Overview of the decentralised Hubzilla Social Network
Hubzilla is maybe the most secure tool for a community, its nomadic identity let you free and don’t depend on an url or a server. Your account can follow you where you want.
What is the best Instant Messengers
Today in 2021 everybody use Whatsapp. It create a vendor lock-in. It means the ability to switch service is too hard because it requires convincing every contact to move to a new service.
When Whatsapp announce they will change the condition to use their service many people start trying orther application. What is the best according to the Free Software foundation
We recommend you to choose any federated system or peer-to-peer messenger according to your use-case so that you get full control of your communications, freedom and privacy. It is very important to reject proprietary services like WhatsApp which takes freedom away from the user. FSF India, FSCI or other volunteer-run organization in India would be glad to extend support to anyone needing more details on undergoing such a shift.
Many people start using Signal or Telegram some Matrix. Is it the good choise ?
Telegram is better than Whatsapp. Signal is better than Telegram. Xmpp is better than Signal. Matrix is better than xmpp. Tox or Briar or jami is better than Matrix.
WhatsApp app is a non-free software which does not respect user’s freedom and privacy. WhatsApp does not provide its users the access to its source code and actively bans anyone creating a Free Software app that can connect to WhatsApp service. They claim their app provides end-to-end encryption, but we cannot verify if they actually implemented end-to-end encryption without any backdoors (access of app remotely without user’s permission) or loopholes. Being non-free app is enough to reject WhatsApp so we are not going to talk about other bad things about WhatsApp.
There are three broad categories of messaging systems with Free Software apps – Centralized services, Federated services and Peer-to-Peer systems.
A. Centralized services
A centralized service is one in which every one is forced to use the same provider. Setups such as this has many disadvantages such as vendor lock-in, being more susceptible to back-doors by government, the whole world getting dependent on a single organization for their communications. Centralized services also have a single point of failure.
- Telegram Compared to WhatsApp, Telegram provides Free Software app which means end-to-end encryption can be verified to be working as claimed. Free software app is often not enough to provide full control over your communications. For example, Telegram’s apps (Android, desktop, iOS) are free software but still the service is centralized like WhatsApp. So only Telegram’s app respects your freedom but not the service.
There is no end-to-end encryption by default in Telegram and messages in groups are not encrypted.
Needs phone number for signing up.
Signal Signal app is Free Software like Telegram, and in comparison to Telegram it offers server software also as Free Software which makes it better than Telegram.End to end encryption is enabled by default and groups chats are also encrypted. Even though you are allowed to setup Signal service yourself, the users of your service will not be able to talk to users of official Signal server, making it practically a vendor lock-in.
Needs phone number for signing up.
Summary: Signal is better than WhatsApp and Telegram.
B. Federated services
A federated system is a collection of independent service providers which can communicate with each other. Federation is important to take full control of your communications. You can choose a trusted provider or be a service provider yourself. No single entity can force their terms on users. Examples of federated systems are mobile phones, emails, matrix , XMPP etc. For example, you can buy a SIM card from any mobile service provider and talk or send SMS to subscribers of other providers.
XMPP : XMPP is good because you can communicate with the whole xmpp system. You need to find a provide. XMPP host
Matrix Matrix is like xmpp. You have to find a provider and it is better with audio or video phone. But it is not widely used yet
C. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems
Peer-to-peer instant messengers can talk directly without requiring any servers. Examples are Briar, Tox and GNU Jami, etc. The messages are end-to-encrypted and are stored only locally in the devices since there are no servers involved. There are no servers that could intercept your communications, so it gives you the ultimate privacy and freedom. To exchange messages, both peers need to be online, which might be a bit inconvenient.
How to comment a pixelfed photo from your mastodon account
If you have a mastodon account, you probably know that you are using a powerfull and amazing tool because you can communicate with all mastodon instances. But there is more…
You are able to communicate with the whole Fediverse. You can follow peertube video channel, communicate with pixelfed contacts or even comment wordpress post all from your Mastodon account.
If you have other kind of tool, pleroma, hubzilla or other that works the same way.
Pixelfed is an photosharing tool like instagram. You can publish photos and share it. It is federated that means that all the fediverse can follow, comment or like.
Now I will show you how to comment a photo from Pixelfed without Pixelfed account simply from your mastodon account.
