New domain for this blog: geekburg.com

Some of my 3.5 loyal readers might see themselves to this new domain sometime next week when they care to come here.

What is this? Have I gone all corporate and will start to earn money on this somehow? I wish, bro. No, I just saw this domain in the expiring list yesterday and thought that it could fit my blog nicely and I never liked 3rd-level domains. The only reason I ever had a blog not on a custom domain is that I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to write more than a couple posts. It appears I was, after all, even though this is neither the most actively updated nor the most popular blog, so it's time to personalize it and make it possible to become google-independent one day if I ever want to.

As with everything else, custom domain is the way to be independent from any particular provider. It's true for blogs, it's true for email (I'm one of those who do have custom-domain emails yet are too lazy to migrate from gmail completely).

I'm not likely to move out of blogger any time soon either unless I manage to generate a good pelican template (writing stuff in markdown, using vim, and keeping all the content in a git repository is just more geeky) so search engines and other 3 of my loyal readers will have a few years to adjust. At least, if google does something bad or I desperately need some feature, I won't be locked in. Having options is always a good thing.

There might be some issues with dns, redirects, https, links in the days to come but it should all be sorted out by the end of this week. With any luck, I'll have blanket https with good ciphersuites and maybe even http/2. But we'll see, I guess.

Using virtualenv for more than Python projects

Sorry, it's not a complete instruction, just a thought. It occurred to me (some time ago) that Python's virtualenv is, essentially, a simplified version of system "prefix", it has bin, lib, include, and can have more stuff when needed. If you're willing to experiment (you'll probably have to set a few additional environment variables and/or build flags but that's no big deal), you can install various other tools there up until you have a complete system with its own compiler and complete set of libraries although it's much simpler to keep using system compiler and libraries only complimenting them when needed. Granted, prefixes are nothing new, people were using /opt (and their home directory) this way since the beginning of time. But with little help of virtualenv-wrapper or pyenv you can easily switch between them and isolate environments better. Binaries and stuff installed in virtualenv would override system defaults but only when venv is activat

Huawei TalkBand B3 (active) review

Despite the fact that no manufacturer ever sent me any free gadget for review, I'm continuing doing it. Maybe I'll become a popular reviewer and they will change their mind. This post will be the first in this year's wearable gadget reviews. To put it into perspective for those who don't know me, I'm not a fitness person, like at all. I eat healthy, I walk kinda a lot, I do some aerobics and occasional cardio but that's it. I'm too lazy even for jogging. But, for some reason, I currently have not one, not too, but three fitness trackers on my wrists. Yeah, crazy, I know, but that was the only way to compare them properly. By the way, wearing TalkBand on the same wrist with anything else is super inconvenient, you can hardly take it out for calls. But more on that later. Why do I need any fitness tracker? Apart from knowing time, I like to know how active I'm during the day, and, more importantly, track my sleep. I have some issues in that department so

ORICO — small things that stand out

More than once I've written about stuff made by Big Brand manufacturers so I decided to balance things out by writing about a mostly-unknown but good things. In short, if you need something small like HDD enclosure or some cable or USB hub or a dongle of some kind, check if ORICO makes it and chances are you won't be disappointed. It's usually slightly more expensive than low-end stuff from aliexpress but, in my opinion, it's usually worth it. Disclaimer. This post is a shameless promotion of their brand although, unfortunately, nobody paid me for it or even sent me any free stuff. Guys from ORICO and not, if you read this, I'll gladly review whatever free goodies you send me :) I only do honest reviews so better make sure to send the good stuff. At this point I own a USB hub, three different 2.5" HDD enclosures, and a precision screwdriver set from them. And probably something else I don't remember. Here are the pics: USB hub in its natural habitat

Semi-technical thoughts

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