Fedora Linux
How to switch firewalls from FirewallD to UFW
A quick tutorial for migrating from FirewallD and getting started with the Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW). Both are front ends for Linux’s iptables firewall.
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Web Monetization
First impressions of the Scroll news subscription service
Scroll wants to be your one-stop subscription service for news published all over the web. How does it work? and can one subscription save journalism?
MacOS
How to change the keyboard layout on the MacOS login screen
Set the keyboard layout/language on Mac’s login window, and fix the issue of it being reset to the wrong layout (e.g. ABC Keyboard) after rebooting.
Scale static-content archives and tag pages with Nanoc
Some of the helper methods in Nanoc — the static-site generator — can be a real performance bottleneck. Optimizing them cut my compilation time by 73%.
Diabetes
Bluetooth privacy and the FreeStyle Libre 2 glucose monitoring system
The FreeStyle Libre 2 can push critical glucose level alerts to your phone. Great for managing diabetes, but it also makes you trackable out in the world.
Privacy
How to test if your Bluetooth devices support BLE Privacy
Some Bluetooth Low-energy (BLE) devices support the BLE Privacy extension that makes their location harder to track. How to test if your devices support it.
Microsoft Windows
Why my 7-year old Windows 10 laptop became unbearably slow
My aging PC’s processor didn’t support a new Windows 10 security feature, enabled by default, causing it to become slow and unstable.
Privacy
Google should auto-delete aging user data by default
Users can now opt-in to have some of their personal data be deleted after some months. The GDPR says this should be the default, however.
Add Webmention support to your website in ten minutes
Webmention is a platform-independent protocol for notifications of linking webpages. Here’s how to quickly get started with Webmentions for any website.
VPS
Where are the managed IP-anycast VPS service providers?
VPS service providers have data centers located all over the world. You need managed anycast IP-addresses to direct users to the nearest VPS location.
Security
Feitian MultiPass recall highlights need to use multiple security keys
The recall of the Feitian MultiPass FIDO security key demonstrates why you always should use multiple security key products from different vendors.
Web Browsers
How quickly do Firefox derived browsers receive security updates
A case study in how timely Firefox derived web browsers (Waterfox, Cliqz, Pale Moon, and Tor) ship critical security updates.