Michael Altfield's Tech Blog

Featured Articles

Continuous Documentation: Hosting Read the Docs on GitHub Pages (2/2)

Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story)

WordPress Profiling with XHProf (Debugging & Optimizing Speed)

Hardening Guide for phpList

Crowdfunding on Crowd Supply (Review of my experience)

Detecting (Malicious) Unicode in GitHub PRs

WordPress Multisite on the Darknet (Mercator .onion alias)

Introducing BusKill: A Kill Cord for your Laptop

Trusted Boot (Anti-Evil-Maid, Heads, and PureBoot)

Gutsy Upgrade

By Michael Altfield, on January 19th, 2008

So, I upgraded by laptop (hp tx1000z) from Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu Linux Version 7.04) to Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu Linux Version 7.10) today. My results are as follows:

Pros:

Integrated Wireless support for broadcom chips Ubuntu FINALLY has pidgin. It automatically backed up my overwritten config files. The “Leave Message” feature of Gnome 2.20.0

Cons:

The integrated wireless support for my broadcom chip does not work at all. The laptop doesn’t boot unless I press the power button after an erorr, then repeatedly tap a key. It killed virtual box (my virtual machine program) My speakers don’t produce sound anymore My webcam no longer works My touchscreen isn’t working anymore (it’s not misconfigured; it’s not recognized) Computer starts with infinite >97% CPU usage 30% of the time My computer’s screen dims after momentary idle My computer’s screen dims after momentary idle after I turn uncheck the “Dim when idle option” My computer turns off after I have the laptop lid closed for a few minutes The computer isn’t auto-locked anymore when the lid is closed Pornographic screensaver was installed on my computer

More cons (I separated this list from the other because it’s not something that Gutsy broke, but something it
. . . → Read More: Gutsy Upgrade

WebCollage screensaver

By Michael Altfield, on December 25th, 2007

You must be 18 years or older to read this post. NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

I upgraded to gutsy recently. One thing I don’t like about ubuntu is that (unlike gentoo) your options for screensavers are severely limited. In Gentoo, you can select 1 screensaver, or random screensavers of your choice. In Ubuntu, however, you only have two options: 1 screensaver OR random screensavers (where you can’t select WHICH random–it picks a random screensaver from the whole lot).

I guess that Ubuntu released a bunch of new screensavers with their release of Gutsy. Every now and then I’d see a new one that I’d either like or dislike. However, one stood out from the rest: WebCollage.

WebCollage randomly picks pictures from the internet and displays them as a collage. It’s a cool idea, but we all know that 75% of the internet is porn. This screensaver is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

. . . → Read More: WebCollage screensaver

Gnome & Slow Keys

By Michael Altfield, on September 24th, 2007

Who the fuck created “slow keys” for gnome? (rant)

. . . → Read More: Gnome & Slow Keys

The test of three antennas

By Michael Altfield, on August 1st, 2007

I just got the wireless working on my new laptop in ubuntu (thank god for forums), and I was disgusted to find that from my room I got ~20% signal quality. I knew the problem could be with the laptop or the wireless router, but since I can’t do anything about the laptop I did some tests with my router by using three different antennas.

. . . → Read More: The test of three antennas