[{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/","title":"Thilo Hohlt","description":"Thilo Hohlt - Software developer from Germany.","body":"Build\nComponentSelection\nCPUAMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5 GHz 8-Core Processor\nCPU CoolerNoctua NH-U12A chromax.black 60.09 CFM CPU Cooler\nMotherboardASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard\nMemoryG.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory\nStorageSamsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive\nVideo CardXFX Speedster MERC 319 Radeon RX 6950 XT 16 GB Video Card\nCaseFractal Design Pop Mini Air MicroATX Mid Tower Case\nPower SupplySeaSonic FOCUS PX 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply\nSoftware\nArch Linux\nFirefox Developer Edition\nIntelliJ\nKDE Plasma\nLocalSend\nMullvad VPN\nqBittorrent\nTuta Mail\nVisual Studio Code"},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/photography/","title":"Photography","description":"Hobby photos taken with my Sony Alpha 6000 camera.","body":""},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/search/","title":"Global search","description":"Fuzzy search of the entire website index.","body":""},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/legal-disclosure/","title":"Legal notice","description":"Legal notice and contact details in accordance with German law.","body":"Information according to § 5 DDG:\nThilo Hohlt\nc/o IP-Management #3723\nLudwig-Erhard-Str. 18\n20459 Hamburg\nE-Mail: contact@thilohohlt.com\nPhone: +49 171 7599950\nResponsible for content according to § 18 MStV:\nThilo Hohlt (contact details as above)"},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/blog/","title":"Blog","description":"Easy-to-digest technical articles.","body":""},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/blog/e2e-testing-spring-boot-applications/","title":"E2E testing Spring Boot applications","description":"Instructions for end-to-end testing in Spring Boot, covering everything from project structure to stable test flows and CI integration.","body":"Project structure\nMaven dependencies\nTestData\nExampleServiceMock\nBaseTest\nExamplePage\nExampleTest"},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/blog/custom-email-domain/","title":"Custom email domain","description":"Find out how having your own domain can save you a lot of time when switching email providers.","body":"Introduction\nMost people choose a popular email provider, such as Gmail, and stick with it for a long time. That's fine and it works, but what if you want to switch to another one? You have dozens or even hundreds of accounts and now you have to log in to each one and change your email address to your new one, which takes a while.\nThis whole process can be greatly simplified for the future by using a custom domain for your email, which is what I will be covering in this article.\nHow it works\nIf a provider has implemented this custom email domain feature, which many do (e.g. Proton custom domain or Tuta domain name), and you have purchased a domain from a domain registrar (e.g. Porkbun), the process works as follows:\nAdd your domain from your email provider's dashboard\nNavigate to the domain via your domain registrar's dashboard\nInsert some DNS records\nTXT to prove that you are the owner of the domain, typically with the following content <provider>-<verify>-<identifier>\nCNAME and TXT records (e.g. SPF or DMARC), which are used for the actual authentication with various security measures\nCreate arbitrary addresses for your domain, e.g. contact@domain.com and hello@domain.com\nWhen someone sends an email to your custom domain address, the DNS MX records redirect it to your email provider's servers\nYou can check that you are receiving emails at your custom domain addresses by using https://sendtestemail.com.\nChanging provider\nIf you decide to change your email provider, you can set up a custom email domain with your new provider. For all your accounts, you can now change the primary email to your custom email domain, and if you ever decide to change providers again, all you have to do is change your DNS records, saving you a lot of time and hassle.\nNote that some services do not allow you to edit your primary email, but if you contact technical support they may be able to do this for you.\nConclusion\nHaving your own email domain makes it much easier to switch providers and offers other benefits such as increased credibility or enhanced branding. So if you are currently in the process of changing your email addresses on different accounts, think about having your own email domain; you will thank yourself when you need to switch providers again."},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/blog/privacy-focused-operating-systems/","title":"Privacy-focused operating systems","description":"Good choices for privacy-focused operating systems for desktop and mobile phones.","body":"Introduction\nPrivacy on the Internet is a fundamental right and there are many steps you can take to protect your personal information. Various companies and services have developed sophisticated strategies to collect as much information from you as possible. A fundamental aspect of many people's daily lives is the operating system they run on both their desktop computer and their mobile phone, and while the most popular ones offer great usability and features, they are usually not in favor of your privacy.\nBelow are the options that, after a few years of testing, I have found to be the most usable and at the same time the most privacy and security oriented.\nDesktop\nI would recommend using one of the more popular GNU/Linux distributions here, as they have many contributors and are well maintained. Some options that I find great are:\nNixOS\nArchLinux\nDebian\nFedora\nYou should stick with one of them and use it for at least a few months or years, or commit to it completely. Most of them are the same anyway, and with Flatpak there is already a universally usable packaging system that contains most of the relevant software you might need if it is not included in the distribution's package repository.\nThere are other great options, such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, but these may not be as easy to use as GNU/Linux, and there may be problems with hardware compatibility and software availability.\nMobile\nYour main choice here should probably be GrapheneOS.\nWikipedia states the following:\nGrapheneOS is an open source, privacy and security-focused Android operating system that runs on selected Google Pixel devices, including smartphones, tablets and foldables.\nAs mentioned in the quote, note that you need a supported Google Pixel device to use GrapheneOS and I would not recommend using any other privacy focused or hardened mobile operating system as they do not come close to its usability while maintaining these aspects.\nConclusion\nAside from operating systems, there are of course many different components that are needed to meet one's digital needs. If you are interested in digital privacy, I would advise you to check out the Privacy Guide's Recommendations, there are probably several things you can replace with more private alternatives without much effort. Having a VPN connection that is always enabled on all of your devices is also a good utility to have, and it is not that expensive.\nSome services require personal information for verification or payment purposes, but just know that you can greatly limit the information you disclose about yourself by making the right choices."},{"url":"https://thilohohlt.com/blog/nixos-with-ext4-and-luks/","title":"Steps to install NixOS on a system with ext4 and LUKS","description":"A guide to installing NixOS with full disk encryption using LUKS and LVM, showing the complete process from disk partitioning to system configuration.","body":"Disk layout\nPartitioning\nSetting up Encryption\nSetting up LVM\nCreating Filesystems\nMounting Filesystems\nNixOS configuration\nEdit /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix:\nInstallation\nHow it works\nUEFI Phase\nThe UEFI firmware loads systemd-boot from the unencrypted /boot partition\nsystemd-boot loads the NixOS kernel and initrd\nEarly boot\nKernel starts and loads initrd\ninitrd asks for LUKS passphrase\nafter entering correct passphrase, /dev/sda2 will be decrypted\nLVM setup\nLVM volumes are available after decryption\nSystem can now access root and swap volumes\nSystem start\nRoot file system is mounted\nControl handed over to systemd\nregular boot process continues\nChange of encryption password\nTo make this step as easy as possible, I recommend using GNOME Disks."}]