Recent content on On LinuxLiaison
The Background A little bit of history here to start, just so that we can get some facts straight. Pocket started out primarily as a read-it-later service. In fact, it used to literally be called “Read It Later”. This is a service that has a web scraper that’s tuned to be able to extract articles from webpages. It allowed people to save copies of articles, blog posts, and even…
A recent voyage Recently I travelled to Japan. It took a lot of time and effort to plan the trip – six months in fact. I can honestly say it was worth it. I’ll be writing a bit more about it in the near future; I mostly just need to get all my thoughts together. I did a lot of research prior to visiting and with my partner having lived in Japan for nearly a year, I got to learn a lot from…
Introduction This manual was written as of January 2025. The instructions work as of macOS version 15.1.1(24B91) and Python version 3.13.1. Prerequisites Brew Python 3 macOS Some version of macOS lower than 14 may work, but keep in mind that anything before 13 is end of life . Instructions Install PyGObject using brew with : brew install pygobject3 Install cmake: brew install cmake Install libff:…
Last November, I went to Europe and I had a fantastic time, despite all the things that had dampened my experience (foreshadowing). I spent two weeks in London, where I had worked full time so it was more of a workation, where I got to see a little bit of North America’s roots. Then I ventured to the Netherlands, which I had been looking forward to since the beginning of 2023, for another…
Introduction This post is a little backstory of why this was important to me and how to get Wallabag articles onto your Kobo eReader. I use the Kobo H2O but judging from the documentation it could apply to many of the Kobo eReaders. What’s a Wallabag? Wallabag is what’s called a “read it later” service. The software allows you to create a curated library of news articles to…
Introduction I run a homelab that consists of (at least) a Plex media server and a NAS to store the media for that server. In the past, I’ve had power outages that have put the server out of service due to a failing network mount. Either the Plex’s host comes up too fast and the NAS hasn’t finished booting or the NAS is not yet connected to the network by the time the Plex host…
Introduction Last night, on a whim, I took a chance on myself and purchased a voucher for one exam plus a retake for the Python Certified Entry-Level Programmer (PCEP) exam. The Journey I hadn’t been studying, per se, but I had definitely been practicing Python. In my day job, I work as a help desk specialist but my role has deviated somewhat from the norm to involve maintenance of various…
Introduction Hi all, you might have found this post because you were looking for ways to find more people or interact with some people to begin with someone who’s recently joined Mastodon. I’m signed up to FOSStodon.org which is an instance focused on Free and Open Source Software, hence the FOSS. This post is written with the goal in mind of both introducing someone to Mastodon but…
This post was inspired by the character Siren Head which is a horror monster character created by Trevor Henderson. I’ve only seen horror-based Siren Head inspired pieces and I wanted to try my hand at a more science-fiction-like story based on the character. Below is the result. His name is Gary and he’s actually a really nice guy. He’s a giant that was chose Earth as a young…
Introduction This post is going to be quite a story but it’s one that I feel compelled to write about. There’s a lot going on in my mind but here’s the TL;DR: I started taking medication for my ADHD this week. My current job created struggles that I didn’t have before, due to the responsibilities that I wanted to take on. The medication is helping a lot and I feel like I…
Introduction Late last year I wrote about my ‘yearly theme’ that I dubbed Year of Distillation . This theme included whittling down as much as possible the time that I spend mindlessly on YouTube, Twitter, and even Mastodon to a degree. I also wanted to spend more time reading and writing. Generally, I wanted to move from a passive state to an active one. This move to more active modes…
Introduction Recently I got a question from someone asking for some resources for how to build a computer, what parts to buy, and how to know what the best parts are. I figured I’d take some time to really flesh something out and create something worthwhile for them. So I compiled a bunch of YouTube links (mostly videos from LinusTechTips or TechQuickie), giving each one a title that gives…
Preamble The Social Dilemma is a movie that explores the many facets of what we today call social media . It explores the implications of companies that thrive on the attention (and the data it produces) because of their ad-supported nature. It further explores what the current state of affairs is for the algorithms that back the news feeds and timelines of the everyman. Facebook has put out a…
The Facebook Pixel The Facebook pixel is a piece of code that allows you to gather analytics data on your website by having a user’s visit tied to their Facebook profile. By having this code on your website, Facebook is then allowed to access a cookie already placed in a visitor’s web browser when visiting Facebook itself. Your analytics data then contains all the sorts of…
Preamble I’ll keep this short. I’m sick of shitty recipe websites with fifty-thousand ads and a story nobody cares about (ironic I’m writing this preamble). I’m posting this here partially to officialize the recipe and partially to remove the need to visit the abhorrently heavy and noisy website it originally came from. This is a recipe I used (and modified successfully)…
Yearly Theme? Most of you know that one joke about how gyms get more sign ups in January than any other month and that the search trends have a huge spike for exercise related search terms around the same time. But that is just one of the most visible resolution that trends downward immediately after the first 15 days of the new year. I am no exception to this commonality. I’m no special…
I used to work at a grocery store as a bagger. When I worked there, it was always busy, always bustling. There was very little down time, except for between customers. This time, collectively, got to be draining because it felt like you always had time to look at the clock. You were constantly waiting for your break because already the work itself, gave very little intellectual fulfillment.…
