• The Author – Bart Busschots

  

  • About
  • On Flickr
  • On YouTube
  • On Mastodon
  • On Twitter

  
  

  

  

  

  

  

• Site Search

  
  

• Site Map

  • About Bart
  • Blog
    • My Development Toolkit
    • Programming by Stealth
    • Taming the Terminal
    • Photo of the Week
    • Observer’s Log
  • Photography
  • Publications
    • Podcasts
    • Presentations
    • Software
      • HSXKPasswd – A Secure Memorable Password Generator

• Blog Categories

  • 42 (Life the Universe & Everything)
  • Computers & Tech
    • Automation
    • Security
    • Software Development
    • System Administration
  • Cooking & Food
  • History & Geography
  • My Projects
  • Photography
  • Polemics & Politics
  • Science & Astronomy

• Featured Tags

  • presentation
  • review
  • software release
  • tutorial

• Creative Commons

  Unless otherwise stated, the content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 License

  

Another week, another beta release of Crypt::HSXKPasswd. The fact that the betas are now coming quick and fast is indeed a sign that this code is getting very close to ready for a full release.

This latest series of changes came about because when I started work on a tutorial for using the command line app I realised some changes were needed to give a better user experience.

The headline changes are that you can now specify a dictionary file rather than a dictionary package name if you prefer, you can now specify arguments for the dictionary and RNG packages, and the file format for hsxkpasswdrc files has been updated to match these changes.

Finally, I’m still looking for help in the following areas:

• Native German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese speakers to sanitise the dictionary files for those languages, leaving only a few thousand common words – these dictionary files are simply too big at the moment, and they must be full of really obscure words to be this large!
• People who are good at technical writing to help me give the documentation some spit and polish. I think all the relevant information is there, and I have run it all though a spell checker, but it could definitely do with some TLC from a copy editor!

Oh, and finally finally, if you find this module useful, please consider donating with the button below – I have literally put hundreds of hours into this code in the last few months, and given it all away for free.

*Download Beta 4 of Crypt::HSXKPasswd via GitHub*

Tagged with: software release • HSXKPasswd • command-line • Perl

I’ve just released what I hope will be the last beta release before the first stable release of Crypt::HSXKPasswd. This release has some bug fixes, but is mostly focused on improvements, especially to the new command line interface.

Initially I had planned to make the previous beta the last one before the first stable release, but then I realised that the command line interface really does need support for a configuration file before it’s ready for prime-time, so this beta is focused around the addition of what I am calling hsxkpasswdrc files.

hsxkpasswdrc files allow custom presets to be stored for re-use, and for defaults to be set for many of the command line options, making it much easier to customise the command line interface’s behaviour.

By default the command line interface now looks for a hsxkpasswdrc file at ~/.hsxkpasswdrc. You can specify a different path with the new --rcfile option, and you can use the new --test-rcfile option to help you debug your hsxkpasswdrc files.

If you have an interest in this module, please install the beta and report any problems you find by opening issues on the project’s GitHub page. Or better still if you’re a developer, fixing the bug and sending me a pull request 🙂

Finally, I’m still looking for help in the following areas:

• Native German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese speakers to sanitise the dictionary files for those languages, leaving only a few thousand common words – these dictionary files are simply too big at the moment, and they must be full of really obscure words to be this large!
• People who are good at technical writing to help me give the documentation some spit and polish. I think all the relevant information is there, and I have run it all though a spell checker, but it could definitely do with some TLC from a copy editor!

Oh, and finally finally, if you find this module useful, please consider donating with the button below – I have literally put hundreds of hours into this code in the last few months, and given it all away for free.

*Download Beta 3 of Crypt::HSXKPasswd via GitHub*

Tagged with: software release • HSXKPasswd • command-line • Perl

This post is part 35 of 39 in the series Taming the Terminal

The previous instalment we introduced the HTTP protocol. In this instalment we’ll look at three terminal commands which make use of the HTTP protocol.

We’ll start by browsing from the terminal, and then move on to a pair of very similar commands for making HTTP requests from the terminal. These two commands can do many things, but we’ll focus on two specific use-cases, downloading files, and viewing HTTP headers.

Read more

Tagged with: Taming the Terminal • tutorial • Unix • Linux • command-line • OS X