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GDPR is excellent but has some downsides
GDPR is a useful law. Full stop. But if something can be improved, why not do it? The privacy and the level of security offered to EU users after the release of the GDPR have surely improved, indeed some other countries took inspiration for new online regulations, but since it’s a quite new law (is active since 25 May 2018), it has some downsides, at least in its first implemention. In fact it has been improved in the 2022, the cookies banner now is more consistent/useful and gives the users more control and more easy control over those annoying banners. Now you should be able to quick choose if accepts them or not and and continue whitout agree to the cookies. An example of the biggest... Read More
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Update umami stats from Heroku CLI
This is a simple tutorial to update your umami stat system when deployed on a Heroku free plan, and it’s complementary to my other post: Backing up umami database on Heroku free plan Also because first thing I suggest, is to make a backup of the current database as explained in the post above. Then you have to login in the Heroku CLI: Home@iMac ~ % heroku login And clone the app to your local disk: Home@iMac ~ % heroku git:clone -a blog-stats Cloning into 'blog-stats'... remote: Counting objects: 7721, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2232/2232), done. remote: Total 7721 (delta 5304), reused 7721 (delta 5304) Receiving objects: 100% (7721/7721), 3.60 MiB | 3.33 MiB/s, done. Re... Read More
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I received a DMCA takedown request from Reddit for a YouTube NFT video
Few days ago I received an email from Reddit that was noticing me about the removal of one of my post: The removed post is this: Photographer meticulously light paints 686 photos for stop motion project Nothing to be worried, this can happen, as the message says. But what has surprised me is that the copyright violation was for a video uploaded and set to public on YouTube, and also linked from a lot of sources on the web. Indeed I’ve found it on a famous photographer website, PetaPixel: Photographer Meticulously Light Paints 686 Photos for Stop Motion Project. The point here is that the request arrived only after the Reddit post went “quite viral” with +3.1k upvotes and the front pa... Read More
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NFC tag scan on iPhone is (almost) useless
Let’s talk about a very useful function: the NFC tag reader/scan on the iPhone. It would be great to have a simple tag placed, for example, at the home entrance, to turn on/off the lights using Shortcut. Yes, it would be. But it is not. Because the NFC tag reader paired with the Shortcut app, it’s almost useless because: It requires you to have the iPhone unlocked: First point, you must have the phone unlocked. That’s stupid because if I just want to place the phone on a tag and do the action, if I have first to unlock my iPhone, then I can simply tap on an icon on my home screen that do the same thing as the tag can do, but is only the first stupid point, going on. It requi... Read More
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Backing up umami database on Heroku free plan
Following the abandon of Google Analytics and the beginning of umami usage (you can read the details in this post) I encountered in a little trouble: how to make a backup of the umami database, without having sFTP access to Heroku VPS, because of the free plan? I’ve found a solution that is a bit tricky (compared to a normal backup) but it works. It requires having Heroku CLI installed, can be done via brew tap heroku/brew && brew install heroku then run (replace ‘blog-stats’ with the name of your Heroku app) heroku pg:backups:capture --app blog-stats it will take a dozen of seconds and in the end it will display the number of your backup: heroku pg:backups:capture --app b... Read More
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Automations and tips to preserve the batteries
First of all this is not the usual(ess) article that says “use Low Power Mode, disable background refresh, etc…” we already know those stupids tips, I’m assuming that we are a bit above this level. So I would try to explain how to keep charged your batteries between 20% and 80% using Shortcuts and Alexa connected Smart Plug, plus get some notifications when the batteries are below or above a threshold of other devices. For example, get an SMS or email on your iPhone when the battery of the MacBook is above/below x% level, in order to remember to charge it. But since it’s boring to remember to detach the cable when the charge is above 80%, I made an automation using Shortcut, that automa... Read More
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This website no longer relies on Google Analytics
I started this blog few weeks ago and I installed, despite my will, Google Analytics but, just few days after… G. Analytics has been declared illegal in EU. Then? Okay, first a bit of background: everyone is curious of how many visitors, from where and from which referral site, is coming to his website. And I’m too, so what is the easy to install, free and detailed analytic service? Google Analytics, you bet. Well, maybe it’s true, if you run a commercial website and you need to know some super detailed stats maybe if you want to be the money, you can use Google Analytics for free. But since I’m not interested in all those data that G. Analytics gives, but I’m a lot more interested in my... Read More
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I moved this blog from Medium, here
Yes, finally I’ve found the time to buy a VPS and host a Jekyll blog with a nice comment system and to move my old blog from Medium. …but why? Medium is so handy and simple, why I’ve spent one week of work to move few pixels of text? Because I want that my content is my content and not my content on the “Medium’s hands”, plus Medium is not what was in the beginning. There’re lots of reasons of this that I’ll try to explain in this post. Your content and privacy Medium doesn’t give you your content and your reader, instead it stored them for you, but you’re not the owner of these information. I mean, if you want to go away from Medium because of some reasons, you are absolutely not su... Read More
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My hardware and software setup for a new house
My idea is to achieve a technological house but that doesn’t rely only and all on a connection, because it can have failure and is not always more useful, I want instead to have a handy and comfortable setup to enjoy my everyday life with the help of some automations and tech. But my priority is also the appearance, so I tried to build some “nerdy things” with cables and a lot of hardware but without leave the cables visible or expose the power strips, plugs, etc… since I hate to see all of those messy and horribile hardware. And I wanted to achieve a design that mix and creates contrast between old furnitures design and new tech gadgets. Because both things can cohabit. So, first of all... Read More
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WireGuard VPN/Tunnel on DD-WRT router with dynamic IP
WireGuard is a great network tunnel/VPN, very fast and reliable, but for me it has one downside: I have to update the config file every time I reboot my router or modem, because the IP from my ISP change every time. So I solved this trouble using a dynamic DNS service provider (in my case noIP), so now every time the router/modem change the WAN IP, my iPhone and Macbook change the WireGuard configuration and they can connect automatically to the new IP of my home router and I’m connected to my home LAN plus I can use my Pi-Hole adblocker also via mobile or outside my home. First of all you need a router flashed with DD-WRT, then activate the WireGuard tunnel with your configs, here’s mine... Read More