No direction This post is just to break the ice as it’s been a while since I’ve actually made some time to “make” something. That includes work. Yeah I’ve written documentation (as any good IT technician should be doing on the regular), but it’s not been anything for myself. I’ll be using this post to not only break the ice, but also get some things that…
Introduction Most of you reading have probably participated in some sort of election in the past. Whether it be a federal election, state/province election, or even an election for class president, they’ve all had a single thing in common: You got one vote. You only got a single vote and if you tried any shenanigans like marking off two candidates, or trying to “split” your vote…
Context I’ve been watching Lunduke for a while on and off and here and there. I used to watch him regularly until he decided to put up a paywall for the majority of the stuff he produced. It seems antithetical to the messages he was trying to put out. There were some other contradictions to some of the principles he proudly claimed to have, but I digress. My point is that I may have a bias…
Day 0 My strategy includes a few things. I’ve put in my /etc/hosts some entries that redirect twitter.com, fosstodon.org, twitch.tv, and youtube.com to 0.0.0.0. In Firefox, I’ve set up an addon to block access to the same websites. On my phone, I deleted the Twitter and Tusky apps. I’ve disabled the YouTube app because I can’t uninstall that. I’ll have to set those up…
Introduction Notifications and myself have a love/hate relationship to summarize things. If it’s not the people who send one. sentence. per. message, it’s the hundreds of emails I get from companies asking for my opinion following a purchase, support call, or event attendance. Perhaps I need to practice better notification hygiene, or maybe the tools I use need to find a better way to…
Introduction This announcement was written by me, Brandon Nolet. A few days ago I decided that I would publish an e-zine. An e-zine is an electronic magazine; simple enough I would think. Inspiration for the Project The inspiration for this project came from something that I had already looked through a while ago when they were published/declassified. Back in the 1950s and 60s the NSA used, and…
This is what I call a quasi-excerpt. I’m currently working on a novel and this is potentially a scene that will be in the book. It’s only a quasi excerpt because I’m writing it now. I hope you enjoy! For context, the “newly” introduced character is one that Daniella converses with online earlier in the book. This is a close hacker friend of hers. They have never met…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I’m finally able to automatically build the epub files from my source for the book I’ll be writing. This was fun? Build Flow It’s important that you understand what the build flow is before I go into the journaling part of this post. I will be writing my book in org-mode, though the existing files I’ve been…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I, within the past two weeks, moved my Gitea server to my homelab and surprisingly, it went off without a hitch! Looks like setting up Drone with it might be just as simple. Let’s hope that’s the case. Documentation Luckily the documentation for Gitea integration is using Docker which suits me perfectly! As I mentioned…
This is a quasi-excerpt from a book I’m working on. This was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I say ‘quasi’ because I’m writing it now as opposed to having written it in the past. I intend to actually put this in the book somewhere, but that is not a guarantee. Enjoy! For context, this is a conversation between the main character, Daniella, and their brother, Andrew. However,…
This is a quasi-excerpt from a book I’m working on. This was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I say “quasi” because I’m writing it now as opposed to having written it in the past. I intend to actually put this in the book somewhere, but that is not a guarantee. Enjoy! Daniella scrawls the man’s name in her notepad after shaking his hand and sitting down. His brow seems…
Introduction This essay was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I’m talking to a few folks through email, and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Catalyst About two months ago, I noticed that some conversations with an individual I no longer speak with were consistently devolving into something that neither us were comfortable with. Little did I know that was related more closely to us being on…
This is a quasi-excerpt from a book I’m working on. This was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I say “quasi” because I’m actually writing it now as opposed to having written it in the past. I intend to actually put this in the book somewhere, probably in the beginning. Daniella looks up from her notepad and notices her brother navigating to a website that she’s feels…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. My partner and I have finally signed the lease to an apartment and things are officially official. Paranoia Leading up to signing the lease, I was worried with practically every good visit. I was afraid that there would be some glaring issue that wasn’t initially noticed. I was afraid for some sort of bug infestation. What I…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. Now that we have an apartment to move to, we gotta talk about the difficult stuff that will take place after we move. At one point I talk about my cat being injured and there’s blood involved, just warning the reader. Growing Up Grizzie is a tough cat. I get to play with her kind of like a dog. Sometimes we play fetch,…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. My partner and I saw an apartment today and we’re sold on it already. Requirements There are a few of these, and I’m not even sure if I went over them before but I’m a little too lazy to check right now. Basically the apartment has to have at least one closed bedroom, be below $1100CAD, accept cats, and be within a…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I’ll be writing about the things that most annoy me when it comes to apartment hunting, specifically online. Point of Contact I’m not exactly an anti-social person, but I dislike speaking over the phone. Whether it’s because I have a hard time understanding the person on the other end of the call, for various…
Introduction This post was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I set up my own Mastodon server and it was a ride! Why? A few people questioned why I wanted to host my own Mastodon server. There are a few reasons, one of them being that I wanted to try my hand at setting one up. Now, I didn’t go the bare hosting route, I added this to my docker setup. You can see how that went over here .
