The Problem: My Cloudstation app stopped working and would not synchronize files anymore. This happened both on Windows, and on Mac. Symptoms: It seemed like the app was either permanently in a “connecting” state, or pausing itself. The solution: It turns out that my Quick Connect became disabled at some point. I am not sure […]
How To Change Primary Display in Windows
A colleague had her Windows task bar on the wrong screen, and wanted to move the task bar to the other monitor. Seems this is a little confusing in Windows. You find the option if you right click on the desktop, then click on screen resolution. You will get this dialog: First, you must click […]
Keyboard Shotcut for changing Keyboard Layout in Windows
Because this happened to me several times now: In Windows, it is possible to switch between international keyboard layouts by pressing ALT+SHIFT or CTRL+SHIFT together. Since windows remembers this on a per-application basis, this can be quite confusing. Simply pressing those shortcuts again cycles through the layouts.
FRAPS Video Too Dark
I recently attempted to capture some in-game footage – only to find that the recording was simply way too dark. Way darker than what it had been on my screen. It was fixable in my video editor, but the root cause was not immediately apparent – clearly it could not have been a monitor setting […]
Skyrim Mod Organizer: [D] failed to determine binary type: 193
Alright, this is more of a hobby IT problem, but it was still frustrating. I had a crash of Mod Organizer, a tool to organize and maintain Skyrim mods. After the crash, it wouldn’t start any Java programs anymore – all I got was the error message: failed to determine binary type: 193 I first […]
Disable SSLv3 in Postfix, Dovecot
Postfix: Disabling certain versions of SSL works like this in Postfix: In your /etc/postfix/main.cf add or modify the following config parameter like so: smtpd_tls_protocols=!SSLv2,!SSLv3 If you are using mandatory TLS you’ll want to set this instead: smtpd_tls_mandatory_protocols=!SSLv2,!SSLv3 These should be fairly self-explanatory, but for further detail read the Postfix configuration parameters documentation. Do not forget […]
Test your SSL setup
Qualys offers a great tool that will check your server for SSL config issues, such as weak ciphers and outdated protocol versions.
Mac OS X: Time Machine Backup Slow / Stuck
I just noticed that my time machine backup (to a Synology NAS) was slow. As in… single-digit kilobytes per second, and then it got stuck completely. At first I thought this may be an issue with the Synology drive, but this turned out not to be true. In the log file of the Mac, I […]
Can I safely send a Certificate Request (CSR) by Email?
Yes. The CSR is your public key, which will be verified and signed by the certificate authority (CA) and returned to you afterward. It is this signed version you will then use in your application. It is useless without the private key, so even if someone makes a copy of it, they won’t be able […]
scrub: -X argument cannot exist
I’ve been looking for a utility that will clean disks for me – and I do realize this is no real substitute for shredding them. Anyway, scrub seems to do the job. However, when I tried to run it I got: scrub: -X argument cannot exist This had me stumped because I read it as […]