Recent content on Dariusz Więckiewicz 🇬🇧
MemPalace “Memory is identity.” — mempalaceofficial.com MemPalace recently went viral – partly due to celebrity backing from Milla Jovovich, and partly due to some highly controversial benchmark claims that the AI community quickly debunked. But if you look past the marketing hype and the synthetic benchmark drama, the underlying architecture provides something genuinely useful:…
Have you experienced this with AI? You ask a simple question, expecting a concise bullet-point answer or a short step-by-step guide, only to receive a full-blown essay in return. That is AI trying to “spit” tons of words to please us and demonstrate how thorough its responses can be. Most of the time, however, we simply do not need that. Over time, consistently using a single dedicated…
When Google announced that they would force us to move away from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, I wasn’t happy. The official tracking code is notoriously bloated – weighing in at around 171kB in some instances–and is frequently blocked by various ad-blockers. Given the lack of lightweight alternatives, I wasn’t looking forward to compromising my site’s performance. I…
I have been using the Bartender app for longer than I can honestly remember. The main issue with macOS for heavy users has always been the menu bar – the one in the top right corner of your screen. The more apps you add, the more cluttered it becomes. If you have a Mac with a notch, it becomes even more annoying, as some icons are not displayed at all. Bartender sorted the issue for me for quite…
Recently, I have been in contact with several people who have been thanking me for posting articles that have helped them significantly with their technological struggles or in easing their issues. Some of them have been so happy that they would like to know how to donate a bit to support the cause. While this gesture is appreciated, most of the activities on my site are non-profit. I used to have…
On the 16th of March 2022 Google announced its plans for a shutdown of Universal Analytics property and replace it fully with Goole Analytics 4 (v4) that been in the market since late 2020. Google like to kill off their services. Luckily, this is not about shutting down Google Analytics but only the method, how analytics data are collected from websites. If you have been using Google Analytics for…
Over some time I have been looking for ideal Cookie Consent Banner implementation on my websites. The main goal was to make sure it’s not causing CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) resulting in poor Core Web Vitals (and downgrading website in Google Search). I found the solution that worked for me for some time. Together with other optimisation works I managed to achieve my goal, however, from…
If you follow my website and posts related to OpenWrt you have probably come across my post about installing a VPN server on an OpenWrt router using WireGuard. WireGuard is one of the fastest protocols available for creating a VPN connection. Thanks to it, from the Internet, we can easily connect to our network and use it, either for local purposes (access to a printer or network drive) or to…
The best part of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) is how it affects Windows 11 and the software installed on it. Thanks to the DMA, EU (EEA) users can easily remove Microsoft Edge and replace it fully – not just by hiding it – with Google Chrome or another browser if they want to. When you’re living in the EU, you probably do not know how good that small enforcement is. In the UK, which is…
The llms.txt and discussion around it recently is quite controversial. On one hand, Google’s Search Relations team (led by John Mueller and Gary Illyes) has explicitly stated that llms.txt files will not help your SEO or search rankings. On the other hand, Google’s developer tools team recently introduced an experimental “Agentic Browsing” category into Lighthouse and PageSpeed…
Today’s solution is a bit unusual - my network drive (NAS) recently stopped working, and to sort it out I need to do some digging in it. In the meantime, I would like to use the USB 3.0 port built into my WRT3200ACM router with OpenWrt software to share a USB drive on the network.
