Forem: Joshua Hegedus

Printable Flashcard Generator

Joshua Hegedus — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:34:28 +0000

Introduction

Are you a visual learner? Have you ever used image-based flashcards to memorize words or concepts more effectively? If so, you might find this project interesting.

I’m currently building an open-source, self-hosted flashcard PDF generator that allows you to create printable flashcards from images and text—fully under your own control.

Here’s a short demo showcasing the current state of the project:

Development & Future Plans

The project is still evolving, and I have plenty of ideas for improvements. One of the planned features is an account-less mode, which would make the tool especially convenient for self-hosted setups where simplicity and privacy are key.
This is very much a community-driven project, and contributions are more than welcome, whether that’s code, feature ideas, bug reports, or general feedback.

If the project sounds useful to you, feel free to check out the repository, give it a ⭐️, or get involved:
https://github.com/kougen/printable-flashcard-generator

Every bit of feedback and support helps shape the direction of the project.

In pursuit of privacy: What is privacy?

Joshua Hegedus — Tue, 21 May 2024 15:44:31 +0000

What is Privacy?

In today's interconnected world, where our lives are increasingly lived online, the concept of privacy has taken on new significance. While the internet offers unparalleled convenience and access to information, it also raises profound concerns about the security and sanctity of our personal data.

In this article, we'll explore the burgeoning field of privacy-centered open-source browsers, which offer users a sanctuary from the prying eyes of data-hungry corporations and governments. By empowering individuals to take back control of their online privacy, these browsers represent a crucial bulwark against the encroachment of surveillance capitalism and the erosion of digital rights.

Join us as we delve into the world of privacy-centered browsing and discover the tools and techniques that can help safeguard our most precious asset in the digital age: our privacy.

Security vs Privacy

Security

Security is centered around safeguarding systems and data from unauthorized access and attacks.
Its main goals include ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
This is often achieved through the implementation of encryption, authentication mechanisms, and access controls.

Privacy

Privacy revolves around individuals' rights to control their personal information. It addresses how data is collected, used, and shared by entities.
Privacy measures typically include data minimization, consent management, and the use of privacy-enhancing technologies.
It often intersects with data protection laws to ensure trust and compliance.

Comparison

While security focuses on protecting systems and data from external threats and ensuring the integrity and availability of information, privacy concerns individuals' rights to control their personal information and how it is collected, used, and shared.
While security measures aim to prevent unauthorized access and attacks, privacy measures aim to respect and preserve individuals' autonomy, dignity, and personal space.
Both security and privacy are essential for maintaining trust, compliance, and ethical standards in today's digital world, and they often intersect in the context of data protection laws and regulations.

The Intersection of Security and Privacy

In our exploration of online privacy, it's crucial to understand the intricate relationship between security and privacy. While they serve distinct purposes, they often intersect and complement each other in the quest for a safer and more private online experience.

Security

Security is the first line of defense against external threats to our digital assets. It encompasses measures aimed at safeguarding systems and data from unauthorized access, breaches, and attacks. Encryption, authentication mechanisms, and access controls are among the arsenal of tools used to fortify digital fortresses.

Privacy

Privacy, on the other hand, is the guardian of our personal information. It empowers individuals to control how their data is collected, used, and shared by entities. Measures such as data minimization, consent management, and privacy-enhancing technologies provide the framework for preserving individuals' autonomy and dignity in the digital realm.

The Synergy

While security focuses on protecting the fortress, privacy concerns the inhabitants within. Together, they form a symbiotic relationship that strengthens our defenses and preserves our freedoms.

Conclusion

In the pursuit of online privacy, it's essential to recognize the vital roles played by both security and privacy.
By embracing a holistic approach that combines robust security measures with respect for privacy rights, we can navigate the digital landscape with confidence and safeguard our most precious asset: our privacy.

About Ablaze

Ablaze is a pioneering open-source organization deeply committed to privacy and data protection.
Established in Japan, it is driven by a team of dedicated Japanese students passionate about advancing technological solutions while safeguarding user privacy.

Social media

Yozora: Linux Configurator

Joshua Hegedus — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:24:08 +0000

Introduction

At some point all of us wanted to have a fully customized and flexible Linux configuration, not having a pre-configured system like Manjaro for example. There must be people out there, who are not a big fans of DE (Desktop Environments). Sure I also got into the arch world with Plasma's KDE, but after a while, it become dull, so that's when I started getting into configuring my setup, but when I had to do it every time I was reinstalling my operating system it became tiring, that's when I began to create a very customizable script stack.

Golden mean

There is a fine line between having a complete self installing setup, or having a self configured installation. My goal was to have some scripts that helps me, but still kept the control in the user's hand.

This is done by using multiple smaller scripts which can install or configure different parts of the OS stack.

Structure of a Linux GUI

It's important to understand, how a Linux is working before we start putting one together.

Building blocks to have a GUI:

Display server (or window server)

This is the component which communicates directly with the kernel. It is the bridge between the OS kernel and its clients. The display servers have multiple protocols (you can call them blueprints) to choose from. The most notable protocols:

X11

Server

The most known implementation of X11 is the X.Org Server or simply X Server or more simply X
The X server requires multiple parts to operate like a Compositor which makes the apps work off screen, in the background or over each other. The one that I am using here is the Picom compositor.

Window manager

You'll also need a window manager to have usable window system. It has two major types:

Stacking window managers, like the one in Windows
Tiling window managers, the most notable tiling window manager for X11 is i3.

Wayland

Wayland is also a protocol, Wayland's protocol combines the compositor into the display server, hence they are called Wayland compositors.
My favorite so far is Hyprland which is a tiling window manager.

