finalize my first layout very soon since I have very few blocking points left to address!
Speaking about the past the end of 2023 ended up with something very amazing, and I am referring to a project called Tootik:
Tootik is something I have been (day)dreaming a lot, it is a GeminiUI for the ActivityPub Protocol! Long-story-short is the bridge that connects Gemini to the Fediverse, so, beside owning your capsule you can now own also your ActivityPub server and connect the Fediverse without leaving the Geminispace using your own domain.
Curious can try it just subscribing to the server provided by the same author:
hd.206267.xyz is an instance of tootik, a federated nanoblogging service.
My next thus goal is trying to implement it on "Pebcak [dot] Club" and let Cage and I to be able to use the our domain to entering the Fediverse; but the the good news is that you don't even need to change your Mastodon account if you want browse the Fediverse while into the Geminispace! In fact Cage, author of Tinmop Gemini Client, has just recently released a new version that supports both Mastodon and Pleroma APIs. That's just amazing! 👏👏👏
Tinmop: An opinionated client for Gemini, gopher, kami and Mastodon/Pleroma
This 2024 starts with the Geminispace jumping directly into the Fediverse!
Enjoy Gemini and enjoy the Fediverse! 🚀 🌐 ❤️