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Again with the random breakage; I just so dearly love that this shit happens when I d rather be working on anything but. The problem is still that Nextcloud Desktop file sync barks every 30 seconds that the chain of trust is broken. Also, Thunderbird is barking the same, but at least it only barks every Continue reading "Let s Encrypt inspired trouble, part 3" The post Let’s Encrypt inspired…
Yesterday was my last day of work for my employer. I am officially retired, after 37 years of Doing computers for them. Mildly interesting, I also got an email from past me via https://www.futureme.org/: The following is a letter from July 26, 2021, delivered from the past by FutureMe Dear FutureMe, Friday I powered off Continue reading "End of an era for me" The post End of an era for me first…
TL;DR: It started off bad due to poor software and ended up bad for unknown reasons. I went to Las Vegas as a birthday gift for myself, and (so far) all I got was resentments. Once I got there, my mood turned sour when I tried to use my mobile ticket on the Las Vegas Continue reading "Las Vegas Monorail" The post Las Vegas Monorail first appeared on David's Blog .
Dear FutureMe, Today would be a good day to do a quarterly inventory. How is your personal life going? How is your work life going? How is your Volunteer Service life going? Future Me Personal Life Changed Linux distribution to Debian on my main machine This has been, so far, the smoothest change from one Continue reading "Quarterly inventory 2026 Q2" The post Quarterly inventory – 2026 Q2 first…
Previous title: Twitter / X changed the rules and I d like to cancel my subscription now When I signed up, I did so without installing an app to my cell phone. I signed up with the website, email, and SMS texting only. I had two-factor authentication enabled, and all that worked well. I paid for Continue reading "Twitter / X changed the rules, and I have deactivated my account." The post Twitter /…
One of the pieces of bad advice I got while trying to diagnose the Let s Encrypt problem was to reset my Nextcloud File Sync client connection. No big deal, they said, just recreate the connection. BY THE WAY (said no one) WE RE GOING TO TRASH FILES WAITING TO SYNC. Well, I m being a bit overly Continue reading "Another bit of Let s Encrypt inspired trouble" The post Another bit of Let’s Encrypt…
Admittedly, the way I ve done things is a little unusual. It’s annoying that my setup broke when Let’s Encrypt changed things, but I understand they can’t test every setup. Still, I was caught off guard and spent a couple of days trying to figure out what went wrong. What happened is that Let s Encrypt started Continue reading "Let s Encrypt dropped a spanner in the hole" The post Let’s Encrypt…
I really like the Nextcloud Music app. Previously I had complained that music playlist import by hand is more complicated than I would like. But today I found that Nextcloud Music has a server-side playlist import feature. Neat! When I reset my music collection in Nextcloud (because I was messing with ID3 tags or such), Continue reading "Nextcloud server playlist import" The post Nextcloud server…
I ve since seen a few more instances of Microsoft software isn t done until competitors won t run . I don t have a nice succinct list, though. I don t think I should include the WordPerfect for Windows font problem in the above list. In the above list, Microsoft wrote code to damage their customers who used competitors products. Continue reading "Microsoft list of We re not done until you don t…
Financial Apparently the Warhammer video game people do an annual event in the spring, called Skulls, and put things on sale and announce new products for pre-order.1 This year (2026), the event runs from May 21 through 28. On Steam, Gladius Relics of War is free. Obviously, they are hoping you ll want to buy Continue reading "Playing a new video game: Warhammer 40,000: Gladius Relics of War" The…
I.F.S. = Incredibly Fucking Stupid TL/DR: 5,000 workstations are hit with a surprise reboot in the middle of the morning because the policy says Audit mode only and the documentation doesn t warn that Oh by the way . At work, one of our security team members changed a policy in Microsoft Defender. The policy had a Continue reading "Microsoft does the I.F.S. again." The post Microsoft does the…
gesundheit 😉 Listening to the Untitled Linux Show over on the TWiT.tv network, they mentioned APTUI, and I love it. I cut my Linux teeth on SuSE Linux, coming from twelve years as a Novell NetWare administrator. YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) under SuSE was great. I particularly liked finding and installing new Perl modules Continue reading "APTUI" The post APTUI first appeared on David's Blog .
The problem I am trying to solve is that when I am in-person at work, there is a ton of talking going on around me, and I d like to blot that out with music. But I m usually wanting a genre of music. Also, I d like to choose the option for the player to randomly pick Continue reading "MusicBrainz Picard: good, mostly" The post MusicBrainz Picard: good, mostly first appeared on David's Blog .
I d signed up for the service, paying $20 per month. I understand that running this stuff costs money, so sure, I ll buy a subscription. And some of the Perl programming I was doing, when I asked Perplexity.ai to help, it was excellent. But recently, the stuff I want, they are putting behind a new tier Continue reading "I feel a little betrayed by Perplexity.ai" The post I feel a little betrayed…
Dear FutureMe, Today would be a good day to do a quarterly inventory. How is your personal life going? How is your work life going? How is your Volunteer Service life going? Future Me Personal Life The search for the best Linux desktop continues, and KDE and Fedora 43 continue to disappoint. In theory, the Continue reading "Quarterly inventory 2026 Q1" The post Quarterly inventory – 2026 Q1 first…
Steam tells me I have slightly more than 3,000 hours played. You could say I like this game. 😉 My favorite jumpstart iron miner and smelter:…
It will get better if you pay more, though. It has been four years since we abandoned GroupWise, and I still get people who say to me, Man, I miss GroupWise. They know that I was the GroupWise guy for twenty years, so it is the obvious topic when I pass them in a hallway. Continue reading "Microsoft Outlook Search is not going to get better" The post Microsoft Outlook Search is not going to get…
I did my usual volunteer service at the World Ag Expo. One thing that was noticeable was that we had far fewer airplanes and jets fly into the airport adjacent to the show. The guys in charge had also said that fewer people had rented booths for the show. I did get to talk to Continue reading "World Ag Expo was light" The post World Ag Expo was light first appeared on David's Blog .