As an iPhone user, it is quite natural to choose Apple-branded devices to fulfil everyday needs. My first Apple Watch was a Series 4, followed by a Series 6. After a few years, I finally moved to the Series 10. This time, for myself at least, I am not looking for any further upgrade come September 2026, to whichever series arrives next. Twenty years ago, I remember buying ringtones for my mobile…
The AI interaction is becoming more and more common. We are getting a lot of useful information (a lot of crap as well) very quickly through it, saving us time and making us more productive. I will not be discussing here aspect we all fear now, that AI will be replacing us at work. Thats a total different subject. I will be thinking here from perspective of using the AI, Gemini in this case, to…
I should have discovered this years ago! I never came across this feature, and it was apparently available a few versions ago. Just now, when version 25.12.0 was officially released, I learned how to simplify upgrading from one version to another (I did this from 24.10.2 to 25.12.0). I have developed my own routine for backing up packages and configuration files, installing a new image, and…
For some time, I have been covering topics concerning OpenWrt on my website. One of the primary interests among my users has been the implementation of WireGuard and adding a Cloudflare WARP tunnel, as well as managing multiple internet connections on a single router. What I have not yet covered is how to conditionally route traffic once we have established two internet connections, or when we…
In the past, I have followed a method of updating OpenWrt devices with an option to restore all installed packages and their configurations without needing to spend hours on reconfiguring and testing everything. This method uses a simple script run in the terminal to generate a list of installed packages, followed by a web interface to generate a backup file used to restore everything. As long as…
Have you ever struggled to measure the true speed of your internet? Each router is different, and additionally, WiFi wireless networks come in different standards, on different frequencies and offering different speeds depending on external factors. If our computer has a card that only supports 2.4GHz at a speed of 54Mbps, we can have 100, 200 or more Mbps, and we will not go faster than 54Mbps.…
My OpenWrt adventures began with the ASUS RT-AC56U router. It was a fairly good, cheap router with a dual-core Broadcom BCM4708A0 processor clocked at 800MHz. It also had 128MB of flash memory and 256MB of RAM. Appetite grows with eating, as the saying goes. While I didn’t complain about the processor, I quickly ran out of space for more of these applications. So I decided to replace it with…
Recently I decided to connect an UPS (uninterruptible power supply) at work to one of the devices that runs 24 hours a day. The UPS that we currently have is the APC Back-UPS 1400 (Back-UPS XS 1400U), in addition to the ability to connect up to 6 devices, allows you to monitor the status of the device using the PowerChute software via USB port. The problem is that this software is not compatible…
As the number of users increases, it is time to introduce speed limits in the network. While I do not need this on my home router, in corporate use, it is worth knowing who and how much is using the connection and, if necessary, introducing appropriate restrictions. First, you need to find out who, and then how much.
Recently while playing Call of Duty Mobile, I would occasionally experience a sudden slowdown in the form of increased ping, which would make the game temporarily unplayable.
Recently I decided to add a USB connected printer to my OpenWrt router. While I normally use a wireless solution with built-in AirPrint (so I can print directly from my iPhone/iPad), sharing a USB printer on a network involves purchasing a print server. Unfortunately, currently available print servers lack support for, for example, AirPrint, i.e. the ability to print wirelessly from Apple devices…
Cloudflare is known for being the next Google and providing us with high-quality services, many of which can be used for free without any compromises. Fortunately, unlike Google, it is not so eager to kill its services. From domain management, to SSL certificate for your website, secure and fast DNS, to turbocharging your internet connection with WARP (or WARP+ for those who want more).
The UK’s service providers are very much behind the times when it comes to the latest technological developments. Given the somewhat phlegmatic attitude of the British people towards new technologies, it’s no wonder that ISPs are still stuck in the Stone Age (IPv4), even though the stones (the pool of IPv4 addresses) are gone. While I am lucky to have an external IPv4 address, I can forget about a…
So you want to add a torrent client to your OpenWrt router, so that you can download, for example, a Raspbian image using this method, save it to a previously connected and configured USB drive and access it from the local network?
Continuing my post Adding a USB drive to a router with OpenWrt using the USB port (using the Linksys WRT3200ACM as an example), we move on to sharing our drive on the local network.
Whether you have reinstalled OpenWrt or updated it, even though you have backed up your settings, any additionally installed packages have not (will not) been preserved, so restoring the settings will not make everything as it was. For now, this is normal behavior with OpenWrt. Therefore, you need to think about how to approach this so that the update and restore of settings will proceed as…
Today I am going to discuss a topic that causes problems for people who have an Internet connection without a permanent external IP address if we want to run a VPN server on our connection, as I described in the post Installing a VPN server on a router with OpenWrt (WireGuard).
Depending on where we use our router, we may be in a situation where we need to have a backup plan in case our primary internet connection goes down.
So you’ve decided to change the firmware on your router from the one provided by your hardware manufacturer to the more open and secure OpenWrt firmware. Congratulations!
If you have a router with OpenWrt, you have probably thought more than once about how to set up a VPN server on it so that you can connect to the network from outside your home or office and have access to local data, such as a network drive or printer.
You are probably aware that it is very important that the website you visit, especially the one where you enter any data (including login and password) is secured with a so-called green padlock, i.e. served by https:// before the name of the website.
