@michael@thms.uk cover
@michael@thms.uk avatar

michael

@michael@thms.uk

Full stack web developer currently working mostly with #PHP / #Laravel, Vanilla #Javascript and #SCSS. Love learning more about (almost) anything, but particularly #MySQL and #InfoSec. Currently learning Arabic. Husband, father of two boys, Christian.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

GossiTheDog , to Random stuff
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

  • Loading...
  • michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @GossiTheDog I really do feel for the poor person who convinced their superior to buy the naming rights on that:

    “Every time the place is mentioned our name will be mentioned. Won’t that be great?!”

    😬🙈🙉

    GossiTheDog , (edited ) to Random stuff
    @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

  • Loading...
  • michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @GossiTheDog

    “Asked about Mr Johnson being turned away, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who served as his chief whip, told BBC Radio: ‘As someone who knows Boris well, I can't say it completely surprises me...’”

    I bet it doesn’t 😁

    Properly restart Opcache after deployment ( tideways.com )

    When you are deploying code to a server and not with containers then it is critical to know how to properly restart Opcache. Why? Opcache never throws old files out of the cache. Therefore, if a new version is deployed in a completely new directory, all files from the old version will remain in the [...]

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @symfonystation I’ve been using systemctl restart php-from for a long time.

    The problem with any of these other tools is that they always rely on some php code to refresh the opcache. But what if the opcache has an outdated version of that code cached?

    I’ve been bitten by it a couple of times. So restart php-fpm is far more reliable for me.

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    What on earth?! Amazon S3 charges you for unauthorised requests to S3?!

    That's just absolutely insane! I better check my AWS account and delete any unused buckets I have in there …

    https://medium.com/@maciej.pocwierz/how-an-empty-s3-bucket-can-make-your-aws-bill-explode-934a383cb8b1

    michael , to Programming
    @michael@thms.uk avatar
    gcluley , to Random stuff
    @gcluley@mastodon.green avatar

    Kicking up a stink about Amazon's failure to deliver a £700 iPhone to me (and then refusing to refund/replace) has - I'm delighted to say - resulted in the money being returned to me today. 🥳

    What I've learnt:

    ★ Exploiting social media and video to complain can get the attention of AmazonUK's PR team

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @gcluley what I’ve learned:

    Amazon only fulfills their legal obligations if their customers have enough of an audience and enough technical skills to brew up a storm on social media 😠

    gcluley , to Cybersecurity
    @gcluley@mastodon.green avatar

    Great news! Amazon has got back to me about the £700 iPhone they failed to deliver (and wouldn't refund or replace) Bad news: what they told me...

    Based on this experience, why would anyone buy anything expensive from Amazon ever again? Please share, like and comment if you agree.

    Watch my .

    Cybersecurity expert Graham Cluley ordered an iPhone 15 from Amazon for £700. Amazon failed to deliver it to him... but also refuse to refund Graham or send him a replacement. You can probably guess how that makes him feel...

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @gcluley i believe the guardian (and maybe others) reported on this sort of problem a while ago.

    They quotes several lawyers that made it clear that amazon was acting illegally here.

    But of course you’d have to sue them, and they can afford better lawyers…

    Best options are Section 75 claim (if paid by credit card), which you’d be almost guaranteed to win. Second best: chargeback, which you’d still be likely to win. If the bank refuses initially, raise a complaint and take it to the Financial Ombudsman if needed (but the ombudsman has a several months long backlog). Final option is Small Claims.

    Problem is that Amazon will close your account when you do any of that, so you’ll have to do without Amazon from then onwards

    dandb , to Random stuff
    @dandb@mas.to avatar

    If there's one component I really hate writing, it's pagination.

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @dandb same. It’s just boring drudgery, and yet also so easy to get wrong somehow…

    GossiTheDog , to Random stuff
    @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

  • Loading...
  • michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @GossiTheDog one does have to wonder what ‘legally binding’ means here, if it cannot be enforced 🤷‍♂️

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    I've just had another look at my mastodon instance's web interface for the first time in a while (I usually use Ivory), and the UI changed completely.