I have a mastodon account @kris and a pixelfed account kris@/pixfed.com (you note the same kind of address similar than email). Each account have 2 kinds of address
- url : https://theres.life/@kris
- ID : kris@theres.life (mastodon need @ before then @kris@theres.life)
Now I want to comment a nice photo I saw on the album.
Now I will show you how to comment this picture in 4 steps.
- Copy the url of the picture (CTRL + C)
- Past the url in the search box (CTRL + V)
- Click comment button
- write your comment then validate it.
1.Copy the url of the picture
2. Past the url in the search box
3. Click comment button
4. write your comment then validate it.
Now I have a question : How to reshare or boots a pixelfed photo on your mastodon account? You can reply on a comment here.
Second question : How to show you like a picture?
If you don’t have any Mastodon account you can register it on a public instance. Here is a list of public open instance.
How to use Hubzilla as a CMS
Hubzilla is a tools that do many things. It is a social network, a collaborative plateform, a calendar, a cloud storage, a wiki and a CMS.
But creating webpage with Hubzilla is not easy. Here is a tutorial : Creating Website with Hubzilla
Here is an example of what we can do
Jim Perry the projet leader of CodeIgniter is dead
For the last few months our project lead, Jim, has been struggling with lung cancer. He was undergoing treatment. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. A few days ago he passed away in his sleep.
Turns out Jim’s birthday was February 24th. We would like to shoot for that date for a final release of 4.0.
CodeIgniter is a Framework with a small footprint with an Exceptional performance, nearly zero configuration. and Strong Security. The power of CodeIgniter is not only the code but its comunity who is really Great.
Jim Perry Linkedin he was a retired instructor at British Columbia, Canada
HP LaserJet M1120n MPF
On my Kubuntu system, my printer is not working anymore. Linux is a very good operating system but the hardware is often a problem. We should have IT skill to make it working.
This All in One offers 600×600 dpi resolution with 30 pages per minute (ppm) for black text and 23 ppm for color printouts. This printer offers printing, scanning and copying functions.That let you preview and print without a PC and using a memory card. It also comes with the features like scan reso
This is a good Laser printer with a scanner. You can use it like a photocopy machine and it have RJ45 plug. You can use it in the network.
I need to install hplip then download hplip-3.12.9.run
apt-get install libcups2-dev libusb-1.0.0-dev libcupsimage2-dev libsnmp-dev libdbus-1-dev libsane-dev
sh hplip-3.12.9.run
How to move a multisite wordpress to a single side wordpress ?
This blog needs to be moved. He is presently hosted in an american webhost Dreamhost. This host is nice. You can have lot of web space. But sometimes workpress needs more power or the delay between Europe and USA suck.
So I decided to move it to OVH.
The limit of my OVHh host is the database. I only have one database and it is limited to 200Mega. I can put many domains so if you use many wordpress on one database prefix is needed. As I installed wordress with default prefix how to process.
Before doing the move work. I should know how to do it.
1. rename the tables manualy.
Rename table wp_commentmeta to new_commentmeta; Rename table wp_comments to new_comments; Rename table wp_links to wplabo_links; Rename table wp_options to new_options; Rename table wp_postmeta to new_postmeta; Rename table wp_posts to new_posts; Rename table wp_termmeta to new_termmeta; Rename table wp_terms to new_terms; Rename table wp_term_relationships to new_term_relationships; Rename table wp_term_taxonomy to new_term_taxonomy; Rename table wp_usermeta to new_usermeta; Rename table wp_users to new_users;
2. manual change in table wp_options and wp_usermata
search in wp_option the value user_roles in the field options_name
SELECT * FROM `kris_options` WHERE `option_name` LIKE '%user_roles%'
and change the prefix like new_user_roles
By ftp copy all sources in a local directory.
4. copy the sources to the new site
5. Change the wp_config
define('DB_NAME', '...');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', '...');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', '...');
/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', '...');
...
$table_prefix = 'new_';
After transfering the new wp_config by ftp. Your new site should be working on your new host.
How to add youtube video in interpals
You can add embeded youtube video in interpals message or content. I will explain you step by step how to do it.
