China blocks git, so we need to use mirrors for brew.sh install
Tsinghua and Aliyun both host mirrors. Aliyun seems faster, so we will use that below.

USTC Mirror – https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/help/brew.git.html
Aliyun Mirror – https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/

#install brew from ustc
/bin/bash -c “$(curl -fsSL https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/misc/brew-install.sh)”

#install tap for brew cask upgrade mirror
brew tap –custom-remote –force-auto-update buo/cask-upgrade https://gitcode.com/gh_mirrors/ho/homebrew-cask-upgrade/

#set aliyun mirror for brew and update
export HOMEBREW_INSTALL_FROM_API=1
export HOMEBREW_API_DOMAIN=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew-bottles/api”
export HOMEBREW_BREW_GIT_REMOTE=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/brew.git”
export HOMEBREW_CORE_GIT_REMOTE=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/homebrew-core.git”
export HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/homebrew-bottles”
brew update

#alternately use ustc
export HOMEBREW_BREW_GIT_REMOTE=”https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/brew.git”
export HOMEBREW_CORE_GIT_REMOTE=”https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/homebrew-core.git”
export HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN=”https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/homebrew-bottles”
export HOMEBREW_API_DOMAIN=”https://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/homebrew-bottles/api”
brew update

#add aliyun mirror permanently into zsh
echo ‘export HOMEBREW_INSTALL_FROM_API=1’ >> ~/.zshrc
echo ‘export HOMEBREW_API_DOMAIN=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew-bottles/api”‘ >> ~/.zshrc
echo ‘export HOMEBREW_BREW_GIT_REMOTE=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/brew.git”‘ >> ~/.zshrc
echo ‘export HOMEBREW_CORE_GIT_REMOTE=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/homebrew-core.git”‘ >> ~/.zshrc
echo ‘export HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN=”https://mirrors.aliyun.com/homebrew/homebrew-bottles”‘ >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

#update brew, casks
brew update; brew upgrade; brew cu -af;

Journalctl keeps logs on the servers for systemd.
The default settings can lead to too much disk space use. Logs are good to have, but the default settings are unlimited, and if you do not watch out they can get up to gigabytes in size. A more reasonable default is 100M, as this will still allow you to debug any non-running systemd scripts and not take up too much valuable disk space.

To reduce journalctl disk usage, we can clean up the un-needed logs, and optionally reduce the disk space needed to keep logs.

To Show disk usage:

journalctl --disk-usage

To clean up disk usage (to 100M in size):

journalctl --vacuum-size=100M

To make this the default for future, we can edit the systemd journald settings and set the logs to a more reasonable size.:

pico /etc/systemd/journald.conf

//Uncomment the SystemMaxUse line and set to 100M
SystemMaxUse=100M

//Save and exit CTRL O, CTRL X, Enter to save

//Finally restart systemd
systemctl restart systemd-journald

Note: Logs can be seen by checking one of the running services. These usually sit in /etc/systemd/system or /etc/systemd/user.
e.g. to check php 8.3 fpm service logs

journalctl -xeu php8.3-fpm.service

As I can never find this online, and man -l /var/qmail/man/man8/qmail-dkim.8 is a pain, I’ve posted the DKIM settings below.

—

The complete set of letters with the corresponding return status is given below

A – DKIM_SUCCESS – Function executed successfully
B – DKIM_FINISHED_BODY – process result: no more message
body is needed
C – DKIM_PARTIAL_SUCCESS – verify result: at least one
but not all signatures verified
D – DKIM_NEUTRAL – verify result: no signatures
verified but message is
not suspicious
E – DKIM_SUCCESS_BUT_EXTRA – signature result: signature
verified but it did not
include all of the body
F – DKIM_3PS_SIGNATURE – 3rd-party signature
G – DKIM_FAIL – Function failed to execute
H – DKIM_BAD_SYNTAX – signature error: DKIM-Signature
could not parse or has bad
tags/values
I – DKIM_SIGNATURE_BAD – signature error: RSA verify
failed
J – DKIM_SIGNATURE_BAD_BUT_TESTING – signature error: RSA verify
failed but testing
K – DKIM_SIGNATURE_EXPIRED – signature error: x= is old
L – DKIM_SELECTOR_INVALID – signature error: selector doesn’t
parse or contains invalid values
M – DKIM_SELECTOR_GRANULARITY_MISMATCH – signature error: selector
g= doesn’t match i=
N – DKIM_SELECTOR_KEY_REVOKED – signature error: selector
p= empty
O – DKIM_SELECTOR_DOMAIN_NAME_TOO_LONG – signature error: selector domain
name too long to request
P – DKIM_SELECTOR_DNS_TEMP_FAILURE – signature error: temporary dns
failure requesting selector
Q – DKIM_SELECTOR_DNS_PERM_FAILURE – signature error: permanent dns
failure requesting selector
R – DKIM_SELECTOR_PUBLIC_KEY_INVALID – signature error: selector
p= value invalid or wrong format
S – DKIM_NO_SIGNATURES – no signatures
T – DKIM_NO_VALID_SIGNATURES – no valid signatures
U – DKIM_BODY_HASH_MISMATCH – sigature verify error: message
body does not hash to bh value
V – DKIM_SELECTOR_ALGORITHM_MISMATCH – signature error: selector
h= doesn’t match signature a=
W – DKIM_STAT_INCOMPAT – signature error: incompatible v=
X – DKIM_UNSIGNED_FROM – signature error: not all message’s
From headers in signature

