Self-Hosting on Planet Hawleywood

Calibre eBook Viewer - Settings and Stylesheets

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have fought with Calibre-Server book reader for a long time. The ability to use any web-browser to read my e-books and have it sync my position and annotations is a unicorn I’ve been chasing for a few years. I always end up looking for alternatives because the web reader seems to be so inconsistent.

Since I always seem to come back to it, I’ve decided to keep a running list of various settings and stylesheets I’ve found effective.

One man's trash is another man's treasure

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I go out walking every morning. My usual route takes me around my apartment complex and the apartment complex next door. Last Wednesday’s walk was no different.

I was up stupid early - before 6:00 AM and out the door shortly thereafter. When rounding the corner next door I saw a pile of hardware garbage near the dumpster on the other side of the garages. There was a tower PC case, opened, that looked pretty gutted (although the hard drive was still in it - sigh). There were a couple what looked to be older stereo components another computer that looked to be in pretty good condition and a nice (if not pretty well-used) desk lamp.

Everything in a browser

Sun, 21 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I made an effort today to do my weekly routine from the Chrome Browser on my Linux Laptop. I had to install it and sign-in and set up some extensions, but now it looks and acts pretty much just like my Chromebook.

It was more of an experiment to prove that I can interact with my note system from anywhere. Given access to Google Chrome, it’s even more seamless.

On one hand, I revel in the familiarity of a common system that gets the tool out of the way and lets me do the work I want to do. On the other, I worry about lock-in and the ability to convert this information to other formats or access it from other entry points.

Self-hosting LanguageTool

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Summary

LanguageTool is a free online proofreading service for English, Spanish, and 20 other languages. Instantly check your text for grammar and style mistakes. It’s a free alternative to similar sites/services like Grammarly. While I’m not sure that Grammarly is a Privacy Nightmare, I don’t like the idea of sending everything I write to a third party service for inspection.

The free version of LanguageTool has a much better reputation, although that may be because it’s less well-known. It’s also nice that it’s an open-source project that publishes the code.

Taking Notes

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve taken a keen interest in note-taking in general and recently I’ve been obsessed with how other people do it.

I’ve always taken a keen interest in note-taking in general, and recently I’ve been obsessed with how other people do it.

There tends to be a push toward avoiding information silos while at the same time making your content available or at least putting it online where it can be found, (even if you specifically aren’t writing for mass consumption).

Read My Feed

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Two weeks ago I stopped using TinyTinyRSS as my RSS feed reader. I love having self-hosted apps and the privacy and control they provide, but honestly I wasn’t real worried about someone snooping my RSS feeds or contaminating my OPML.

I’ve been making a move back to some cloud-based apps recently to avoid the maintenance and backup space that my self-hosted apps require. I decided to try two popular feed readers and see how they compared. I left myself a reminder in Google Keep (see? NOT everything is self-hosted) to give it two weeks to decide which feed reader I was going to stick with. I disabled my TTRSS instance and opened two new tabs with Feedly and Inoreader