I was curious to study the behaviour of the Proof-of-Work protocol in block-chains. The essence of POW is the use of a nonce as part of the payload being signed. In order to do this, I decided to test it out with a simple signing test program. The signature algorithm chosen uses a 512-bit RSA key with a SHA-224 hash. A stronger hash algorithm would just take longer but it wouldn’t really deviate too much from the characteristics. The example...
Read moreWireshark is a free and open source packet analyser. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education. This is not a well advertised feature but it is possible to use Wireshark to monitor the traffic on a third machine. This may come in handy when one is interested to study a remote system under monitoring. So, it is possible for machine C to analyse the traffic between machines A and B, without having to...
Read moreWe’re trying to increase IPv6 adoption by migrating things. However, slow IPv6 routes don’t help. We tested things using Vultr’s network as they had servers is 15 countries. These are an abbreviated sample of the results. LONDON HOST: vm1359261.vultr.com Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev 1. ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 6. 2001:e68:5083:6d93:7555:c0a5:2945:cbd9 10.0% 10 269.5 269.6 269.2 269.9 0.2 PARIS HOST: vm1359265.vultr.com Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev 1. ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0...
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While there are a lot of examples that describe how to set up a LVM cache on an SSD for a HDD backed storage, they mostly fail to describe an additional step needed to preserve the cache across a reboot on a Ubuntu system. The culprit is that the drivers needed to enable the LVM cache are not built into the kernel, nor available in the initrd. Therefore, these drivers need to be added to the initrd. Additionally, some cache Read more…
The eighth week of my internship continued to build on the challenges I faced during the previous week, particularly in backend development and system debugging. While I had made progress earlier, this week offered more hands-on opportunities to strengthen my understanding, especially in areas like CouchDB queries and server-side techniques. Alongside these technical tasks, I also participated in on-site system deployment for a live event, which added a practical dimension to my learning. This blog reflects the continuity of my Read more…
The week seventh of my internship focused heavily on improving and scaling the system based on feedback from previous tasks. I spent time carefully reviewing suggestions, studying server-side optimization techniques, and applying necessary fixes to enhance performance. Additionally, I supported a live event setup for the second time, ensuring the system operated smoothly during real-time usage. Reviewing Feedback and Improving Code Quality The first major focus of this week was carefully reviewing feedback received on my dashboard and data-fetching implementations. Read more…
Reaching the sixth week of my internship, I have gained a deeper appreciation for how technical expertise, critical thinking, and collaborative effort align to drive successful project outcomes. This week proved particularly rewarding as I engaged with a challenging development task, allowing me to enhance my front-end skills while learning to embrace feedback as a key part of the refinement process. Deepening Technical Knowledge At the start of the week, I dedicated time to studying several things relevant to my Read more…
Week five of my internship brought a significant shift in experience from working with development tasks to supporting their use in a real-world event setting. This week involved both technical implementation and on-site execution, offering the opportunity to observe how digital systems are applied in live environments. From improving the admin dashboard to setting up hardware and assisting with event operations, the week was filled with hands-on learning, collaborative problem-solving, and new responsibilities that required adaptability and quick thinking. Admin Read more…
This week offered valuable insights into improving user experience through conditional logic, thoughtful naming practices, and collaborative refinement. Working through interface behavior and incorporating feedback from code reviews led to both technical growth and a deeper appreciation for team-oriented development. Balancing Logic with User Interaction A key focus was controlling when certain interface actions should be allowed. For example, deciding whether a feature should be active or inactive depending on prior user actions involved understanding application logic and ensuring clarity Read more…
This week focused on refining the spell-check feature by integrating Google’s Generative Language API, improving backend functionality, and enhancing user experience. Several key challenges were addressed, leading to important learnings and system improvements. Securing API Key Integration like The initial phase involved setting up a secure API key retrieval process. While a hardcoded key was used for initial testing, a more secure approach was needed. The challenge arose when the retrieved key from the database was not being recognized. After Read more…
As I stepped into the second week of my internship, I found myself becoming more comfortable with my daily tasks and the work environment. During the first week, I gained a basic understanding of how work is done in the company and learned about GitHub and GitFlow through the provided resources. This week presented new challenges that pushed me to learn and grow. Updating to the Latest React Admin Framework One of my primary tasks this week was updating the Read more…
Starting my internship, I was introduced to various new technologies and workflows essential for web development. My primary focus was on understanding the methodologies, frameworks, and tools required for efficient project management. My first week was filled with many new ideas especially about version control systems and front-end development techniques. My work demanded exploration of Git collaboration tools alongside learning React Admin interface development and practicing structured workflow methods for projects. Learning Git and Version Control Before this internship, I Read more…
This week, I mainly tied up loose ends and debugged. The issues were more fiddly than I thought they would be. Safari Issue #1 – Database Load Previously, during initialisation (log in), an API was used to estimate if there was enough storage to load the database in. This API wasn’t supported in Safari, so the app didn’t work on Safari. At the start of the week, it was a quick fix to remove the code using the API. However, Read more…
This week involved working on a mixture of not-too-big issues and features. The more substantial points I worked on includes: Access to Video Submission As I worked along displaying the video submission along with the marking sheet, some issues were revealed. The use of a YouTube video embed plugin limited us as responsive sizing wasn’t possible, neither was supporting videos from other non-YouTube platforms. Hence, after discussion, we decided to work with our initial method of displaying a plain marking Read more…