By Rian

Gray, a writer.

How I Tried Leaving 1Password in 2025

I’ve been using password managers for a while, and I believe I started using 1Password beginning with either version 3 or 4. Inevitably when I say I am using 1Password, I’m not just talking about simply using an app; I’m talking about the entire password manager platform. 1Password has gone through series of audits, bug…

How to Change Ollama Model Path

I’m not particularly a big fan of having a big system storage. Most of my machines usually have 1 TB or less, and when needed, I use external drives or NAS. If you are interested in playing with Ollama, especially with the new Mac Studio, one of the missing key features of Ollama is to…

How to Port Forward PS Remote and PS Portal

This one is a collective study post. As far as I could find, Sony hasn’t released an official documentation on which ports are needed to use PS Remote and PS Portal. Official support documents and manuals for the PS Portal make no mentions of the matter, let alone for the PS5 console networking features. I…

How to Disable In-App Ratings Popup on iOS

I had a moment of pause while I was trying out Reminders. After using it for a while, Reminders app asked if I wanted to leave a star. A to-do list app from Apple called Reminders is asking if I want to leave a star. If I wanted to leave a review for a third-party…

App to Test UPnP for External Discoverability

As much as I would like to recommend simply disabling UPnP and be done with it, there is no complete replacement, from what I can gather, in terms of day-to-day home network environment. It warrants a separate write-up, but long story short, on IPv4 with NAT, there is no theoretical replacement for UPnP yet. With…

First Party Apple Apps are “Sherlocking” Subscriptions

Back in late 2000s, back when I was considering to move to OS X as my primary system, one of the big appeal —albeit it’s not always up to the level— was that Macintosh was bundled with first party softwares that are often exorbitantly expensive on the other side. And let me tell you, the…

How to Exclude Steam Games from Time Machine

One of the obvious challenges of using Time Machine is that not all apps and databases are optimized to use automatic backup. Or to be more blunt on the subject, with modern video games ranging roughly up to several hundred gigabytes with day one patches that are equally large, Steam has been enabling developers to…

It’s Now on CDN

Putting Mad Tea Party on CDN or any other cache servers have been on the back burner for the longest time. And for the first time since its inception, and frankly thanks to free tier services available, Mad Tea Party is now using CDN. It won’t drastically change the experience for the readers; perhaps some…

How to Replace WP-Cron with Linux Cron pt. 2

It’s been about 4 months since I wrote about wp-cron madness. To reiterate why wp-cron had to be called manually, that’s due to how some of the cron jobs weren’t executed even though it was queued for prolonged time. I’ve tried three different methods, one of which was to tackle only the cache. As of…

How to Replace CSS import with link on WordPress

When I started tweaking the theme for WordPress, I started with css, especially the fonts. I wanted the fonts that mimic paper-like experience as much as possible, and although the goal post has shifted quite a lot since, the way I had done fonts on css were almost always the same. On WordPress, you can…

App to Cache Google Fonts on WordPress for GDPR

Yet another post diving into the unguided madness that is privacy laws. By all means, while I am in favor of the privacy regulations, it’s hard for me to fathom what service —not what technology— could be in violation of the new law. Google Analytics had its own share of spotlight, hence why I became…

No More Multi Column Layouts

When I started preparing Mad Tea Party back in early 2010, I recall I had a decision to make. The era of widescreen, 16:9 resolution, was here to stay. But most journals, magazines, and even newspapers didn’t print in widescreen. When they had the precious space, they either reserved the saving for the new advertisement,…

The Case of Missing macOS Sleep Trigger

I was on a lookout for a certain trigger to automate macOS, a sleep trigger. I try not to automate any of the scripts around uncertain triggers, especially sleep cycles, when there may be certain expectations of how things should be at that moment. For example, if a script inadvertently disrupts the machine from going…

Metaphor: ReFantazio Spiel

Atlus does not make an easy game to hop on. The developer is behind one of those franchises that predates modern gaming conventions, ones that are hard sell for new gamers. Not only playing all the previous installments be nearly impossible without getting one’s hands on a retro console, the games are simply too dated…

How to Troubleshoot SSH Permission Issues

This one is for documentation purposes. Networking issue is usually the rabbit hole that gets deeper and weirder more we find out. My method of approaching networking is to leave the ones that are currently working, as-is. In other words, don’t jinx it. The problem I encountered was just plain weird. I was spooked by…