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Update 2: I got annoyed and added optional support for ImageMagick V6, some manual configuration is required.

Update: The PECL extension for ImageMagick is broken for PHP 8.3. It has been busted for over a year and nobody seems to give a damn, so this work is shelved until it gets fixed.

I've never been happy with thumbnails generated by PHP's native GD2 library, so I'm adding optional support for ImageMagick in the next release. If ImageMagick is installed, Tuskfish will use it by default, and if not, it will fall back to GD2. ImageMagick is widely available on most, if not all, commercial web hosts.

ImageMagick offers two benefits over GD2:

• It generates much better quality thumbnails than PHP's native GD2 library. The thumbnails generated by GD2 are a bit fuzzy, and larger images can actually look pretty bad.
• ImageMagick is aware of colour profiles and will preserve colour space information. GD2 is not only unaware of colour profiles, but actually discards them, which causes colour shifts in images that can render them drab and washed out.

To keep things simple, I will only be supporting the sRGB colour profile, which is the default for the web. You should already be converting your master images in sRGB before using them on websites anyway, because browsers generally will not be able to render other profiles correctly.

Recommended. I've had a Zoom F3 for a while now, but I've only recently taken it on a field trip. I bought it to record wildlife and environmental ambiences (a hobby), but most of the time I'm recording meetings (work), and pack a Zoom H6 (not the new "essentials" version).

The H6 has a few shortcomings, mainly its size and very average quality preamps. But it is an enormously flexible device and has an intuitive interface with hardware knobs for each microphone input. The X-Y stereo capsule it ships with is great for meetings, if you just want an ok recording to check your facts later.

But this time, I needed something light, so I took the F3 instead, and it worked out far better than I expected. Apart from the obvious advantage (size), the F3 has a few improvements over the H6.

Update: The new Tascam FR-AV2 is the new best portable field recorder, but significantly more expensive.

If you've ever tried make video recordings (screencasts) of PowerPoint presentations at a conference, you know one thing: The normies don't understand and don't care about your requirements related to cable length or sitting in the front row. You might be able to extend their audience reach by 1,000 times what they had in the auditorium, but their eyes will glaze over when you try to explain it. So, here's how how to produce a beautiful recording in an uncooperative environment.

You will need a microphone, a field recorder (preferably 32 bit), any kind of video camera and access to the PowerPoint files afterwards. TLDR: We will scrub through the camera footage in a video editor timeline to quickly mark the slide transition points. We will use those to set manual slide transition times in PowerPoint. Then we will record the automated slideshow in OBS, sync the audio from the field recorder, and we're done.

Ever wondered by many professional YouTubers shoot video at 24 frames per second? You have probably heard it explained away as "the most cinematic" frame rate. You probably also heard that people can't see frame rates beyond about 30 fps. Well, that's wrong (ask a gamer if they notice the difference between 60 and 144 fps).

The real reason why 24 fps is so common is purely historical: It is basically the minimum frame rate that allows a moving image without annoying flickering. Video used to be shot on physical film, so keeping the frame rate as low as possible saved on costs. Apparently it also helped with sound synchronisation.

Neither of these are valid constraints in the modern era. Sticking to 24 fps just makes panning shots look terrible due to judder, especially on a big screen. You are better off going for 50 or 60 fps depending on your region, which will deliver a far more fluid image, so long as you keep your shutter speed at one over double the frame rate.

The default upload file size limit in NGINX is 1 MB, so if you are using it as a reverse proxy for your Tuskfish CMS site, you may need to increase it. You can do this globally for the server itself, or you can do it on a site-by-site basis.

Recommended. I just installed the new Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 on my AMD 5950x. It is a beast of a cooler. In an OCCT stability test with all 16 cores engaged at 100% workload my CPU sustains 4.5 GHz with a maximum temperature of 63°C, and that's in a warm room (the aircon is broken). There are some reviews showing that it is less effective on Intel CPUs (no idea why) but for AM4/5 it's top tier.

But you are going to hate the AM4/5 installation process. Here's how to make it less painful.

TLDR I have been playing around with Rode Connect software, which came with the Streamer X, trying to EQ my voice. The software gives you choice of a basic or advanced processing modes. The problem with using the basic mode is that it activates all of the advanced controls in the background. You can't selectively turn options off or adjust them and you're stuck with the default values. This means, for example, that the noise gate is turned on in basic mode, which is something that I personally don't like because it is jarring when you do have a bit of environmental noise. So, if you need to turn anything off, use advanced mode.

My Ryzen 5950x became unstable and started throwing random reboots. No errors are reported, and Windows logs just shows a kernel power loss event. The distinguishing feature is that the reboots usually happen when the CPU is lightly loaded or idle, or a few seconds after leaving a heavy workload. The machine passes stress tests without an issue. The consensus seems to be that the CPU is undervolting a bit too far under light/idle workloads. So people are experimenting with many different BIOS settings to try and fix it.

TLDR: After trying every BIOS adjustment under the sun, installing a different OS, and rotating every component bar the motherboard with old spare parts, I was left with only one option: It had to be the motherboard. So I bought a new one, and yes, everything just works great now.

I was going to write a guide to security-related HTTP headers, but it turns out that someone has already done it. So here you go, it's worth a read. I have locked down the out-of-the box Tuskfish headers a bit tighter. The content security policy header can break a lot of stuff (read 'any inline script or style sheet') and requires manual tweaking, depending on what you're doing.

Tuskfish 2.0.7 is a minor update to fix small bugs and add htmx support. Back end toggling of content on/offline now uses a htmx call to avoid reloading the whole page. This makes management easier when you have a large amount of content. The htmx library is now available in /vendor, but it is only used in the back end administrative theme.