I know, I know, it’s been a while. Having had a very very busy month, no time for any blogging whatsoever, it’s now time for a new post. It’s just a quick note, however. How to make your var_dump()s and php-errors more readable and esthetically pleasing?
Author: Remon Pel
WebDeveloper though not WebDesigner
Digitally sign and optionally encrypt your e-mail – also on your iPhone/iPad!
About ten years ago I was very into PGP-ing my mail. This was when I was in my Windows stage using The Bat! mail client. This stage luckily passed about 6 years ago, you can read about it here, in case you’re interested. After switching to Mac I went searching for an alternative and found a PGPmail plugin for Apple Mail, but I also found a better, Mail-native, way to sign and optionally encrypt e-mail using nothing more that Apple Mail and an S/MIME certificate. This is not very difficult and certainly not new, but for all intents and purposes, I will list the steps to take to generate, install and distribute your certificate. Furthermore, since the iOS 6, S/MIME is supported on your iPhone and iPad (and possibly iPod Touch, I cannot tell, I don’t own one), and I’ll tell you how to install the certificates on those devices as well.
Continue reading “Digitally sign and optionally encrypt your e-mail – also on your iPhone/iPad!”
Use BIND (named) to create a multi-VirtualHost configuration – no more VirtualHostX
[Deprecated: for OSX 10.9 and up, please use rba.sh.]
It has been a while since I posted my guides for setting up a local development environment and how to add SSL to this set-up. This setup, among other things, required the use of a hostname-to-ip-management type of software. My choice was VirtualHostX.
Recent events have brought a new temporary colleague to our workforce and he brought in some fresh blood – so to speak (post in Dutch).
Today I have successfully eliminated the need for VirtualHostX – at least, in my development environment.
SSL (HTTPS) on your Development WebServer
It took me a while and finally found a working, but a bit ugly, solution. Not to bore you with the details, here are the step by step instruction on how to get HTTPS working on your development web server. Please note, this is not a good setup for live web servers, you will have to take security into account if you use this on a publicly available web server. Continue reading “SSL (HTTPS) on your Development WebServer”
Set-up an OpenVPN Client on Windows
Windows *shiver*… It’s a necessary evil. Some of my colleagues use Windows and they also need to connect to our VPN service. Here’s how to set it up. Continue reading “Set-up an OpenVPN Client on Windows”
Set-up an OpenVPN Client on your Mac
With an OpenVPN server available or created on your own Mac it’s time to setup your OpenVPN client. Sure you can do this with command lines but for a user, which a client usually is for, you should use a nice GUI. Continue reading “Set-up an OpenVPN Client on your Mac”
Set-up an OpenVPN Server on your Mac
[22/05/2015: The content of this post is very very very out of date.]
[17/08/2020: Kext-deprecation note and comment added]
Due to deprecation of kernel extensions in MacOS (10.12 and newer) OpenVPN seems to be defunct on macOS (at least for private servers), please see my comment. I sincerely hope the TunnelBlick development team will take the time and effort to rebuild the client to use the new KPIs in macOS Big Sur, but latest response suggest they have no interest to do so :(
An OpenVPN Client is easy, just download Tunnelblick. But to connect to your own Mac or maybe a server you own or are the maintainer for at work, you will need an OpenVPN Server set-up. This is how you do it. Continue reading “Set-up an OpenVPN Server on your Mac”
Virtual Memory Configuration
A few command lines for managing the Virtual Memory on your Mac.
Please note; if you have a regular amount of memory, like 4 GB or 8 in recent models, you might want to consider NOT turning off Virtual Memory. But if you have ample RAM, give it a try, you will notice a big speed improvement. Why? Thats because Virtual Memory is ALWAYS used, even if you don’t really need it.
Installing OSX Lion on older Macs
So you want to install OSX Lion on an older (or maybe not even that old) Mac. I’d say, if your Mac is supported, just buy Lion (it’s only € 23,99). If you’re Mac isn’t supported, you can do this;
Handy Shell Scripts – part II – manage_launchpad.sh
The second script I’d like to share is one to list or delete items from the OSX Lion launchpad. It’s a very basic script with semi-cryptic output, but it’s useable for the two or three times you’ll ever use it.
Have you looked at your launchpad? It probably has twenty or more items you would like removed, but, …., OSX doesn’t allow you to remove items. Luckily it’s just an SQLITE database and with a few carefully built SQL queries, we can cleanup duplicates and unwanted items.
Continue reading “Handy Shell Scripts – part II – manage_launchpad.sh”