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Introduction In the last days I listened an interesting podcast episode of Click Here, the episode was about the Iran protests, and one of the first phrases was Almost everyone (in Iran) learn how to use a VPN or Proxy […] even my grandmother (78) asked how to setup VPNs on her phone and lear how to use them. You can listen it here on Stitcher: The hijab will never be the same In this episode, there was an Iran guy who was saying that the first thing the government is doing when there are protests is blocking the internet. But not blocking the access or take down the connectivity, instead the government allows the people to use internet, but the Iranian ISPs give access only to som... Read More

After I bought and reviewed the beautiful Grid iPhone 3G, the founder of Grid (with my surprise) contacted me to thank me for the honest review, and he also said that he wanted to gift me another product from Grid: the Grid A7 (APL5698). And it has arrived! The Grid A7 is essentially the Apple A7 SoC of the iPhone 5S and iPad Mini 2, encapsulated in a very cool “frame”. Since the A7 was the SoC of the iPhone 5S this isn’t special or iconic (like the iPhone 2/3G), but as a SoC it was a bit special because it has been the first 64 bit chipset on the iPhone and on any commercial phone. You can read more about this SoC at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A7 or AnandTech.... Read More

yubiuser has released a new updated for PADD, to 3.8.1, so I updated also my modified version with more info that fits 800x480px display. PSA: remember that from 3.8.0 it requires FTL version (>= v5.16). You can download it here: padd.sh v3.8.1 for 800x480px display. I think it needs to have some slight layout change, like the RX and TX section and the “SYSTEM” info. I’ll look in to it soon. Read More

One thing that Steve Jobs used to say was: “Write web apps”, but unfortunately things went a bit so far and big companies are building a web apps view with lots of pointeless (or even dangerous) features that are a waste of space, privacy, battery and integration. I’m saying this because until some time I’ve always used the official app, like Amazon app, Facebook app, Meteo from X app, etc… but recently I was so annoyed from the behaviors of these apps, that I switched to use the browser, and I simply built the app using Shortcut and a custom icon. See the example gif Why this way is better? Storage: you can save lots of storage space on the iPhone, for example an app like Amazon or Fa... Read More

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