How to Extract SSL Certificates from a PFX File on macOS
If you’ve ever been handed a .pfx file and told to “just upload the certificate,” you know the pain that’s coming.
PFX (PKCS#12) files bundle your private key, SSL certificate, and any intermediate certificates into one encrypted file. That’s great until you actually need to extract those pieces for something like an NGINX server, AWS load balancer, or third-party CDN that wants them all separately.
MacOS has OpenSSL built in, which is all you need. Here’s a simple shell script I use to generate the cert, private key, and chain in one shot and make them clipboard-ready for easy pasting.
Save the following as extract-ssl-from-pfx.sh:
Make it executable:
Then run it:
Follow the prompts. You’ll end up with three files and the contents ready to paste one by one wherever you need them.
Your private key is sensitive. Please don’t leave it lying around. Store it securely or delete it after use.
This script saves me time every time I deal with certificates. Hopefully, it does the same for you. If you have improvements or tweaks, I’d love to hear them.
How to Take Ownership of Files and Folders Using PowerShell
Ever had to take ownership of a bunch of files and folders? It's a pain, right? Well, not anymore!
Picture this: You've just gotten an external hard drive from a dead computer and need to access the files. But wait! You don't have the correct permissions. I had to do this, and setting the file permissions through Explorer was failing randomly. It appears that the folders all had different permissions, and the propagation was failing.
I've got a PowerShell script that'll save you time. It does two things:
First, here's the script. Don't worry, I'll break it down for you:
Let's break this down a bit:
There you have it, folks! A powerful little script to take control of your files and folders. No more permission headaches, no more "access denied" nightmares — just pure, unadulterated file access bliss.
Got questions? Hit me up in the comments. And don't forget to share this with your IT buddies – they'll thank you later!
Happy scripting!
How to enable MacFuse/PCloud Drive on Mac Sonoma 14.2.1
I recently upgraded to Mac Sonoma 14.2.1 and MacFuse stopped loading which affected my ability to load PCloud and NTFS drives. I spent a few days trying to troubleshoot everything and in the end it turned out I had to disable Mac System Integrity Protection to get everything to load. I'm sharing in case it helps anyone else.
To disable SIP on your Mac Sonoma for extensions like MacFuse and pCloud Drive:
Note: Disabling SIP poses security risks. Re-enable it once you've installed the necessary extensions. Only disable SIP when necessary and understand the potential risks involved.
How to Delete Folder with Special Character in Windows 10/11
I ran into an issue where a folder was created by some application with a special Unicode character that Windows Explorer doesn't seem to play nicely with. I also was unable to tell what the character was since nothing would reveal it. The folder's there, but you can't rename or delete it. If I tried to remove or delete it, I'd get an error saying the folder doesn't exist:
I have LockHunter installed but it wasn't able to delete it for some reason. The easiest way I found to delete the folder was to use Git Bash and then use the appropriate commands to rename or delete the folder.
Browse to the folder where the offending folder is located. For example purposes, I'll use c:\temp\folder1
Rename:
Delete:
If you don't have Git Bash or are not a developer/power user, you can download the portable version from https://git-scm.com/download/win to use temporarily. Once you decompress the files to a folder, you'll find git-bash.exe which you can double-click to run and use the above commands.
How to Setup a CI/CD Pipeline for Storybook.js using Gitlab
I just spent a few hours setting up a Gitlab pipeline to deploy a Storybook.js site. Of course the end result ended up being much simpler than I made it out to be. Like everything else on my blog, I'm sharing in case anyone else can use the information to save time.
Just put this in your gitlab-ci.yml and it'll take care of caching the node modules and building your static version of Storybook to deploy.
How to Clear Archive & Read-only flags on Files in Windows in Bulk
I ran into an issue where I had to move files from one system to another and was running into issues because files had been set as read-only, had the archive flag set, or both. It was causing the system to skip files which wasn't acceptable. Normally you could just use Windows to clear it in bulk, but that could potentially mess up file permissions. I needed a way to automatically just clear all flags but respect permissions.
I did some searching and didn't find a utility that would do the job and most of the solutions I found required Powershell which wasn't available on the system I was on. I ended up writing a quick console application in C# to do the trick. I've made it free and open sourced it in case anyone wants to use it.
If you need just the app, you can find the release build here with instructions. The app also prompts for input to make things a bit easier to use. There's no install, no tracking or metrics, or anything else related to privacy concerns in this app. It's a simple throwaway utility to get the job done and move on.
https://github.com/gregvarghese/clearflags/releases/tag/1.0.0
If you want to see the source code, that is available here:
https://github.com/gregvarghese/clearflags/
Please note that I did this in about 10 minutes for my own use so error handling is pretty much non-existent. I mention this because I did run into one issue where Windows was somehow seeing a folder with files in it as a file and it couldn't be deleted or renamed and the utility couldn't get past it until it was resolved. I didn't spend much time debugging and just used my Mac to rename the folder and Windows was able to recognize it after the change, so the utility was able to continue processing.
How to Prevent Raspberry Pi Zero from Blanking or Sleeping
I was setting up a Raspberry Pi Zero in an office to use for displaying a slide show of pictures on a TV in the waiting room and dismayed to learn it would constantly go to sleep after a few minutes. I researched and tried setting the consoleblank=0 in config.txt with no luck along many other solutions, but learned none of them worked for the Raspberry Pi Zero.
I'm not sure why, but I got an error that some dependencies were not installed. If that happens to you as well, run this command in terminal:
and then run the install for xscreensaver again
Now under Preferences, you'll see a new option for screen saver:
On the Display Modes tab, you'll see a drop down for Mode. Choose "Disable Screen Saver":
Your raspberry pi zero will now no longer go to sleep.