Category: Geek Inside

Avec de vrais morceaux de Geek dedans !

Nostr: Verify your name on your WordPress site

There is a lot of talk about decentralized networks these days. Twitter’s ongoing implosion probably contributes a lot to that.

I’ve talked about the Fediverse on this blog in the past few months, and like many others, I created a Bluesky account to give the AT protocol a try.

I wanted to give Nostr a try as well, and signed up for an account. I still have a lot of reading to do on the topic. I am not sure I’m fully onboard with “another decentralized protocol” (yes, another standard), especially one that seems to tie in closely with cryptocurrencies, but I wanted to take a closer look at it anyway to make up my own mind.

One of the first things I wanted to do was to verify my account. I am @[email protected] and @[email protected] on the Fediverse, I am @jeremy.hu on Bluesky, it made sense for me to be [email protected] on Nostr.

The verification process is detailed on this page. While ActivityPub (and thus everyone on the Fediverse) relies on Webfinger, Nostr decided to go with its own NIP-05. When I saw that, my first reaction was to wonder why they didn’t go with something that already existed, but again…

xkcd: Standards

I consequently created a WordPress plugin (also available in the WordPress.org plugin directory) to add the necessary .well-known entry point to my own site:

https://jeremy.hu/.well-known/nostr.json

Feel free to use the plugin if you need it too!

Props to @pfefferle for his work on the Webfinger plugin. It sped things up a lot to look at how Webfinger did things to create my own .well-known response. :)

Tinkering with the Fediverse

I find myself thinking about the Fediverse a lot these days. Probably a lot more than I should. I’m probably just easily influenced by all the chatter going on, and excited to tinker with something new.

tl;dr: I’m now on the Fediverse, at @[email protected].

On with the tinkering… “Tinkering with the Fediverse”

Did you say keyboard?

Doug recently tweeted this:

I have opinions on this. :)

(more…) “Did you say keyboard?”

Redox: a new keyboard

From hunt and peck on a membrane keyboard to touch typing on a custom split ergonomic keyboard: a few steps towards a better working environment.

Find out more “Redox: a new keyboard”

Watched a movie or a TV show? Log it in WordPress with Traktivity

Do you watch a lot of movies or TV Shows? Do you have a WordPress site? You will love Traktivity!

This plugin allows you to log everything you watch inside your WordPress site. You may then use that data for anything you want.

You could display the last few shows you watched in a widget in your sidebar, you could automatically post on Facebook or Twitter whenever you are watching something, or you could just keep that data to find out more about the genres you watch the most, or how many hours you spent in front of the TV last month or last year.

Most importantly, that data is yours, saved in your WordPress site for good.

(more…) “Watched a movie or a TV show? Log it in WordPress with Traktivity”

Share screenshots, own your data

I’ve used image sharing software for the past 5 years: CloudApp, Cloudup, Droplr, I tried them all. Those apps are great to quickly share screenshots, annotated images, gifs, or even screencasts with users. Sometimes, an image is worth a thousand words. :)

When I switched to Linux for my February challenge, I set out to find a cross-platform alternative to all those services. Here is what I came up with.

(more…) “Share screenshots, own your data”

From Mac to Ubuntu: getting rid of the desktop icon in the app switcher

Yesterday I mentioned how muscle memory was the hardest thing to beat when switching OSes. Here is another quick tip that you’ll love if you’re switching from Mac to Ubuntu and if like me, you’re a Cmd+Tab Alt+tab addict.

(more…) “From Mac to Ubuntu: getting rid of the desktop icon in the app switcher”

From Mac to Ubuntu: Cmd vs. Ctrl

It’s the little things. So far, switching from Mac to Ubuntu has been relatively painless; most of the apps I use every day are cross-platform. There is, however, one thing that’s been bugging me a lot: Ctrl.

(more…) “From Mac to Ubuntu: Cmd vs. Ctrl”

Ubuntu: adjust your mouse settings

One of the things that bothered me when I switched to Ubuntu was the mouse: while the Mouse settings panel offered options to change the cursor speed, I couldn’t change the scroll wheel settings: I wanted it to be faster, and I wanted it to use Mac OS’ natural scrolling direction.

After a bit of googling, this specific answer helped me get this fixed.

First, you get a list of the different devices linked to your machine, then you check the settings for one of the devices (number 10 in my case), and use set-prop to customize a specific setting.

Changing from 1 to -1 got me the natural scrolling back. Victory!

xinput list
xinput list-props 10
xinput set-prop 10 'Evdev Scrolling Distance' -1 5 5

Now if only I could do something to get all my additional buttons back, that’d be great! :)

No Mac OS in February

You know the drill: new month, new 30-day challenge. After skipping alcohol, Twitter, and chocolate, I’ll be spending this month away from my favorite OS, macOS.

(more…) “No Mac OS in February”