Author: Martin

In many countries around the world, network operators are sharing parts of their radio access networks. In many cases the country they operate in is split up into different parts and each network operator exclusively installs the network infrastructure for both. Obviously this reduces cost but also denies companies that are part of the agreement to differentiate themselves in the one thing that matters: Speed and capacity. Continue reading Network Sharing Pains In The UK

Recently I set up a new web server on a Raspberry Pi at home to securely run a new web application and to properly isolate it from my other servers. One new thing I wanted to try out was setting-up a Let’s Encrypt certificate for https access and to learn how the tools work to automatically install and update the certificate.

It turned out that it’s not very difficult to do it, just a bit different from the standard installation method described on the Let’s Encrypt web site for Debian based system. Also I noticed that one should ensure that http digest authentication configured in ‘.htaccess’ files for some directories still works as intended once Let’s Encrypt is set-up, as it didn’t in my case.

Continue reading Let’s Encrypt On A Raspberry Pi Web Server

A few weeks ago I wrote about a magazine article I found in which micro-SD card speeds were evaluated. In the article, amazing speeds were mentioned that I could not reach with my USB2 Micro-SD adapters. So I went out and bought a small USB3 reader. I turned out that while read and write speeds improved, they were nowhere near those in the article, despite using the same Micro-SD cards. So I bought a ‘Ugreen USB 3.0 SD-card reader‘ with a built-in USB-3 hub that got good reviews for its read and write performance.

Continue reading In Pursuit of Micro SD-Card Speeds – Part 2

Back in 2016, I’ve written quite a number of blog posts about how to set up a server at home that is reachable over IPv6. Here’s a link to the summary. Over time one forgets some of the details so I recently couldn’t remember anymore if I’ve just opened my IPv6 firewall for single ports to the IPv6 Interface ID of my server or if I had given a ‘carte blanche’. No worries, as after all, who can find me in 128 bits of IPv6 entropy? But then I watched this talk at the recent 33C3 conference and I got worried enough to check my setup like real quick…

Continue reading 33C3: IPv6 at Home – Make Sure Your IPv6 Firewall Works As Intended!

I’ve been in a presentation on the LoRA PHY on the 29th of December at the 33C3 that I can fully recommend if you are interested in the LoRA IoT radio standard and want to learn about “chirp” modulation. During the talk it was mentioned that AT&T is shutting down its GSM network in the US by the end of 2016. A day later, quite a number of German tech websites such as Heise, Teltarif and Golem had articles on the topic and it really made me wonder if this talk was the seed for them!?

Continue reading As announced in 2012, AT&T Is Shutting Down GSM Now

And finally, here’s part 3 of my series of entries on what moved me in 2016 technology wise. While part 1 and 2 focused on networks and Linux computing this part deal with a few miscellaneous things.

Continue reading Things That Moved Me In 2016 – Part 3: Miscellaneous

Apart from mobile networks, another topic that I write about quite often these days is Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular. Ever since I jumped into the Linux world in 2009 it’s been a thrilling and liberating experience and 2016 has been no different. So here’s part 2 of my summary of what moved me in technology in 2016.

Continue reading Things That Moved Me In 2016 – Part 2: Linux

Like every year, time has flown and it is already end of December and thus time to look back at what has happened this year that has literally ‘moved’ me. This year I have three categories: Networks, Linux & General computing and Miscellaneous Other Things. Let’s start with a look back at my year in the network section:

Continue reading Things That Moved Me In 2016 – Part 1: Networks

Today I have a practical example of how monopolizing access and outsourcing network operation ends up in the ultimate customer disappointment: Network coverage in tunnels and the inability of the network operator to fix it.

Continue reading Give Me Back That Tunnel Coverage – The Joys Of Operator Monopoly And Outsourcing

I’m making screenshots quite often for many purposes and most of the time the built-in functionality to take a screenshot of the entire screen, window or parts of the screen is just what I need. But in some instances, having more advanced functionality such as precisely selecting the part of the screen to capture and edit the result would come in handy. Almost by accident I recently stumbled over ‘Shutter’, a great and easy to use tool that allows me to do just that.

Continue reading Shutter to Make and Edit Screenshots in Ubuntu