Upgrade in progress

January 28, 2018January 28, 2018 by phoenix

Because of ongoing upgrade processes, some services might work not so well or not at all.

I'll let you know when everything is set!

Firefox 57 - Enable U2F

November 21, 2017November 16, 2017 by phoenix

I really love the new Firefox. I have the impression it runs much smoother, especially with some bloated sites. I also guess it won't take too long until webdesigners are making their websites even more bloaty, so that in some months from now we will be at the same time again.
Let's see how many new JS frameworks it will trigger 😉

Jokes aside, with Firefox 57 now disabling all legacy add-ons I was wondering, if U2F is finally supported. Turns out, it is, but you have first to enable it manually.

It's hidden in the about:config preferences. Search for webauth and enable the following options:

security.webauth.u2f
security.webauth.webauthn_enable_softtoken

Here you can see a Screenshot, in order to do so.

The Yubikey-demo page swollows the Yubikey - Seems to work!

Update - On Arch Linux it was not working out of the box. I had to follow the instructions from https://michaelheap.com/yubikey-on-arch/

1. Enable udev rules for Yubikey

<span class="token keyword">echo</span> <span class="token string">'KERNEL=="hidraw*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", MODE="0664", GROUP="users", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2581", ATTRS{idProduct}=="f1d0"'</span> <span class="token operator">|</span> <span class="token function">sudo</span> <span class="token function">tee</span> /etc/udev/rules.d/10-security-key.rules

echo 'KERNEL=="hidraw*", SUBSYSTEM=="hidraw", MODE="0664", GROUP="users", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2581", ATTRS{idProduct}=="f1d0"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/10-security-key.rules

2.Install U2F modules

<span class="token function">sudo</span> pacman -S libu2f-host

1	<span class="token function">sudo</span> pacman -S libu2f-host

Enjoy!

Iceland: Camping Card Locations

April 24, 2018November 5, 2017 by phoenix

Note: The CampingCard locations for 2018 are here.

For our Iceland trip in Summer we had decided to go camping and purchase the camping card. The camping card offers a large number of possibilities across whole Iceland for a reasonable price. Since Iceland is comparably expensive, this might be a real consideration for most of travellers that want to go camping.

Although the page offers a good overview of all camping places, I wanted to have them offline on my mobile phone. Thus I wrote a small python script to extract the data form the website and extract it as GPX track, that I could easily import into OsmAnd (the app I use for navigation and maps)

The GPX files and the Python-Script I created to generate the files are hosted on GitHub. Checkout the 2017 release or go to the GPX file directly.

SQLite3 C++ Wrapper Class

October 12, 2017 by phoenix

I really love sqlite3 databases. They are small, scalable and just do the job. The only thing they need is a file, so they are also much easier to configure, maintain and backup than heavy database solutions like MariaDB, MySQL or PostgreSQL. For bigger class applications they do a very good job, for most of my personal projects I prefer sqlite3, because they are just slim and easy-to-use.

Due to my affinity to Python I wrote a small C++ Wrapper Class, that should make it easier to handle Sqlite3 database connections in C++. In just 200 lines C++ code. It's really easy, no Voodoo involved.

But have a look yourself at this 13 lines C++ code, that create a table, insert values and read them out.

SQLite3 db(":memory:");
db.execute("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `test` (`id` INT PRIMARY KEY, `value` REAL);");
SQLite3Cursor cursor = db.cursor();
for(int i=0;i<;10;i++) {
 cursor.execute("INSERT OR REPLACE INTO `test` (`id`,`value`) VALUES (?, ?);");
 cursor.bind(1, i);
 cursor.bind(2, i*i);
 cursor.next();
}
cursor.execute("SELECT `id`,`value` FROM `test`");
while(cursor.next()) {
 cout << cursor.fetchInt(0) << " = " << cursor.fetchFloat(1) << endl;
}

SQLite3 db(":memory:");

db.execute("CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `test` (`id` INT PRIMARY KEY, `value` REAL);");

