Jean Galea

Health, Wealth, Relationships, Wisdom

🔒 How to Setup SSL on a Synology NAS

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When you enable SSL on a Synology Diskstation, accessing it over the local network will throw up a selection of security warnings on browsers.

There are 3 choices here for the LAN user:

  1. Ignore the warnings and click through
  2. Register an Internet FQDN to your local IP
  3. Create a self-signed SSL and root CA to sign the SSL

Choice 1 is the easiest but it gets annoying after a while. If you are using the NAS locally in your house only and you’re not making it available over the internet, you might as well disable SSL altogether as you won’t be getting much benefit out of it. If you’re the geeky type and want to do things the right way, however, keep reading.

Out of the three choices, choice 2 is the most proper way to do it if, especially if you’re making the NAS available over the internet. You will need a public domain name to so you can create a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for your Diskstation (something like https://ds.mydomain.com). Next you can generate a valid Certificate Signing Request (CSR) for the FQDN and configure DNS to point back to your local LAN and setup whatever routing is required.  This is best if you need to secure a local LAN asset where you do not control all devices accessing the Diskstation.

Choice 3 is in my opinion the best option for those who are only using the NAS locally.

It has two prerequisites:

  • Your Diskstation must have a fixed IP address on your LAN.
  • You must be able to add or assign certificates to devices you want to approve your SSL.

If you can satisfy those conditions, proceed with the following steps:

In DSM 6.0 -> Control Panel -> Security -> Certificate

Click “Add” to start the process and choose “Create self-signed certificate”

First you create a Certificate Authority (CA) which is the master key that will sign the site usable SSL.

You will need to supply the certificate details. What you fill in is not very important, you can use dummy data if you want.

Creating the self-signed certificate from the Synology control panel has a key step that you must complete or the certificate will be invalid.  The Subject Alternative Name (SAN) in the second step must contain BOTH the name of the Disktation on your network (“myDSname”) and its local fixed IP (192.168.1.10)

Once your certificate has been generated click “Configure” in DSM to set the new certificate to be the default for the system (The internal web server will restart) so that when you attempt to load the Diskstation site the correct SSL certificate will be presented to your browser.

Now you need to export the newly generated certificates from your Diskstation and import the root CA [and the SSL certificate] into your local machine’s certificate store so that they will be recognised as valid.

Check this page to understand how to install certificates system-wide as well as in specific browsers that handle their own certificates. It also includes details on installing the certificates on your mobile devices (iOS and Android).

Further resources: If you are making the NAS publicly accessibly over the internet, you can follow Mike Tabor’s guide on using Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates as they are completely free and work perfectly.

The Cheapest Way to Pay Remote Workers in the Philippines for a European Company

Last updated: 3 Comments

 

Working remotely is becoming more and more popular, with lots of European companies outsourcing part of their workloads to labor in the Philippines. The big question is how to pay these remote workers at the end of every month.

The current methods I know of are:

There are many other services but they mostly seem to cater for US companies rather than European ones. For example, Xoom does allow economical transfers of money, but the source bank account or debit/credit card should be in USD, else you will be hit by a conversion fee from EUR to USD, apart from the eventual fee to convert to Philippine Pesos.

So far, the most straightforward service remains PayPal. It is possible to have both a USD and a EUR balance within PayPal accounts, so this gives the best level of flexibility when paying remote workers in the Philippines.

On the other hand, Payoneer is a strong competitor, with the slight disadvantage that you will have to sign up for a Payoneer account and supply some company documents for them to verify the company before being able to put payments through.

To test things out, I sent a payment of around $1000 to the Philippines with both PayPal and Payoneer. I used USD for the PayPal transfer and Euro for the Payoneer transfer, but the value was the same, I just calculated the Eur value using that day’s exchange rate. After calculating all fees, conversion to currencies and receiver’s bank fees, Payoneer comes out the winner as long as you send in Euros. Compared to PayPal, the receiver saved at least $35-45 after all is said and done with a Euro payment. If I had done it in USD the receiver would only save about $8-10.

Have you found any great services for transferring money from Europe to Filipino remote workers? Let me know!

Best Mobile Apps To Use in Barcelona (includes Discount Coupon Codes)

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Living in Barcelona is an absolute blast, and these mobile apps will help you get the best out of it. Most of these apps can be used by tourists visiting this city, and even other cities in Spain.

Scroll down towards the end of the post to get all the discounts and coupons to use when signing up for these services.

Food & Beverage

  • Tripadvisor / Restaurant Guru / El Tenedor – Find the best restaurants and cafes.

Deliveries

  • Glovo – Delivery of anything you fancy.

Transport

  • FreeNow – Cab hailing.
  • Yego / eCooltra / Acciona – Scooter rental on demand. Scoot also rents e-bikes.
  • Bicing – Bike rental on-demand.
  • ParkMe – Find parking spaces and show prices of car parks.
  • ElParking – Find parking spaces.
  • Parkapp – Book parking spaces.
  • Parclick – Cheaper parking.
  • Bip&Drive – Easier and faster passage through toll road booths and parkings.
  • Komoot – Directions for biking around town, I use it on my Apple Watch.

Accommodation

  • Airbnb – Apartment and room rental.
  • Badi – Find rooms for hire / rent out a room in your apartment.
  • Booking – Best app for booking short-term stays worldwide

Banking

  • N26 – The only bank account you’ll ever need.
  • Revolut – Online bank.

Wellness

Social

  • Meetup – Find like-minded people to hang out with, participate in sports activities, excursions, you name it!
  • Internations – Meet people wherever you are.

Other

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Acciona

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Mr Noow

Order and pay from your phone and eat at the restaurant or take away.
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Avancar

The biggest car sharing and rental-on-demand platform in Spain.
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€10 Free Credits
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Resto-in

Get €10 free credits for home food delivery from the city's top restaurants.
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MyTaxi

Taxi-hailing app that can be used in many cities in Europe.
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Booking.com

Book your next hotel through Booking.com and get €15 off.
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€22 Free Credits
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AirBnB

Get €22 off your first apartment or room booking through Airbnb.
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Deliveroo

Home delivery for the best selection of restaurants in town. Get €3 off your first order!
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eCooltra

Get 30 free minutes on this motosharing platform in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities.
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Yego

Supercharge your way around Barcelona! Get €30 in Free Credits.
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Ubeeqo

Car sharing in Barcelona and Madrid. Get €15 credit!
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Deliberry

Groceries delivered to your door. Get €10 credit in your account!
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🛵 🚗 Best Scooter and Car Sharing Apps in Barcelona, Spain

Last updated: 8 Comments

If you are staying in Barcelona for a few months, or have moved there permanently (great decision!), you probably know that transportation options abound. You have the metro, bicycles, buses and of course, you can always opt to walk around.

However, Barcelona is also the city with the biggest density of scooters in Europe. You’ll hear and see them everywhere. They are definitely the fastest way to get around town, so I was really happy when scooter sharing apps started appearing recently. Moreover, there are now various ways to use a car without actually owning one.

Make sure you check out my page with coupons for apps to use in Barcelona!

In this post, I will share my experience with the two leading scooter sharing apps, as well as the car sharing platforms. Not everyone likes riding scooters, and sometimes it’s just necessary to use a car (baby in tow anyone?).

Alright, let’s start with the scooters. There are three major platforms you can use: Yego, eCooltra and Acciona.

Acciona

Acciona motosharing is not only available in Barcelona but also in other Spanish cities like Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla and Lisboa in Portugal. That means you can use your account in various cities without needing to sign up to another service, which is very hand if you travel to and from these cities.

acciona motosharing prices

Acciona is the newest service to land in Barcelona and is definitely the best one at the moment.

They have started operating in 2019, and have the best technology overall, with a nice website and easy-to-use app that works perfectly.

While having the advantage of driving the newest scooters in the city, you also benefit from features such as a mobile phone holder, so you can put in your phone and use Google Maps to get you to your destination, as well as a convenient packet of wet wipes in the helmet box that you can use to wipe the seat before you hop on.

