About Jay Jay

Hi there. My name is John Elliot V. My friends call me Jay Jay. I talk about technology on my blog at blog.jj5.net and make videos about electronics on my YouTube channel @InTheLabWithJayJay.

PHP curl_exec

Posted on 2013-08-31 [Saturday] by Jay Jay

Today I learned about curl_exec which is a HTTP client for use in PHP.

When does cron.daily etc run?

Posted on 2013-08-20 [Tuesday] by Jay Jay

I wanted to know what time of day my cron.daily, cron.weekly, etc. cron jobs where scheduled to run. The answer is in /etc/crontab:

# /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
# Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
# command to install the new version when you edit this file
# and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,
# that none of the other crontabs do.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

# m h dom mon dow user  command
17 *    * * *   root    cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6    * * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6    * * 7   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6    1 * *   root    test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )
#

Resolved firefox ssl_error_expired_cert_alert

Posted on 2013-08-20 [Tuesday] by Jay Jay

I was getting the error ‘ssl_error_expired_cert_alert’ in Firefox. I checked my client certificate and it hadn’t expired. I checked my CA certificate and it hadn’t expired. It turned out that the problem was that my ca.crl Certificate Revocation List had expired. I fixed that by running jj5-bin empathy-ca-update-crl which says:

echo Updating CRL...
openssl ca -gencrl -config ca.cnf -cert cacert.crt -out ca.crl.pem -crldays 365
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
  echo Error updating CRL.
  exit 1
fi

echo Exporting CRL to DER format...
openssl crl -in ca.crl.pem -outform DER -out ca.crl.der
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
  echo Error exporting CRL in DER format.
  exit 1
fi

echo Viewing CRL...
openssl crl -in ca.crl.pem -noout -text
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
  echo Error viewing CRL.
  exit 1
fi

Microsoft UX patterns

Posted on 2013-08-17 [Saturday] by Jay Jay

Reading about UX patterns from Microsoft. Particularly Branding your Windows Store apps.

Password Best Practice

Posted on 2013-08-17 [Saturday] by Jay Jay

I read Password Primer today:

Use at least 8-10 characters.
Interchange upper and lower case letters with numbers and symbols.
Consider a “Passphrase” like “Every good band deserves fans”: “!eGbAdfns2”
Change your password every 6 to 8 months and immediately if you believe it’s been compromised.
NEVER share your password with anyone you don’t trust – some would say never share your password PERIOD.
Don’t write your password(s) on sticky notes and then post them to your monitor!
Avoid using the same passwords for all of your accounts.
Never send your password to someone in an e-mail.
Don’t use the “Remember Password” option in browsers or websites
NEVER make your login and your password the same thing.