At work, someone else on my team is responsible for pushing out desktop software, and the decision has been to remove Adobe Acrobat and use Microsoft Edge instead. That s fine; I agree with simplifying the environment and only installing Adobe stuff if one has a license because one s job is creating or editing PDF files. Continue reading "New Year, new Microsoft fuckup" The post New Year, new…
Dear FutureMe, Today would be a good day to do a quarterly inventory. How is your personal life going? How is your work life going? How is your Volunteer Service life going? Future Me Personal Life This quarter gave me the opportunity to attend two weekend conferences out of town, and I enjoyed both of Continue reading "Quarterly inventory – 2025 Q4" The post Quarterly inventory – 2025 Q4 first…
It really shouldn t take two hours to install the RSAT: DNS Manager. This work machine I am using has 32 GB of RAM and is an Intel Core i7 processor from two years ago. It is not a wimpy machine. The post Oh my goodness Microsoft sucks at programming first appeared on David's Blog .
[four minute read longer than most of my posts] Previously I talked about becoming the Work Order creator ( Engineer ) at Truline. Opportunity Knocks At some point, we needed room, and I was relocated to another office, which I shared with the president of the company, Jack Cederloff. I got the idea to write a Continue reading "My first programming job Truline Corporation" The post My first…
I recently got a Future Me email (an email sent to my future me): Dear FutureMe, Today is International Men s Day. Every year, Google celebrates International Women s Day with a Google Doodle. And every year, Google gives the finger to International Men s Day. Can you spell misandry? I deleted my Google account today. I don t Continue reading "Google chooses misandry" The post Google chooses…
The name of the movie: Wicked: For Good I don t know that I could come up with a more Orwellian name for a product than that. There is this word: wicked which means morally evil, sinful, of vice, and intentional wrongdoing. There is this word: good which means just about the opposite of that. Putting Continue reading " Wicked: For Good Disney dials Orwell up to 11" The post “Wicked: For Good” –…
Truline Corporation was a manufacturer of printed wiring boards in Visalia, California. People tend to call them printed circuit boards but technically they are mostly all printed wiring boards. They are wires, and rarely are they in a pattern that affects the electrical operation of the circuit. Anyway . I started working there in the spring Continue reading "My first jobs Truline Corporation"…
He did not support H.R. 581 (yet), but I want to give credit where credit is due: he did respond to the two emails I sent via their web portal. I don t know which one (or if it is both) he (his office) responded to there are no specifics in the reply. He does Continue reading "Congressman Vince Fong did respond to my requests that he support H.R. 581" The post Congressman Vince Fong did respond to…
Dear FutureMe, Today would be a good day to do a quarterly inventory. How is your personal life going? How is your work life going? How is your Volunteer Service life going? Future Me Personal Life Financial Milestone On Thursday, September 25, I paid off my mortgage. That is to say, I d asked my mortgage Continue reading "Quarterly inventory – 2025 Q3" The post Quarterly inventory – 2025 Q3 first…
Twelve years ago today, I sent an email to myself via FutureMe.org I included a link to a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yw1Tgj9-VU That was the link to Linkin Park In The End (Official Music Video) for a really long time. But when I try to visit it now, Google denies it, saying I must log Continue reading "Today, I received an email from twelve years ago" The post Today, I…
To the Honorable Vince Fong, I request, as a constituent, that you sign the discharge petition to release all the documents the government has about Jeffrey Epstein and the crimes he and his cohorts committed. If the women in your life were subjected to the horrors that Epstein and his cohorts committed, you would want Continue reading "Another letter to Congressman Vince Fong" The post Another…
At some time in the near future, I hope to retire from my career in computer operations and programming. I don t know if there will be a retirement party, but if so, it wouldn t hurt to have written down a little history. The second part of “How I got into computers” barely talks about this. Continue reading "My junior college courses" The post My junior college courses first appeared on David's…
At some time in the near future, I hope to retire from my career in computer operations and programming. It occurred to me that I haven t written down my history, at least regarding computers and programming. This post will be a longer version of what I wrote in the first part of How I got Continue reading "My introduction to computers" The post My introduction to computers first appeared on…
Another instance of Make Orwell Fiction Again. The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was a purchase I made in 2020 or 2021. It was purchased with gift card money; my mom s boyfriend bought me 12 credits worth of an Audible subscription for Christmas. I registered the code, and used the gift card / Continue reading "Amazon (Audible) stole from me" The post Amazon (Audible) stole from me first…
I had purchased the Netgate 3100 from the company because I thought that would get me the best compatibility and support. Well, an update was made available: 24.11-RELEASE (arm) and I made the mistake of applying it six days ago. My whole router/firewall has crashed thrice since then. I ve been pretty unhappy with Netgate for Continue reading "pfSense 24.11 is not good" The post pfSense 24.11 is…
One of my favorite Jay Leno jokes revolves around Congress taking its annual recess. After they would do so, Jay would say Congress has just begun its summer recess; the realm is safe, once again. It is quite funny, because it says Congress does more harm by being in session than not. Today, however, with Continue reading "Jay Leno joke, today not funny" The post Jay Leno joke, today not funny…
Honorable Vince Fong, I request that you support House Resolution 185 to advance responsible policies. This bill may also be known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act . I am certain that you understand that the damage done to children who are raped is profound and lasts a lifetime. You seem to be someone of good Continue reading "I just sent a letter to my Congressman" The post I just sent a…