Danny's Space

        The last week saw the forces of Ukraine retake a large part of the Russian controlled territory of Donbas. When Russia started this war last February, their tanks rolled over Ukrainian forces who did not think it would happen. That Russia was moving troops and vehicles just over the border was communicated by the United States. But to actually cross the border and invade Ukrainian land is a jump. However, one could point out that Russia already hinted at what they are capable of if we look at Crimea. The world resigned to Russia taking what they want. Months following the Russian so-called special operations, the world watched how the Ukrainians steeled themselves and fought back.         The Ukrainian forces armed with weapons from the West destroyed Russian tanks and killed Russian generals. They exposed Russian military weaknesses in tactics and logistics. They took back 2...

I don't use Ubuntu 22.04's Firefox snap version because it breaks keepassxc. It is time to fix it. Personally, I can't wait for Canonical so I just downloaded Mozilla's download version for Linux and installed it on my Desktop where I can just click on it. Keepassxc issue solved. I just check firefox updates now and then on the browser itself. No problem, no biggie.

- Ubuntu completed its first point update. New versions of the firefox browser and of course thunderbird mail application. The much maligned firefox snap version from Ubuntu is still unusable as far as I am concerned. I have the mozilla version of firefox which means I downloaded and installed it my self. I am happy with it. Mina, Sofia, Victoria and Joshua spent a first vacation here in the Philippines. So happy to see them again. I have a small accident coming down the stairs. I didn't know about the water puddle downstairs and I slipped and sprained my ankle. I spent the next three weeks nursing my swollen left foot.

I use the ZFS on my Ubuntu natively (on root). I have two 2TB Seagate Hard drives, one 1TB also Seagate which is the oldest and the failed 2TB hard drive. I can't tell which one is going to fail next. It is never about the hours and years it has been spinning. The youngest drive is 1 year and 1 month old. The oldest drive is 7 years plus months. It is the Operating System and or the motherboard itself which tells you when a hard drive is failing. When this happens, ZFS will also concur and declares the pool degraded. I have three hard drives (devices) that form the pool plus one hard drive for parity. Parity means 1 drive can fail without data loss. I have to take the failed drive offline. The command for that is: #zpool offline [pool] [device] You can use the device GUID or the name of the device. I then replaced the old hard drive with the new one. The command for that is : #zpool replace [pool] [old device] [new device] You can use the device ...

I remembered my Dad. We had a manual water pump in the house that he used as an exercise tool to keep fit. He also filled the steel tank with water which supplied the house. I also remember that he keeps a vegetable garden in the backyard. He plants kamoteng kahoy and banana. My dad was a doctor and he kept clinic hours until the evening. He died at 76. His first stroke happened at 52. I was in high school. He recovered then. He died May 10 2003 a year after suffering another stroke. A school mate mentioned and he uniquely remembered that his brothers were circumcised by one Dr Delfin M Roque. I'm sure they were. My father served the community well. We would miss him every Media Noche (New Year's Eve Meal) because that's when all the fireworks casualties come in. When I invited him to be a medical resource person for a symposium on drug abuse at school, he went. He was in the roster of Filipino World War II veterans. He was 15 when the war broke out. They have water buffalo...

After upgrading Ubuntu LTS 20.04 to 22.04, the only issue that persists is Mozilla Firefox refusing to unstuck itself from troubleshooting mode. I don't know what's bothering this trusty old browser but I have not encounter this problem since i started using Linux. I downloaded a fresh Firefox off the Mozilla Website itself. It's a 237 mb download and I extracted it on a folder in my home directory so it would not be mistaken for the Ubuntu supplied firefox. I found the file to run the extracted files. Firefox runs magnificently. All my add-ons works including keepassxc-browser. Keepassxc-browser did not completely work with Firefox before. If someone can explain this and I have a feeling that somehow I sold my soul to the devil to get it to work.  So I understand that this personally downloaded version of Firefox won't be updated by apt/apt-get/dpkg and since its binary is in a unique location, I would be responsible for its maintenance and updating. BUT IT WORKS!!!

I upgraded from Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.04 both LTS editions. I am keen on staying on the more stable line of linux and doing what's less audacious. I am trying to upgrade from one long term support release to another LTS to see if that kind of upgrade choice has improved. I did a "do-release-upgrade -d" procedure and in the back of my mind I entertained dark thoughts of upgrading to a "d" release even though Ubuntu 22.04 has been officially released. What I actually did was: (1) looked at my /home directory and my files. Made sure these are backed up/ sync to somewhere else not your local computer, the computer I am upgrading.   (2) #apt update && #apt upgrade.  These dual commands updates all packages in my current Ubuntu version.    (3) #apt autoremove.  This command removes all packages that are no longer necessary.    (4) #do-release-upgrade -d....

