In my last post I’ve told you about how I’m writing (simple) games in TypeScript. In this post I’ll share the source code of a Simple TicTacToe game I rewrote in TypeScript. I’m using Visual Studio Code and the TypeScript plugin. I’m working on Linux, but on Windows you should be able to use the same instructions within the WSL2 environment. Quick start Type the following commands to get started: git clone git@github.com:mevdschee/typescript-tictactoe.git cd typescript-tictactoe curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.5/install.sh | bash nvm install node npm install npm run dev Now use Visual Studio Code (with the TypeScript extension) to edit the content and see how the code is recompiled and the browser is reloaded when the code is saved. ...

I loved programming in Actionscript (for Flash) and I have tried Haxe and other languages when Flash was widely abandoned. I felt JavaScript was lacking features for better structural programming. Typescript and Visual Studio Code provide a great development experience for creating (well performing) cross-platform games. I have rewritten my AceCardGames.com solitaire card games in TypeScript. In this post I will share my development setup and some of my lessons learned. ...

Any IT security measure must be evaluated in the context of a specific set of threats with context specific relevance. IT security is much like the security of the windows of a house. In a bad neighborhood of a city having steel bars in front of your ground floor windows may be considered required to prevent people from breaking in, while in the countryside having them would be considered dangerous as it would prevent you from escaping the house in case of a fire. In short: no security measure can be evaluated without the context of a set of threats. ...

When writing LUKS tutorials I often made mistakes preventing my system to boot. This resulted in a dreadful message saying: ALERT! /dev/mapper/debian--vg-root does not exist. Dropping to a shell! Showing me a BusyBox shell and a prompt that looks like this: BusyBox v1.30.1 (Debian 1:1.30.1-6+b3) built-in shell (ash) Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands. (initramfs) In this post I will describe how to quickly mount your root partition from the initramfs shell and also how to easily correct bigger problems using Debian’s Rescue mode. ...

I feel that using full disk encryption of servers is a must. Not to protect against attacks with physical access (to the unencrypted boot loader or unprotected BIOS), but to avoid leaking data when a disk or computer is either stolen or replaced. But what do you do when you need to reboot your server and have no console access to enter the passphrase? This post will explain how you can make the server run a HTTPS request during the boot process to do automatic unlocking of the encrypted root partition over the Internet. ...

I have a .net application that runs on SQL Server that I want to migrate to MariaDB for licensing reasons. The .net code to query MariaDB looks a lot like the code to query SQL Server, so that is not much work (mainly search and replace). Also the SQL queries need adjusting, but I’m so much more well-versed in MariaDB that rewriting the SQL is a joy. I use a Debian LAMP server to host the ClickOnce .net application. I use a SSH tunnel with a private/public key-pair instead of a password to encrypt the database connection. This allows me to connect remote to the database even though the database server is not accessible over the Internet (only listens on localhost). ...

I’ve built another small form factor PC for office use (and light gaming). This time I wanted to upgrade my silent but powerful small form factor PC. You can read about my Antec ISK 110 with and how it’s AMD 3400G CPU was limited by the power supply here. The Chieftec IX-03B-OP case is as small as you can go with Mini-ITX. The Chieftec case The Chieftec IX-03B-OP is smaller than the Antec ISK 110, but it does not have the 4 front USB ports that the Antec has. In return you get a smaller and easier to work with case with only 3 cables inside: HDD LED, power switch and power LED. The case has 2 holes that fit the PicoPSU power jack perfectly. The SATA power cables can be removed from the PicoPSU, minimizing the number of cables, making the build really clean. The motherboard is slightly raised from the side-panel of the case using built-in standoffs. There is clearance and air flow for a rear side M2 slot on the motherboard. Also, the Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 fitted easily with about 3-4 millimeters to spare. The Leicke power brick is rather large, but it is silent (no coil whine) and very powerful. ...

Today I am celebrating the 7 years that the TQdev.com blog exists. In this period I have written 198 blog posts on various software development related topics. Best visited post was the “The “Boring Software” manifesto” with more than 43 thousand visitors. Below you find the visitors of the blog per month and the top 3 of best visited posts. Visitors graph The graph below shows the unique visitors per month. I count the number of unique IP address seen per day and add all days of the month. ...

Zola is a very fast static site generator written in Rust with 10k stars on Github. It is faster than Hugo (written in Go) that has 65k stars on Github. But there are more reasons that Zola may become the new world’s most popular Static Site Generator (SSG). In this blog post I will list the things I’ve found to be better about Zola than Hugo and the other way around. ...

The J6412 Venoen 12th Gen Mini PC is a compact and powerful computer that offers exceptional performance and energy efficiency. This mini PC is powered by a 12th Generation Intel processor and has a fanless design, making it ideal for what I use it for: an always on Linux server on my desk. Design and Performance The J6412 Venoen 12th Gen Mini PC features is a small and powerful machine. It measures just 150mm x 150mm x 58mm, not taking up too much space on the desk. The mini PC features 2x SO-DIMM slots that support up to 64GB of DDR4 memory. It also features an M.2 slot that supports NVMe SSDs for super fast I/O. ...