BorgBackup: (TODO: Insert Borg Joke Here)

I was really fighting with my inner self to have a straightforward title for this one, but alas, resistance is futile.

BorgBackup, or, for short, just “Borg”, is a relatively fast (more on that later), efficient, secure, and authenticated way of backing up multiple devices either on a single network, or even across networks (you’ll see, again, later). This is currently what I use for backing up my stuff, and, well, it’s just cool, and definitely something you should take a look at.

MacOS Bundles (and Packages) Explained

When is a file more than just a file? When it’s actually a folder that Finder is lying to you about. Every program, every kernel extension, and everything Time Machine creates on a network share is.. a bundle. Even the Photos Library file in ~/Photos… well you get the point. Let’s unpack these things, shall we?

The Endless Struggle of Single Sign On

So if I said the words “Lightweight Directory Access Protocol”, do you feel my pain? if you don’t, keep reading. Otherwise, you likely know exactly where this is going to be going.

And for the record: this is something that I’ve struggled with for about 8 months, and I think it’s getting close to the point where I really should just give up… but I won’t.

How Time Machine Works

For those unaware, Time Machine is the built-in backup application within macOS that will take incremental backups of your system to an Apple Time Capsule, or another local disk. Simple premise, almost as simple in execution. Let’s take it apart, shall we?

Ah Yes, the SIMPLE Network Management Protocol

If that title isn’t a dead giveaway, I’m not happy. But yet I will somehow manage to vent my frustrations and explain something at the same time. Today: SNMP, or, “How to gather lots of stats on remote machines,” or, “Because you thought CVS was hard to wrap your head around.”

CVS Is Dumb

So I was going back through my list of version control systems, and something hit me. CVS isn’t just kinda old and worn out, it’s downright backwards and dumb. Heck, CVS over the network is something that, in all seriousness, should not exist.

Adding Detailed Zoom Images

Remember the time I added Medium Zoom? Well as it turns out, as I was reading through Zoom’s documentation, that you can specify a separate URL to load when the image zooms in. I like this, because I crop all my images to be (for landscape oriented) 1000 pixels wide, just slightly over the size of the content area that they go into. This is a serious reduction in size from the resolution they’re taken at. I do this just to improve load times, even with WebP and compression, extra pixels (that get resized to nothingness) are extra data that needs to be sent. And since it’s literally too big to be shown like that, I crop them so that pages load nearly instantly. The problem is that when you click on an image to see it, you get… basically nothing. I (because reasons) don’t have any old images so they’ll stay the same. But from now on, any images that are added in will have a detailed version that loads when you click to zoom.

You Don't Need a VPN

Really, you don’t. Actually, the entire concept of a “VPN” that most people know of isn’t even close to the actual definition. I refuse to call this one a rant, but know that this is me adding some facts.