Gemini Articles of Interest

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 23, 2023

A Gemini client^* is needed for the following links.

• Technology and Free Software

  • Manipulate PDF files easily with pdftk

    I often need to work with PDF, sometimes I need to extract a single page, or add a page, too often I need to rotate pages.

    Fortunately, there is a pretty awesome tool to do all of these tasks, it's called PDFtk.

  • FuckHub

    To continue you must modify your browser settings to allow GitHub to use your location information.

    [...]

    One step closer to dropping the account. Unfortunately I still have to use it for work, and for a few repos I contribute to occasionally (Erlang, Elixir, IPFS, StandardEbooks, ...).

  • New toy: Tandy DMP 132 (26-2814) printer

    Picked up a new toy from a local e-waste recycler: A Tandy DMP 132 (catalogue number 26-2814), Circa 1987. They let me have it after we plugged it up and determined that it doesn't even idle properly; all of the status LEDs light up, but it should only have the power LED lit if all is well, perhaps the alert LED should blink if there's no paper too.

    When I got home I popped it open and determined that it contains an NEC D7810HCW CPU with a 14.7 MHz clock crystal. I looked up the datasheet for the CPU and determined that it is normally clocked at 12 MHz, and contains 256 bytes [sic] of RAM and 4K of ROM. (note: ROM and RAM are both externally expandable, but Tandy definitely is using only the base amount of RAM on this printer) The CPU is a nominally 5 volt CPU, the onboard RAM fails to function if it dips down to 3.2 volts.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • Google Domains migration + Web frontend improvements

      I recently logged into Google Domains to change some minor DNS setting and was greeted by this bullshit: "Google recently entered into an agreement for Squarespace, Inc. to acquire all domain name registrations from Google Domains, with the purchase subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. If the transaction closes, you will become a Squarespace customer and, following a transition period, your customer and billing information, if applicable, will be transferred to Squarespace, at which point Squarespace's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service will apply."

      I received no email or any other communication about this, so I was caught a bit off-guard... Squarespace is not a company I care to deal with at all. Consequently I have transferred the zcrayfish.soy domain to Hover (Tucows) as a registrar, and am using Linode as the DNS servers. It has been a bit over 24 hours since I made the change, but I have outrageously high TTL values set here, so it's possible (though not very likely) that some breakage could occur.

^* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.