Author: Beau

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How to Switch Thunderbird Message Format from HTML to Plain Text

I have been using Thunderbird for years on my Windows and Linux computers. It is a fantastic email client. As of today I am using version 57.0.2.

One thing that has puzzled me for a long time about Thunderbird is why  there was not an easy way to switch from HTML to plain text when writing a message. It does not happen often for me, but sometimes I just want to write a simple plain text message. There is no prompt in the Thunderbird menu system to do this. Right-clicking in the message area does not provide a way. I cannot find an icon for this in a toolbar. This has been frustrating to say the least.  Read more

Bootstrap 3 Responsive Template for AutoIndex PHP Script

For years I have been a big fan of the AutoIndex PHP Script written by Justin Hagstrom. This is a powerful website directory indexer and file manager. I primarily use it to manage download directories. The problem is that Mr. Hagstrom has not updated this script since 2007. It is not natively responsive for small screens. Since most browsing is done on cell phones or tablets these days, I created a simple Bootstrap 3 responsive template to solve this problem. I also created a mod to change the format of the Search box in AutoIndex. I think there are other AutoIndex users that might benefit from this template and mod, so I am sharing them in this post. Read more

Don’t Forget About SELinux

Recently we decided to move some of our web applications, as well as this blog, to a new cloud server provided by DreamHost.com and their new DreamCompute OpenStack cluster in Virginia. Starting with a minimal install of CentOS7, we built a fairly standard LAMP server. Once we got the new server stable, we moved the apps over. The web apps hosted on our new server are GeekGlossary.com and jobs.beausanders.org. For the sake of this post, you need to know both of these apps have similar backup routines and logging functions. Read more

How to Perk Up Your Sluggish Nexus 7 Tablet – Wipe the Cache Partition

My Nexus 7 tablet is about three years old. Like a good Google disciple, I’ve been diligently updating my Nexus 7 whenever a new system update came along. My little tablet worked fine running Android 4.4 (KitKat). Then around the end of 2014 Google pushed out Android 5 (Lollipop). I was really excited at first. However, after a very short time I realized things had changed drastically on my Nexus 7. I had to reboot almost everyday just to get it to do anything. My tablet was very sluggish…almost unuseable. I hate the new email client too. So the result is, I have not been using my Nexus 7, which has me shopping for a new Samsung table (that’s another story). Read more