Introduction This essay was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that my power went out yesterday. Availability Unless you’re someone who’s thought ahead, you’re shit outta luck when it comes to power outages. The moment your power goes out, everything is basically inaccessible. Your Gitea, your Plex movies, and especially all the files only available through your…
Introduction This essay was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I think that I try too hard to keep up with the news. I’m sure many others do as well. News It’s, I think, obvious that the word news is simply the plural of the word new. Really, the news is just a compilation of a bunch of things that changed in a given day. It happens daily, or at least it used to only…
Author’s note: I was a little too definite with my hypothetical situation here. I’m sure that AI could have some hand in reverse engineering proprietary software to the point of being able to replicate its functions without human interference. However, I don’t think we’re anywhere near that at this point in time. I added this as some folk have messaged me about this point.…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I’m looking far…to the horizon. And I’m doing flips. Okay, dropping the jokes, I want to flip some real estate, and there’s some finance shit I wanna talk about too. Flipping Real Estate If anyone is not familiar with the concept of flipping real estate, here follows a basic definition.…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I just had a very exhausting but extremely rewarding Saturday afternoon. Preamble I rarely ever go out on the weekends, at least voluntarily. If I do go out, it’s because there’s some sort of family function, or someone else has decided to drag me along with them. I often prefer to go home after my…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I’m sick of looking up links. It’s time to set up a Firefox Sync server at home. Docker As I wrote in some previous posts I use Docker for my setup. This means that I’m already setup to use Docker for this purpose too! Luckily a few folks have already gone through this process before and…
Introduction This post was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that today marks the 50th day I’ve been on this daily writing challenge. Writing As I’ve been writing daily, I feel like I’ve started to develop my own writing ‘style’. I think this is something that happens when you do a lot of writing. I’m not sure what the exact count is, but up until now…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I’ll be moving my Nextcloud installation to my router’s virtual DMZ . Preamble A while ago I wrote a post about moving my self-hosting setup onto a Raspberry Pi. This was written before I realized that my incoming port 443 is not blocked by my ISP at my connection to the internet. The reason…
Topic: Why you should seed, and why you should seed more than a ratio of 1. Introduction This essay was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I’m currently seeding Debian Buster in its various forms (and Solus), and it’s somewhat new to me. BitTorrent Protocol For those not familiar with how torrents work, here’s a bit of a summary. When you download a file from the…
Introduction This guide was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I’d like to define what each type of post means, and how they differ from each other. Context So you might have seen in previous posts at the beginning of my introductions, “This post type was written by…” This post type of course…tells you what type of post this is. As you can see, this…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I have no idea what to write about. Warning : This post will be rambly. Brainstorming This process is something of a mystery for me. Often I find my brain will wander off into the sunset without a clue where it’s going and then all of a sudden something pops into my head. Usually it’s related to some…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I’m going to be moving my wordpress blog to hugo. Wordpress Plugins They say that there’s basically a Wordpress(WP) plugin for everything. There’s no denying that, but that’s not to say that there’s a WP plugin for everything in the plugin repository . In this case, a WP to hugo…
Author’s Note: This post previously said that I would be leaving Fosstodon. After some deliberation and consideration, and a commendable effort towards reparations, I’ve decided to stay with the instance. I feel like I can do more good by staying, learning, and educating others of what I’ve learned. I know the Fosstodon folks trust me and my point of view, and that is more…
Introduction This journal entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet. I’ve finally started implementing GTD, for real; let’s talk about it. GTD As some of you may know, GTD is short for Getting Things Done, a book by David Allen. I don’t think it’s very important to go over the entire system here, but I’ll summarize it. The concept revolves around the concept of the brain…
Introduction This half-essay half-journal-entry was written by me, Brandon Nolet, in the context that I am sick and tired of people smoking at bus stops. Contention In Canada, and I’m sure in many other nations, we have this contention between smokers and non-smokers. “You can’t smoke on the terrace !” “It’s a public space!” “No, the restaurant owns…