Blogs

14 Jul 2015

Reviving ownCloud Bookmarks

Submitted by blizzz
ownCloud Bookmarks

Upfront, In case you did not get the news: last week we released ownCloud 8.1, despite the version number a major release!

Now I could spent a week to follow a pet project. I picked to revive ownCloud Bookmarks, which was launched years ago also by me. I passed on maintainership quite a while ago, but recently it was a little bit abandoned. This is my invitation to you users and develepors interested in ownCloud Bookmarks, to pick it up and work together on it. Especially to make it move forward, and ideally to find more co-maintainers. Check out the Bookmarks Github repo!

16 Jun 2015

Update/Info: I continue my work at Nextcloud. /Update

With ownCloud it is possible to connect to one or more LDAP instances so existing users are able to login with their passwords and have email and pictures imported. However, if a somewhat bigger directory is in use, an improvable performance might be faced in some scenarios. Typically the first look at the Users page after configuring an LDAP connection can make the admin wait quite a while. Obscure rumours claim that this delay is sponsored by the coffee industry.

12 Jun 2015
<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banaue_Philippines_Handmade-brooms-01.jpg">Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / CC-BY-SA-3.0</a>

When a user account has been deleted, ownCloud will clean up after it. Files, group memberships and preferences are cleared and a notification is send to apps so they can clean up on their end. However, an LDAP user account cannot be deleted, since ownCloud does not write to the directory. Of course, an account can be deleted on the LDAP server. Unfortunately, we are not being informed about this and so data from LDAP users was kept around even when their accounts were long gone.

We needed to think of a way how to get rid of unwanted remains. And we did, and we implemented it, an this is how it works.

24 Jul 2014
Currently I am enjoying my summer vacation. Vacation is when you do non-stop activities that make fun, no matter whether this is more relaxing or challenging, and usually in another place. So I am going to take the opportunity to visit Kazan, and furthermore I am taking the other opportunity and will give an ownCloud talk (btw, did you hear, ownCloud 7 was released?) at the local hackerspace, FOSS Labs. Due to my lack of Russian I will stick to English, however ;) So, if you are there and interested in ownCloud please save the date: Monday, July 28th, 18:00 FOSS Labs Universitetskaya 22, of. 114 420111 Kazan, Russia
25 Apr 2014

In about a week we release version 6.0.3 of ownCloud Community Edition! It is a maintenance release that includes nearly two months of improvements (including performance improvements) and some fixes. I want to use this opportunity to shed some light on the fixes the LDAP back-end has seen.

There are no big things, however, but the performance improvements in sharing related methods and in the configuration wizard will significantly enhance the experience for end users and admins. The following list is not a complete one, but addresses the most notable changes.

14 Apr 2014
YouTube delivers video with RC4 only

Since recently, Google delivers its YouTube videos using the weak RC4 cipher. There are rumours that the NSA can break RC4 in real time, so it is recommended to disable this cipher in your browser, if you want to play safe. However, when you disable RC4, you cannot watch YouTube anymore.

Why does YouTube insist on RC? Is it better than without transport encryption? Is it just temporarily? And how can I still the videos without re-enabling RC4?

14 Feb 2014
I would like to take the opportunity of this special day to express how much the influence of Free Software to my life is. Back in 2005 I started to use Linux and because I had no clue I looked for support in the German-language Kubuntu community. This is how I jumped into and got an idea about Free Software. Kubuntu and the people were fun, after some time I was able to give support and not only take it. I helped out with other things, started to attend conferences (usually also in combination with a Kubuntu community booth). I met amazing people who became really really good friends.
13 Feb 2014

Blog Refurbished

Submitted by blizzz
Finally, finally, I found the time (spread over several months) to refurbish my blog. Not that it took so long, but spare time is rare these days. I decided to stick with Drupal and created a fresh and clean installation of 7 to replace the old Drupal 6. Now Drupal is somewhat overkill for a simple blog, but I the alternatives did not convince me for various reasons.

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