My Plan to Join the Fediverse: Setting Up a Mastodon Server

I’ve never been particularly interested in social media, but the concept of the ActivityPub network protocol has caught my attention. With platforms like Threads planning to support federation, I think it’s the perfect time to explore the Fediverse more deeply.

My plan is to set up a Mastodon server for myself and my family on a domain I already own. This server will allow us to connect with other federated services across the Fediverse. It’s exciting to see that even platforms like Bluesky are considering federation, broadening the possibilities for interconnected communities.

This will be a fun project, combining my interests in technology and decentralized communication. While I haven’t started the setup yet, I’m excited to dive in, learn, and share my experience as I go.

Stay tuned for updates! Once I’ve completed the setup, I’ll document the entire process and share the steps for anyone else interested in creating their own space in the Fediverse.

We all love the Fediverse, don’t we?

Casio GPR-H1000-1ER Review

If you, like me, are sick of smartwatches that need charging every day but need to know how quickly you are riding or walking, or need other information, nothing beats this watch.

It’s got retro vibes but has all the features you need: GPS, compass, altimeter, phone connectivity, etc. The main thing is its battery lasts at least two weeks. It also has solar charging, so normal phone functions can work like an old-school G-Shock. This is part of the Master of G series, so it works even when you fall into mud. With all the rain we’re having, that’s a real possibility.

In any case, it’s a good-looking watch with a few different watch screens. One shows the tide times as well, which is useful when you go to the beach to know when the tide is coming in. It also has a step counter where you can set your target, etc.

What Casio did is combine lots of features from other watches and add them all to this one watch. It’s a really good outdoors watch. Because of its long battery life, we can take it on our outdoor activities without fear.

This is a link if you want to see how it looks

Raspberry Pi 5 user review

Successfully acquired my Raspberry Pi 5! This marks my first experience using the Pi 5 as my primary computer. I invested in a reliable power supply and secured a high-quality SD card to ensure optimal performance.

After installing the latest Raspbian OS, I was pleasantly surprised by the speed on the Pi 5. It’s worth noting that I wouldn’t recommend installing it on a Pi 4, as it seemed to slow down the system – possibly an oversight in testing.

Overall, my experience with the Pi 5 has been positive, except for the sound aspect. Now, it necessitates a USB sound card unless you’re connecting it to a TV/monitor with built-in speakers, which mine unfortunately lacked.

While the Pi 5 isn’t as budget-friendly as its predecessors, the value it provides is substantial. I opted for the 8 GB variant, complete with a case and accessories, and the total cost came to almost £120. Despite the price, the overall package still represents great value.

SSH Certificate login to Linux boxes (Rasberry-Pi) from Windows 10 and above

We all know passwords are dead 😀 Everyone should have Certificates to login to the remote system. It was always tricky to do it from window boxes. Putty is amazing tool but hard to do this type of logins

Thanks to MS terminal It’s now very easy. after installing the terminal create the public and private keys on your windows. On your PowerShell type below 

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -b 4096

Once you create the Private and public key 

$USER_AT_HOST="your-user-name-on-host@hostname"
$PUBKEYPATH="$HOME\.ssh\id_ed25519.pub"

$pubKey=(Get-Content "$PUBKEYPATH" | Out-String); ssh "$USER_AT_HOST" "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && chmod 700 ~/.ssh && echo '${pubKey}' >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

This will copy your public key to the remote computer.

whenever you type ssh username@remotehost on the MS terminal this will login using the certificate

I got this from this MS doc where they go into details on how to do this very securely. This is just a quick to get it up and running read the doc and do it correctly

How to use Github for sysadmins

It\’s pretty basic stuff. It\’s for someone very new who works in an IT team who uses GitHub to deploy services/servers in azure/GCP/AWS etc. usually, they will have a terraform script we create a pull request, and someone will approve, and the CI tool will take over from there to do what we ask us to do. I will go through how we can set up CI etc. this is just a guide to deploy on an already setup system.

  • If you already not done this please setup your Mac PC or linux to use GitHub over the ssh key
  • On a business envirment you have to do more things ask your company IT team for that
  • Go to the script you want to edit on the web copy the ssh link \"\"/
  • type git clone git@github.com:1dustindavis/gorilla.git
  • go to the folder cd .\\gorilla\\
  • before you start working do a git pull
  • open the folder or the file you need to work with on Visual Studio code and edit the file basically copy the code and edit it to what you planning to do and save the changes
  • Create a branch git checkout -b \"create_a_branch_name\"
  • commit the chnages git commit -am \"I did something\"
  • to push it to remote git push --set-upstream origin create_a_branch_name
  • click on the remote pull link on the termain and create a pull request put all the details and submit
  • From above CI should take over if approved will do the things you requested

Some housekeeping things

  • when you create brunches it will automatically switch to that brunch if you want to request a main file do a git checkout main before you do a git pull
  • git branch wil list all the brunches you have
  • If you have too many brunches and want to remove them only leave the main one on the repo use git branch -D @(git branch | select-string -NotMatch \"main\" | Foreach {$_.Line.Trim()})

Ubuntu under windows 10 (WSL) and get GitHub to work without using git bash

I never liked Git Bash to use with GitHub. It\’s a bit like using an add on, where macs and Linux worked natively.

I thought we have Ubuntu on windows using the WSL works really well for my network tools, why can\’t I use that for GitHub as well. It\’s bit tricky to get this working.

