Wildnet.com - Systems under the skin of TKL

Recent Work with a VPN router

Sometimes a small project is not so small. For some reason my Odoo Server does not pass through my Comcast Home system at all well. Solution was to put a dedicated PC into my office... but, I didn't want to just have RDC available for all comers (who sure came fast).

I remembered that I had a VPN equipped router. I won't say the model. Anywy, the company who made it was aquired and the aquiring company, as they are want to do, killed most support links about the router. Turns out there were several other routers that used the same software for access, and yes, I got it too work. Honestly, I think it is just a small step in security, not a big one.

In the end I was able to get the correct VPN client by simply downloading the off of a link to a later, still supported router from the company. The client is no where as nice as OPENVPN for granularity, but it does work.

I also found that "NOIP" (https://noip.com) provides a functional way to address a dynamically assigned IP address. There are a few other ways but this was the most direct and within the budget.

Things are working for now despite the EOL from the router builders new owner.

I had mentioned in the earlier version of this post that it might be interesting to rewirte the firmware to the Router, and get it working as a OPENVPN router. That remains interesting but likely easier to do that with some other hardware and software.

EOL is one of the LEAST SUSTAINABLE parts of IT and I do not like the planned obsolesence which rules the industry.

Systems under the skin of TKL

Dissecting and understanding a build process is complicated. It is very nice to be able to look under the skin from time to tim.

At present I am needing to adjust approaches as past ways of adapting have been left by the road (not by me). Studying a bit about what takes place in alternative builds that I may adapt to is an approach that I need to take.

Turnkeylinux is built from 2 sets os structures. What goes out, their "apps" are prebuilt systems.
Inside of each app though are many and various components.

https://github.com/turnkeylinux-apps/

https://github.com/turnkeylinux/fab (the component sets)

consists of 68 Repositories at present, including...

https://github.com/turnkeylinux/fab

https://github.com/turnkeylinux/buildtasks

https://github.com/turnkeylinux/inithooks

https://github.com/turnkeylinux/buildroot

https://github.com/turnkeylinux/turnkey-paths

and many more.

TKLDEV is a good way to start to understand the process as TKLDEV will build new APPS and the process can be tracked. Still following it is complicated.

This is left here as a study note to come back to.

A good entry point to Turnkeylinux is of on their "Help Sought" page"

Magento Sunset

I have been running Magento since about 2012 with 1.3x in my memory bank. Up to 1.9x now and really just using Magento as a repository now.

Magento 2.x (2.3x to be precise) is here. It does not work, at present, with this CMS system so I have a linkage taking place through Filemaker from J2Store to Magento and by extension to Odoo.

I will quite likely just take the Magento system down. It will not be supported with updates after this coming June and the time investment of getting 2.x running and keeping it running does not seem available just now). We will see.

Anyway, for now, I am going to start redirecting the URL's to land into this system. Lets see what a pain that becomes. Likely worth the effort but also perhaps now.

Sad, but Magento was aquired by Adobe and like Odoo, they are making it more and more difficult to use it as a Open Source software. Not that either are impossible, but the reigns are steering the team towards privation.

Somewhat the nature of things these days I will say.

All good software, just a bit too time intensive.

Magento - Odoo - OCA Connector

This is a very functional system which brings the ability to work the "backend" of Magento by actually building and purchasing items you sell,

Functionally you get all of the aspects of Odoo, including CRM, Product Management and more
You also get the great E-Commerce capabilities of Magento, and its increditble extensability.

(to do: more detail)

Organizing your culled information stream

It is tremendously complicated these days keeping track of what you are learning.

As an example, I am diving into the realm of dropping pre-built Drive Images into Cloud Instances. I need to keep track of the difference between a bzip2 and tar file, and how to decompress them. Very nice people have commented their answers in various places. Answers like:

bzip2 -d filename.bz2

tar cvjf myfile.tar.bz *.txt

Certainly there are many more of these as well. I likely have 20 Tabs open talking about all the various approaches, but that is not the point now.

The point now is simply, how to "keep track" and if possible, how to perhaps help other people in similar quests.

3 Basic Elements I am finding useful:

Bookmark Organizing
1. "Bookmark Manager and Viewer" a Chrome Extension is particularly valuable. It takes a bit to get used to with one or two foibles, but nothing better that I have found. Use this in conjunction with Chromes Bookmarking (they have the same icon) and spread them out so you know which one you are using.
2. "Tabs Outliner" also a Chrome Extension lets you explore and tab to your hearts content. You can close whole windows and keep track of the tabs. Ideally you will move from here to your actual bookmarks, but with this you can see what you have been searching for, reading up upon and in many ways also reflect on what is important
Durable Checklists
1. Honestly, I am still looking for the ideal version here, but what I do know is that Outlines go a long way. Lets go there
Outlines and Outliners
1. Now discontinued Bonsai is very good. Very Very Good
2. Android Outliner is VERY VERY VERY GOOD (number 1 really except that I work in Bonsai more)
3. Workflowy is the best web outliner I have found so far

There are others. They all deserve attention, but the point is not the program but the work.

Nothing is perfect and no integrations, yet, are perfect. I do also use

Simple Mind for Outlining and Mind Mapping .
Odoo to keep track of issues and many other details.
Evernote.. must have
Dropbox, for me anyway, must Have

All are also excellent programs:

Like threads in a spider web though, you need to have your own system of reference to keep them together. Things are getting better, but, there is still you in the middle.

Getting things done.. a book and a mantra. The program did not work very well unfortunately (may have had another name - written for PC Tablet computers in about 2005 ?). It should have worked better. The concept was incredible. It just had big, in fact large and untenable, memory leaks.

Systems under the skin of TKL

Wildnet Blog Accordion

Recent Work with a VPN router

Recent Work with a VPN router

Systems under the skin of TKL

Systems under the skin of TKL

Magento Sunset

Magento Sunset

Magento - Odoo - OCA Connector

Magento - Odoo - OCA Connector

Organizing your culled information stream

Organizing your culled information stream

Login - Logout

Domain Links