For example, if you want to permanently reject messages that have a signature that is expired, include the letter ‘K’ in the DKIMVERIFY environment variable. A conservative set of letters is FGHIKLMNOQR‐
TUVWjp. Reject permanently 3PS, FAILURE, SYNTAX, SIGNATURE_BAD, SIGNATURE_EXPIRED, SELECTOR_INVALID, GRANULARITY_MISMATCH, SELECTOR_KEY_REVOKED, DOMAIN_NAME_TOO_LONG, SELECTOR_PUBLIC_KEY_INVALID,
NO_VALID_SIGNATURES and BODY_HASH_MISMATCH errors, and temporarily SIGNATURE_BAD_BUT_TESTING and DNS_TEMP_FAILURE . Add in S if you want to reject messages that do not have a DKIM signature. You can use
the control files signaturedomains and nosignature domains (See Below) to further fine tune the action to be taken when a mail arrives with no DKIM signature. Note that qmail-dkim always inserts the
DKIM-Status header, so that messages can be rejected later at delivery time, or in the mail reader. In that case you may set DKIMVERIFY to an empty string. If you want to check all message’s From header
in signature set the UNSIGNED_FROM environment variable to an empty string. If you want to check messages without signed subject header, set UNSIGNED_SUBJECT environment variable. If you want to honor
body lengh tag (l=), set HONOR_BODYLENGTHTAG environment variable.

qmail-dkim supports signing practice which can be additonall checked when a signature verifcation fails –

SSP – Sender Signing Practice

and

ADSP – Author Domain Signing Practice.

When a signature fails to verify for a message, you can use SSP/ADSP to determine if the message is suspicious or not. To verify a message against SSP/ADSP, set the DKIMPRACTICE environment variable to
the desired set of letters allowed for DKIMVERIFY environment variable. SSP/ADSP should be used only when signature verification fails. SSP/ADSP should be invoked only when libdkim returns the error
codes (F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X) for signature verification. In case you want to test against SSP/ADSP only for DKIM_NO_SIGNATURE and DKIM_NO_VALID_SIGNATURE set the environment variable DKIM‐
PRACTICE=”ST”. If you want automatic behaviour, set DKIMPRACTICE to an empty string. In this case ADSP/SSP will be used when return code matches “FGHIJKLMNPQRSTUVWX”. qmail-dkim uses ADSP as the default
signing practice. You can override this by setting the SIGN_PRACTICE to ssp, adsp, local (lowercase). if you set SIGN_PRACTICE to local, qmail-dkim will check the domain against the control file signa‐
turedomains (See Below). If the domain is found listed in signaturedomains qmail-dkim will bypass ADSP/SSP and return DKIM_FAIL if signature fails to verify. Setting SIGN_PRACTICE to anything else will
cause qmail-dkim to disable Signing Practice.

If you’ve, uh, patched an App for whatever reason, Catalina can be a bit whiny about it, and tell you the app is damaged and can’t be used.

Simple fix

xattr -cr /Applications/DamagedAppName.app

Usual Caveats – only do this if you’ve modified the App yourself.

If you’ve been running a beta, or if Apple update is just confuzzled 🙂 this may help.

I was getting an error trying to update to the final version of Catalina – “The requested version of Mac OS is not Available”. Installing and removing the beta profile didn’t help.

If you have this issue, you can reset the Software Update Catalog to defaults by doing the following in terminal:

• sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL
• defaults delete com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL
• softwareupdate --clear-catalog

  
  

The last one will warn about being deprecated, but still works.
Check software update again, and you should be able to download updates again.