My site, until recently, was using a system font stack, mostly because I would like to have the lightest website possible. My featured images, heavily optimized, still account for large LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) and adding custom fonts, in the most common way, can increase the overall weight of the website. I am happy with my site, but on others, I need to use specified fonts to get the right…
Back in 2023, I have looked at how to add relevant hreflang tags to my personal website, which considered adding self-reference to the current language, reference to a translated page (if available), and falling back with x-default to a page that is designed as a language switcher page. Since then, I thought that this approach was correct, but found out that this solution, on my website, where not…
As it happened, Attended Sysupgrade with the latest version of OpenWrt 25.12, since it became the default approach to update OpenWrt devices, started seeing a spike in popularity. When I first tried this, I was either 1st in the queue or just a few users behind. Days later, when the next version (25.12.1) was released, this jumped to around 200-300. Now, with another release (25.12.2), the servers…
Recently, I faced an issue with mwan3, a package on OpenWrt routers that is designed to manage multiple internet connections, either for load balancing or a failover. At work, we have two fibre connections, where the main one is used primarily and the second is online, but only activated when the first goes down – typical failover approach. First connection (lets call it fibre) is with metric 10…
Update 14/03/2026 Due to changes by Google and a decision to make life more difficult for users, they have decided to shut down the excellent Gmailify service and the ability to fetch emails from other mailboxes using POP. Consequently, the team behind Gomailify has had to rebuild their entire service to meet these new requirements. They are now using the Google API to push emails to our inboxes.…
Thanks to Cloudflare Email Routing, I can accept and send emails in my domain, but still manage them on my ordinary Gmail account. This all is set as I wrote down in my post titled Email in your own domain with Cloudflare (and Gmail) Over the last week, I faced an issue with emails not being delivered to my mailbox. Firstly I thought that there was something wrong with Gmail service blocking…
We are living in times when AI is becoming a daily tool we use at work and at school. A lot of students support themselves by using AI to learn new things, quickly find information, and extend their knowledge. I am from a generation who finish schools and University before AI existed. During my Uni times, it was the Internet boom, and access to information started pushing out the need to visit a…
Following my post from last year, in which I shared my GitHub stars for 2024, I have now reviewed what I discovered throughout 2025. I review my stars periodically, and the 31st of December 2025 was no exception. By the end of 2025, I had accumulated (or rediscovered) the following repositories, all of which are well worth a look. This is a curated list, and I have selected those most worth…
In the past, I have been exploring various ways to increase the reach of my website and other websites that I am working with, which are publishing content regularly. I have explored a way of publishing my content in Bing News, which was typically faced with rejection without any explanation. My last attempt on this matter was in July 2024, after which I decided not to bother anymore. Overall,…
In early 2025, Microsoft officially deprecated Bing News PubHub, moving away from a manual submission model for news publishers. The manual submission process is fully retired. Existing publishers who were already approved remain in the index, but the portal for new applications has been disabled. I am providing the following article for reference only. Recently I wrote about how to Publish your…
I have been a fan of Linux since I was young. My favourite branches are these Debian-based. Even though I never officially go full on it, Linux is a part of my daily life, and yours as well. In daily life, I am using Windows 11, and my main driver is macOS, who derived from Unix. The macOS shares a lot of similarities with Linux, and thanks to the power of the terminal, I can do more than just…
I recently found time to watch a very insightful, fast-paced presentation by Adam Argyle titled “25 New & Rad Features of CSS”. Watch here: 25 new & rad features of CSS by Adam Argyle This video cannot be displayed because your browser does not support iframes. Watch it on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW6GECIzvsw">YouTube</a>.</p> After just five minutes, when he…
Through the “interesting” days when people started migrating to Mastodon, I found a quite interesting toot from one of its users, where he mentioned adding Mastodon discoverability for any domain using the WebFinger protocol. I have been quite interested in how to implement this on my end, as I prefer people to discover me through my long-standing email address rather than a newly created username…
Days are passing by, and rolls are rolling. We invested in new paper, but from the very beginning, there was something unusual about it. After a few days of use, we still actively compare it with the Lidl brand (Floralys Quilted Toilet Tissue), and suddenly, my wife noticed why Who Gives a Crap (WGaC) toilet paper feels different. I thought it was nostalgia from the late 80s/early 90s, but no!…
On my current internet connection at home, I do not have direct access to an external IPv4 IP address from my router (only IPv6 is available). Because of this, I am unable to set up my VPN server using WireGuard directly. Therefore, I need to support myself with Cloudflare Zero Trust technology. Following my guide on how to add a Cloudflare Tunnel to an OpenWrt Router, as a WireGuard VPN…
We have been aware of the End of Life (EOL) for Windows 10 for some time. If you don’t, and you are still working on it, then you must be living under a rock for some time. Microsoft already spammed you with full-screen advice to purchase Windows 11, even on hardware that is not suitable for it! Migration to Windows 11 has caused a lot of headaches, as it often requires users, even with very…
See Favorites Start Page by Jimmy Lye in chrome web store. There’s been a lot going on recently with Google Chrome (and Microsoft Edge) browser extensions. Things really heated up when new requirements were introduced, dictating how Chrome extensions are built and what they can do – Manifest V3. Think of Manifest V3 as a blueprint or set of guidelines for extension developers, with a strong…
Sooner rather than later the time has come when another person asks me what to do when they are running out of space on Google Photos and therefore on Gmail.