Ciantic's Blog
Guides so old you don't need them, the usual.
2026
2024
Running Raspberry Pi OS Lite entirely from RAM
I now have a slightly improved version in my Initramfs GitHub repository. It replaces the mountroot() bash function within /scripts/local making custom /etc/fstab entries work a little better.
Journey of the Linux root file system in boot up
Following examples are with Raspbian Bookworm and Raspberry Pi 4. Partition layout was this:
2022
Mastodon's web client hates you
This is work in progress.
There is no "Federation" in Fediverse or Mastodon
I'm arguing that "federation" is the wrong word for Fediverse and Mastodon. I know it might technically be the right one, but words have multiple meanings, and federation is especially problematic. When people think about the word "federation" they think about things that keep it together. Common laws and regulations, and bureaucratic application to join one.
Filter Bubbles are Mastodon's best feature
Mastodon instances are filter bubbles, and I think this is its best feature. Each instance can have its own block rules for individual accounts and against other instances. Local feed is also a filter bubble on its own, which can help to facilitate discussion among a group.
Learning Mastodon and ActivityPub API with CURL and JQ
I pipe all outputs to JQ for a better viewing experience
Mastodon has identity problem
I have been testing Mastodon but I find the idea that your account is tied to an instance old school centralization. This makes Mastodon much harder to use as Twitter replacement.
Total Programming separate from Functional Programming
I've noticed that people praise functional programming paradigm because of total programming features, and rarely because of functional programming features. These are not mutually exclusive as total programming has no strict defintion. However I find this separation very useful.
WordPress Gutenberg experience notes
I've long hold out on switching to Gutenberg, the block layout editor of WordPress. Mostly because it was rather half baked few years ago when I last tried. I'm now using it, and plan to use it, but it's still amazing how many things are still half-assed.
Backup and blacklists
This happened to one of my clients who had their site on Telia Inmics-Nebula. Virus came to the WordPress site, and during cleanup part of the media library files got deleted. No worries right, because they supposedly had daily backups?
Garmin MIP screen palettes
I'm trying to develop my own watch face to Forerunner series watches which has 64 color MIP screen, same as in Fenix 7 or many other models. Garmin's webpage gives the color table:
Finland applies to NATO
I have always been leaning politically to left, but pragmatic.
War and interdependency
I was reading The Guns of August, which describes the events leading up to the first World War. What immediately struck me was the passage about another book, released in 1910 called The Great Illusion. Way it's described in Guns of August is that it popularized the notion that economically interdependent nations don't fight wars:
2021
AST transformed text editor
Idea is quiet simple. For instance you could edit JSX directly in JS file, if just the editor had support to transform between two AST's, and then format it nicely.
Dynamic language with first class tagged unions?
I can imagine convinient syntax for tagging all values, not just unions. In made up TypeScript-like language it would be really useful, take this hypothethical example:
Network API's need tagged unions
This is evolving thought. I really like a form of total programming, where each error is catched and handled.
Good enough
Often times programming is about compromises, wether it's cutting the features or solving a problem with some caveats. After all you can get to minimum viable product faster if you take some shortcuts.
Logging to SSH servers with YubiKey
Steps are roughly:
2018
2015
Inject a function (instead of DLL) to target process in Windows
When I was doing my Disable Flashing Taskbar Buttons patch to explorer.exe first I did it by injecting AutoHotkey.dll inside explorer.exe and patched it this way.
In-memory patching explorer.exe to prevent flashing task bar buttons
I've waited for a long time so that Microsoft introduces virtual desktops. I used third party programs, mostly VirtuaWin and mdesk (which source code I happened to have.)
2012
2011
Sticky Footer & Variable Height - modern CSS
Copy & Pasted from http://pixelsvsbytes.com/blog/2011/09/sticky-footers-the-flexible-way/ Page was down for me, so salvaged this from Bing search cache (Google cache didn't have):
WP: Turn Off Comments / Ping Backs by Default from Pages
Turn Off Comments / Ping Backs by Default from Pages
Duplicate All Pages (in-place) in Acrobat X
This is just a small JavaScript extension to Acrobat X that allowes to Duplicate all pages in-place there exists another version which used extractPages and I didn't like that behavior so I wrote own.
Windows 7 - Photo Viewer was really slow
Windows 7 Photo Viewer was acting really slow for loading images, this fixed it:
Where Django & PyDev fails
Don't get me wrong, I like Python, PyDev and Django. But I simply hate the small problems like this:
2010
Windows 7 - QoS Policies not working
I've noticed that QoS Policies does not work in Windows 7.
Basename, Filename, Dirname in Batch
Umm, batch scripts sucks, but here goes:
Aero Snap vertical maximize winapi
Easy way to toggle the Aero Snap vertical maximize in WinAPI:
Python binary tree traversal
Python notes, optparse positional argument parsing
VLC S/PDIF Stuttering fix
I had this problem with VLC where all output going S/PDIF was stuttering with Windows Vista, and now that I got myself Windows 7 X64, I had to re-fix this problem.
Python snippets, find all occurences of string
Note: Finds all overlapping matches.
Add your program to "Default Programs" in Windows 7
I wanted to have chromium in "Default Programs", so I can associate HTTP protocol to it, here is how I did that. If you want to do same just change C:\\Program Copies\\Chromium\\chrome.exe to point your chrome.exe, note that is in two places!
2009
WPF Command line arguments.
App.xaml
Glass *only* fallback, in Windows.Forms (when aero disabled / in XP)
Usage: Create windows.forms application and take stuff from here:
WPF Window with aero glass background. (C# .NET)
Usage, in your Window constructor do:
semtech2009 conference coming up!
semtech2009 conference is coming up! Pointing the way for semantic web, I shall take an excerpt from their webpage HTML:
Eclipse, pydev notes, refresh errors and warnings
To refresh all errors project(s) widely do: Project (from menu) -> Clean
Python notes, halving list
Splitting list from the middle:
Inkscape slicer
Download Inkscape slice effect a.k.a. 'slicer' 0.1.1 (bugfix)
Django and Eclipse
(When I have interest, I have planned to convert this to HTML, for now, let it be Plain text) Anyone is welcome to edit, repost and/or distribute the following instructions, I just have a little wish: Provide link for this post.
SFTP umask
Do this pico /opt/sftp-server.sh
2008
Django 1.0 custom admin two fields shown as one
I needed a way to have two model fields to be shown/edited on one form field. And I came up with the following.
Django 1.0 admin custom inlines
coming...
Lighttpd 1.4.19 compiling (Debian etch)
Following explains briefly how I managed to compile and run Lighttpd.
Installation of MySQL server, MySQLdb, Flup, Lighttpd and Django (Debian etch)
Note: I have not tested it as is, I was writing this afterwards from memory, so beware of the errors.