Have issues with slow loading times for right click, open with menu on OSX?

Copy and paste the below to resolve –

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -r -f -v -domain local -domain user -domain system

Ignore any errors, as it re-removes and re-registers registered context menu’s – once completed, right click menu’s will be back to their fast speed.

I bought a Phicomm R1 Speaker for 150RMB delivered, its supposed to have Wifi and a config app, but the App registration is apparently broken.

The Phicomm R1 speaker has Android installed, unfortunately the configuration app for the speaker is no longer working as noted, so you can only use Bluetooth unless you hack it (Bluetooth is available via a triple press of the top button).

For some crazy reason, the speaker has a fairly decent cpu, and is running Android (albeit without a display, which is annoying, but not completely unfixable); we can connect via adb.

Download adb tools here – https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/ and stick in your path.

Set the speaker to Wifi (long press of the top button), and connect to the Phicomm_R1_xxx network.

Mine setup a network on 192.168.43.0/24, with a gateway of 192.168.43.1

adb connect 192.168.43.1:5555

adb shell ls -al

drwxr-xr-x root     root              2016-01-21 16:50 acct

lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2016-01-21 16:50 bcm4329_cybertan.hcd -> /etc/bluez/bcm432x/BCM4329B1_002.002.023.0389.0000_Cybertan-Foxconn_Cls2_extLNA_EDRmaxInputLev+PeakDEVM_NT.hcd

…

-rw-r--r-- root     root       148936 1970-01-01 08:00 rk30xxnand_ko.ko.3.10.0

drwx------ root     root              2018-04-28 10:50 root

-rw-r--r-- root     root       252134 1970-01-01 08:00 vcodec_service.ko

lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2016-01-21 16:50 vendor -> /system/vendor

Yup, that worked!

Ok, so we can see the thing at least! Lets get some screen viewing software installed. I’m on OSX, so its a simple brew install..

This seems to work reasonably well – https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy

brew install scrcpy

#load ADB first as above on the default unconfigured wifi ip
adb connect 192.168.43.1:5555
scrscpy

You should now be able to see the device display, and the internal app called Pandora. The pandora app is a rather useless one – it basically doesn’t work. So ignore..
We need to install other tools.

#allow any app install
adb shell settings put secure install_non_market_apps 1

Next up, configure wifi on the thing!

#install adb wifi tool
wget https://github.com/steinwurf/adb-join-wifi/releases/download/1.0.1/adb-join-wifi.apk
adb push adb-join-wifi.apk /data/local/tmp/adb-join-wifi.apk
adb shell /system/bin/pm install -t /data/local/tmp/adb-join-wifi.apk

#change YOURSSID, and YOURWIFIPASS as appropriate..
adb shell am start -n com.steinwurf.adbjoinwifi/com.steinwurf.adbjoinwifi.MainActivity -e password_type WPA -e ssid YOURSSID -e password YOURWIFIPASS

It will hopefully setup the wifi. You’ll need to wait for it to ‘timeout’ and tell you wifi setting failed; it will then connect to your normal wifi as set above.

Once on your ‘normal’ wifi, you can adb connect again to the normal ip.
I installed airpin.apk to setup Airplay, now I can connect to the speaker in iTunes, and play. Good enough!

It can be downloaded here – http://www.waxrain.com/product_en.html
Install in a similar manner as other apk’s, then use screen mirroring to config the name.
I called mine phicomm

#copy and install airpin APK
adb push AirPin.apk /data/local/tmp/AirPin.apk
adb shell /system/bin/pm install -t /data/local/tmp/AirPin.apk
#run the screen mirroring to configure directly on the device
scrcpy

You can go further and remove the Xiao Xun (小讯) listening software, and install something else, but I haven’t bothered (yet). Mine is still unconfigured.
This is detailed in Chinese over here –
https://www.right.com.cn/forum/thread-855587-1-5.html

The mail software has been completely revamped to support additional security precautions.

Failed logins will be blocked by ip address for 1 hour. (5 fails to trigger a 1hr block)

Senders can only send mail from their authenticated email address.

Outgoing mail is now also inspected for spam, if tests fail, sending will fail.

DKIM signing is now possible, we are in the process of implementation and testing.

SSL connections are now set to a minimum of TLS1.2 and 2048bit encryption, as per internet standards.

Support for connecting to servers still using old insecure protocols has been deprecated (i.e. not supported anymore).
The protocol insecurity issue is explained in more detail here –
https://weakdh.org

This has impacted some deliveries to outdated servers, which still use outdated software.

