FIXING FIREFOX'S FONT RENDERING
I’ve recently switched back to Firefox as my primary web browser, but on my workstation running Fedora 32, I found that the font rendering was kind of gross and was very unpleasant to look at. Luckily, Reddit user sweetcollector pointed out not only the problem(that Firefox doesn’t use the font configuration provided by the desktop environment), but the solution: Create /etc/fonts/local.conf and place in it the following content: <?xml version='1.0'?> <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'> <fontconfig> <match target="font"> <edit name="antialias" mode="assign"> <bool>true</bool> </edit> <edit name="autohint" mode="assign"> <bool>false</bool> </edit> <edit name="hinting" mode="assign"> <bool>true</bool> </edit> <edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign"> <const>hintslight</const> </edit> <edit name="lcdfilter" mode="assign"> <const>lcddefault</const> </edit> <edit name="rgba" mode="assign"> <const>rgb</const> </edit> </match> </fontconfig> After restarting Firefox, it should start using the fonts your DE recommends and better fit into your OS theme.
SIDE-PROJECT: GROUPVAULT
I’ve restarted work on my side-project: GroupVault. This project comes from my dissatisfaction with many (read: all I’ve found) of the open-source team-based password managers out there. They either look good but don’t support folders; have folders, but look terrible and have no real API; or some combination of the above. My goal is fairly simple: create a web app that provides a secure mechanism for storing credentials in a folder-based hierarchy with role-based access control. These credentials should be able to be accessed by authorized users via a clean, modern web interface or via a REST API. It may take some work, but I think it will be worth it.
ANSIBLE ROLES
I find myself creating a lot of Ansible playbooks and roles for work and I’ve decided that I should start making the more generic ones publicly available. So, please check out my Ansible Galaxy page where I’ll be releasing my roles. For now, there’s a single role that sets up Docker CE on a system, including adding a new disk in for overlay2 storage.
BLACK AND WHITE CARDS
The COVID-19 epidemic has got me working on a new side project: a way to play Cards Against Humanity online. I’m writing a Django application to allow folks to play CAH together and hopefully bring a little more brightness into isolation.
FINDING FILES IN FOUND DIRECTORIES WITH ANSIBLE
If you spend some time around shell scripts, you’ve likely come across one that looks something like this: #!/bin/bash LOG_DIR=/my/log/dir cd ${LOG_DIR} for h in `ls -d web*` do cd ${LOG_DIR}/${h}; for f in `ls access.log-20??????.gz` do # move these to cold storage ... done done For those whose BASH is a little rusty, this script goes into a log directory, finds all of the subdirectories that begin with ‘web’, then finds files matching a glob pattern inside of those and does something with them.
NEW BLOG COMING
With the release of .dev domains and therefore my ability to get a nice, clean domain for myself, I’ve decided to redo my blog. I’ll be moving relevant content over here, so all of my old articles that are still even remotely relevant will find their way here. Also, the new blog will hopefully be much easier to use on my end, so I’ll be putting more content up.
DEPLOYING DOCKER CONTAINERS WITHOUT LEAKING SECRETS
I maintain a Django application at the company at which I am employed. Initially, changes weren’t very frequent, so logging into the host and running a few commands when the application needed to be updated wasn’t a big deal. However, feature creep has set in and changes to the code base are not only more frequent, but are done by more people. Something had to be done.
NOTES ON DMING ON ROLL20
Making Tokens I use RPTools’ TokenTool (now 2.0, having upgraded from version b27) to create (N)PC tokens from the character’s portrait. The tool is fairly simple: Extract the zip file and double-click on ‘tokentool-1.0.b27.jar’ After a moment, the tool’s window will launch. Drag-and-drop the character’s portrait onto the black portion of the window. Size and position the image. Click-and-drag the image to reposition. Use the arrow buttons on the right to size the image. Double-arrows are for large size changes single-arrows are for smaller changes. Using the dropdown box, select the ring for the token Personally, I use circles for PCs and hexagons for NPCs, but this is entirely up to you. Under the file menu, select Save Token and save the new token where you want it. Upload to Roll20 ??? Profit Using Tokens in Game Now that your tokens have been created, you need to use them. Drop them onto the Object/Token layer, click on it, then on the gear to edit it.
NUPASS RELEASED
NuPass, my user-readable password generator, is now released (currently 0.2.1) and is available on PyPI. This means that I should get to updating NuPassWeb and its live version, nupass.pw. I’m totally open to pull requests, if you feel like helping out.
UPDATING THE FIRMWARE ON QUANTA LB4M SWITCHES
There seems to be a lack of information (that isn’t misinformation) on how to upgrade the firmware on Quanta LB4M switches. Posts abound containing warnings about bricking your switch. Likely, these people attempted some XMODEM transfer that was not needed. All you need is a TFTP server, which can even be running on your local computer. Grab a copy of the firmware from Jared’s site (or my mirror: 1.1.0.8 / 1.0.2.17). I used lb4m.1.1.0.8.bin as it’s the latest and seems to be the most featureful, although I’m still trying to locate a copy of the release notes for each version.