Customising Pretix defaults with a plugin

Pretix is an open source ticket sales platform with a self-hosted ‘Community’ edition. Pretix is highly versatile, and features a plugin system making it highly customisable, and the API is fairly well-documented. However, complete examples of how exactly to use the API to accomplish certain… »

Snippet: Converting SVG with embedded CSS fonts to PDF

This is a snippet of Python code that can be used as a framework for converting SVG files with embedded CSS fonts (@font-face) to PDF, maintaining the font embedding.

import base64
import os
import re
import subprocess
import uuid

#from fontTools.ttLib import TTFont

Guide: cURL in an initramfs environment (with HTTPS and DNS)

I recently found myself wishing to be able to remotely unlock my LUKS partitions on (re)boot. The Arch Linux wiki has some information on this, but this was not sufficient for my case, as my network assigns dynamic IP addresses, which I normally push to… »

Guide: Magisk root and (Ed)Xposed using official releases on the Xiaomi Mi A2 (Android 9.0)

This is a guide on rooting the Xiaomi Mi A2 using Magisk and installing Xposed via EdXposed for Android Pie 9.0, using the official releases.

Unlocking the bootloader

Firstly we need to unlock the bootloader to allow us to flash new images. Go to Settings… »

Open with Emacs in same window, and open as root: emacsclients scripts and .desktop files

Open with Emacs in same window

/usr/local/bin/myemacs:

#!/bin/bash

# how many emacs?
NUM_EMACS=$(emacsclient -e "(length (frame-list))" -a "")

if [ $NUM_EMACS -le 1 ]; then
	emacsclient -c -e "(progn (select-frame-set-input-focus (selected-frame)) (find-file \"$@\"))"
else
	emacsclient -e "(progn

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 5: Setting up SSH

Last time, we set up telnet on the Clara HD and set up the USB network interface. Now we will extend this to enable SSH on the device.

Unfortunately, unlike telnet, the Clara HD does not ship with any SSH binaries, so we will… »

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 4.3: Automatically switching between USB networking and file transfer

Last time, we set up the Clara HD to automatically start USB networking when connected. We will now set it up to automatically stop USB networking when file transfer mode is activated in the main interface.

Much like ac and plug, /usr/local/Kobo/udev/usb is… »

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 4.2: Automatically starting telnet over USB on connect

Last time, we set up networking over USB on the Clara HD, but this required us to manually start and stop the network. We will now configure the Clara HD to automatically start USB networking when connected over USB.

The Clara HD uses udev… »

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 4.1: Telnet over USB

Last time, we gained root telnet access to the Clara HD over WiFi; however, the connection can be quite temperamental. We will now use this to set up a network connection over USB, allowing for telnet access over a secure USB channel.

Set up

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 3: Gaining root telnet access

Last time, we dipped our toes into the waters of the Kobo Clara HD's USB interface. As it turns out, there is a lot more we can do with this simple interface. The Clara HD runs Linux, and we can easily gain root telnet… »

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 2: Bypassing registration/sign in

Last time, we imaged the internal storage of the Kobo Clara HD (and possibly expanded the internal storage capacity). Now we can begin setting up the device. We soon find, however, that the Clara HD requires us to log in with a Kobo account.… »

Hacking the Kobo Clara HD – 1: Hacking the internal microSD storage

Introduction

The Kobo Clara HD is the latest e-reader from Canadian ebook vendor Rakuten Kobo, sporting a 6-inch 300 ppi e-ink touchscreen, and 8 GB of internal memory.

The Clara HD, like its predecessors in the Kobo range, internally runs Linux, and is surprisingly amenable… »

Guide: Using Okta Verify with third-party TOTP (Google Authenticator, FreeOTP, etc.)

Okta is an identity management and single sign-on cloud provider. Okta supports multi-factor authentication through multiple mechanisms, but at my site, only the proprietary Okta Verify smartphone app was supported.