We can resolve these issues on a case by case basis if you forward support the relevant bounce messages.

If you see bounce messages with errors similar to this –
SSL routines:tls_process_ske_dhe:dh key too small;
SSL routines:ssl_choose_client_version:unsupported protocol;

The recipients server’s SSL key setup (the key they use for encryption for their mail server) is an issue.
Their keys are too small, and vulnerable to eavesdropping, and ideally need to be updated, as their communications are vulnerable.

Certificates for *.computersolutions.cn have been updated to use letsencrypt from April 2019 onward.

Despite having friends that have broken limbs skateboarding, I decided to buy myself an Electronic Longboard.
I’m still a kid at heart, despite my ongoing age…

The board I chose to buy is what looks like a copy of the Boosted Board. The design is different though, but its close enough to look like a copy of sorts. Mine is from a company called BenchWheel out of Hangzhou, and although mildly expensive, isn’t too bad in Electric Skateboard pricing terms, especially in comparison to the similarly specced Boosted board at $1499.

I was originally planning to get the Stary board, as its made in Shanghai, and I was watching their Kickstarter, but sadly they don’t seem to want to sell it locally.
So, I scanned Taobao for similar products, and decided on the BenchWheel, as it looked reasonable quality-wise compared to the other options.

BenchWheel is currently available on Taobao for 2899RMB (about 450$USD odd at this moment in time)

They have 2 models for sale – the B board, which is a standard longboard, and the C board, which is a skinnier board at the ends.

I bought my BenchWheel on Monday, had it delivered on Wednesday (the magic of Taobao), and have been riding it for a whole 2 days now. I’ve never ridden a skateboard or longboard before, and I’m finding it very easy to ride. I’m already comfortable using it on the road for short trips in light traffic here in Shanghai. Took me about 5 minutes to find my balance, and after about an hour riding around my compound avoiding pedestrians and small rodent sized dogs I felt comfortable enough to take it outside on the street with the bigger traffic.

So far I’m quite happy with it. Top speed is faster than I want to go still, and the battery life is quite decent @ +-20km. The entire bottom length of the board is essentially battery.

Having played with most of the things available here, from e-scooters to airwheel’s, I think a Longboard is the most fun/ practical in daily use, especially for last mile from metro -> home.

All in all, it feels like a decent quality item. The parts are solidly built, and it doesn’t feel like cheap crap.
I haven’t tried a Boosted board or other US brand boards though, so can’t compare to those, but I do know what cheap crap feels like, and this isn’t that.

Some notes on using it
The BenchWheel has a carry handle, but I think there needs to be something smoother around the handle as the sandpaper gets rough.
Its light enough to carry short distances, which is good.

Remote control feels comfortable to use. The speed acceleration is good – its not crazy from stopped, it feels like they ramp up in a curve rather than giving you full throttle immediately. Braking on the other hand feels like they give you too much – you need to be more careful braking as its almost too fast on the controller.

Controller could do with some labelling, there are way too many leds that show different colors (red or green).
The bottom 3 show board battery status. The top two are speed allegedly, although they do flash when the board isn’t sync’d.
The remote and the board time out if not used and left on. The lights stay on, but the remote does nothing. Turning both off then on again resolves that. Looks like it does that when left 3-5 minutes unused. I’ve already hit that once or twice tonight talking to people about the board and not using it for a few minutes, then it doesn’t want to work.

My manual is in Chinese, and the instructions are not very clear – I had initial issues syncing the remote with the board despite reading the instructions, and repeating the steps a couple of times.
Their online support was good (aliwang), and I resolved it, but the manual needs to be much clearer.

I’ve actually had a go at making a better english manual here – http://computersolutions.cn/downloads/benchwheel/

I’ll re-iterate, this is really fun to ride. I’m actually excited to go out and ride around, which is good.
I’ve also been quite lucky in that I haven’t fallen yet. Having a brake and not going too fast helps a lot, as you can just jump off if you feel like falling.

Some tech details
N5065 270KV motors x 2 – Not sure what brand, haven’t opened it up yet.
Batteries in a 6S 4P (22.2V nominal @ 6 x 3.7V/ 25V peak/ 20v get off the board before you kill the batteries 😉 ) config using 18650’s @ 8800MAH / 210WH
Wheels are 80x45mm 78A hardness
Board is 920x240x15mm
7.9KG total weight.
Has a carrying handle cut out in the board (useful!)

Dual motors @ 1800W

Expanded view

Underside view

Whats missing
It feels like a strong version 1.0
That said this is whats missing:

Some action shots below.

Full set on Flickr

Video: