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Showing posts from April 1, 2018

Blocklist-Update.sh

Blocklist-Update.sh is a script that I wrote to manage blocklists from bluetack etc to be used in conjunction with Transmission torrent downloader in Linux/MacOS. The script can be taylored to work with Qbittorrent as well, but the placement of the blocklists means you'd have to redirect the blocklist to go somewhere locally manageable as Transmission uses its own blocklist directory in .config. I believe there are about 10 lists there now. It works well for my needs. It can be ran weekly using crontab in standard user profile.  To download:  blocklist-update.sh To download the others:  Github

UPDATES AND FUN FACTS FOR THE WEEK

Recently, Cloudflare launched a new DNS service. This service is relatively fast and responsive from my own testing. The service reports that is is actually milliseconds faster than Google’s own public DNS. DNS is the lookup of internet domains based on numbers which correspond to domain names given by the user, much in the same way a phonebook works. While this DNS service does appear to offer a few privacy features such as the lack of ip logging and the deletion of 24hr query logs, this doesn’t offer malware blocking yet, unlike OpenDns which offers this for free. OpenDns is a bit of pain, for someone who just wants to use a simple, fast, lightweight DNS service that isn’t Google, this could be service you’re looking for. I suspect with future updates and improvements will also come more features. More can be found at:  http://www.tomshardware.com/news/cloudflare-privacy-focused-dns-service,36786.html also:  https://www.ghacks.net/2018/04/02/cloudflare-launches-fast-and-p

MEMORY MANAGEMENT WITHIN LINUX

Ever wonder what’s going on under the hood of your current operating system? Ever wonder if your system’s task manager is reading the information correctly; would you like a second opinion? Are you aware of what “zombie” processes are? Today’s modern Linux or Unix operating systems handle memory fairly well. They do this by caching the RAM used by recently opened applications so that when they are opened again, there will be less load time and latency. Memory runs at a set speed, but in the case of modern systems, it’s the fastest bit of hardware in your system. Within Linux, everything you do has a consequence, but don’t let that scare you, Linux knows when RAM is being used and when it is not. When RAM is no longer being accessed, small amounts get reclaimed by the system. Usually this works without issue, but seeing as loading applications from the hard drive can be slow, this procedure takes time. Linux likes to store much of the existing apps in RAM for as long as it f