On this page you can see the latest blog updates. For further articles, please use the search bar or navigate through the blue tags.
My recommendations are pim, privacy, or security.
In my world, I tend to define "projects" as a construct that contains a set of tasks in order to reach a common project goal. A project may contain another (sub-) project.
Within Org mode, I need a syntax element to decorate my projects as such in order to make sure Org recognizes projects in case I need Org mode support for projects.
Update 2024-12-23: Aspekte für kollaboratives Arbeiten ergänzt
Der Podcast "FOCUS ON: Linux" (keine mir bekannte Homepage) brachte am 2024-12-19 eine Episode zu "Org-Tools" (vermutlich kurz für "Organisationstools").
Die Shownotes dazu findet man unter anderem unter podigee.io.
Für mch war die Episode insofern sehr spannend, weil ich wieder mal viel über die Anforderungen von Menschen lernen durfte, die sie an ihre PIM-Tools stellen. Sowas finde ich immer sehr aufschlussreich.
Ich habe allerdings auch einige Dinge auszusetzen beziehungsweise Falschinformation zu korrigieren.
2018-04-06: Comments on the standardization argument
2019-04-12: Extended syntax examples, "Makes Sense Outside of
Emacs", "Tool Support" and added more backlinks
2020-05-02: Comment by Ian Zimmerman
2021-05-24: more examples for AsciiDoc
2021-11-28: The birth of "Orgdown" - a new name for the Org mode
syntax (see Summary)
2024-12-22: Part with the explanation on the Markdown flavor
explosion
Disclaimer: this is a very nerdy blog entry. It is about lightweight markup languages and why I think that Org mode syntax is the best lightweight markup language for many use-cases. And with lightweight markup language, I do mean the syntax, the way you express headings, lists, font variations such as bold face or italic, and such things.
Please do note that this is not about Emacs at all. This is about Org mode syntax and its advantages even when used outside of Emacs. You can type Org mode syntax in vim, notepad.exe, Atom, Notepad++, and all other text editors out there. And in my opinion it does have advantages compared to the other, common lightweight markup standards such as Markdown, AsciiDoc, Wikitext or reStructuredText.
Of course, Org mode syntax is my favorite syntax. Despite my personal choice you will see that I've got some pretty convincing arguments that underline my statement as well. So this is not just a matter of personal taste.
If you already have a grin on your face because you don't have any clue what this is all about: keep on reading. It makes an excellent example for making fun of nerds at your next dinner party. ;-)
On this page, I collect my public/media appearances of any kind.
I do have a separate press information page with my bio in German and English, summary of my academic work and photographs to download. Drop me a line via email in order to get the URL.
Most recent updates:
2017-04-28: GLT17
2017-04-28: Ö1 Matrix (Privacy) from February
2019-04-29: GLT18 and GLT19
2020-02-20: LinuxUser 03.2020 Article
2020-06-17: Linux Magazine July 2020 Article
2021-04-10: GLT21
2021-12-07: PIM lecture at Graz University of Technology and talk at
EmacsConf21
2022-04-09: GLT22 talk
2022-07-03: BarCamp 22
2022-09-09: Digital.Lebel Graz.social
2022-12-04: EmacsConf22
2023-05-07: barcamp Graz 2023
2023-10-20:
Barbara Karlich Show 2023
Podcast episodes "The Informed Life" and "Focus On Linux"
2023-11-05: Worklab 2023 talk and video
2024-02-16: 37C3 talk
2024-05-23: BarCamp Graz, PIM lecture TUG WS2024
2024-09-15: my three contributions to: Håck ma's 2024
2024-12-16: added my PIM lectures
Some of them are available in German language only.
Die Wochenzeitung Falter schreibt via Tessa Szyszkowitz in Ihrer Ausgabe 48/24 auf Seite 26:
2019 gab Jack Dorsey auf Twitter bekannt, dass er fünf
„Open-Source-Architekten“ darauf ansetze, ein Produkt zu entwickeln,
das „einen offenen und dezentralisierten Standard für soziale Medien“
entwickeln solle.
Und weiter:
Als CEO konzentrierte sich Graber ab 2021 auf den Kern der Gefahr:
Soziale Medien besitzen nicht nur die Daten ihrer User, sie
monetarisieren sie auch. Bei Bluesky kann eine Userin jetzt ihre Daten
mitnehmen. Graber entwickelte das AT-Protokoll, ein dezentralisiertes
System, damit nicht eine Firma alle Daten besitzt. Ob das in Zukunft
klappen wird, ist bisher unklar.
