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I finally got around to setting up an IRC client on my home PC, so I could lurk on the IndieWeb channels. I don’t think I’ve used IRC in around 15 years, so it was a bit of an adventure! My Gnome installation came with 2 different clients – HexChat and Empathy (the Gnome Project’s chat client). HexChat was by far the easier to setup; Empathy required me to install a whole other package, which I only found out after I had to search online to troubleshoot why I wasn’t getting the option to add accounts of any type whatsoever.

Once it was setup though, I found Empathy just that little bit nicer to use and read (at least, on “stock” settings). For mostly just following along, that’s probably enough.

Now I’m connected, I’m reminded why I like IRC: it’s slow, low stress communication. The only thing I need to care about is what’s written during the time I’m connected to a room, and there’s no annoying ping or notification on each message (or even if I’m mentioned). If I disconnect, my client won’t display what I missed when I reconnect – and I’m perfectly fine with that. I don’t (won’t) have a client on my phone, so IRC will be that thing I can only hang out in when I’m at my desktop. How very retro 😎

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Weaponizing Your Website, on YouTube
Speaker: Jennifer Hill There is a war a raging in our cyberworld and it is time for you to join the resistance. Cambridge Analytica stealing Facebook user’s data, white supremacists getting verified on Twitter, and child pornography on Instagram. The list of atrocities continues. We as technologists know the inner workings of social media platforms more than anybody. We see the hypocrisy and the evil of social media platforms in a way that most people do not. It is time for us to awaken from our passivity and take a stance against our corporate social media overlords. Weaponizing Your Website will give you ideas, or ammunition, to fight against our broken social media world. This bootcamp will include learning how to utilize the strongest weapons in your stockpile; your voice and your website. With me, Jenn Hill, a University of Mary Washington student, at the helm I will prepare you for taking up arms and battling the corporate social media tyrants.

Thanks to Kicks for linking to this.

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I was trying to enrol my iPad into the iPadOS public beta, but the portal seems to be having all sorts of issues, so I can’t get logged in yet. I’ll wait until the rush dies down. FWIW, these are what I’m most excited for:

  • Better mutli-tasking
  • Mouse support
  • Better file-management
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Come to think of it, my entire day has been taken up with really annoying database issues. I still don’t understand fully why either happened, but fingers crossed, I think I’ve fixed them. If not, tomorrow is going to be more of the same…

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I switched my Manjaro installation to Gnome instead of KDE last night, as a lot of the tools I use seem to assume a Gnome/GTK environment and some of the integrations didn’t work right on KDE.

Anyway, I can now use my home PC as a space heater 🔥

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I mentioned over on Micro.blog that I’d managed to get a workable edit/commit/push workflow on my iPad. Naturally, I’m now considering a keyboard to complete the setup.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good keyboard to use with a 9.7” iPad Pro?

The last time I had a similar setup, I used an Apple Wireless Keyboard (in an Origami case/stand) as the Bluetooth keyboard + case combos available at the time all felt horrible to type on. I do have a spare ultra-compact mechanical keyboard I could try with a USB adapter, but thinking more about it, that’s probably not going to work well when I don’t have a table to work on.

So, if anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!