News
Freedom to Create: The Relationship Between Open Societies and Innovation
Throughout human history, innovation has followed a fascinating pattern of peaks and valleys, strongly correlated with the degree of societal openness and free exchange of ideas. Recent comprehensive analyses combining archaeological data, historical records, and modern patent statistics reveal a compelling relationship between open societies and accelerated technological progress.
Getting WiFi 7 Working on Linux: The ASUS ROG USB-BE92
I recently upgraded to 5.5 Gbps TDS fiber, installed a shiny new ASUS RT-BE86U WiFi 7 access point capable of 10 Gbps, and grabbed an ASUS ROG USB-BE92 WiFi 7 USB adapter to take advantage of it all. The goal? Get my GPU cluster (what I call DGPUNET - Distributed GPU Network) running at multi-gigabit speeds for distributed AI workloads.
Building DGPUNET: Democratizing AI Innovation Through Open Source Infrastructure
Over the past several months, I've been working on something that started as a practical necessity but evolved into a philosophical statement about accessibility in AI development. When a startup couldn't get anything better than a pitiful G10 GPU instance from their cloud provider - completely insufficient for the machine learning workloads needed - I realized I had to take matters into my own hands, and home...
PoDoSOGoAdmin WebUI Mail Servers Administration Tool - Public Release Very Soon!
There isn't a free and open source combined administration tool for the mail server setup of: Postfix + PostGreSQL + Dovecot + SOGo Webmail, I have created such a tool, and will be releasing it publicly on github as soon as I can create a sanitized version.
Postfix, Dovecot, PostGreSQL, and SOGo Webmail on Debian 13
Debian 13 was fairly recently released, but AWS is already shoving it as the primary AMI, and make getting a good Debian 12 a few more steps. Most apps aren't yet compatible with Debian 13, so I recommend waiting for it to stabilize, but here is some information on getting a basic mail server working on Debian 13...
Claude.ai adds throttling to max users but with no transparecy.
I've liked using Claude.ai in many areas, but they are starting to get overwhelmed and have begun throttling "top 5% users", which apparently I am. But they aren't offering ANY transparency about this...
Unofficial Penpot Manual Installation Guide for Debian 12
Penpot opensource free self-hostable server (Figma clone) does not support manual install. They want everyone to use their SaaS cloud service or if self-hosting, use containerized versions. Here are instructions, from (as they suggested) reverse engineering their Docker setup, for a manual setup on Debian 12. YMMV.
Q4OS Debian 12 on Alienware M18 R2 Nvidia 4080
Notes on getting Q4OS Debian 12 with Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) working on Alienware M18 R2 with Nvidia 4090.
Install Godot on Debian 12 and BCI RPG Dev Environment Setup
Trying to avoid using Snap, Flatpak, and other package manager battles, sticking with either using tarballs or apt installs (preferred).
WHY A CTO SHOULD _NOT_ JUST BE A GLORIFIED CODER/ENGINEER
Increasingly, the title “CTO” is being used to induce engineers to provide underpaid—or even free—technical services. Don't fall for it! Otherwise your organization will very likely be ruined. Generally if they can't actually pay for a CTO, the organization should NOT even be looking to fill a CTO role yet. Instead they should be looking at roles more appropriate to their specific needs and resources.
USB Backup or Sync Android Phone with MacOS Sequoia on MacBook Pro m4
How to connect via USB to backup/sync Android device don MacOS silicon m4-pro.
Setting up for Developing on Apple MacBook Pro m4 48GB RAM
Information on clean setup preparing and using brand new MacBook Pro m4 pro with 48 GB ram, for Flutter, Dart, Python, Java, C#, .Net, JavaScript, Node, React, Angular, Kubernetes, Selenium, AI, etc.
Thoughts on Quantum Computing, "Qomputing", Organic Computing, etc.
I was recently asked on Linkedin for my opinion on Quantum computing, this was my top of head response...
Standards of Practice: Code Commenting Style Preferences and Recommendations
Too many programmers in the past 10-15 years increasingly seem to consider code commenting and documentation passe and too time consuming without enough benefit to justify the effort (they are outright _wrong_), but for those that understand the value of good and useful code comments, here are some suggested recommended guidelines...
