The importance of having access to a VPN recently dawned on me as I noticed several of the WiFi networks I rely on (primarily at work) block access to several critical tools including e-mail, Google Drive and even certain academic websites that are likely deemed traffic hungry. One way to easily bypass this conundrum is to create your own VPN on a virtual private server of your choosing. I purchased a cheap KVM VPS at BuyVM.net starting at $2.00/month. Next, load up your favorite Linux OS (I usually opt for Debian or Ubuntu) and use the PiVPN …
Read more →I purchased the Dell PowerEdge T20 several years ago for an Unraid server build that I use to back up my data. One of the unfortunate design flaws of this system is the lack of an intake fan for system and specifically hard drive cooling. I had completed this mod around 2016; however, recently I had noticed that my unraid hard drive temperatures were consistently in the 102-110 Farenheight range when they had previously been much lower. I suspected that the intake fan I had installed several years ago had failed and decided to replace it. I also remembered that …
Read more →I was recently putting together a low cost Windows 10 Machine for my dad (post on that to follow) and realized how non-trivial of a task it is to create a bootable windows 10 usb drive using a mac. (If you have a windows machine availiable, simply use the windows 10 installation media creation tool located here) After trying several methods I have put together a quick how-to guide on creating windows 10 installation media (usb) using the latest version of Mac OSX at the moment 10.15. This guide was adapted from this blog.
Open your …
Read more →Microsoft bundles fresh installations of Windows 10 with a variety of junk software including free trials and small games that most people have no intention of using. Uninstalling this mess of software even on a /fresh/ installation can be challenging. Luckily, there are some tools that can help. Below are the steps to easily uninstall this software in the fewest steps possible.
Download the Windows 10 decrapifier script and save it to your desktop as decrapify.ps1
Open powershell in administrator mode and run Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
Now run the powershell script & "C:\Users\user\Desktop\decrapify.ps1”
Once the script …
Read more →If you have ever wanted to completely strip identifying metadata from a pdf file for whatever reason, you would quickly find there is no easy way to do this. Luckily, if you have any form of linux access available to you, there is a free tool that can help. Below are the steps to strip an example pdf file of all identifying metadata.
apt-get install exiftool
exiftool -all example.pdf
Running this command will show you the metadata already present in the pdf file you’re working on including timezone, time stamps, author and …
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