I am a new user of keepassxc. This is a password manager for Windows, Mac and Linux. Originally I downloaded it using the ubuntu repository. But the developers of keepassxc released a new improved version not a week ago, so I decided to upgrade. Unfortunately, I can get the new version using snap or a PPA and decided to download the snap from the website . After the installation, I tested the password manager with my browser and it is broken. It worked before with the old version. So my search for a solution pointed me to this page: troubleshooting browser integration with keepassxc . If you have keepassxc and using Linux, first check your version and how you install it. Then if you want browser integration which is a very neat thing to have if you are a password manager user, open the browser integration tab within the application. I use Mozilla Firefox and I need to download an add-on called keepassxc-browser. Keepassxc should be connecting with my browser but there's a glitch. A...

Last year, my 78 year old mother decided to close her old bank account and open another with me as co-owner of the account. A few weeks after she had to stay ten days at the hospital for a heart trouble. She kept telling me and reminding me  about the house payments, the loans and the new bank account. It was prescient of her to make such a move. She's a very practical lady.  I am mentioning this today because as a consequence the bank, her bank, got my personal information, specifically, my financial information and in the succeeding months sent me credit card applications. With our combined financial status I got a deal with a platinum credit card. It introduced me into the world of cash management and credit card purchasing. The lockdowns due to Covid made it crucial that people do business online and online meant using cards - credit cards. Online purchasing steadily become popular in the Philippines starting 2014. The forced isolation of the lockdown, the need for credit ...

It is the third day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The reports have told of tanks entering border crossings and aircraft bombing airports and military targets well inside the country. It is clear that these actions by Russia is unwanted and uncalled for even taking into account the two separatist regions. There are no armed conflicts within Ukraine. Ukraine should have the right to work out its own problems with these separatist regions.  More over there are no guarantees that Russia will stop its invasion of Ukraine once security is restored to these separatist regions. In fact Putin explicitly calls for the government of Ukraine to surrender. It's open war against an independent European country!  There are around 400 Filipino workers in Ukraine according to our embassy. The plan is to evacuate them to Poland and Polish authorities have allowed this even if they don't have a visa.  The United States and the European Union are implementing a series of economic sanct...

BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:4.0 EMAIL;PREF= 1:d327roque@gmail.com FN:Donato Roque N:Roque;Donato;;; TEL;VALUE=TEXT:09185721710 X-MOZILLA-HTML;VALUE=BOOLEAN:TRUE UID:670c5491-a0ad-486f-9d33-8caa2afc7516 END:VCARD Thunderbird email client has been updated since I last used it. I am using version 91.5 in Ubuntu 20.04. I like the smooth desktop integration in the Ubuntu Gnome hybrid. I regard it a hybrid because it isn't pure Gnome. It has a lot of modifications. It handles better than evolution. My issue with evolution went away when I open Thunderbird. My issue is mainly how slow evolution downloads or syncs messages. It is so bad that I would rather open Gmail in the browser than wait. I still compose my emails in the desktop application. Encryption in Thunderbird is no longer an add-on. It is integrated in the application. This makes it easier to use OpenPGP to sign and encrypt my emails. I can open Google Calendar (yes, the web interface) within the clien...

Two things I've been focusing for a few days lately are keepassxc and thunderbird. Congratulations to keepassxc devs and all the people involved. It works and it works well. It works in linux and it works in android. I am also keeping thunderbird as a sort of backup to evolution. I know most of you use Gmail in the browser but hear me out. There's a reason for desktop email still. I still prefer desktop email clients for customization and security. Configured well that is.

I really like Converge ICT my ISP, my Internet provider. I got it last year April. After barely seven months of the initial base plan I applied to have a speed upgrade to 300 Mbps. They notified me that they are working on it. I thought that because of the lockdown it is going to take some time. No. Within days I am getting 590 Mbps downloads and 300 Mbps uploads. My Statement of Account, my bill, meanwhile remained the same.  So after four months of enjoying fast speeds and not getting billed for the upgrade plan, my "correct" bill arrives by email.  They welcomed me to the new plan and here's your official bill thank you.  I used to post every upgrade to software in Linux. I am more interested in amazing stuff. Like when such changes prove to be an addition to more efficiency and stability across the board. Like what? Like bluetooth in linux, like printers in linux and like ZFS. ZFS is new and experimental but I've been using it for two years now. I love it. My data...

My mother slowly turned our over size house into apartment units - and commercial units. We live on a major avenue so there are a lot of commercial traffic in front of the house. She did not do this in one construction frenzy but stretched it out for several years. Finishing some sections first and then leasing it. So some money is coming in as rental income and we did not get buried in debt while we essentially build a new house. Yes we are still living in the property while all these are happening. Somehow we managed.  January of every year is business license renewal. Local and National taxes for businesses are paid. Shops and offices are inspected or readied for inspection by the municipal engineers and the fire department and if your business is food then your place is visited by the sanitary department.  It used to have a dead line around the 20th. The municipal government passed a resolution extending the period of licensing up to March 31st. They also waived penalties ...