    It's much darker and ... 'boxy'.

    Not sure I'm a fan of the boxed look, to be honest. Has some serious retro feel about it to me.

    Are the mastodon team cooking up a big overhaul? If so, then they are off in the completely wrong direction imo.

    What do you think?

    (Screenshot now attached, for those whose instances are not yet on the latest version.)

    (I'm on v4.3.0-alpha.3. I don't think these changes are live in the latest 4.2.x releases yet.)

    michael OP ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @paul @rolle yes. This I quite like. But not the boxed look of the rest of it.

    jerry , to Random stuff
    @jerry@infosec.exchange avatar

    What time is it?

    That’s right, it’s time to push your changes to prod as you head out for the weekend!

    video/mp4

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @jerry I did my last push at 4.30 pm local time today 👍

    cablespaghetti , to Random stuff
    @cablespaghetti@blahaj.social avatar

    I'm curious. What kind of volume are other people seeing in their object storage?

    I'm running a brand new instance with about 3 active users so far and a relatively low volume of stuff on the federated timeline. However my storage bucket is at nearly 6GB after 4 days of the instance being up. 🤯

    I haven't set up the media cache retention setting yet, which might be a big chunk of it. But I'm curious what number people put in there and what their bucket size looks like.

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @cablespaghetti single user here. About 70-100 GB (fluctuates somewhat depending on activity). That's with 7 days media cache retention.

    Still costs < $1 per month, so I'm not bothered ...

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @cablespaghetti yes exactly. What surprises me more is that my database is at about 30GB now. That just seems excessive…

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @cablespaghetti lol. Nope. it’s about 1 years worth. 🤪

    There is a general content retention setting but that will ruthlessly delete anything older than the time specified, including posts I’ve bookmarked, favourited, or otherwise interacted with, so I haven’t turned it on yet.

    I wish there was a proper way to delete non-interacted remote posts after a while. That I’d probably do …

    arstechnica , to Random stuff
    @arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

    GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack

    GitHub keeps removing malware-laced repositories, but thousands remain.

    https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/02/github-besieged-by-millions-of-malicious-repositories-in-ongoing-attack/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @arstechnica yikes, that’s not good. Wonder what happens when/if Copilot gets trained on those malicious forks 😬

    nixCraft , (edited ) to Random stuff
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    me_irl 😂 credit https://www.instagram.com/themokumentary/ I’m truly passionate about it 😂

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @nixCraft lol, 100% me. Except with 2 kids I think ‘sleep' isn't quite enough. I want hibernation…

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    Woha, this is unexpected: in a future update mastodon will automatically turn off open registration if no mod has logged in for a week or longer:

    https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/29318

    This is great news, and should hopefully significantly cut down on abandoned servers being used to send spam!

    (And this is in addition to also having open registrations off by default on new servers.)

    Great news!

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    Just came across this domain parser for PHP that is able to parse domains against either the Public Suffix List or the IANA Top Level Domain List:

    https://github.com/jeremykendall/php-domain-parser

    Really nice API as well.

    GossiTheDog , to Random stuff
    @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

    HT to @brett, apparently LockBit 3.0’s site has been seized by the NCA.

    If real, the NCA should note the leaked data, file share and private note servers and portals are still online.

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar
    jerry , to Random stuff
    @jerry@infosec.exchange avatar

    So far in my travels of assessing the spam sources, https://linguisten.info wins the prize for "most out of date mastodon instance"

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @jerry 4.0? I’ve seen several that are still on 3.x. Or am I missing something?

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @jerry are there? I thought that was EOLed a while ago.

    But yes, you are right of course: although 3.x feels older than 4.x it might actually be more up to date.

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    To those battling the spam:

    I wrote a script a while ago that automatically suspends users who post images with a certain hashtag.

    My understanding is that a big part of the currrent spam wave is posting images with the hashtag 'l診断メーカー

    In that case you might find this script useful:

    https://blog.thms.uk/2023/02/mastodon-block-tags

    GossiTheDog , to Random stuff
    @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

    Okay, this made me laugh.

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @GossiTheDog can’t come soon enough!

    they should push that out as security fix and back port it. Though I appreciate that that might be a bit unusual…

    nixCraft , (edited ) to Linux
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    Poll: Be honest. Did you struggle to exit vi/vim the first time?

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @nixCraft the first time? No, I didn’t struggle. I simply failed 😂

    nixCraft , (edited ) to Random stuff
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    Senior developers are watching production melting in the background after deployment. (WARNING: Loud Sound 🔊)

    michael ,
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    @nixCraft was that taken at ‘s datacentre a few days ago? 😁

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    Automattic's Tumblr/ActivityPub integration reportedly shelved

    Not particularly surprising, I suppose …

    https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2023/tumblr-activitypub-integration/

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    Oh, is PHP finally gonna get an HTML5 parser? Hoping this will be implemented soon, because the existing parser really isn't suitable for anything but ancient HTML.

    https://wiki.php.net/rfc/domdocument_html5_parser

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    I've noticed a lot of chatter about setting up Elasticsearch for Mastodon 4.2's new full text search over the last few days, including what hardware is required, how difficult is it, etc.

    So I thought I’d write down my experience, including the hardware I'm running Elasticsearch on for my single user instance:

    https://blog.thms.uk/2023/09/mastodon-elasticsearch?utm_source=mastodon

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    I just checked, and it appears that only about 1% of all 300k Mastodon users that my instance knows about currently have opted into full text search 😢

    Really hoping that number will increase!

    Also, does anyone know how Mastodon indexes users from non-Mastodon fediverse servers? These presumably don't have the indexable flag set. I hope Mastodon still indexes those, given that pretty much all other Fediverse software indexes all users?!

    (edit: been asked a few times how i got those numbers: Two simple SQL queries: select count(*) from accounts; followed by select count(*) from accounts where indexable = true;)

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar
    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    It looks like relay.fedi.buzz is going to break once 4.2 comes out:

    https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/23989

    This is VERY bad news for users of small instances like myself.

    I do understand the reasoning behind it, and I'm not sure there is a good alternative. But it sure feels a bit like a deja vu from the self hosted email days ...

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    Interesting development with regards to .xyz: the registry suspended the domain apparently: https://twitter.com/TheKinrar/status/1676675781290872842

    Wondering if Mastodon GmbH filed a trademark complaint?

    Also highlights one problem with Mastodon: you cannot change the domain name of an instance. If the problem (whatever it is) isn't resolved, the instance is gone forever.

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    I'm super happy to announce the release of v6.0.0.

    The headline feature is that FediFetcher now supports pulling in context and missing posts from servers! Thank you so much, @teq for your hard work.

    For more details - including upgrade instructions - see https://github.com/nanos/FediFetcher/releases/tag/v6.0.0

    michael , to Random stuff
    @michael@thms.uk avatar

    I've just released v5.0.0 of FediFetcher

    This release brings no new features, but simplifies and unifies configuration of it: Instead of a large list of command line flags / environment variables, FediFetcher is now configured using a JSON file.

    You don't need to update to this version immediately, but if you are running FediFetcher as a GitHub Action, you'll need to update and create a JSON file with options eventually, as configuration through Environment variables will no longer be possible going forward.

    THIS IS A BREAKING CHANGE, so please read the release notes for detailed instructions, and let me know if you have any questions.

    https://github.com/nanos/FediFetcher/releases/tag/v5.0.0

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • supersentai
  • WatchParties
  • Rutgers
  • jeremy
  • Lexington
  • cragsand
  • mead
  • RetroGamingNetwork
  • loren
  • steinbach
  • xyz
  • PowerRangers
  • AnarchoCapitalism
  • kamenrider
  • Mordhau
  • WarhammerFantasy
  • itdept
  • AgeRegression
  • mauerstrassenwetten
  • MidnightClan
  • space_engine
  • learnviet
  • bjj
  • Teensy
  • khanate
  • electropalaeography
  • neondivide
  • fandic
  • All magazines