Richi's blog

Category: Software

  • electrum server on a cubox

    I don’t even remember if there were alternative wallets available when I started with BitCoin. I used the reference implementation exclusively for a long time. Now there is a wide variety to choose from. They fall in three main categories: full node, light client and web wallets. They are nicely listed and explained at bitcoin.org full node Every […]

  • HW1 tiny BitCoin hardware wallet

    While the trezor is certainly a great device for securing BitCoins, I’m also interested in alternative hardware wallets. Even in my very first discussions about increasing the scurity of BitCoin we talked about SmartCard solutions. After all, that’s also how I secure my GPG keys. But a regular SmartCard alone only protects the keys. If […]

  • The Rise and Rise of BitCoin

    As part of the Zürich Film Festival last week, they presented “The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin“. I couldn’t make it to one of the screenings where the director and the main actor were present. The room was fully booked, which I noticed with delight. I didn’t learn too much from the film on the […]

  • Presentations with code that actually works

    I don’t do presentations that often these days. And if I do, more often than not, they contain some form of source code. With most things you write, you refine it over and over. This is especially true with stuff that you present. Applied to code snippets, that can mean you test it initially, but […]

  • The phone book of the internet age

    When I was a kid, the main means of communication with remote friends was using telephones. If I didn’t know the phone number of their parents, I looked them up in the phone book. The phone books also contained the postal address. So if I wanted to send a letter or a packet, I could […]

  • Trezor BitCoin HardwareWallet

    Today I received my Trezor BitCoin HardwareWallet. When I ordered it in June 2013, the expected delivery Date was October. But as it happens all that often with BitCoin related hardware, the dates get pushed back. They offered a device with plastic case for XBT 1 and one with an alloy case for XBT 3. […]

  • key signing

    I have been using gnupg for a couple of years for digitally signing emails and debian packages and occasionally for encrypting files as well for ssh authentication. I wanted to participate in the web of trust for a while. But so far, all key-signing-parties in my region were on dates, that I couldn’t attend. Then […]

  • Generating flight vouchers with LaTex

    Learning LaTex was on my todo list for many years. Like most people of my generation, I learned wysiwyg text programs in school, and used them for a long time for most stuff that ended up on paper. Actually, to be exact, the first text processing program I learned in school didn’t fall into the […]

  • Smart Radios

    For a couple of years I have been running mpd (music player daemon) on an Alix, connected to a stereo in the office. The Alix runs headless, but I have a variety of options to control it: gmpc on the notebook, Droid MPD client on the phone and fookebox in the browser. Over the years […]

  • vim meets VisualStudio

    There are two camps of neckbeards: Those who use emacs, and those who use vi or vim. I can’t tell which is better, and most of the arguments seem to be rhetoric. Until about three years ago, I perceived both as insufferable. I was however curious to learn either of them. The question was which […]