aseachange.com

Dear Fedi friends,

I need a favor.

Are there any devs out there willing to help me out, analyzing the source code of a weird web page I found?

I'm writing an exposé and I could really use your expert advice.

If so, please DM me 🙏​

UPDATE: You are so fast! And amazing!!! Within a minute of posting this, I have already found THREE VOLUNTEERS. Thank youuuuu, this community is the best 🥰​

#AskFedi

Good morning Fedi friends!

I hope you're having a nice weekend.

I'd like to clear the air re: #WSocial and my opposition to it.

I got a lot of messages on my Mastodon account (several over private DM) trying to dissuade me from speaking up about it and urging me to work on improving the fediverse instead.

I hear you.

But I disagree.

I experienced the same thing last year, when I mentioned I had incendiary evidence about the lack of content moderation on Substack. I had many examples of posts and replies inciting racism, homophobia, fatphobia and xenophobia and spreading dangerous health misinformation. I had taken screenshots and reported them. When I checked back months later, none of my reports had been acted upon. I am talking about seriously heinous messages that are still on there. When I mentioned this on the fediverse, I got many responses urging me "not to waste my time" and "to stay positive" and to "focus instead on helping the fediverse." I did that. Meanwhile Substack is still incredibly popular and most people - even those using it - have no idea of the heinous speech that is allowed on it... and sometimes even monetized. I honestly regret not speaking up. It may not have made a difference, I know (I'm not a megalomaniac) but it makes my skin crawl to think some of the heinous comments are still on there and a young person could come across them and think they are ok. I should have spoken up.

Now, W Social where do I start? Sure, my criticism of it is from a completely different angle. All I want to do is write ONE blog post about its problematic aspects and then I will move on. What is so objectionable about it?

Years ago I wrote a blog post citing all the problems about Dove and its Real Beauty Campaign. It may not have been much, but it was over 10 years ago and the post is still getting hits today. You can see it for yourselves if you look up "The Problem with Dove" and "The Illusionists."

I'm very very lucky to have a little bit of influence on here - I'm immensely grateful for it - and even if I'm preaching to the choir as they say, maybe my advocacy can make a little bit of difference.

My hunch is: staying silent and wishing W Social away is not the way to go. They had a very rushed, botched announcement with no existing product or users. Major security flaws in their setup (I have plenty of evidence). I'd like to write something that you could reference and share... since so far no journalists did any research and simply rehashed the press release of W Social. That's irresponsible reporting – P.R. masked as journalism and it needs to be rectified. That's all I want to do: a blog post about "The Problems with W Social" that hopefully with a sprinkle of SEO magic people can easily find. What's so bad about it? 4 hours of my time and then I'll move on.

Your loyal fedi advocate,

Ele

So I literally spent 2 hours trying to get my Canon Pixma printer to work... it suddenly stopped responding with the error message "your printer is offline" ... even if it was connected by cable.

I reset the driver - no change.

I changed cables - still nothing.

I tried on 2 different computers (desktop and laptop) - always "offline".

Then I revived my faithful Macbook Air 2014 (which I'd been using up till last year) and plugging in the USB 2 cable (without adapters) did the trick, as I had suspected.

This is why I keep my beloved Macbook Air 2014 around: 12 years old and still working wonderfully 🤗​

#MySoCalledSudoLife

Mondays mean: manually backing up my #YunoHost system.

Speaking of YH, in case you missed it, here is my latest guide for newbies about how to install an app with YunoHost - I showcased NextCloud in my tutorial: https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-newbies-guide-to-self-hosting-with-yunohost-part-3-lets-install-nextcloud/

I'm always surprised by the sheer size of backups - this time 15GB (ugh!) broken down as follows (from biggest to smallest):

#GoToSocial: 6.2 GB
#PeerTube: 4.3 GB
#NextCloud: 3.0 GB
#Pixelfed: 1.5 GB
#LinkStack: 91 MB

I'm brainstorming ways to make my GoToSocial backup size go down... I have cache set to 1 day only, so I'm trying unfollowing a few accounts (that I already follow from my Mastodon profile) to see if that makes a difference.

Anyway, wishing you all a great day & week!

#MySoCalledSudoLife #selfhosting

@jannis Hi Jannis! I was trying to post a reply on your latest Ghost blog but I got an error message two times in a row. So a quick heads-up about it.

Anyway, what I wanted to say:

"Thank you for all your hard work on this Jannis!

When I was self-hosting my blog via Ghost-CLI I had magic link spam attacks a couple of times... my Mailgun account was flagged and I couldn't have new signups (once when my Fediverse video was going viral, so I likely lost a lot of potential subscribers).

