Posts

I first put '#' before 'rm -rf'

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 I always put a '#' before a 'rm -rf' before clearing out old backups. I think a bit and then remove the '#' and then run the command. I once ran '/bin/rm -rf' as the user 'root' and deleted lots of files I wanted.  I even deleted the '/etc/passwd' file and got the famous 'you do not exist' error. I work as the user 'root' because my 'X Windows' system needs this. This is because I upgraded my Linux system myself 'from scratch' and did it slightly wrong.   I get a smiley '(:0)' next to my 'root' user's 'pseudo-terminal' when I run 'who' to show who is logged on

Bug from using old version of Chrome's Lighthouse

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 Warnings from Chrome's Lighthouse turned out to be bugs from using an old version of Chrome used for Windows7. Lighthouse said: 'heading elements are not in a sequentially-descending order'. I can get round this by using the 'Lighthouse' option at 'webpagetest.org'. Or I can go to a neighbouring libary that runs Windows10 and the latest Chrome

Adapting a 'codepen' icon made with CSS

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 I adapted a 'codepen' icon made with CSS made of rectangles made with 'clip-path', with the sides rotated to form a cube. Some of the sides are moved to the front with 'translateZ'. I colored the sides to see how it works:     'codepen.io/Bert-Beckwith/pen/jENyyaK' This is a different way of making a cube. Another way is to rotate 'div' elements. Maybe there is a bug with Chrome: sometimes the sides of the cube disappear if I change the background color of their container. The sides reappear if I click the icon. I tried reflowing the cube, adding 'z-index' and adding '!important' but these did not fix the bug. It is best to use SVG's for icons but I learn about CSS and my old browser does not show SVG's in HTML pages.

Using 'cp -pR' rather than 'cp -a' when making a backup

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 I changed from using 'cp -a' to 'cp -pR' when making a backup of the directories I use most. The 'cp -a' command gave an error because a symbolic link could not be created on the FAT file system of the memory-stick that was the destination of the copy. So I removed the '-d' (no dereference) part of the '-a' option and now 'cp' copies all the files that the symbolic link references. On second thoughts, maybe 'cp -a' is better because it means I do not get duplicate files. There are more tips at: bbingo.xyz/techtips/    

Problems loading pages and with FTP with my hosting provider

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 For about 2 months, images were sometimes not loaded into my pages when served by my hosting provider 'Hostinger'. Sometimes Chrome could not load a page at first but then found it. Sometimes I also got errors transferring files with 'FTP'. I could not do a backup with 'FTP' because of these errors. Maybe I should not complain as I chose a very good value 4-year deal when I moved my website from the free '000webhost' to Hostinger. Inflation since has made the deal seem even better. So I get 'Hostinger' to generate a backup every week and download it. It is one big 'gzipped' 'tar' file. I request the backup in the middle of the week as Hostinger says the backup takes a few hours to prepare.  I download the backup at the end of the week.  The download takes only a few minutes. I checked this download file. However, Hostinger says there were some problems with their backups. I tried using the web-based 'file manager' provide...

Cannot install a Progressive Web App with Firefox

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 I cannot install a Progressive Web App (PWA) with Firefox on Windows. It seems Firefox on the desktop removed support for installing PWA's. Maybe this feature was broken and Mozilla did not want to spend time on it. There is an unofficial 'extension' to Firefox that lets you Firefox with a PWA. In February 2024, Apple said it would not support PWA in the Ruropean Union. Apple changed its mind perhaps after developers complained. Maybe this was part of a dispute between Apple and the European regulators.  There are more tips at:  bbingo.xyz/techtips/

My JavaScript game is too big for free web-hosting

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 My JavaScript game is too big for 'freehostingeu.com'. There seems to be a limit of 2 megabytes. I use 'freehostingeu.com' as a sort of backup website. My game is about 4 megabytes. I am manually 'minimising' it at the moment with shell and Perl scripts in addition to 'UglifyJS'.  But I will not be able to get it to be under 2 megabtyes. I did split the JavaScript in my game into two for the 'InfinityFree' hosting site a year or two ago. This site has a lower limit of 1 megabtyes. I should have developed my game as lots of separate JavaScript and CSS files.  But having one 'monolithic' file made things a lot easier to start with    There are more tips at:  bbingo.xyz/techtips/