A Geek Goes Flying

Work in progress:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pf8m14MUWV_QGr1Y1yDa5fRor2yHuOpLwF4wt3YoQfw/edit?usp=sharing

From the earliest days of Mac OS X, Apple has touted its UNIX®-like nature. Introducing Darwin, Steve Jobs made a point of describing Darwin as “very Linux-like” when introducing OS X during the January 5, 2000 keynote speech at MacWorld San Francisco. (Though I’m sure more than a few geeks gnashed their teeth at Apple’s iCEO describing the new kernel the way he did: “It’s very Linux-like. Very much so. It’s got FreeBSD UNIX, which is the same as Linux.” 🤦) But I digress. Anyway. To this day, Apple acknowledges the UNIX (and UNIX-like) origins of its operating system: “Darwin is based on proven technology from many sources. A large portion of this technology is derived from FreeBSD, a version of 4.4BSD that offers advanced networking, performance, security, and compatibility features. Other parts of the system software, such as Mach, are based on technology previously used in Apple’s MkLinux project, in OS X Server, and in technology acquired from NeXT. ... BSD is a carefully

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the COVID-19 disease it causes, is all anyone’s talking about right now. Last Sunday (March 15th), the Governor of California (Gavin Newsom) issued a set of state-wide advisories , I knew things were about to get weird, so I identified the tech we had available to enable remote work, and set about implementing things. The next day, the Bay Area came under “Shelter at Home” orders, and I knew our time was near. The orders for our jurisdiction ( LA City , LA County , and statewide ) finally came down Thursday night, March 19th, just as I finished everything. This was my checklist and set of solutions for our small law office: Phones . I wasn’t sure if our phones could be forwarded, but yes, they can be. We’re using Spectrum Business, and no one had ever setup online access. Armed with a phone bill that had our account number and security code, I was able to setup access to the Spectrum web interface that allows us to forward our phones remotely. I also setu

I picked up an inexpensive  Insignia Bluetooth Mouse (NS-PNM3B8BK) to use with my MacBook Air. Wanted to get rid of the dongle used by the other cheap wireless mice I’d picked up over the years (freeing up one of the precious two USB ports), and a “laser” mouse that didn’t require a mouse pad to be effective; the packaging on this $20 device claimed it “tracks on any surface.” Works well enough for $20. But the two side buttons were unusable with the stock OS X driver, and I couldn’t easily find macOS software for the mouse. Enter  SensibleSideButtons , a very light weight piece of free (donations suggested) software that provides “[a]ctually functional side navigation buttons on your third-party mice in macOS.” It Just Works™. Go get it. (And check out the source code if you want to.)

Have a NAS box (sort of the glue that keeps things together) that’s running old CentOS 6.10. (I guess I have until November of this year to upgrade it. That seemed so far away when I installed it, almost 9 (?!) years ago.) Anyway. Needed to install a non-self-signed SSL certificate, and being a stingy bastard, I wanted to use the Let’s Encrypt free option.. Easiest way I found was using the GetSSL BASH script (listed here:  https://letsencrypt.org/docs/client-options ). I have a CNAME setup for the NAS (we'll call it 127001.fnord.org) that points to a dynamic DNS entry (we'll call it  Azrael.Gargamel -DDNS.org). # git clone https://github.com/srvrco/getssl.git # cd getssl # ./getssl -c 127001.fnord.org This creates configuration files /root/.getssl/getssl.cfg and /root/.getssl/127001.fnord.org/getssl.cfg # mkdir /etc/lessl # vim ~/.getssl/getssl.cfg    ACCOUNT_EMAIL=" your@admin.address " # vim ~/.getssl/127001.fnord.org/getssl.cfg    ACL=(' /pat