Two-factor auth’s Achilles heel: switching smartphones
Migrating all of your 2fa codes to a new smartphone is a huge pain. Here’s one way you can make it easier.
Category Archives: Computers
Lessons learned from DIY Microsoft Surface Pro 4 screen replacement
I just replaced a shattered screen on a Microsoft Surface Pro 4. This was not only my first time replacing a Surface screen, it was my first time replacing a smart-phone or tablet screen of any sort. Before doing the replacement, I attended YouTube University, watching several relevant videos. For example: Surface Pro 4 Screen Repair… Read More »
FIXED: GoComics is currently missing many of today’s comics
UPDATE: As of 10:44am Eastern time, GoComics says this should be resolved, and I am seeing GoComics comics in the aggregator. Let me know if you notice any that are still missing. Alas, GoComics.com is missing many of today’s comics. You won’t be able to see them in the aggregator until GoComics publishes them. The… Read More »
How to delete your LiveJournal account
LiveJournal recently changed their Terms of Service. Many people are unwilling to accept the new Terms of Service. Some people even find them so unacceptable that they want to delete their LiveJournal accounts. The only way to delete one’s LiveJournal account is via the Account Status page. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to access that page without… Read More »
Adding malicious IPs in DNSBLs to hosts.deny automatically
[See Adding malicious IPs in DNSBLs to iptables automatically for a new and improved version of this that uses iptables instead of hosts.deny, which is necessary since tcpwrappers is mostly deprecated at this point.] I run my own mail server, which means that there are hackers trying 24×7 to break into the server by connecting to… Read More »
Intuit / TurboTax acts slimy and/or incompetent yet again
According to both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the IRS, my daughter, who has barely any income, should be able to e-file both her federal and state taxes for free using TurboTax online, thanks to the “FreeFile Alliance.” We tried filing her taxes through the TurboTax Android app. It didn’t offer her the option of free… Read More »
Comics aggregator has a user guide now
I put together a basic user guide for the comics aggregator. Enjoy! Comics Aggregator user guide
Editable menu accelerators under Ubuntu
GNOME, the Linux desktop on top of which Ubuntu’s Unity desktop is built, has this neat feature which allows you to edit the keyboard accelerator associated with any application menu item, simply by opening the menu, hovering over the menu item, and typing the keyboard accelerator you want to use. Unfortunately, the way Ubuntu implemented… Read More »
Comics aggregator now does Washington Post columns better
The comics aggregator supports several Washington Post columns: Ask Amy, Carolyn Hax, and Miss Manners (let me know if there are any others you want). I just discovered and fixed two issues with this: the aggregator could fail to pick up a column when the RSS feed published by the Post lists articles out of… Read More »
GoComics.com fixed (again)
Good morning everybody! GoComics comics broke again this morning in the comics aggregator due to something I missed when I converted the aggregator over to the new GoComics site. The issue had to do with date formatting and therefore didn’t show up until we entered February and the current day of the month went from… Read More »