Category Archives: Free software

Why software product support is (sometimes) a terrible job

Software maintainers can’t help people who can’t or won’t read and answer straightforward questions, and some people who need help with software are incapable of reading and answering straightforward questions.

Notes from migrating Linux to a new hard drive

Migrating a Linux install to a new drive can be easy (Clonezilla) or hard. I chose hard. It was a learning experience.

Handle MFA like a pro so you don’t get locked out or let the bad guys in

Why you should use MFA, what about passkeys, what kind of MFA to use, how to make it easier to use, and how to protect yourself against being locked out of an account because of MFA.

WaPo article about Signal use by feds with me as lead-off hitter

This morning over at The Washington Post ([archive link]), Shira Ovide, Danielle Abril, and Hannah Natanson write about Signal use among federal workers. I’m the lede (funsies!). This is a great article capturing the mood among federal workers right now, and it makes relatively clear that while what Pete Hegseth et al are doing is… Read More »

Hack of the day: CGI script for temporary download bandwidth throttling

I wrote a self-service way for my family to tell my computer to stop hogging all the download bandwidth so they can do their online meetings or gaming.

Tampermonkey script to un-Gmail Google Contacts

When you click on a contact’s email address in the Google Contacts web app, instead of opening a new draft in your default email app with the “To” field populated with that email address, which is what it should do, Google Contacts opens a Gmail compose window. I hate this behavior. While I do have… Read More »

Lessons learned from setting up a Linux desktop VM on a Windows 11 Home host

VirtualBox is more functional than Hyper-V Manager but much slower. There are a lot of tricks for getting this right. If you turn off Secure Boot you might permanently lock yourself out of Windows.

New Thunderbird extension: Addy.io / AnonAddy for Thunderbird

Now you can route your outbound emails through Addy.io and even generate new Addy.io aliases for that purpose without ever leaving Thunderbird.

FOSS of the day: Ansible module for editing CUPS configuration files

I recently got a new printer, and as I’ve tweaked the integration between my printer and the numerous Linux desktops and laptops in my house, I became frustrated by how time-consuming and error-prone it was to have to use the Printers section of the GNOME Settings app, or the Printer Settings app (a.k.a. system-config-printer) to… Read More »