---
slug: end-of-may-miscellany
title: "End of May Miscellany"
date: "2023-06-02T20:00:00-04:00"
---

### Bookworm Upgrades

I upgraded several more systems to [Bookworm][], including a [Raspberry
Pi 4 Model B 4GB][pi4] and a [Raspberry Pi Zero W][pi0w].

All of the upgrades have gone smoothly **except** for the [Pi Zero
W][pi0w], which failed with "Illegal instruction" errors during
`dist-upgrade` and left the system unbootable in two separate upgrade
attempts.

I don't know if this is a pre-release issue with [Bookworm][] or if this
particular [Pi Zero W][pi0w] is starting to fail.  In either case, be
sure to back up your SD card before trying to upgrade a [Pi Zero
Ws][pi0w] to [Bookworm][].

### PNG Compressors

I tried the following [PNG][] compressors on a set of several
dozen screenshots:

* [pngcrush][]: Lossless PNG compression command-line tool.
* [optipng][]: Lossless multi-format image compression command-line tool.
* [pngquant][]: Lossy PNG compression command-line tool and library.

[pngquant][] produced the smallest output images.  The results were also
visually indistinguishable from the source images, at least for my use
case.  Of the two lossless encoders, [optipng][] produced marginally
smaller images than [pngcrush][].

(The bitmap images on this site are served as lossless [WebPs][webp]
with [PNG][] as a fallback, courtesy of the [`<picture>`
element][picture]).

### Domain Registrar

I've been considering switching to another [domain registrar][] for
a few years.  The [recent .zip TLD tizzy][zip-tizzy] seemed like a
perfect opportunity to register a new domain through a different
[registrar][domain registrar].  I'd heard good things about
[Namecheap][], so I created an account and registered my shiny new
`.zip` domain: [fdsa.zip][fdsa.zip].

Thoughts on [Namecheap][] so far:

- Good prices.
- Fast and simple interface.  Account setup and domain registration
  only took a few minutes.
- [2FA][] prominently located and easy to enable.
- They haven't sold, lost, or spammed my email address (yet).
- DNS propagation only took 2 hours.

My next step will be to migrate several secondary domains from
[GoDaddy][] to [Namecheap][].

[godaddy]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoDaddy
  "Go Daddy domain registrar."
[repeated data breaches]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoDaddy#Data_breaching
  "Repeated GoDaddy data breaches."
[domain registrar]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_registrar
  "Domain name registrar."
[zip-tizzy]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/critics-say-googles-new-zip-and-mov-domains-will-be-a-boon-to-scammers/
  "Ars Technica: Critics say new zip and mov domains will be a boon to scammers"
[gandi]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandi
  "Gandi domain registrar."
[namecheap]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecheap
  "Namecheap domain registrar"
[fdsa.zip]: https://fdsa.zip/
  "I have no idea what I'm going to do with this domain..."
[2fa]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication
  "Two-factor authentication."
[pngcrush]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pngcrush
  "pngcrush: Lossless PNG compression command-line tool."
[optipng]: https://optipng.sourceforge.net/
  "optipng: Lossless image compression command-line tool."
[pngquant]: https://pngquant.org/
  "pngquant: lossy PNG compression command-line tool and library."
[png]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNG
  "Portable Network Graphics image format"
[webp]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebP
  "WebP image format."
[picture]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/picture
  "HTML picture element."
[bookworm]: https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/
  "Debian Bookworm."
[pi4]: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
  "Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (4GB)"
[pi0w]: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-w/
  "Raspberry Pi Zero W"