Some time ago, in my post “From Mistrel to Heretic”, I wrote about my journey to digital independence. I received several questions about my tech stack afterwards. A fair question I’m happy and willing to answer: I rely on free solutions with GNU/Linux Debian2 as foundation. Read more

The Portable Document Format (PDF)1 is a great example of how an originally brilliant concept for displaying print documents has been ruined over decades. Initially conceived as successor to PostScript, it has degenerated into a universal container format. Text, images, vectors, scripts, fonts, form data, even complete 3D models there’s hardly anything, that can’t end up in a PDF, including Doom. Read more

Not only since my seven security tips1 have I been getting questions about why I prefer to keep Windows and an Active Directory2 offline. That may sound inflexible, and in an era of AI-generated cybersecurity slop3 I may look like an outsider. So in today’s blog post I provide more context, explain the technical background, and lay out how ransomware works. Read more

A typical day in a mid-sized company. The already overworked developer, deep in crunch mode1 gets a quick note: “Would you please make the open invoices visible in the overview of all customers for this project?” Dutifully, he nods. He knows it’s an important project, the task isn’t technically difficult and the boss likes quick and simple solutions. Read more