November 2008
2 posts
Virtualisation
I wanted to run some virtualisation software on one of my Debian boxes. We use VMs heavily at work, so I investigated my choices:
VMWare: Free (I’m not a licence-zealot, but I don’t have to pay). Big ‘appliance’ download directory. Runs Windows on *nix, and vice-versa (I wanted to run one Windows VM). Speed might be an issue?
Xen: Free, at least for my usage. Some use...
September 2008
7 posts
...on nginx and SSL client-authentication
Nginx is a webserver. It’s tiny, it’s free (and open source, though like I care what license it’s under) and it’s screamingly fast. I do prefer it to Apache, even though there are a few bits it lacks.
One thing I found recently was testing client-authentication with the iPhone. See, although nginx supports it, there’s only 2 options: on or off1
Apache has more...
...on SSL client-authentication and the iPhone
Basically, it works. And it works kinda well.
I work for a CA. We have some internal systems that authenticate with client certificates over https, and I wanted to get them working on my iPhone. You know, for fun.
There’s a thread here on the Apple forums where there’s a few users complaining that certificate-based client authentication doesn’t work - so here’s how I did...
Clutter
I’ll be adding lots of posts over the next few days, so please ignore the mess - the dates on them are unlikely to be accurate and I can’t be bothered editing each.
...on Firefox and SSL
From posts like this to the ensuing discussion on HN here and this thread on reddit, it does seem that the topic of SSL certificates is still a grey area, even for the usually savvy. The debate began when Mozilla’s Firefox v3 was released with seemingly-sterner SSL certificate warning messages. No longer could users easily click the ‘I don’t care’ button for warnings about...
...on Tumblr
I like it.
I tried Wordpress, self-hosted. Got sick of updating the thing and it’s insecure mess of PHP. I tried Wordpress.com, but didn’t like paying so much just to customise my own site. Not to mention it seemed incredibly laggy to me.
An hour of template hacking, and I’m setup on Tumblr. It’s awesome. Now someone come up with a self-hosted version, and I’ll love...
August 2008
2 posts
Contact
If you must:
Email: nick [at-thingy] naftech [this is where the dot goes] net
About
Me? I’m a nerd.