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Since I’m a very “optimizer and minimalist user” I check for the waste of space in my tiny SSD. For three reasons: Apple’s storage prices are terribly high, the fuller a SSD is, the less it will last, why keep useless files? It’s a waste. Indeed my main storage drive is a 256GB drive, and all my system takes about 60-80GB (depending on the cache and apps) So I discovered a weird folder inside my Home directory: 2.66GB for a photos/wallpapers folder. Why? I have no idea, it’s just one of the (many) folders that macOS keeps forever without any reason. I’ve investigated into this folder and I discovered that is a stupid cache folder that keeps all your wallpapers that you set from Apple... Read More

This is a bit different post, but it’s always focused on tech, that is equal to “living” nowadays. In this post I want to describe, in order to give some suggestions or inspiration, the stuff and tips I use when I’m traveling abroad and I need all my tech and connected stuff to make a photographic reportage and remaining safe/private also outside my “everyday environment”. Background: as maybe you know, I’ve done some photographic reportages in Iraq and Syria about the Yazidi genocide and religion and on the war against ISIS, in Croatia and Sicily about the migrants, etc… where there’re some -not mainstream- events to report. So, at the end of August 2022 I went in Kosovo to make a repor... Read More

The previous releases/posts to read, are: My hardware and software setup for a new house My network home setup - v2.0 Changelog for this v3.0 from: Internet -> modem -> wireless router -> home clients to: Internet -> modem -> router -> access point - managed switch -> home clients Improving some features and keeping almost the same settings. Here are some final photos: Introduction All is started because I wanted to improve my home network since I’m waiting for the FTTH upgrade at 1000/200Mbps. And my actual configuration is far to handle 1Gbps connection, the R7800 is fantastic but is unable to do NAT and SQM shaping at 1Gbps, and t... Read More

As usual, PADD as been update to the release v3.8.0, and I also updated my custom mod of it for the Pimoroni HyperPixel 4” display and other display with more pixel (800x480) than the original PADD script with the latest updated: Remember that this version is tested on DietPI and with Unbound as DNS. You can grab it from Gist: padd.sh v3.8.0 Read More

Some months ago I wrote about how this blog is “Google free” since I’m using the open source umami analytics service instead of Google Analytics. And I wrote also that I was using it on a free instance of Heroku, but, after 6/7 months the things on Heroku became worse and worse, there were lots of issues. One is that umami is using a new release of Next.js and Heroku hasn’t upgraded since months, so I wasn’t able to build the latest umami release (GitHub issue reported by lots of users) Sometimes the pages were very slow to open/refresh, also the Heroku pages to log in. I wasn’t able to save the 2FA code to Safari or 1Password, because the login page has a different address from the 2... Read More

In this hot summer I can’t survive without “doing nothing”, so since my parents are on vacation for one month, I started a new easy project to give my parents a better home network without spending nothing. Since I have already at home all the hardware: a Netgear R7000 router and a RPi Zero W. Goal The goal is to achieve a stable network, with some basic privacy features, and blocking the ads/requests via DNS. Plus obtaining an optimized network for FaceTime/iMessage, because me, my parents and my sister are using a family chat on iMessage and I always call my families with FaceTime. And last, a network that I can manage remotely, in order to update, check the clients, etc…and resolve ... Read More

If you don’t use the Safari built in Reading List, you can move forward, or read it if you want to find a quick way to save web links from every app. I love the Safari Reading List, because it’s a simply and quick way to save a webpage, an app, an Amazon item, etc… and have it synced across all you Apple devices, to read later on bigger screen, or with more relax when there’s time. Indeed it’s my first item in the share sheet! This feature has only two defects: one is that, by default, it caches the page for offline reading, and this could generate a very big Safari data storage. But this can be disabled/enable under “Setting>Safari>Automatically Save Offline” The other thing... Read More

I’ve just bought the iPad Mini 6, and…wow! What a great device, I’m really surprised of it, I also have the iPad Pro 12,9” but the Mini is absolutely lovely, a great display (better than the iPad Pro for contrast and pixel density, 326PPI the Mini VS 264PPI the Pro12,9”), very fast, with four good sounding speaker, a very compact format and super portable (actually I bought it to bring it always with me also in the small photography bags, like when I use the ONA Bowery) I’m not joking, here’re some numbers from GSMarena review But by default it has a huge trouble, that I was able to fix only after few days of usage: you need two boring steps (or hands) to reach the Home interface. ... Read More

When I’m working at the Mac I always want to listen/whatch something in background, and usually I want to listen news and informations about the world (not music) in order to be always informed, so my favourite TV channels became: Rai New 24, Sky TG24, La 7. But since I needed a way to listen/watch via internet, I created a simply playlist for the great IINA app for Mac: Copy-paste this code, save it as “TV.m3u8” and open with IINA. But there’s a catch in order to view the SkyTG24 channel, read below (because this URL doesn’t work as you can see) #EXTINF: -1 ,Rai News 24 [48] http://mediapolis.rai.it/relinker/relinkerServlet.htm?cont=1 #EXTINF: -1, La 7 [7] https://d15umi5iaezxgx.clo... Read More

I don’t know how I found this app but now I have to say that it saved me a lot of time and complications! ServerCat It’s a simply -but powerful- app to monitor the status of your servers and even run commands on them, also the same command to multiple servers. It also has a cloud sync feature and it runs on macOS, iOS and iPadOS (thanks to Catalyst) and a funny name that I think is due to use the ‘cat’ command to get the server details. Let me show you some screenshots of the main app before entering in to the details Here’s the app on macOS And on iOS The app simply displays the stats of a server via SSH, but you can tap on a info to switch from “Linux style load average” to cl... Read More