Das stimmt soweit auch beinahe.
Allerdings liest sich dieser Artikel - wie auch so viele andere zur Zeit - so, als ob Bluesky tatsächlich ein dezentrales Medium wäre. Das ist allerdings falsch.
Sie müssen nicht mein Wort dafür nehmen. Ich habe hier ein paar Quellen mal verlinkt, die sich mit dem Thema weitaus näher beschäftigt haben:
As I once wrote on Mastodon, this is not the case at all:
My Mastodon post about spring-cleaning my Org-mode inbox file.
I got great feedback from people writing that they are relieved that even "somebody like me" is really struggling with processing all the information as properly as desired.
Therefore, I want to update this persistent article from time to time, showing my current status of some digital debt in terms of unprocessed items in various inboxes of mine.
Update 2024-11-12: "Die Lage der IT-Sicherheit in Deutschland
2024"
This is huge. This is important.
In July 2023 Microsoft had to announce a security incident which impact is more or less a total desaster for Microsoft and its trustworthyness. This was only the beginning of the story of the biggest security catastrophy I have heard so far.
When I tell people about that incident, they usually don't seem to believe. I blame the general media for not having properly covered the incident. This should have been in the headlines for weeks and Microsoft should be history by now. To my astonishment, this was not the case. Not even close. Even Wikipedia is not as alarming as the incident should indicate.
Why do I think that way? In short: basically any service provided by Microsoft and at least all Windows hosts need to be considered hacked beyond repair. This is the mother of worse case scenarios when it comes to security.
Let me explain - using sources we trust.
What Happened
What Should Have Been Instead in an Alternative Time-Line
What the Attackers Are Able to Do With Microsoft
What Microsoft Would Need to Do to Fix This Properly
Ich war beim Podcast Methodisch inkorrekt! in Episode 239 mit einen Audiokommentar on air, wo ich etwas zu den Themen "Wie man eine Authentifizierungs-App auswählt" und Passwortsicherheit im Allgemeinen sagen durfte. Der bezog sich auf die Diskussion zum Thema "Google" der Podcast-Episode 238 "Mö Mö", wo Reini einen etwas saloppen Kommentar zu der Thematik geäußert hat.
In diesem Artikel möchte ich den Teil mit der Auswahl einer TOTP-Anwendung beschreiben. Die meisten Punkte können jedoch auch für die Auswahl von sicherer Software verallgemeinert weiterverwendet werden.
Falls du zuvor noch generell etwas über Passwortsicherheit und Zweifaktor-Authentifizierung lernen willst, so lies dir meinen Artikel zu Passwortsicherheit durch und komm zum Thema Authentifizierungs-App und TOTP hierher zurück.
Es gibt verschiedene Authenticator-App-Typen. Deshalb sollte man sich zuerst bewusst werden, worüber man gerade spricht.
Neben proprietären Authenticator-Apps verschiedener Firmen, die keinem offenen Standard folgen, gibt es den aktuell weit verbreiteten Standard TOTP, der für "Time-based One-time Password" steht. Da zu ersterem mangels Einsicht in den Code keine sicherheitstechnische Aussage getroffen werden kann, kann ich hier nur zu TOTP schreiben.
TOTP ist den meisten Anwendern durch einen QR-Code bekannt, den man beim erstmaligen Einrichten einer neuen Zugangsberechtigung mit der TOTP-App einlesen muss.
Da es sich um einen offenen Standard handelt, gibt es hier etliche Apps, die TOTP-Funktionalität zur Verfügung stellen.
Meine persönlichen Kriterien zur App-Auswahl sind:
möglichst eine freie Software mit großer Community
vertrauenswürdige Hersteller- und Installations-Quellen
Here is a list of tasks I do on my computers and the software I am using for accomplishing these tasks. The first column also links corresponding workflow descriptions with further information on how I am doing things which should be our focus, not the tool. At the very bottom, there are links to more workflow descriptions.
For all the Emacs people visiting this page: here, I just list a few Emacs packages. For more details on which packages I'm using for my workflows, please do visit my online Emacs config and check out the first chapters explaining my setup.
In June 2023, I got invited to give a short talk about local file management at the Worklab 2023 which was organized by mur.at. This time, I used a different idea and talked about a few general concepts and ideas related to this topic. A few things I took from my PIM lecture.