X11 vs Wayland

Since the X11 protocol is older then the Wayland protocol, hence the X server has bigger community behind it, then the Wayland compositors.

Display managers

These are optional packages you can install to have visual login screen, but you can live perfectly fine without one. I personally don't like using one, because I like to switch between configuration, which is easier to start from the terminal.
Display manager is basically the login screen. Some of the favorites: SDDM (X11 and Wayland), GDM (X11 and Wayland), LightDM (X11)

Yozora

The configuration got its name from the Japanese word 夜空(よぞら) meaning night sky.

You can browse the repo here: https://github.com/joshika39/yozora. If you have any idea on some improvements, feel free to Create an Issue

Capabilities

Package collection installation

There is a script for easily installing packages from <some-name>.conf config files. These files are have to be under the YOZORA_PATH/pkgs/ directory and must have the .conf extension.

With this you can use the update alias to install specific collections for use the --all flag to install all after each other.

For example:

update -l # Lists the available package collections
update <name> # Installes the given collection
update --all # Install all availabe collection

Extension packages

There is more optional packages available in the other parts of the yozora stack, like: yozora-i3, yozora-polybar, yozora-hyprland
You can follow this article series to learn more about those.

Convenience aliases

bashrc

There are a lot of convenience aliases comes with the bashrc files:

bcr # the default for `brc --download` and pulls the latest versions of the bash files from the local yozora repo
bcr --upload # upload the files to the local repo, so that you can also version control your modifications
refresh # Sources the bash filse

Git

gclone is a powerful alias to clone repositories from custom hosts (github is the default with ssh, and the logged in user):

usage: gclone <repo> [user] [host] [is_ssh]

gl is a lazygit extended command, fist refreshes the deleted remote branches and then opens lazygit.

Other tools

dotnet_install can easily install multiple dotner versions

Stars always welcomed

If you liked my approach, and you have a few extra second you are very welcomed to star me on Github🌟: https://github.com/joshika39/yozora

How to get started

Disclaimer

These tools are currently only supports the Arch Linux package manager and Aur to install packages. The other non-package related scripts were written in bash, so those are distro independent

From the time you finished installing your OS, you can run:

git clone https://github.com/joshika39/yozora.git ~/.config/yozora && cd ~/.config/yozora

./shell/bash/updater.sh --download

source ~/.bashrc

Contribution

If you found any mistake, that I wrote, please comment it so that I can fix it. Or you can find these articles in my Github Repository and open an issue for improvement.kl

Enhancing C#: Introducing cs-tools, a Project for Beginner and Intermediate Developers

Joshua Hegedus — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 17:18:42 +0000

Introduction

C# is nice and all, but as you might know it's missing some useful functionalities which could potentially help beginner or intermediate C# programmers in their way of programming.

Motivation

When I was a first year student in my Computer Science bachelors degree, I came across a subject where TextFileReader.dll was given to us which was built a Prof at the Uni. What should I say.. It was full of flaws, it broke a few OOP principles. And then I realized, that C# is missing quite a few really useful services, which I then implemented in this project. My motive behind this project was to help the fellow C# developers to have an extensive but scalable toolset in their hand.

The project is open-source and it is on GitHub: joshika39/cs-tools: Extended base C# functionalities (github.com)

Composition

The project is published as a NuGet package and it is using Microsoft's IServiceProvider and a provided ServiceCollection to register all of its default and required components. You can read about it in more details here: Using the package · Wiki

Most of the things can be configured in the IApplicationSettings which stores the following properties:

public interface IApplicationSettings  
{  
    string ApplicationConfigurationFile { get; }  
    string ConfigurationFolder { get; }  
    string? RepositoryPath { get; }  
}

NOTE: The file is located under the /"userhome"/joshika39/modulename/

Repository

One of the useful tools are the IRepository which is basically a repository pattern interface, which has a default AJsonRepository implementation registered in the IServiceProvider.

It can be used the following way for example:

// A factory is required to create the repository.
var repositoryFactory = provider.GetRequiredService<IRepositoryFactory>();

// Create the user repository in hte file: `users.json` in the repository path.
using var repository = repositoryFactory.CreateRepository<User>("users");  

// This line will make sure that the repository is instantiated.
await repository.SaveChangesAsync();

Timer

The other quite useful par is the IStopwatch which has a lot of functionalities:

It can:
- Stop the current thread for x seconds
- Wait asynchronously then notify it's listeners
- Start periodic notification for it's subscribed listeners

Conclusion

This package is still in development, so it's still missing some crucial documentation, but my goal will be to improve this package to help other people into the love of OOP programming.

Contribution

Any contributions or ideas are welcome, you can open an Enhancement Issue or make a contribute if you have any idea. If you drop a star, I would really appreciate it!

Forem: Joshua Hegedus

Printable Flashcard Generator

Introduction

Development & Future Plans

In pursuit of privacy: What is privacy?

What is Privacy?

Security vs Privacy

Security

Privacy

Comparison

The Intersection of Security and Privacy

Security

Privacy

The Synergy

Conclusion

Further readings

About Ablaze

Social media

Yozora: Linux Configurator

Introduction

Golden mean

Structure of a Linux GUI

Building blocks to have a GUI:

Display server (or window server)

X11

Server

Window manager

Wayland

X11 vs Wayland

Display managers

Yozora

Capabilities

Package collection installation

Extension packages

Convenience aliases

bashrc

Git

Other tools

Stars always welcomed

How to get started

Disclaimer

Contribution

Enhancing C#: Introducing cs-tools, a Project for Beginner and Intermediate Developers

Introduction

Motivation

Composition

Repository

Timer

Conclusion

Contribution