sebenikela

open source videoconferencing

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:06:15 GMT

Because this seems like something people here might be interested in: Jitsi Meet lets you set up your own server for video conference calls, or they have an in-browser setup that appears to be pretty straightforward to use here, you create a meeting and then get a link to share, with the option to add a password.

Apparently in addition to the various "zoom bombings" there's some concern about the security of zoom in general.

(I am fine, btw, as much as one can be in all the craziness, I just haven't had the Brain to write posts and I expect this condition to persist for a while)

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Today in computing mysteries

Mon, 24 Feb 2020 23:08:03 GMT

so for some reason my linux laptop hates R. This is confusing because:

- the specs on this machine are similar to my 2015 MacBook Pro, which runs R without issues beyond occasional slowness (same 8GB of RAM, similar processing speed iirc, both SSD drives)

- this machine runs similarly computationally intensive python code quite cheerfully

HOWEVER

- when using RStudio, my R session kept crashing anytime it dealt with large arrays

- so I switched to R in a Jupyter notebook (well, technically Hydrogen in Atom but that’s essentially the same thing) and that froze the whole machine until it was done working

- I have not done anything super complicated in straight up command line R from a terminal, but at this point I doubt that’d make much difference. also, that would be a shitty long-term solution regardless

I have 2 questions for anyone who knows wtf I'm talking about:

1. WHY?

2. Can I make R work better? How?

Alternatively, I could apparently set up a remote notebook server on my mac and access it on my linux laptop, but that sounds like an even bigger pain in the ass.

(relatedly, I configured my mac (which is no longer a laptop due to screen issues that means it needs an external display) to allow me to SSH in remotely, and to test that it was working I installed a terminal emulator (Terminus) on my phone which now means that I can execute R scripts to process multiple gigabytes of data... FROM MY PHONE. Which is the most hackerish thing ever and I am vastly amused by it)

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Calibre on linux tech support

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 01:24:38 GMT

I mentioned on tumblr that I'd gotten REAL FUCKING STUBBORN and spent 3 hours figuring out how to make the deDRM plugin for Calibre on linux work with stuff from Adobe Digital Editions. And sciatrix asked for the full how-to, which was good, because I'd written down just enough to remember where in my search history to go to reconstruct the details, but not enough that I'd actually have been able to repeat the process easily in 6 months or whatever when something inevitably breaks and I have to do it again.

So I'm putting the step-by-step instructions here for anyone else who wants it and also so I can find it again later.

How to use the de-DRM plugin for Calibre on linux with Adobe Digital Editions:

I think this is what eventually worked for me (on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, normal Calibre and deDRM plugin install)

Step 0: get wine and winetricks - sudo apt install wine-stable winetricks (or something like this)

Step 1: install ADE in wine (instructions from here):

create a new clean win32 wine prefix:
WINEPREFIX=“$HOME/.wineADE” WINEARCH=win32 wine wineboot
install some extra packages:
WINEPREFIX=“$HOME/.wineADE” winetricks corefonts dotnet40
Download ADE 4.5.0 – the latest 4.5.9 version refuses to install with “Adobe Digital Editions is already running :) :) :)” (which is infuriating) but you can get the 4.5.0 installer here
Install ADE:
WINEPREFIX=“$HOME/.wineADE” wine ADE_4.5_Installer.exe
(optional, i don’t think i did this) fix graphics glitches: WINEPREFIX=“$HOME/.wineADE” winetricks ddr=gdi

Step 2: install a 32-bit version of python 2.7 WITHIN THAT WINE PREFIX:

download x86 python installer from python.org
install python into wine:
WINEPREFIX=“$HOME/.wineADE/” msiexec /i python-2.7.8.msi
install pycrypto tools from here (I think it’s this one )
WINEPREFIX=“$HOME/.wineADE/” wine pycrypto[…versionstuff].exe

Step 3: Authorize ADE and download your stupid book

Open ADE and sign in with your Adobe ID
Open the .ascm or whatever ADE-format file you got, this downloads the actual pdf/epub
Close ADE

Step 4: generate a key thingy and put it in Calibre

The deDRM tools zipfile has an “other tools” folder with a bunch of scripts, one of which generates the key file you need. run that script from your wine directory, e.g.:
~/.wineADE/drive_c/Other_Tools/DRM_Key_Scripts/Adobe_Digital_Editions$ wine python adobekey.pyw
This will create a file in that directory that’s something like adobekey_1.der. Put that somewhere less awkward if you want.
Open Calibre preferences, go to the deDRM tools (under file types) and “customize plugins”, then click on the button for Adobe Digital Editions
You’ll get a window with a place for your WINEPREFIX path, and a place to load the keyfile, at which point you go find the adobekey_1.der file and put it there.

And now you should be able to add the ADE-downloaded PDF to Calibre and it will strip the DRM like with other formats.

Notes: - there's probably ways to avoid putting the WINEPREFIX= bit in every time but whatever - I am relatively new to linux so I probably can't answer a lot of questions but I can try - Adobe can get fucked with a chainsaw for making this so goddamn difficult

ETA: I fucked up my wine prefix and then I couldn't get ADE 4.5 to work, but this guy's instructions for ADE 2.0 seem to work

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