1. Select the url of the video. just copy past the address for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObWGpe1ff8&feature=related
2. Identify the youtube code. The youtube code is in red
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObWGpe1ff8&feature=related
3. here select WObWGpe1ff8
4. Then put the code [youtube]WObWGpe1ff8[/youtube]
You have an option : click the youtube button
Then past the code like this
click OK and it is done
Hubzilla my experience
Hubzilla is a powerful platform for creating interconnected websites featuring a decentralized identity, communications, and permissions framework built using common webserver technology. It could be an alternative as facebook, twitter or other services taken by big companies.
Finding a hub
That is not as easy. You have many hubs but many are outdated or don’t accept open registration
What the hub can do ?
As soon you find a hub where you can registrare an account you discover what the hub can do and what the hub cannot do. But the list of feature (activated plugin and feature) is not listed in a human reading. Exemple is the ostatus plugin activated or not. I cannot activated why ? Haaa that hub does not allow it. —> grrr I have to find an other hub and start at the begining.
Social ?
Hubzilla is a powerfull tool but it is a social tool. You expect communities or at least a community. But untill now the community is only hubzilla community. Where are people ? The community is small and not growing…. That dimension is missing. Hubzilla is only a tool not a community.
New users are not comfortable
I just notice that new user don’t stay. They try, open an account a channel and don’t use it. Why ? That would be interesting to try to answer that question. We could respond. Hubzilla is powerfull, it is a revolutionary tools, you are anomyme and privacy is really in the core etc. etc.. but the fast is new user are not able to dive into it and use it for a real use.
Slow
My user experience in hubzilla is that it is often slow. I am waiting often after clicking somewhere.
Double configuration
Often the admin should activate or parameter a plugin and the member should do the same. We need double configuration. If either the member or the admin don’t do it. It will not work. Even admin is not able to configurate plugin for member. That level of complexity is something like a weekness of course we also can see that like a strongness.
Simplicity should be the target.
How to make something complicated simple ? I hope the level of simplicity sill be the target for hubzilla.
Hubzilla is changing quicky and improvements are frequent. That is my hope. I am sure improvement will lead into the right direction. (simplicity)
How to integrate Recaptcha in Prestashop in 3 steps
Prestashop is one of the most used ecommerce on the internet BUT the contact form has no protection again the spam. Of course you can buy an additional plugin but I will explain how to integrate a spam protection without paying. You have to create and configure an account, change 2 sources. You can make it in 30 mn or less.
Here is a howto step by step for prestashop 1.6 (I don’t know about prestashop 1.7 but I imagine it should be similar).
1 Setup your Google reCAPTCHA if you don’t have it
https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html
Note the key and the secret key
You have to configure it and put your domain name.
2 Change the contact-form.tpl
First you have to change the contact form (client side) contact-form.tpl should be in your theme. Open an editor and search the submit botton
For me it is like that
<div class="submit">
<button type="submit" name="submitMessage" id="submitMessage" class="button"><span>{l s='Send'}<i class="icon-chevron-right right"></i></span></button>
</div>
</form>
Just above add few lines of code. Replace key by your key
<script src='https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js'></script> <div class="g-recaptcha" data-sitekey="key"></div>
That should look like that
<div>
<script src='https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js'></script>
<div class="g-recaptcha" data-sitekey="key"></div>
</div>
<div class="submit">
<button type="submit" name="submitMessage" id="submitMessage" class="button"><span>
{l s='Send'}
<i class="icon-chevron-right right"></i></span>
</button>
</div>
</form>
3 Change ContactControler.php
If you don’t have this source in override\controllers\front copy it from controllers\front
Then you have to add few lines to check if the captcha is ok or not
search the postProcess() function it should be at the begining (2nd function) and add
if (Tools::isSubmit('submitMessage')) {
$extension = array('.txt', '.rtf', '.doc', '.docx', '.pdf', '.zip', '.png', '.jpeg', '.gif', '.jpg');
$file_attachment = Tools::fileAttachment('fileUpload');
$message = Tools::getValue('message'); // Html entities is not usefull, iscleanHtml check there is no bad html tags.
$id_order = (int)$this->getOrder();
if (!($from = trim(Tools::getValue('from'))) || !Validate::isEmail($from)) {
$this->errors[] = Tools::displayError('Invalid email address.');
// add the 2 lines from here
} elseif (!($gcaptcha = (int)(Tools::getValue('g-recaptcha-response')))) {
$this->errors[] = Tools::displayError('Captcha error');
// to here