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  • 7 min read

Custom Domains in Gmail

Go to | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

I'm reviving an old series here. This one branches off of story #5, where I split up my Gmail account to use a custom email for each online account. But now, instead of exposing my Gmail account, I can use one of the custom domains I own to send and receive emails, directly in my Gmail mail client, for free! For example, I can now send and receive emails from an address like example@nicfv.com. It was an adventure to figure out this project and quite a lengthy headache at times.

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  • 9 min read

Working with an NPM Monorepo

It's no secret that I'm developing a series of npm packages. The primary reason I'm doing this is for code reuse. I want to build up more complex programs using as much of my own software as possible. Second, the packages I'm developing might also benefit other developers. Also, the secret third reason I'm doing this is just for fun. Although there have been times where I really questioned my secret third reason. One of those recent times was when I changed my development strategy from maintaining several independent repositories to maintaining just one monorepo containing all my packages.

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  • 2 min read

Connecting to Public Wifi

I'm currently writing this from my laptop running Kubuntu 24.04 in a public space; Peet's Coffee. (The matcha latte here is good.) I had some difficulty connecting to the public wifi. Luckily, I had my smartphone with me, which gave me options.

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  • 8 min read

Raspberry Pi Gatekeeper

Go to | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

Advertisements! I hate them, you hate them, we all hate them. What if I told you there was a way to block ad traffic from ever entering your network? Actually, this happened to me a few days ago by a coworker. I learned about a software called Pi-hole specifically designed for Raspberry Pi's that blocks all ad traffic. Sounds good, right? Now, how are you supposed to set it up?

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  • 3 min read

Multi-email

Go to | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

I haven't written in a while, so I must get something in the books. It's also very late so I'll keep this short. This is an update from my online presence minimization story. I'm now down to just 3 Gmail accounts, I'm still stuck with the one with the Google Play balance. I'll just hang on to that one until I figure out what to use it for. This story was going to contain 2 (short) parts: cool Gmail features that allow you to really expand your inbox, and a frustration I just found out about UC Davis's student email addresses. However, once I started writing, I couldn't stop, so I decided to split it into 2 posts. So, today is a twofer!

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  • 2 min read

UC Davis Atrocities

My university and graduate school, the University of California at Davis, has made possibly one of the worst decisions imaginable regarding their email service. You can read all about it here!

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  • 4 min read

GitHub Repository Cleanup

Go to | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

In this fourth organization story, I will talk about a coder's paradise, or hell: Github! Github is the web interface for a program called Git, which is a version control software designed for code projects, but can be used for other things as well. I have a link to my GitHub user nicfv at the footer of each page on this website.

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  • 4 min read

Online Presence Minimization

Go to | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

Remember in my last organization project story, I mentioned I have hundreds of online accounts? Well, there's not that many that I actually use. Especially Google accounts, I have way too many for 1 person. Over time I have accumulated not 2, not 3, but 8 Gmail accounts! This is because every time you get a new Android phone, you have to link your Google account to gain access to a bunch of features. In the past, I primarily used a Comcast email address, and Gmail was an afterthought. So, I would just create a new (unused) Gmail account every time I got a new phone. This story is similar to other stories for why I have accumulated so many online accounts, and I have been working on a major cleanup for the last few months to trim down all this extra digital fat.

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  • 3 min read

Managing Passwords

Go to | #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7

Here is the second story in my series on getting digital things organized... although, I have been working on this project for the past year. That means, this series is not in chronological order. Oh, well! So here goes the evolution of my passwords. If you're a wannabe hacker trying to crack open my accounts, don't waste your time here. No passwords are revealed in the making of this story. ;)