duckland.org

Forgot to mention, that back on December 8th, we had a snow day in Houston.  It was pretty different for us, as we normally do not get any snow, let alone any accumulation of it.

Of course, I took some pictures.

So, my trusty Nexus 5X gave up the ghost suddenly on me.  Given that it is an Android device, I was not worried about losing things like my contacts and photos, or even my apps as Google does a pretty decent job backing those things up.

However, there was one application I use which does not get its data backed up. FreeOTP which is a One-Time-Password application for Two Factor Auth.  This allows me to have another layer of protection on web sites past my password.

Most sites which have this option will allow you to either have a list of one-time use codes to get in to reset in case something happens to your phone (like me), or will let you set it up on multiple devices, like your phone and your tablet.

Then, there are those that do niether.  And those are a pain to recover from. 🙂

Always get the list of codes (if avalible) and store then somewhere that you can access if your phone ever dies or gets lost.  And, try to set up a second device if you can.

As I mentioned a while back that I was experimenting with using a Chromebook, I decide to see how far I could take it.  On my recent trip to the UK, I only took my Acer C720 with me.  During the trip, I used it for things like uploading photos I took, Skype to chat with the family, checking email and news, and remote access while in the hotel room.

This worked out pretty well, to the point where I am trying to use it or my HP Chromebook 11 G1 full time.  While I can get lots of things done in a browser now days, there are some things I find my self sshing back to another box to do.  So, I decided to see if I could do that on the Chromebooks.

The ‘normal’ way is to install Linux into a chroot using something call Courton. I have done that in the past, but the work flow is not something I can adapt to easily as it involves more than a simple key combo to switch between.

I found a project called “Chromebrew” in the vein of “Homebrew” for MacOS.  Setup is pretty simple as I had turned on Developers mode on my boxes a long time ago, so it was a matter of downloading a script, reading it, and then running it.

From there, I used the crew command to install some basic tools (git, vim, & python), and I can now do 90% or more of my day-to-day work on the Chromebooks.

The only thing that I have not figured out yet is a decent VPN solution, but I am working on that.

I suppose at some point, I will upgrade one of the Chromebooks to one of the newer generation which can run Android apps as well.