Thankfully, Okta Verify operates via the ‘industry standard Time-Based, One-Time Password Algorithm (TOTP)’,… »

LibreOffice custom “Set numbering”/“Restart numbering from” macro

Sub RestartNumbering
	Dim cursor   As Object
	cursor = ThisComponent.CurrentController.ViewCursor
	
	Dim startFrom As Integer
	startFrom = CInt(InputBox("Restart numbering from:"))
	
	cursor.NumberingStartValue = startFrom
End Sub

GIF scrolling text marquee with ImageMagick (or: DIY X'trapolis PIDs)

#!/bin/bash

IMWIDTH=336
IMHEIGHT=24
STEP=2 #pixels per frame
FRAMERATE=50 #frames per second

OUTPUT="scroll.gif"
FONT_PATH=/usr/share/fonts/TTF/LiberationSans-Bold.ttf

MESSAGE="Hello World!"

BACKGROUND="#000000"
FILL="#ff9c10"

# Make a "unique" prefix for this run
PREFIX=

GUIDE: A DIY dynamic DNS server for Linux with BIND

With last month seeing a 100% increase in the number of computers I own, I found it useful to be able to determine the IP address of my various devices, with a lightweight Linux-compatible solution. My initial solution was to use Syncthing and interface with… »

Guide: Launching EmulationStation/RetroPie from within Kodi on Raspbian (The XBone, part 2)

So you've got your Raspberry Pi to display a glorious ‘XBone’ splash screen, but what kind of bone would it be if it couldn't play games? Kodi looks kind of like a console UI, and with RetroPie, we can launch games, but how… »

Guide: A custom splash screen on the Raspberry Pi, for Raspbian Jessie (The XBone, part 1)

There are many guides on the internet for creating a custom splash screen on Linux, but most for Raspbian are based on SysV init, and don't interface well with systemd, which is now used by Raspbian. Those that do support systemd make use of Plymouth… »

GUIDE: Convert SWFs to PDFs, preserving text as text, with gfx2gfx-pdftext

Introducing gfx2gfx-pdftext, a fork of gfx2gfx designed to convert SWF files to PDF files, while preserving text! I am not aware of any other freely-available tools that can do this.

The original gfx2gfx from SWFTools unfortunately converts text to paths. An improvement on… »

Random Question Generator on Anki using JavaScript

Updated 2016-10-17 to work with AnkiDroid!

Introduction

Anki is brilliant. It has really lived up to its motto ‘Remember Anything, Remember Anywhere, Remember Efficiently’ for being my go-to way to remember notes and other information. This is made all the more powerful through its HTML-based… »

FIX: Steam crashes when using radeon driver

Symptoms

FIX: LoL errors on (PlayOn) Linux

Problem

Solution

127.0.0.1   localhost.localdomain   localhost

GUIDE: Convert book-style SWFs to PDFs with gfx2gfx

Hold it right there!

It's been nearly three years since this post, and in those three years, I found the time to write 177 lines of code. Now, with my fork, gfx2gfx-pdftext, you can convert SWFs to PDFs, while preserving the text, resulting in… »

GUIDE: Easier League of Legends Installation Using PlayOnLinux

Preamble

Adventures in Arch: Part 2 - Is It Working Yet?

Let's Get Some Hybrid Graphics Up In Here!

if [ ! -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf ]; then
        sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.fglrx /etc/X11/xorg.conf
fi
startx /usr/bin/openbox-session -- :1

GUIDE: Exporting Encrypted bitcoin-qt Wallets into MultiBit

Introduction

GUIDE: Dota 2 Dedicated Server on Linux (from Scratch)

GUIDE: Directly Executable JAR File

Java is great, but having to type java -jar program.jar gets annoying. Why can't you run it like any other program, with ./program.jar? Well, you can, and it's incredibly simple!

echo '#!/usr/bin/java -jar' | cat - Program.jar>Program
chmod +x Program

Tada! That's it! Program.jar… »

GUIDE: Restoring Windows Vista/7 backup files under Linux

If you've recently upgraded from Windows to Linux but now need to restore the backup files you made with Windows Backup (or need to restore someone else's), you've come to the right place!

The Windows Backup Format

GUIDE: Downloading MMS/RTSP/HTTP/etc streams with VLC

We all know that if you use YouTube, you can download the video from Keepvid or something. But what if your content provider uses some crazy streaming system? For example, one website (which shall remain nameless) that I use uses MMS to serve videos.

Disclaimer

GUIDE: Kdenlive on Windows, Properly!

Introduction

GUIDE: ‘Stereo Mix’ without PulseAudio

Introduction