Instead of using dependency managers and packaging tools like Webpack or Bower (or even NPM) for web resources it is tempting to instead just link directly to the resources you need. But except for avoiding complexity and having to learn something new like dependency management or semantical versioning schemes this also opens up some attack vectors. For example, if the third-party you are loading your resources from is compromised an attacker might replace your Bootstrap plugin with a key listener to steal your users passwords.

I have a lot of photos spread out over multiple devices and platforms from over the years. These are pictures from Facebook, old camera photos, Google Photos and so on. And most of these are duplicates, copied from one device to several different platforms and backups, all with very subtle differences depending on what platform they have been processed by. Most of these have some matter of export functions for photos.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post with a short summary of my resolutions for the upcoming year. Things that I wanted to achieve or improve. I never followed up on it or even considered how it went or if anything should change for the next year. In terms of goal planning it was a catastrophic failure. What I should have done was to (1) made sure that my resolutions were measurable and (2) actually followed up on the progress of my goals to make sure I was on track.

I am trying to get back into blogging. Mostly as a way of documenting my side-projects which I am otherwise awful at. Previously this has been a writing exercise for me (and still is) but I hope to switch focus to more code and small projects. The blog is powered by Hugo, a static site generator which basically converts text files to this site. Those text files could be hosted on GitHub as it was before were it was set up according to the official Hugo guide.

At work or at home I mainly use a Ubuntu + Gnome Shell setup for getting work done. While Gnome Shell has its limitations it can be dramatically improved with the right extensions. At least for now I don’t know any better option. With my current setup I have support for multiple desktops which is useful for switching contexts between e.g. communication and development. The multiple desktops are also a benefit for laptop work as I am otherwise limited to a single screen for workspace.

Passwords are probably the biggest security risk that users face today. Most assume that a secure password is at least 8 characters long, contain upper case and lower case letters as well as at least one digit. Problem is that this leads to passwords like Password1. But the real problem is that users believe that this password is so secure, since it technically follows the requirements for a “secure” password, that it can safely be used everywhere.

I’ve been trying to set up an XMPP server since MSN went out of style (i.e. since forever). However, managing users is a bit of a hassle and normally the two alternatives are to either create users manually or allow them to register through the client. The first is tedious and the second is not very user-friendly. But with ejabberd there’s also support for MySQL databases. Which means that I can write a simple registration service where users can manage their accounts themselves.

So I finally made the jump to a static blog. I have been contemplating this move for quite some time now. Mostly it’s been a consideration between Pelican (Python) and Jekyll (Ruby). Where Jekyll has been more tempting with the huge ecosystem around Octopress to benefit from. The downside with Jekyll, and Octopress especially, is that I have to keep an entire framework of blog generating software around. This was a lesser problem with Pelican which was smaller, but still a limitation.