I previously wrote a guide on syncing the KeePass password manager between various devices and platforms. That article grew over time, so I decided to split the security hardening section into this standalone article, while also expanding upon it greatly.
Implementing a few or all of these recommendations could drastically increase your password manager security.
Protect your online credentials with KeePass before reading further. I’ll wait. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Background
A year ago, a friend came to me with an idea for an air conditioning / pool filter / water heater energy saver for buildings with on-site renewable energy, such as PV or wind turbines. I was reluctant at first, in part because my home has no on-site renewable energy, pool, air conditioning or suitable water heater. But mostly because it required programming knowledge to implement professionally, and I only had significant exposure to Bash shell scripting, where I often found myself coded into a corner. In my line of work we frown upon big ugly hacks, and well, I just didn’t have the right brain for programming.
But worse than big ugly hacks is de-motivating yourself and missing opportunities to gain skills. So the conversation ended with “this might be cool and we might learn stuff – meh, let’s do it”.
I probably could have written the code in a day or two, but as a learning exercise, I wanted to do it “properly”, at least from a novice perspective. So days ran into weeks, including learning Perl, Python, the Raspberry Pi GPIO interface, the DRED specification, a couple of web APIs, Git, and my personal interest — secure programming practises.
qBittorrent aims to be an open source, cross-platform alternative to µTorrent, which in turn aims to be lightweight, fast and powerful. I chose qBittorrent over: µTorrent for being free (of advertising); Transmission for better security (libtorrent); Deluge for better Windows UI integration (Qt). qBittorrent also includes an RSS downloader out-of-the-box.
Posted in howto, Tech, Uncategorized
Ye no’ gettin’ me accounts!
As memorable passwords are rather ineffective now and account databases are being breached on a daily basis, you’re using a password manager to generate complex 10+ length passwords, right? But what if you’re out and about on your smartphone?
You could subscribe to a cloud service like LastPass or RoboForm, or you could D.I.Y. with Dropbox or Google Drive and some free mobile apps.
This will give you omni-directional sync of your secure passwords over any combination and number of just about any mobile or desktop operating system. Continue reading
Posted in Tech
My first attempt at video editing.
Posted in travel
When setting up Media Player Classic – Home Cinema, I had to gather the DVB-T configuration procedure and Aus. DVB-T settings from a load of obscure sources, so here they are in one place.
Capture settings
Australian Frequency, Bandwidth and Offset (Frequency 177500 – 856500, bandwidth 7000, offset 125). Frequencies are expressed in KHz, so 7 MHz is 7000.
aaaand scene
Addendum: It isn’t necessary to understand this, but Freq. Start & End define the entire range you wish to scan, while Bandwidth is the slice of this range used by a single broadcaster (e.g. ABC or 7 Digital). Offset is used to find broadcasters which use a non-contiguous frequency within the range (there aren’t any broadcasters in my region requiring an offset, at present).
In other words:
potential broadcaster frequency = x + (b * (n + (0 || o) ))
Where:
x = Freq. Start
b = Bandwidth
o = Offset
n = 0, incrementing to (Freq. End – x) / b
Therefore, in the above screenshot, each broadcaster takes up 7 MHz slices of bandwidth in the spectrum from 177.5MHz to 856.5 MHz, with an offset of 0 MHz or 0.125 MHz. This means the first possible slice is 177.5 MHz to 184.5 MHz (which is used by 7 Digital), the second possible slice (not counting the offset) is 184.5 MHz to 191.5 MHz, and so on. In other words:
potential broadcaster frequency = 177500 + (7000 * [0 increment to 97] + optionally 125)
2014-07-21: Due to work-in-progress on the MPC-HC scan interface, it may skip some channels in regions with multiple offset frequencies. In this case, you may need to manually edit the Windows registry entries.
2016-08-25: Added explanation of the spectrum scan.
2017-06-26: Improved explanation of the spectrum scan, updated screenshots.
Posted in howto
I know Windows apps aren’t cool anymore, but you can go to hell.
Some apps:
some general tools I use regularly:
and some simple file-related tools I use on occasion:
You’re welcome.
We watched the sun set over Myanmar. There were no footprints but our own, and not a soul to be sensed but a dwindling of timid crabs. A warm breeze flowed through us as the waves spoke their dying wish: “We have journeyed far and seen all. Let the cities fall. They do not matter.”.
Posted in photography, poetry
cf zero 