Verbalizing Coding Parlance
A lot of symbols used in software developing coding languages have some inconsistencies in how they are described. This page shows my standardization on the terminology to reduce confusion when speaking aloud about code.
Another Round of Adventures in Microsoft Incompetence
One of the first adventures at PracticingMusician as their shiny new CTO, was migrating them from Godaddy's Microsoft 365 Tenancy to Microsoft's. They had been trying for several months and been getting nowhere, so I rolled up my sleeves, dusted off my MCSE (never expires) from 1998 knowledge and experience, and dug in. Here are some highlights from the adventures that ensued...
Rough Week! Alienware M18 Blew Up and Burned! Meanwhile Installing Q4OS TDE on Alienware M16
The first part of this posting covers my primary productivity system, Alienware M18 blowing itself up, in the middle of a remarkably rough week and last few months. The second part provides information on the installation and use of Q4OS (Debian 12 bookworm) with Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) on Dell Alienware M16 R1/0TC7T8 (the latter going surprisingly well).
Is the Jan.ai executable infected?
January 9th, 2024, 10:00 am Pacific Time, BitDefender Total Security Alert: @janhq\inference-nitro-extension\dist\bin\win-cpu\nitro.exe is infected with Gen:Variant.Tedy.258323 !
My preferred development release cycles list of environments
Many companies can't afford this, so there are many variations, but when I have been fortunate enough to work for organizations (or I had the money myself) to have the ideal resources in place, this it what it looks like for me to ensure 99.999% or better up times each year...
Remember CTRL-L for File Selector Full Text File Path Feature in Firefox Instead of 28+ Mouse Clicks Every Time
Using a mouse is 4-10x less efficient than hotkeys and typing. But alas, so many apps force you to use a mouse for repetitive tasks. This had stumped for a while after Firefox removed the full text path for the Select File dialog. Finally I found how to bring that back, CTRL-L!
If killall by name not working try pkill -f
In recent years some distros and apps no loger responding to kill -9 <app name> such as killall -9 firefox.
Increasingly Unmotived, Mercenary, Unethical, and Unaltrustic Global Work Force Culture and the Correlated Poisoning of the Open Source Movement
There has been a very disturbing increase in a trend over the past 5-10 years in the volunteer, paid, and opensource sectors: decreasing worth ethic, lack of motivation, and increasingly severe mercenary and inconsiderate attitudes and behaviors from workers and developers. This trend pre-dates covid. Of course, correlation does not prove causality, but these are some parallel observations.
80-90+% of projects and companies don't need 100% custom-coding!
Welcome to the 21st century! Or is it the 1970s? Unfortunately in the most recent 10-15 years there is a ludicrous regression back to 1970s & 80s outdated thinking, with around 80-90+% of custom-coded projects completely unnecessary as custom-coded projects...
Almost 2 years later and still no Fxtec F(x)tec PRO¹ X 256/8GB - QWERTY Smartphone :-(
I ordered this $900 phone back in December 2021, and in September 2023 still no phone and just continued stall tactic.
Debian 12 Q4OS on Alienware M18 r1
Notes on attempting to get Debian 12 and Q4OS 5.2 working on an Alienware M18 r1.
Issues Grub Failing Boot on Debian with NVME Drives
Started with Q$OS tracked to Debian Upstream, problems booting after install.
Don't Get All Your Code Thrown In The Dumpster (Fire)
I have been online and coding (on and off) since 1979, and increasingly over the past 5 to 10 years I have had to toss the entire code bases (and databases) of (other developers) entire platforms/project into the trash because they were such terrible dumpster fires (to mix metaphors). Don't let this happen to your code/project!
"Open Source" Mercenaries: Stop Killing the Geese That Laid the Golden Eggs - Before They Become Extinct
In the past 10 years a disturbingly number of "open source" projects are increasingly sabotaging the overall benefits of open source. That is self-defeating, unscalable, and unsustainable. Please learn the history of what it was like before open source and get back on track before you destroy the progress of decades. Here are some suggestions here on a sustainable model that will help you be more successful, less mercenary, more altruistic, and yet also more financially rewarded.
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