SQLite3Cursor cursor = db.cursor();

for(int i=0;i<;10;i++) {

cursor.execute("INSERT OR REPLACE INTO `test` (`id`,`value`) VALUES (?, ?);");

cursor.bind(1, i);

cursor.bind(2, i*i);

cursor.next();

}

cursor.execute("SELECT `id`,`value` FROM `test`");

while(cursor.next()) {

cout << cursor.fetchInt(0) << " = " << cursor.fetchFloat(1) << endl;

}

Tested under Ubuntu 16.04 and Arch Linux. I suppose it also runs on other platforms, but I've not tested it. Use at own risk 😉

Ringroad Wallpaper

February 7, 2018October 4, 2017 by phoenix

I share one of my Iceland pictures because I think it makes a great wallpaper.

Feel free to use and to share (CC BY-SA 4.0 Licence). The picture is as well on unslpash.com

Screenshots

And this is how it looks in elementary OS

American Red Cross searches for HAM Radio operators to be dispatched to Puerto Rico

September 26, 2017 by phoenix

http://www.arrl.org/news/american-red-cross-asks-arrl-s-assistance-with-puerto-rico-relief-effort

They are doing something really meaningful, and I have to sit here on my desk doing some gamma-ray computations.

Man, I really need to finish my PhD soon 🙂

LineageOS Build script

September 3, 2017 by phoenix

I've written a small bash-script that should make the process of building your own LineageOS easy.

The script is on GitHub, including a how-to-use readme.

Have fun! 🙂

AMD releases amdgpu-pro driver 17.30

August 16, 2017 by phoenix

Just some time ago, I let myself go and wrote about how upset I was about the (missing) support for my new RX 470 on Linux.

Today AMD released the amdgpu-pro driver 17.30, with support for Kernel 4.10 and Xorg 1.19. So my setup is finally not useless anymore. Details are on the AMD download page.

I've just installed the driver without any problems, after a reboot it works just fine. Videos are playing and I could start Civilization Beyond Earth from Steam under Ubuntu 16.04.3 with HWE.

It's two and a half minutes to midnight

August 9, 2017August 9, 2017 by phoenix

The doomsday clock is at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. The doomsday clock is a illustration of how close we are to a man-made global catastrophe, published by " The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board".

Last time it was at that level has been 1953, during the tests of the Hydrogen-Fusion bombs.

The main reasons are

Rise of nationalism

This already-threatening world situation was

the backdrop for a rise in strident nationalism

worldwide in 2016

Trump

Donald Trump, made disturbing comments about

the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and

expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific

consensus on climate change.

Conflict USA and Russia

both countries (USA and Russia)

continued wide-ranging

modernizations of their nuclear

forces, and serious arms control

negotiations were nowhere to

be seen

North Korea

North Korea conducted

its fourth and fifth underground

nuclear tests and gave every

indication it would continue

to develop nuclear weapons delivery capabilities.

The full statement is available here.

I consider this bulletin as a calibration to reality and a big F**K YOU in the direction of nationalism and the disbelief in science.

Although I'm a big Fallout fan and like the concept of Vaultec Vaults, it's not that we should now go and dig a whole in case of some president having a loose finger on the Atomic Football, but it is worrisome.

And I use it as reason to motivate more people to do a HAM-radio course and buy equipment 🙂

Lightning Monitor - Update

August 6, 2017 by phoenix

Because of heavy rain and thunderstorms this weekend, I had some time to work on my lightning monitor again. With success, I could reduce the "DISTURBER DETECTED" messages significantly by putting the device away from the laptop.

Even better, it was starting to measure lightnings during one of the thunderstorms! Great 🙂

The data makes sense, since we really have been in the center of the thunderstorm. I could verify that the distance estimation works pretty nice, because another thunderstorm that was in a nearby village was giving me lightnings with a distance of 5 km.

The current Arduino sketchbook is, as usual, on GitHub.

Nice thing for a rainy Sunday!