The talk was part of the session "Desire to collect - Tools & Roadmap".
I've been thinking of a replacement device starting with the release of the Pixel 8 series in autumn 2023. Too soon, as I've still got a bit of support range until end of 2023.
This is my story on getting a new smartphone in 2024.
FIDO2 und Passkeys sind sich recht ähnlich und werden oft auch verwechselt oder über einen Kamm geschert. Es gibt meiner Meinung nach auch keine genaue Definition von "Passkeys".
Für alle Menschen, die ein wenig mehr über die Unterschiede und jeweiligen Vor- und Nachteile lernen wollen, ist dieser Artikel geschrieben:
Ablauf von FIDO2-Authentifizierung "in a nutshell"
Ablauf von Passkeys-Authentifizierung "in a nutshell"
Standards und technische Bausteine
Passkeys und das dafür notwendige Vertrauen in die Konzerne
Nutzung von Passkeys mittels FIDO2-Hardware-Tokens
FIDO2 Hardware-Tokens
Phishing-Schutz
Passkeys oder FIDO2 - was soll ich nun nutzen?
FAQs
Diverse Links zum Thema
Feedback
TL;DR: Zwei moderne FIDO2 Hardware-Token kaufen, die auch mit Passkeys umgehen können. Primär FIDO2 nutzen, wo es geht und ansonsten Passkeys oder mit niedrigerer Priorität auch andere Mehrfachauthentifizierungsmethoden.
Falls ich wo etwas falsch aufgefasst haben sollte oder wenn sich etwas an der beschriebenen Sachlage ändert, freue ich mich über Feedback (unten).
The Internet is full of frequently mentioned laws. I wrote about that in this article. For personal reference, I would like to coin some common patterns for me as well. This is one of them. You might want to refer to it when appropriate.
(Voit's) Law of Fanboy appearance: As an online discussion about any
topic grows longer, the probability of an appearance of an fanboy who
could not reached by arguments any more approaches 1.
For reference, please do use the hashtag: #LawOfFanboyAppearance
The Internet is full of frequently mentioned laws. I wrote about that in this article. For personal reference, I would like to coin some common patterns for me as well. This is one of them. You might want to refer to it when appropriate.
Law of tool usefulness: Any tool can be a perfect fit for a given set of requirements.
For reference, please do use the hashtag: #LawOfToolUsefulness
The Internet is full of frequently mentioned laws. I wrote about that in this article. For personal reference, I would like to coin some common patterns for me as well. This is one of them. You might want to refer to it when appropriate.
(Voit's) Law of Workflow Usefulness: anybody is able to come up with a
management concept she/he finds useful while everybody else doesn't
find it helpful.
For reference, please do use the hashtag: #LawOfWorkflowUsefulness
Those laws are named after some persons that are connected to said laws. You can read about them on the very long page on Wikipedia about eponymous laws. Many are not named after persons and I won't limit myself to that here either.
A friend of mine posted an article with some rules on his blog. That got me interested and I discovered some really cool laws myself for the first time.
So you can find even more collections of laws on pages like:
If you're, for example, contributing to a reddit thread about something which is irrelevant or anything with only a short-term relevance, this article does not apply to you right now.
However, as soon as you're helping somebody solving an interesting issue, summarize your experiences with something or write anything that might be cool to be around in a couple of years as well, you do provide potential high-value content. My message to all those authors is: don't use web-based forums.
In late 2023, I got the opportunity to give a talk at the 37C3 by the CCC in Hamburg. This talk was not recorded but overlaps in most parts with the recorded talk above.
TL;DR: all of the content of closed, centralized services will be lost in the long run. Choose the platform you contribute to wisely now instead of learning through more large data loss events later-on.
Update 2024-07-13: Added censorship which causes narrow bubbles and
hate.
The Fediverse is an umbrella term for a federated set of social networking services that are able to exchange messages among each other.
You already know another federated Internet service: email. With your business email account, you can exchange mails with people using other email providers such as GMail, yahoo, hotmail, and so forth. It does not matter if your email partner is hosted on the very same email server as you. This is because both email services are able to talk to each other via an open standard.
Same as with email, you can decide to run your own server for a Fediverse service. Those servers are also called "instances". For instance, the instance graz.social (disclaimer: I'm affiliated) is running a few Fediverse services for our local community.
