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Johan Bové

Changed the "post deletion" on my Mastodon profile to a month. No need to keep a copy of my ramblings on this Mastodon server for longer than that since I keep the original post on my own site anyway.

Johan Bové

Managed to spend 20 minutes time today on figuring out why a file wouldn't _simply_ sync with the Nextcloud app on my Android phone after being edited by Markor. It would not sync to my Nextcloud server at home and then the bytes would not sync back to another instance of NextCloud on my Fedora virtual machine that is running on this Mac... and while I am writing this I just realise just how scifi all of this is, compared to what we had 20 so years ago: physical drives and FTP.

Johan Bové

One of the aspects I love about the servers or instances is that every server's content and all the author's public posts can be visited, read and seen online in any web browser without "register to see more nags" - it's open Web as it should be!

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

Tried installing Mastodon on the Yunohost server on a Raspberry Pi 3. Turns out it does not have enough RAM. Installation aborted itself, left a nice clear log message and then uninstalled everything nicely. That is what is really awesome about Yunohost.

Johan Bové

Reading the 134 pages of the bill, I understand the proposal to be a state-run "antivirus" program that must be installed on every digital device and server connected to the Internet, analyzing every text, image and video. If it finds something, you will be reported automatically to Interpol and the program will read the file and remove it from your device and any other server. Before you can use any device, you must identify yourself, no matter if it is a cell phone or a computer.

Johan Bové

Wondering how much CO2 is used by running a personal file share server on NextCloud on a Raspberry Pi 3, with a backup to a local Qnap NAS system, which keeps an offsite backup on B2? My home uses renewable energy... Going to have fun figuring that out.

Johan Bové

Replaced Rainloop with Roundcube on my Yunohost server after reading about the severe security issue and the lack of patching from the maintainers.

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

How does Twitter serve mega accounts like Elon Musk's ? Do they have a dedicated server rack with a label with "Elon's stuff" in a datacenter?

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

Anyone know Ukrainian's that need digital space for keeping files safe? I have an FTP server hosted in the Netherlands and I can give away 3 times 10 GB (30 GB). It's not a huge space, but it might be enough to keep some family data safe? PM me if interested.

Johan Bové

Pinning files from a website to IPFS with a Windows bat script using curl

With ipfs version 0.12.0

3 min read

:: http://steve-jansen.github.io/guides/windows-batch-scripting/part-2-variables.html
:: Saves the JSON files to IPFS
@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS

:: script global variables
SET me=%~n0
SET parent=%~dp0
SET folder=export
SET event=https://ukraine.bellingcat.com/ukraine-server/api/ukraine
SET page1=%event%/export_events/deeprows
SET file1=%folder%\export_events.json
SET page2=%event%/export_associations/deeprows
SET file2=%folder%\export_associations.json
SET page3=%event%/export_sources/deepids
SET file3=%folder%\export_sources.json
SET log=%parent%\%me%.log
:: Generate the ipfs key with `ipfs key gen --type=rsa --size=2048 bellingcat_ukraine`
SET ipfskey=k2k4r8k7lcogpmkq9mkf3ykg1rexvhmxcinz5z91k8v49gbem6ivjp1v
SET ipfskeyName=bellingcat_ukraine

ECHO %me%: %date% %time% started...
ECHO --- >> %log%
ECHO %me%: %date% %time% started... >> %log%

curl %page1% > %file1%
curl %page2% > %file2%
curl %page3% > %file3%

SET size=0
call :filesize %file1%
ECHO file 1 size is %size% >> %log%
if %size%==0 goto :eof

call :filesize %file2%
ECHO file 2 size is %size% >> %log%
if %size%==0 goto :eof

call :filesize %file3%
ECHO file 3 size is %size% >> %log%
if %size%==0 goto :eof

ECHO "Files copied..."

:: copies the files in the folder as they appear on the original site
COPY /Y %file1% %folder%\export_events\deeprow >> %log%
COPY /Y %file2% %folder%\export_associations\deeprow >> %log%
COPY /Y %file3% %folder%\export_sources\deepid >> %log%

SET ipfshash='';
SET ipfsbase32='';
FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %%f IN (`ipfs add -q -r %folder%`) DO SET ipfshash=%%f
FOR /F "usebackq delims=" %%f IN (`ipfs cid base32 %ipfshash%`) DO SET ipfsbase32=%%f

ECHO CID: %ipfshash% >> %log%
ECHO https://%ipfsbase32%.ipfs.dweb.link >> %log%

ECHO %me%: Pinning... >> %log%
ipfs pin add %ipfshash% >> %log%

:: ECHO %me%: Pinning to Pinata >> %log%
:: Turned off in favor of web3.storage
@REM ipfs pin remote add --service=Pinata --name=%ipfskeyName% %ipfshash% >> %log%

ECHO %me%: Uploading files to Web3.storage...
:: See https://web3.storage/docs/examples/getting-started/
node C:\Users\johan\Projects\IPFS\web3-storage-quickstart\put-files.js --token=%WEB3_STORAGE_KEY_PC1% %folder% >> %log%

ECHO %me%: Publishing to IPNS key %ipfskeyName% ... >> %log%
ipfs name publish --key=%ipfskeyName% %ipfshash% >> %log%

ECHO %me%: Done! Check the log curl-to-ipfs.log for details.

:: Thank you https://stackoverflow.com/a/11479359
:: Set filesize of first argument in %size% variable, and return
:filesize
  set size=%~z1
  exit /b 0

:: force execution to quit at the end of the "main" logic
EXIT %ERRORLEVEL%

Also available as a gist on Github

Feedback and comments more than welcome!

Johan Bové

The OneDrive site at https://onedrive.live.com/?v=photos is not showing any pictures for the time, getting this fine error status:
GET https://onedrive.live.com/getpagecontext [HTTP/2 500 Internal Server Error 434ms

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

Server upgrade today: 2048 GB Ram and two CPU cores. Not sure if I really need it, but that seems to be the standard these days and the "upgrade" was free - for now. So why not.

Johan Bové

Can I run a small and private Mastodon instance on a QNAP NAS server? Let's find out.

Johan Bové

My reasons to support the Gemini Internet Protocol

3 min read

Why do I believe Gemini is great for personal Internet presences? First of all, it's a real grass-roots initiative which I am very excited about.

If you're reading this, chances are high you are already using Gemini. But for history reasons and to share my opinions of Gemini I would like to offer you here some views of mine.

Collecting some of the strong-points of Gemini from my perspective of having some experience with Gopher and running personal websites.

Fast and lightweight

  • It's very easy on the system resources. So the protocol works really well on slower hardware without any problems. Hosting on a Raspberry Pi3 is easy-peasy.
  • Since there are no fancy design in Gemini capsules, it is really optimized for low bandwidth.
  • It should work really fine on a feature-phone, like for KaiOS. I don't believe there is a client yet for KaiOs at this time.
  • It's fairly easy to build clients and servers for the protocol.

Simple yet complete

  • The specifications provide enough functionality to do basically what you would expect to be able to do online.
  • Much lower learning curve compared to Gopher and HTML. You can start publishing Gemini pages within minutes.
  • Even-though the syntax is limited, it still gives enough playroom for creative expression.
  • Use of TLS certificates promises security and privacy.
  • It is more international than US-centric Gopher.
  • The procol supports the UTF-8 character set so any language can be used to publish sites in.
  • This should help make the protocol more popular in non-ascii wielding regions in the World.

Easy to publish

  • Content will be probably first of all stored in static text files which are future-proof and easy to maintain.
  • Many servers already available that require minimal technical skills.
  • Yes, you still need a server, but there are many collectives which you can join to facilitate this.

Focus

  • No popups, animations, videos, sound effects.
  • Focus on actual content instead of fluff and effects.
  • No advertisemens and commercial tracking.
  • No Facebook, Google or Twitter.

Accessible

  • Power of formatting goes into the clients or readers. Like in the good old days of the early Web, people are expected to style the content to their own liking.
  • It's pure text, has simple navigation rules, so should be great for people with disabilities.
  • No JavaScript so you really see what you get.

And on top of this, the young Gemini community is driven to make this a success!

I'm sold.

ps. I published this first in plain text on my Gemini capsule and now that I copy paste this into a HTML document I can really tell just how easy it is to publish on Gemini.

Johan Bové

tradle/why-hypercore: Exploration of Hypercore's breakthrough designs and capabilities, uncovering its gems that may be scattered elsewhere, and learning to think from the

"Any Database Server can be accessed remotely and many can serve huge databases. But a server needs a machine, and human resources associated with its operational management. Such costs are detrimental for pay-per-use model of the cloud and especially to a new popular with developers class of Serverless applications."