today
local_offer Technology

phpMyAdmin in combination with froxlor and php-fpm

I noticed that my phpMyAdmin installation displayed the following message every time I logged in:

The configuration file now needs a secret passphrase (blowfish_secret).
The $cfg['TempDir'] (/var/lib/phpmyadmin/tmp/) is not accessible. phpMyAdmin is not able to cache templates and will be slow because of this.
...
today
local_offer Culture

A close-up photo of the finished tracks.

Tychy Brewery: Tracks and ballasting are done

I’m finally done with the tracks on my model railroad shelf layout. I went with the Tillig H0-ELITE-track system since I heard only good things about it, and must say that I’m more than happy with the outcome.

...
today
local_offer Technology

OpenRailRouting

When I visualised my upcoming holiday trip with Leaflet, a handy tool turned out to be OpenRailRouting. The GrassHoper fork is “a routing engine for railways.” It allows you to find a route between two or more points, and export it as a GPX file. However, this is not based on actual, real-life connections, but simply looks for a possible ...

today
local_offer Culture, Technology

DCC FAQ

Last updated: 05.04.2025

Getting into model railroading just a few month back, I was (and still am) regularly overwhelmed by the complexity of the hobby. I had many questions like “What is DC and how does it differ from DCC?” or “Can I control my PIKO locomotive with the EX‑CommandStation?” Knowing the struggle, I decided to start a FAQ regarding DCC, and answer some of the questions a beginner of ...

today
local_offer Culture

Eastern Bloc 1:87 model cars

Recently I’ve been looking to buy some 1:87 Eastern Bloc cars for my model railway layout. I’m nowhere close to put them there just yet, but I simply couldn’t wait start buying them (and seeing a nice Black Friday Deal, I ...

today
local_offer Technology

British train controllers for your train simulator

If you enjoy to play train simulators on your computer, there definitely was a moment where you asked yourself whether there are input devices to make the experience even more realistic. Turns out: there are some enthusiasts ...

today
local_offer Culture

Tychy Brewery shelf layout introduction

I planned to get into model railroading for a while, and finally made the step 🤘

I ordered a PIKO Sm31 PKP, a fully assembled EX-CommandStation (I don’t like vendor lock-in) and started building my shelf layout in the now finished holiday ...

today
local_offer Technology

Backing up save games with Game Backup Monitor

With GOG’s new policy to limit save games to 200 MB and delete files after August 31, 2024, I was looking for a tool to manage my save games. I came across Game Backup Monitor (GBM), a small program that allows you to backup your save games to a custom location. And importantly, it is free software.

After installing GBM, you can chose a folder where you want ...

today
local_offer Technology

Matomo one-click update: fix NoName (-17) error

Today when I wanted to update Matomo, I ran into the following error:

Update error: Incompatible archive: NoName (-17): Filename [matomo folder]/tmp/latest/piwik/[some html special char code] is already used by an existing directory

The update was unsuccessful and Matomo suggested to update ...

today
local_offer Technology

Installing froxlor on Trisquel 11

froxlor is a server management/web hosting tool released under the GPLv2. It will allow you to manage (sub)domains, MySQL databases, email accounts and so on. Since there is an official Ubuntu repository, you can easily install it on your Trisquel server as well. This guide will show you how.

Prerequisites

While froxlor will install all necessary services like Apache, BIND ...