Part of the reasons why I'm on Magic Pages now is that I get to offset my worry and preoccupation. But I'm sorry you have to deal with this. You got this! And thanks for all you do"

Good luck trying to find a solution to the problem! 🍀​

Good morning Fedi friends!

I've just published the third installment in my blog series about self-hosting with #YunoHost, showing (with plenty of screenshots and detailed explanations) how to install #NextCloud.

I'm now on high alert expecting any minute a reply by a sysadmin with a stern lecture about something I wrote 😅​

🔗​: https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-newbies-guide-to-self-hosting-with-yunohost-part-3-lets-install-nextcloud/

Instead of signing off every blog post with the words "written by a human" I should maybe have instead: "with the greatest respect to sysadmins - I admire you tremendously"

#MySoCalledSudoLife #SelfHosting

10pm, husband is watching a soccer game, child has been long asleep... what do I do?

Install a new app via #YunoHost of course!

Excited to finally try out #CryptPad 💁‍♀️​

#MySoCalledSudoLife

If I were a digital rights activist, I would see this time as a golden opportunity.

#Grok, the #AI "assistant" powered by Musk's xAI, has become an engine of non-consensual image and video generation at a mass scale - including pornographic and pedopornographic content. Creating and distributing this imagery has never been quicker or easier. All one has to do is reply to an image posted by someone on X with a mention of Grok and a prompt. This feature was restrained recently but people who pay an $8 subscription to X can still do it. As Sam Cole writes on @404mediaco : "Masterful Gambit: Musk Attempts to Monetize Grok's Wave of Sexual Abuse Imagery" https://www.404media.co/x-premium-grok-paywall-images-ai-generator/

How many politicians pushing for #ChatControl are still using X? How many official government accounts? You know, the same people who screamed WE NEED TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN and pushed for the scanning of all digital communications and files (including E2EE encrypted ones) of European citizens? An "Orwellian nightmare" as @Em0nM4stodon wrote on Privacy Guides: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/09/08/chat-control-must-be-stopped/#act-now

In the Privacy Guides article by Em, the French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Irish governments (amongst many others) were in full support of Chat Control. As far as I can tell, prominent politicians, Prime Ministers and official government accounts from these countries are still posting on X.

Is there anything we can do to point out the hypocrisy? Or have the abuse machine that is Grok sanctioned and fined? And - this is key - use this horrible incident to push politicians to FINALLY quit X? It's about time.

#StopChatControl #LeaveX #QuitX #SaveSocial

In these dark times, it is important to keep hope alive and find some light.

Here are three individuals who recently re-ignited a sense of hope in me, showing how courage, defiance and/or technical brilliance can make a difference:

1. Austrian activist #MaxSchrems won a case on the Austrian supreme court, forcing Meta to give users full access to their data (it was a 11 year legal fight!)

🔗: https://noyb.eu/en/austrian-supreme-court-meta-must-give-users-full-access-their-data

1. Hacktivist #MarthaRoot, dressed as a pink Power Ranger, deleted white supremacist dating sites while live on stage at the #39C3 conference and leaked the data on okstupid.lol

🔗: https://hackread.com/white-supremacist-dating-sites-wiped-okstupid-lol/

1. #CaitlinCallenson, the bystander who filmed the video of the ICE officer's killing of Renee Nicole Good, shouting at him "Shame" multiple times. As John Gruber wrote on his blog: "after the murderous agent fired three shots — just 30 or 40 feet in front of Callenson — Callenson had the courage and conviction to stay with the scene and keep filming. Not to run away, but instead to follow the scene. To keep filming. To continue documenting with as best clarity as she could, what was unfolding."

🔗​: https://daringfireball.net/2026/01/lets_call_a_murder_a_murder

These days I keep thinking of these three individuals... and I am grateful to them for giving me hope. And light.

#resist

What have I become?!? My mom just asked me if we're free at the end of May (weekend of 23rd-24th) because she'd like to visit* us in Paris... and my FIRST thought was: wait maybe that weekend there will be #JDLL in Lyon?

Now the highlights of the calendar year for me are #FOSS conferences. Truly.

I was pleased to tell my mom that no, JDLL is the following weekend, so we are indeed free.

(*In my defense, we visit my parents in Italy every month-two months, and we do video calls every day, so it's not as if a FOSS conference took precedence. I'm a bona fide Italian daughter after all)

Anyway looking forward to my parents' visit... and ALL the FOSS conferences I can attend this year 😅​

#MySoCalledSudoLife

Dear Fedi friends, it's official. I have become a Fediverse "reply guy" offering unsolicited tech advice.

