HU Berlin eduroam for Android

If the eduroam Android app to setup the wifi crashes for you, try this alternative path.

I tried to setup eduroam for the Humboldt University of Berlin (Humboldt Universität in Berlin) using the app advertised in the manual: geteduroam

Unfortunately, the app crashes on my Android phone. If this is your case as well, proceed as follows:

  1. download the CA certificate hu-ca-2024.crt1
  2. go to your wifi settings and select eduroam to setup this wifi
  3. use TTLS/PAP (I forgot which one)
  4. add anonymous identity: eduroam@hu-berlin.de
  5. add username as username@hu-berlin.de (use username@physik.hu-berlin.de or username@mathematik.hu-berlin.de if your account is with those faculties)
  6. add as CA certificate the file downloaded before
  7. do not verify this certificate
  8. add as domain: hu-berlin.de

Note that other universities may require other setups.

  1. I have created this certificate file with openssl x509 -inform PEM -outform DER -in CA.pem -out hu-ca-2024.crt using the CA.pem extracted from the eduroam setup for my PC. ↩︎

Is developing word processing software hard?

Is developing word processing software hard?

Having worked previously on voting systems, I know that some problems are hard to solve. How about developing word processing software?

Hello LibreOffice Planet!

This is my first blog post on the topic of LibreOffice. Let me quickly explain my link to LibreOffice. I work for a data protection authority in the EU and help navigate the digital transformation of our office with about 100 staff members. While many of our partner organisations adopt Microsoft 365, our office decided to pilot Nextcloud with Collabora Office Online.

In the future, I want to blog (in my personal capacity) about my thoughts related to the use of alternative word processing software in the public sector in general and in our specific case.

As there are no dedicated resources for training, preparation of templates etc., during the pilot of LibreOffice, the experience so far covers a large spectrum of user satisfaction. Generally, our staff has been spent years of their life using Microsoft Office and has the expectation that any other software works the same way. If it does not, they send an email to me (best case) or switch back to Microsoft Office.

During the week, I discussed again some smaller LibreOffice bugs. Then, I showed this weekend some FOSS Blender animated short videos to family members. It seems that Blender is more successful in its domain than LibreOffice. Is that possible? Or are animated short videos just more capturing due to their special effects? 😅

Mastodon Setup with Docker and Caddy

Mastodon Setup with Docker and Caddy

Learn how to setup a Mastodon server using Docker and Caddy. This setup comes with automated SSL.

In my previous post, we setup a Mastodon server using Docker and nginx-proxy. In this post, we use instead the web server Caddy. I’ve only discovered Caddy a week ago. The configuration of Mastodon is now even simpler and shorter. Caddy redirects traffic automatically from HTTP to HTTPS and configures HTTPS for all domains via Let’s Encryption. :rocket:

Our starting point is the docker-compose.yml shipped with the Mastodon code. Why is it not enough? It assumes you setup up proxy with HTTPS endpoints yourself. So let’s integrate this as well in Docker.

Mastodon Setup with Docker and nginx-proxy

Mastodon Setup with Docker and nginx-proxy

Learn how to setup a Mastodon server using Docker and nginx-proxy. This setup comes with automated SSL.

I have been working on a setup with Mastodon that is easy to repeat and share. A setup with very few steps. Please consider that this setup is not enough for a production environment. It requires additional security measures. Please put your recommendations in the comments! :grinning:

Our starting point is the docker-compose.yml shipped with the Mastodon code. Why is it not enough? It assumes you setup up proxy with HTTPS endpoints yourself. So let’s integrate this as well in Docker.

Consider also the compact setup with the Caddy webserver.

Orient: Life at Sea in the 21st Century

Orient: Life at Sea in the 21st Century

I’ve been for a week in December 2021 on a cruise in the Orient. So how is life on such a ship?

The Titanic could accommodate about 2500 passengers who booked either first, second or third class. Wikipedia tells that

those travelling in first class, most of them the wealthiest passengers on board, included prominent members of the upper class, businessmen, politicians, high-ranking military personnel, industrialists, bankers, entertainers, socialites, and professional athletes. Second-class passengers were predominantly middle-class travellers and included professors, authors, clergymen, and tourists. Third-class or steerage passengers were primarily immigrants moving to the United States and Canada.

Much has changed since then.

Pagination