Cat X Machina

Elasticsearch is an open source search and analytics service and is one of the most popular technologies these days for full text search and text analytics. What would you need that for? Well, a full text search engine like Elasticsearch is used in apps...

This writing is intended for people who may be interested in making “Tech for Good”. #Tech4Good This is also intended for people who may come from a privileged background, consider themselves an ally to under-privileged groups, and who want to help their community and...

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a little project in my free time called Akela CMS. It’s a CMS built with React/Redux and MongoDB (but soon to be database agnostic!), intended for individuals and small organizations who want a content system...

I embarked upon a data project last week that involved using the treasure trove of data provided by New York City’s Open Data Portal. The project involves studying the link between NYC Dept. of Building violations and gentrification in Brooklyn and I knew I...

If you’re interested in setting up a Tor relay, but don’t know how to get started, then read on! I’ll go through how I set one up in about 20 minutes. This isn’t an exhaustive guide, but it should cover the basics like: Sections...

So a few months ago, I wrote about how to set up your own VPN with Algo and I demonstrated how to do it live at Radical Networks. I created a demo VPN and invited all of the attendees at the workshop to share...

Detailed Guides: Part 1: configuring your devices. Part 2: configuring your devices. Super Quick Version This is the super quick version of setting up the Algo VPN on a server. It’s more of a cheat-sheet really. It assumes you know how to create a...

Back to Part 1: Setting up the VPN server. Super Quick Version Sections Configuring on an Apple OSx computer Configuring on an Apple iPhone iOS device Configuring on a Windows machine Configuring on an Android phone Configuring on a Linux machine To Sections Configuring...

Part 2: configuring your devices. Super Quick Version Sections Self-hosting on Digital Ocean Installing prerequisite software Running the self-install script Distributing your config files Turning off the server logs To Sections Cooking your Algo VPN If you’re doing this for the first time and...

This is a tutorial made to help anyone currently on Github’s paid Developer Plan end their subscription and divest from Github in response to their unethical and misogynstic treatment of employees. In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to setup the private repositories...

When I read this summer about the experiences shared by some of Github’s former employees about the harassment and toxic workplace environment they faced, I immediately cancelled my $7/mo ‘Developer’ plan with Github. It upsets me when I read an article about people being...

A lot of the time when we talk about internet privacy, we talk about what happens to our personal information after visiting a website. For instance, you might be aware that our search results are saved by Google, or that our browsing history is...

In this post, we’re going to cover a stylish cursor and text effect that I made for my portfolio site. If you hover your mouse over the words, you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you’re unable to interact with the jsfiddle, here is...

This a friendly coding blog for some of my projects and a place for me to share whatever I’m currently learning and doing. Welcome to Cat X Machina!