7 simple bot detection methods that won’t inconvenience users
Protect your contact, comment, or other forms from spam submissions by evaluating minute details about how it got submitted. Privacy-preserving. No CAPTCHAs.
Latest
Web Browsers
The Current Version of Popular Browsers API (powered by Wikidata)
Need an API to get the current version numbers for the stable and extended support releases of Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari? Wikidata got your back.
MacOS
5 options for auto-mounting network shares on MacOS
How to get MacOS to automatically (re-)mount network shares (SMB/NFS/AFP/…) when your network-attached storage (NAS) is available. Free and premium options.
Robot vacuums
How to stop a robot vacuum from getting stuck on the laundry rack
Is your robotic vacuum cleaner getting stuck on the laundry drying rack? Just raise the rack slightly off the floor and it becomes a natural robot barrier.
Keyboard
Split keyboards give your hands a break but reduce typing flexibility
A two-part split or a wavy keyboard might be a boost to your keyboard ergonomics. However, the split key layout might also imposes accessibility issue for some.
Fonts
Improve legibility and reduce layout shifts with x-height adjustments
The font-size CSS property sets the majuscule (“uppercase”) text size. The (font-)size-adjust property can set the minuscule (“lowercase”) size independently.
Storage
Syncthing: The data deduplication master
Syncthing can deduplicate data before network transfers and even utilize on-disk storage deduplication on modern file systems on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.
Linux
The auto-save feature in GEdit vs the new GNOME Text Editor
GNOME Text Editor, GEdit, and Kate all have a auto-saving feature designed to prevent dataloss. However, the implementations vary a lot with different trade-offs.
Common mistakes in BIMI early-adopter implementations
The Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard has strict requirements for an email sender’s logo to show up in your inbox. 65,1% gets it wrong.
Ruby
Ruby 3.1’s incompatible changes to its YAML module (Psych 4)
Ruby made its YAML interpreter more secure by default at the cost of backward compatibility. Developers weren’t given heads up warning about the changes.
Security
SELinux is unmanageable; just turn it off if it gets in your way
I’ve been an SELinux complexity apologist for years. Lately, I’ve concluded that every implementation with difficult-to-configure policies is just unmanageable.
Image Files
Can you use a WebP file as an Open Graph Protocol image?
Do you still need to maintain webpage thumbnails/link previews in legacy image formats, or have apps caught up with the WebP revolution? It’s a bit complicated.