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Blog posts (page 4)

Screenshot of terminal output from configuring SDL for crosscompiling using llvm-mingw. The LLVM logo and the MinGW-w64 logo is shown to the right.

Cross-compiling for Windows using llvm-mingw

1096 words

llvm-mingw is an LLVM-based MinGW-w64 toolchain distribution for compiling C/C++ programs for Windows. Prebuilt toolchains are provided as plain archives both for compiling natively on Windows, or for cross-compiling from Linux and macOS.

Compared to traditional MinGW-w64 based toolchains, it uses the Clang compiler as well as libc++, LLD and other LLVM projects in place of their GNU counterparts. With this it has support for compiling for Windows ARM targets and can target all four modern Windows architectures with one set of toolchain binaries.

Screenshots of the Google Webfonts helper, RealFaviconGenerator and Pictogrammers websites stacked on top of eachother.

Small useful tools for web development

776 words

This blog post goes over some small tools and utilities I have come across and that I find useful for web development. They’re not things like code editors, the developer tools in your web browser or documentation resources, but small tools that help you with one specific thing that you’re bound to run into when making any website.

Screenshot of the treemap of QDirStat showing a lot of coloured blocks representing differently sized files.

Visualising disk usage on a headless server with QDirStat

880 words

If you’ve ever got a long running headless server that gets some amount of use, it will eventually accumulate files and data on the disk until the point where the allocated disk space for the server runs out and you will need to clean some things out. Running df -h tells you it is completely full, but how will you be able to see what is taking up the space?

There exists all sorts of graphical programs to visualise disk usage for various operating systems, but when you’ve got a server that you maybe only have headless SSH access to, your options become quite limited. Fortunately the program QDirStat has a feature that allows you to scan a filesystem into a cache that can be opened and inspected on another system.

'TOTP - Time-based one time password'. The Google Authenticator logo is used as an asterisk above TOTP, in the background are screenshots of 2FA instructions for various services.

TOTP - The most misunderstood 2FA method

1480 words

Time-based one-time password (TOTP), RFC 6238, is an authentication method commonly provided as a means of 2FA for many services. It is a great alternative to other 2FA methods such as SMS.

It is unfortunately also very misunderstood due to the common misconception that it requires a phone or a proprietary app, but the algorithm is fully open and the process to generate a code does not depend on any external sources other than the fabric of time itself.

Photo of a tablet showing the app drawer. All apps have been uninstalled except for the Settings app (and a "Tethering" app that is part of the settings app).

Uninstalling system apps on Android with ADB (No root required)

590 words

If you’ve ever owned a couple Android devices you’re definitively familiar with the kind of pre-installed system “bloatware” apps that may come with it from your manufacturer. Or maybe you’re lucky and only get the base Google apps, or sometimes even that is too much for you.

Rooting your Android device usually makes you able to write to the system partition and delete system apps, but as time has gone on rooting has come with more headaches than the niceties it used to give you. While there are some that still choose to root their Android phone for the freedom it gives, a lot of us who may have done it in the past no longer do so just for the peace of mind of not having to deal with apps that check the device’s “integrity”.

Screenshot of the root of my Android phone's external storage as mounted through SSHFS.

Managing your Android storage with SSHFS

950 words

As you’re on your phone you may be downloading memes, files, taking pictures, writing notes and whatnot. But after a certain point you’d want to go through these and move anything you want to keep to your computer since let’s face it, your phone is not for permanent storage.

This blog post shows you how to mount your storage so you can manage it from your computer using SSHFS by running an SSH server on your phone, as well as the motivation for why I manage my phone’s storage this way rather than other traditional methods one may otherwise use.