I just realized this now (re: https://mastodon.social/@_elena/115848079534897140) 😂​

Sorry! But also... not sorry?

Hope you're all having a lovely day!

My number one objective today is not to slip and fall because sidewalks in Paris are an icy death trap (at least in this neighborhood)

Good morning Fedi friends!

I'm currently in the east of France visiting extended family.

We're snowed in, everyone in the house is still asleep and I'm in the kitchen, near the fire, sipping coffee and setting up a new self-hosted app: #Umami (a privacy-respecting website analytics app).

How long did it take me to connect my 3 websites? 5 minutes.

Thank you #YunoHost for making all this possible!

#MySoCalledSudoLife

Happy new year dear Fedi friends! 🎊​

My first #MySoCalledSudoLife action of 2026 will be to install Monica – a #FOSS personal CRM system to keep track of friends and family (birthdays, anniversaries, last contact etc.) – on my server.

🔗​: https://www.monicahq.com

I'm shuddering thinking about how much money I spent in my life on closed, proprietary products. Like, back in 2017-2018 I paid 159 dollars A YEAR for a similar tool... now on my little server for 4 Euros a month I can host Monica, Matomo and other useful software.

I hope this is the year that self-hosting grows in popularity.

Thank you for all your support and encouragement! And I look forward to learning more new things from you :)

#FOSS #FLOSS

May 2026 be the year I get into #FreeBSD.

My last #mysocalledsudolife action of 2025 is... downloading the FreeBSD handbook.

I was about to print it at my in-laws' but I'm not sure my father-in-law would appreciate the consumption of 935 sheets of paper. I also don't want to sacrifice a tree for it. So off it goes to my iPad 🤪​

Wishing everyone a great day!

@FediTree I'd love to see my GtS FediTree for 2025 💚 (let's try again)

Good morning Fedi friends!

Today is a really special day - it marks the one year anniversary of the installation/setup of this #GoToSocial instance 🎂​

For its first few days I kept the account private, doing tests with @stereo (my self-hosting support buddy - THANK YOU!)... and I only published its first public post on January 1st 2025.

I have nothing but great things to say about @gotosocial – I LOVE everything about it. A huge thank you to its developers - keep up the amazing work!

#MySoCalledSudoLife #SelfHosting

🏕️ my adventures in self-hosting: day 365 (milestone edition) 🎂

Good morning Fedi friends!

Feeling a little emotional today as I reflect back on one year of #selfhosting.

This toot from December 17 2024 shows off my excitement over signing up for my first VPS and installing #YunoHost: https://mastodon.social/@_elena/113667636910565210

If you check out the full thread you can see some of the challenges I faced in the early days. It's only been a year but it feels like a lifetime ago. When I read back, I think: who was this person? _ (task) is so easy! Like, why be scared of tweaking DNS records? 😅​

I will write about the highs and lows in a proper blog post. Spoiler alert: there were mostly HIGHS ☺️​

For now, I want to express my gratitude to:

✨​ @shollyethan who encouraged me by saying (I'm paraphrasing) "go for it, you learn by doing things"

✨​ @ilja who recommended I check out YunoHost (I had never heard of it before)

✨ ​ @yunohost for empowering me to self-host so many great FOSS tools... and upgrading and maintaining them in a super easy way

✨ @stereo for helping me test my first self-hosted app (this #GoToSocial account)

And thank you to all the sysadmins and programmers who have helped me troubleshoot problems this year. I found that tech support on the Fediverse takes less than a minute 🥰​​

I'm really #GratefulForYou 💖​

#MySoCalledSudoLife

Currently writing a self-hosting guide for newbies, showing off the beauty and ease of #YunoHost.

Part 1 was really popular - beyond my expectations - with 1500+ unique visitors. Thank you!

For reference:

🔗​: https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-newbies-guide-to-self-hosting-with-yunohost-part-1-reasons-requirements/

Part 2 (step-by-step installation and post-installation) will be super visual. I tried to keep things simple but I still have 27 - yes TWENTY-SEVEN - screenshots. I'll keep #AltText relevant to each step on a need to know basis or else it will turn into a novel... and will be too overwhelming for people using screen readers.

Aiming to get it published by Wednesday AKA the one year anniversary of the start of my own self-hosting adventures with YunoHost.

This is the guide I wish I had had back in the day... I would have started A LOT sooner. I'm basically writing it to my old self, hoping it will be useful for others 🥹

PSA: if you're using YunoHost please consider donating to them, to keep the project healthy and long-lasting (it's run by a team of volunteers, maintaining hundreds of apps): https://donate.yunohost.org

#MySoCalledSudoLife #FOSS #advocacy #selfhosting