Resources
Learning by Alan Levine, CC0 1.0
This is the resources page which is mostly technology and developer information.
Backup
There's never enough time for backups and you only ever find out if they're useful when everything is on fire! Whatever the choice of technology, the hard thing I've learnt is that it's not about backup, it's about restore - so testing that restore is working is key!
- Notes on using Duplicity for back-up and integrating it with LVM.
Blogging
My blog is written as text files and converted to static pages using an application called Pelican. I took this approach because I can write offline (in Vim) and post when I'm ready. Everyone says that writing regularly is the key to success, unfortunately I haven't found a technology that helps with that!
- Pelican is the page about configuring Pelican for a blog.
Guix (Linux)
Guix is a significant innovation in the way Linux is used. It takes the declarative approach that Nix pioneered and adds a simple and functional programming language (Guile Scheme). This allows it to be a package manager that can be used on top of any Linux distribution (e.g. use Guix packages on top of Ubuntu) or as a Linux distribution. It's a small, volunteer project and has sharp edges, but there's some really clever ideas with elegant implementation.
- Guix is a functional package manager, environment and Linux distribution.
Encryption
To encrypt local files on my hard drive a range of encryption software is useful.
- Encrypting with EncFS covers using EncFS to encrypt sections of your hard drive.
Email is an essential parts of our online identities and life. I often use Webmail and mobile email, but most of the time I'm in front of a keyboard using NeoMutt or Thunderbird.
- A set of tutorial pages on using NeoMutt for offline IMAP email.
- Notes on using Msmtp a light weight MTA for use with Mutt and other commandline mail programs.
- Using GNU Mailutils' Sieve to filter email on the command-line (part of my NeoMutt set-up).
Reading
If I'm not on a computer or exercising then I'm probably reading. I'm awful at writing anything on this site about the things I read, but in case you're interested ...
- Reading for some books that I love or think are interesting.
Ubuntu (Linux)
I've used Debian and Ubuntu for a long time, and even worked on Ubuntu professionally.
- Ubuntu upgrades covers how I upgrade between Ubuntu LTS releases.
Vim and friends
I spend a lot of time in a text editor, for that I use Vim or NeoVim. Ultimately, it's the language of the movements that is most useful as I've also used vim-like motions in Emacs and VSCode.
- Vim is some information on the Vim editor.
- Notes on using Vimperator a plugin for Firefox that converts it to a vim-alike interface.