Blog Posts
Introduction
As a server administrator running a Mac Mini M1 as a colocated server, I manage my small business website and a handful of others using Apache. Recently, I encountered an issue that threw me for a loop: excessive errors flooding my web server logs. At first, I suspected a hack due to the sheer volume of alerts, but it turned out to be a misbehaving web crawler—Amazonbot. This ...
Ever Wondered How to Write Software to Control a CNC for a Common Task Like Flattening Wood?
Greetings, software engineers! If you’ve ever been curious about programming a CNC machine to do something simple like flatten a slab using a programming language other than the CNC's native GCode, this post is for you. I’ve written a Perl program that generates universal CNC GCode (think GRBL, ...
I've enjoyed astronomy for as long as I can remember. That goes back to 1973, spending a few late nights as a kid with a telescope on our front lawn staring into space for comet Kohoutek. Fast forward 50 years or so, and I put together an email alert service to let me know when the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are active in my area. It's now available for general access for anyone at
We had a mishap with our Mac Mini M1 server over the weekend of 11/20/2021 - 11/21/2021 and experienced the first extended downtime with this server. Fortunately, it wasn't a serious issue, but since it was over the weekend and it essentially disrupted any email contact, it lasted much ...
This is just a quick look at a process we run for checking on Northern Lights activity, The gist of it is we download a file from a NOAA site, convert it from JSON to CSV, do a quick check to make sure the data is new (dtCreated and dtValid), then load it into the database. The NOAA file has 65,160 records with 5 fields ...
From https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/remote-workers-burnout-covid-microsoft-survey/
A hybrid blend of in-person and remote work could help maintain a sense of balance – but bosses need to do more. More than half of 18 to 25 year-olds in the workforce are considering quitting their job. ...
Yesterday, 06/21/2021, I did a quick road trip from Indiana to Wisconsin to retrieve an older Mac Mini Server that has been providing website, database and email service for the websites Custom Visuals manages. The older one was a 2012 model that was built in March of 2014 and deployed in June of the same year. ...
We check for different types of attacks on our colocated server and ban the offending IP addresses for increasing amounts of time as the attacks continue. For instance, let’s say you’ve been trying to guess VPN accounts, which each generate an error. If you cross a threshold of say, 10 attempts, the IP address will be firewalled for a while. Once that time is up, the IP address can then access the ...
As someone who works remotely 100%, I like seeing these surveys and reports that show how many others are doing the same and how it fits their lifestyle.
I have a very nice home office above our garage with a view of our beautiful neighborhood. This place looks like it's straight out of a picture book throughout the seasons. I occasionally take my laptop on the road to a park or Lake Michigan ...
Zoffix provides a relevant discussion on the Perl vs. Rakudo name for the not exactly a successor to Perl 5 language at http://blogs.perl.org/users/zoffix_znet/2017/07/the-hot-new-language-named-rakudo.html.
I’ve been in the “rename it” camp for a year, not that I’ve shared that with anyone ...