Blog

Update your Nikon DSLR firmware on Ubuntu

I’ve just invested in a new DSLR, a Nikon D750. One of the first things I do after unboxing it, is to update its firmware to the latest version, to have the latest functionalities and fixes.

Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions) is, as often, forgotten by these major manufacturers, who only provide Windows and Mac OS solutions.

OVH awesome database backups

Yesterday, I made a huge mistake while testing a new version of my RSS syndication application: I ran the installation script, which has the effect of (re)creating all the tables used by the application.

Moving a PHP project to Composer

A few months ago, I’ve discovered Composer, which is a dependency manager for PHP (you can compare it to Maven, for Java). With Composer, you can simply checkout the main project, and install the dependencies.

The transition to a Composer project is very easy, so I decided to start using Composer in my ComicsCalendar project. In this post, I’ll explain how you can migrate to Composer for a very simple project (in this case, using PropelORM to access your databases).

My backup strategy

I’ve been using multiple hard drives for around 15 years, since our 2nd familial computer. But it’s always been a case of filling up a drive, then buying a new one to store new stuff on it, and so on.

Recently, I’ve realized (better late than never), that it would be a good idea to back up some of my data. Over the years, I’ve lost some important files, pictures,… Sometimes, a hard drive just crashed, other times it was a stupid case of “There is probably nothing important on this drive, let’s format it!”. But all these cases could have easily been prevented if I just had backed up my important stuff, using my up-to 4 internal and 2 external hard drives (yes, I’m a data hoarder…).

That’s why I’ve decided to implement a real backup process; so far, I’m only using it for my important documents and my pictures, but I intend to extend it to other files as I go along.

Encrypting a partition on Ubuntu

I’ve decided to implement a better back-up strategy for all my important data.

I’ll come back later about the back-up itself, but for now I’ll explain what I use to keep the personal stuff (documents,…) private. This means encryption!