The most prominent Fediverse service is called Mastodon which is similar to X/Twitter. There are other Fediverse services you can imagine as free alternatives to some commercial networks:
I think that you definitely should start using free Social Network services from the Fediverse. Maybe as an additional network for starters. But then you really should think of stopping to use the commercial ones for multiple reasons.
And this is the story why this would be a very wise decision by you in the long run:
The Main Arguments in Short
… for the impatient
Downsides of Typical Commercial Social Networks
… and why Mastodon is an improvement (or not)
Downsides of Mastodon
… let's be honest
Things You Don't Get Elsewhere That Easily
… just to give you some ideas
Summary
It's a long article. But you are free to skip sections that are not of interest to you right now. This article is not - and will never be - a complete guide for beginners. The main goal of this article is to express my arguments why it is a good idea to use Mastodon as your main social network and probably stop using all the others as they are unhealthy and manipulative.
In short, she is struck by the fact that her boyfriend sees totally different comments below a video than herself.
I have to say that this is somewhat naïve considering the fact that she is a content producer who obviously has no idea how the thing works that she is feeding with content.
This is a clear example how algorithms are one of the reasons why people aggregate to much hatred in the Internet. They are just fed by one single point of view and all other point of views are hidden from them. This way, your brain only gets fed more and more one-sided comments, postings, opinions, and so forth.
That also happens when political parties are using social networks to promote their programs. This way, they send customized messages to each social media consumer. Those customized messages reinforce the already existing opinions in a way that we only read what we want to read, totally independent of the main direction of the political program. I guess that's one of the reasons why right-wing parties get more and more voters among disadvantaged groups: they just give them some clever slogans and make people vote against their own interest.
Bis zum 30. April eine Lösung auf sogenannter „Open
Source“-Technologie zu entwickeln, die jede Abhängigkeit
ausschließt.
Dieser eine Satz ist auf mehreren Ebenen für mich etwas befremdlich.
Warum setzen Sie "Open Source" in Anführungszeichen? Das ist, als ob sie den Begriff nicht kennen würden und bezweifeln, dass das legitim oder korrekt ist. Dies wird noch unterstrichen durch das vorangestellte "sogenannter". Sie würden sich auch wundern, wenn ich ihr Produkt als kleine "Zeitung" bezeichnen würde, oder?
FOSS (wird von vielen Menschen als Begriff gegenüber OS bevorzugt) schließt keine Abhängigkeiten aus. Wenn man Fremdsoftware einsetzt, hat man immer Abhängigkeiten. Es ist nur typischerweise keine von einem Konzern - in den meisten Fällen jedenfalls. Es gibt auch Konzerne, die FOSS erstellen.
FOSS ist kein sprachliches oder anderswertiges Alien. Das Internet besteht mehrheitlich aus FOSS-Komponenten. Ihr Unternehmen würde ohne FOSS nicht funktionieren.
Es wirkt fast so, als ob in Wirtschaftsresorts FOSS "Neuland" wäre.
Somehow, many people seems to be fed up with the YouTube web
interface in recent time and so multiple people are posting about the
same issue. I introduced the "Similar Articles by Others" section. I'm
using my method for years already.
Explanation on the semi-colon in the file names.
Further minor improvements happened after the initial publication as
well: screenshot, better invocation examples, …
There are many reasons why someone would not want to use https://YouTube.com in a web browser to search for and watch videos.
My most important reasons are:
I never use an active Google account to log in to YouTube. This
would violate my personal data privacy.
I happily accept the downside that I don't get personalized video
recommendations. I would not use them anyway.
I don't want to spend time clicking away all those useless
cookie-windows - always reject all!
I dislike the defaults for auto-play and such.
I'm not interested in reading comments - most of the time. I never
ever have written any YouTube comment myself.
I prefer local video playback.
Omits any streaming issue because of bad bandwidth or similar.
My local video player has so much more cool features accessible by
easy-to-learn keyboard shortcuts.
I don't enjoy watching advertisements.
Therefore, I created a way to search for YouTube videos, download YouTube videos and watch them locally from my zsh command line interface.
If you don't want to use other solutions like Individous or FreeTube, you might want to check out my workflow.
You don't have to use a shell if you want to use my method. You can also wrap the shell scripts into easy to start temporary Terminal windows to interact with them. I didn't bother so far. I'm very fine with using the shell.
So here is my method which you can use and adapt to your personal taste in case you're familiar with basic shell scripting and how to invoke them.
Subscribe to one of my feeds:
