By @edent · mastodon twitter · 2 comments · 550 words · read ~149 times.
I remember seeing the original "A new decentralized microblogging platform" on HackerNews back in October 2016. A few weeks later, I joined - becoming the 7,112th user. As the years went on, my use of it waxed and waned. I started cross-posting to both Mastodon and Twitter. Gradually, I started spending more time on the […]
Continue reading →By @edent · ActivityPub CyberSecurity mastodon Responsible Disclosure security · 1 comment · 850 words · read ~169 times.
I've responsibly disclosed a small security issue with Mastodon (GHSA-8982-p7pm-7mqw). It allows a sufficiently determined attacker to use any Mastodon instance to redirect unwary users to a malicious site. What do you think happens if you visit: https://mastodon.social/@PasswordReset/111285045683598517/admin? If you aren't logged in to that instance, it will redirect you to a 3rd party site. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review · 600 words
As the Middle-East convulses in yet another bloody war, and with no end in sight to the barbarity, we're all looking for a way to understand the horrors unfolding. So I went searching in the past. What set the seeds of today's conflict and was there any way to prevent it? This is a dispassionate […]
Continue reading →By @edent · gadgets review usb-c · 6 comments · 300 words · read ~314 times.
All USB-C cables are equal. But some, as the saying goes, are more equal than others. This little gadget from Plugable is a fantastic bit of kit. Plug your USB-C power supply into one end of the gadget, plug the gadget in to your laptop, phone, or any other USB-C device. Watch the screen to […]
Continue reading →By @edent · Book Review Sci Fi · 1 comment · 450 words
Imagine a world with inter-city rockets, where tourists still use film cameras. Where self-driving trucks sport a wide array of sensor apparatus and record all their data onto miles of magnetic tape. Where the latest Androids are life-like and can perfectly clone a dead man's speech, yet are powered by punch-cards. People make video calls […]
Continue reading →By @edent · css HTML · 6 comments · 650 words · read ~336 times.
Yesterday I wrote about a lazy way to implement a manual dark mode chooser. Today I'll show you a slightly more sensible way to do it. It just uses CSS, no need for JavaScript. Here's a scrap of HTML which present a dropdown for a user to choose their colour scheme: <select id="colour-mode"> <option […]
Continue reading →By @edent · accessibility css HTML · 3 comments · 350 words · read ~115 times.
I'm not saying this is a good way to make a dark mode website. I'm not even saying it's a sensible way to do dark mode. But I'm pretty sure this is the laziest way of getting dark mode on your site. And it is all done with less than a handful of CSS rules. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · money openbanking python · 1 comment · 450 words
As I mentioned last week, MoneyDashboard is shutting down. They are good enough to provide a JSON export of all your previous transactions. It is full of entries like this: { "Account": "My Mastercard", "Date": "2020-02-24T00:00:00Z", "CurrentDescription": null, "OriginalDescription": "SUMUP *Pizza palace, London, W1", "Amount": […]
Continue reading →By @edent · bug microsoft · 1 comment · 300 words · read ~302 times.
I quite like the new Outlook for Windows. But it has a couple of annoying bugs. One of which is, when it is maximised it doesn't let you unhide your bottom task bar. I've set up Windows so the taskbar disappears whenever my cursor isn't at the bottom of the screen. When my mouse touches […]
Continue reading →By @edent · api data finance money openbanking programming · 4 comments · 550 words · read ~479 times.
A few weeks ago I was moaning about there being no OpenBanking API for personal use. Thankfully, I was wrong! As pointed out by Dave a company called Nordigen was set up to provide a free Open Banking service. It was quickly bought by GoCardless who said: We believe access to open banking data should […]
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