Here is the steps 1st you need to change the home directory

Ubuntu type sudo nano /etc/passwd

  1. Find your account\’s line, which might look like:
    din100:x:1000:1000:\"\",,,:/home/din100:/bin/bash
  2. Change the home directory, which above is /home/din100, to the new directory, using WSL notation (If you want to set Windows directory as home directory, you need to prepend it with /mnt/c/Users/din100/Documents
  3. Re-launch the ubuntu on windows home directly will show the above if type pwd

Now follow the steps from here for Linux

when you try to add the keys to the ssh agent you will get a message 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@         WARNING: UNPROTECTED PRIVATE KEY FILE!          @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Permissions 0777 for \'privkey.pem\' are too open.
It is required that your private key files are NOT accessible by others.
This private key will be ignored.ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

even when do

chmod 600 /.ssh

It wont update the permission

Go to  sudo /etc/wsl.conf If the file doesn\’t exist just create it

add the following 

[automount]
options = \"metadata\"

Save the file reboot your machine then run

chmod 600 /.ssh

you are good to go

Soldering using HAKKO FX-888D Soldering Station,

Lockdown means our weekend trips to the Zoo and nature reserve can\’t happen, so I have a lot of time. It\’s only so much you can work on your bike and your daughter bike. Raspberry PI released a microcontroller called PICO. It\’s very cheap only issue was it doesn\’t come with headers.

I have tried soldering with cheap irons in the past it wasn\’t easy to do it. I gave up, and always bought the pre-built kit, even my ham radio practical I just about made it.

Now I have time, so I decided to buy HAKKO FX-888D It comes with the pointy tip. It\’s not a cheap one, but soldering thing was easy. I have done the pico for less than 5 mins. Not bad for a 1st try

\"\"

I had lots of boards and electronic items that need soldering, which I\’m doing that now. Lots of fun to do with this Iron,

Set the correct temp for your type of solder and way to go. I Never thought it would be this easy to do it.

Nest Wifi Google\’s mesh router

Update 20/10/2020:- because way this mesh router works you can\’t manage how we manage ubiquity APs. IPv6 I couldn\’t get it to work. Still no issue with access and wireless speed.

I now have google\’s Nest WiFi router and WiFi point. It\’s not a big house, so coverage is excellent also easy to set up and troubleshoot. You connect the cable from your firewall to the Nest WiFi router and go to your google home app, and it\’s pretty much sets it\’s self.

Ones you do that plug the Nest WiFI point and follow the same on the google home, and it will work with no issues. If you need to move the Wifi point, it will tell you on the app. Also, you can use this WiFi point as google speakers it sounds good too. If you have a bigger house idea is to add more as you need, for me, one is enough with the router.

I have set up lots of home APs in my time, but this is the simplest to do also everything in one app and works. I didn\’t have any issues so far all working great will happily recommend

frog bikes 48 kids bike review

Update 16/07/2020: It\’s now slightly more than a year bike stood, stand of time. No issues apart from a break-cable coming off a bracket, two mins fix. Other than that it\’s a reliable bike. Even when we get a massive hill or something She can\’t handle, she jumped off the bike and bike took those impacts very well. No damage still looking like a new bike and ride well. I have to wash and put some chain lube on, but it doesn\’t need it.

She now needs the next bike Frog 52, her hight is still ok for this bike, but She now needs the gears. I will update it. No stock anywhere at the moment.

I can sell this bike now for £150 bought it for £230, so I only lost £80 that is not bad after more than a year worth of usage.

Original review 4th April 2019: I needed to get a bicycle for my daughter as she is quite comfortable with a balance bike. Did my research most of the kid\’s bike are proper rubbish and heavy, hard to ride, no real air tires etc. Don\’t get me started on the \”girls\” princes bike and \”boy\” superhero bikes nonsense.

Close call between Isla bikes and frog bikes. I decided to go with frog as the local dealer had the colour my daughter wanted, and dealer assembled it and I got it ready to ride.

The bike is super easy to carry for me and easy to ride for my daughter. I didn\’t use training. She pretty much got the hang of it on the day one but still few days training to go to stop and start without my help. The overall bike was easy enough, and even a few falls bike handled it well. Will highly recommend.

Price-wise it is not cheap but not very expensive as well. comes with five year warranty. Resell values are good if you want to buy a bigger size in the future


Brompton M6L 2020 Electric

I have a canyon bicycle, review coming later for that. Brompton is my other half\’s bicycle, but I gave it a spin as I wasn\’t keen on the idea of electric bikes, but I tell you why I like this electric Brompton.

You can use it as a regular folding bike. The motor on the front doesn\’t impact on the riding not heavy at all. The battery is about 2.3 kgs even with that I didn\’t notice any difference.

There a lot of Chinese made foldable e-bikes on the market some UK companies like MiRider rebrand it changes a few parts and change something on firmware and selling them as the UK made. It is still a mass-produced and builds to a cost I can\’t expect them to last more than a few years if that. Also, I don\’t think you can use them as a standard bicycle without electric assistance.

I usually don\’t care about where they made. I need something that will last longer and gives me less trouble. Brompton fit the bill correctly. All the parts are less complicated to fix when it goes wrong. Can\’t say the same about my canyon bike :D.

Electric assistance when I put it on to level 1 it just gave that general push like the wind is behind you feeling I liked this level. I didn\’t like that level 2, and 3 maybe I\’m in a rush and need to go somewhere without getting tired I would use it, Level 1 is my ideal assistance level.

Overall on my usage, it was excellent and easy to live with and charge. No gimmick features like an app or big LCD screen on the middle etc. just a bike with all you need.

The only downside, I can think of it is a price, but If I use it every day to work, I will make that money back in a year. This bike is built like a tank. I can see a lasting number of years.

We bought the bike from Evans Cycles. Surprisingly excellent service too. We were not expecting that. Overall I can recommend this bike. You will be happy with it.