Blogs

The story of how WoSign gave me an SSL certificate for GitHub.com

It was rather surreal when I realized I had actual valid SSL/TLS certificates for the primary GitHub domains. Https is supposed to prevent eavesdropping, yet with these keys, I could become a man-in-the-middle with relative ease. Let me take you back to the beginning and walk you through how I acquired these certificates from the certificate authority WoSign.

Drupal and Multisites - Getting updates done right

Drupal at MSU Libraries

Drupal has become a big part of my job in the last year and a half. We have moved our public facing website over to Drupal 7 from a home-grown java based site. It has been fun to learn Drupal, teach other people how to manage their own pages, and learn how to administer the site. I've written a few modules here and there, but one of the biggest things I've done is set up our Intranet websites using a multi-site setup in Drupal.

Using free "cloud" backup storage without compromising privacy

There are plenty of great online backup services that give you a limited amount of free storage. The most well-known is Dropbox, which gives you 5 GB of storage for free. Google Drive gives you another 5 GB, and Microsoft's SkyDrive gives you 7 GB. Other less known places may give you more, such as ADrive with 50 GB or Shared with a whopping 100 GB.

How to upgrade a Trio Stealth 7 (Model 7c A13) From ICS to JB

A couple weeks ago, I ran across an amazing deal for a cheap 7 inch android tablet. I had been thinking about getting a tablet, but hadn't bitten as I'm saving up for other things at the moment. However, this particular tablet was $20 after rebate, so I couldn't pass it up.

When it arrived, I was surprised and pleased to find ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich aka Android 4.0) installed, and the tablet was pre-rooted. This meant I could do whatever I wanted to it. My first thought was to find a ROM update to install Jelly Bean (Android 4.1).

Comment Moderation, reCAPTCHA, Spam, and You

I was surprised to find the other day that my new blog already had comments. The comments turned out to be spam, and I deleted them right away. Thankfully, I have already turned on comment moderation, which means all comments must be approved by me before being shown to other users. I imagine if the site were to grow, comment moderation would become a chore, but for now, it is a small price to pay to keep the site looking clean.

Setting up SSL on my server

This website now has a valid Class 1 SSL Certificate! And this came at no cost (monetarily) to myself, thanks to www.startssl.com. StartSSL gives away free Class 1 certificates to anyone who wants one and can verify ownership of a domain.

This wouldn't be a big deal in and of itself, as you can easily create your own certificate authority, site cert, and private key.