What I love about it is that you have the custom “C” riding mode which allows speeds of 80km/h, making these scooters save to drive on the highways. Whenever I tried taking scooters from Yego, eCooltra or Scoot on the highway it always was a bad experience as you end up being slower than the rest of the traffic and makes things unnecessarily dangerous.

Thus I had been stuck to driving within the city even though sometimes it’s much better traffic-wise to take one of the cities rondas to get to the other side of the city. This problem is now thankfully solved thanks to Acciona’s scooters.

Get 30 minutes free on Acciona with the code SUD67888

YEGO

Yego is one of the best scooter-sharing services in Barcelona. They are doing very well and the number of scooters is always on the increase. Their web and mobile interfaces are modern and easy to use. Many of my friends have switched to using Yego from eCooltra.

However, as of 2019, they are definitely being beaten by both Scoot and Acciona in terms of scooter quality.

You are fully covered by the insurance for damages against third parties. For damages caused to the scooter, or theft of the scooter, the insurance reduces the amount to be paid to an excess – in a case of compliance with the rental agreement. There is also the possibility to get an excess reduction for your scooter insurance.

The insurance which is already included in the rental price covers third party damages. Additionally, it is also included road assistance inside specific radius outside the shop. The damages on the scooter or theft are covered with the excess of 500€. All the accessories (helmets, top case, GPS, gloves, lock etc.) are not covered by insurance and are paid apart in case of loss or damage. If you have an accident while driving, the insurance covers your hospitalization and that of the passenger, if need be.

Overall I like the service and wish that all scooters were electric. Barcelona is a very noisy city and non-electric scooters and motorcycles are a major noise pollutant.

In 2019 Yego has also added very cool electric bikes to their offering.

Join me on YEGO and get 30 minutes for free!

eCooltra

eCooltra is an app with the largest fleet of electric scooters per minute in Europe, with more than 1000 scooters available. eCooltra was the first on the market and has the largest coverage of Barcelona. They have electric scooters which are absolutely silent and super easy to drive.

Pricing is 0.24€/minute with an insurance excess of 500€ or 0.29€ with an insurance excess of 99€. You can choose which tariff you want to use from your user account once logged in.

The downside is that they are quite underpowered, especially with two people on board and going uphill. I would say it borders on being dangerous as the acceleration is way too low, it makes it hard to keep the balance when doing a stop and go on an uphill road. Apart from this, it’s a good service and I haven’t had any problems using it. On each scooter you have 2 helmets, sizes M and L. It might be a good idea to keep a head cover of some sort so that your hair is not directly in touch with the helmet, which would have been used by thousands of others. It’s not the most hygienic thing to do really, and that’s another downside of using a scooter sharing service, unless you have your own helmet and don’t mind carrying it around with you.

Get 30 minutes free on eCooltra with the coupon code “hdmkc”

Before we move onto car sharing, I would like to point out that the two biggest advantages, apart from price, of renting a scooter versus a car are:

  • Faster to get around town.
  • Can be left at your destination without a requirement to return them to their original location.

Moving on to car sharing, the big player in town is Ubeeqo. See the offers below to get free credit when signing up.

Ubeeqo

Ubeeqo’s interface is very good. In this example, I searched for a car that I could use to go for a padel match in a part of Barcelona that is not very well connected for me to go by public transport. For a four-hour trip duration and 16km of driving distance, the calculated cost is 14.50 Euro.

Ubeeqo has two types of memberships. The first is free and the second is 5 Euro per month (annual payment, 6.90 Euro if you do monthly payments). With the monthly payment, you get cheaper hourly and daily prices, and I would definitely recommend it if you are going to be using Ubeeqo a few times every month.

Sign up to Ubeeqo and get €15 free credit

Final Verdict – Best Scooter and Car sharing apps

My favorite car-sharing system so far is Ubeeqo.

On the scooter side, it’s definitely Acciona due to Yego and eCooltra having less powerful scooters.

Best Mobile Apps for Getting Directions and Moving Around Cities

citymapper madrid

You might think that Google Maps is the one app to go to for all your navigation needs. After some research and trial and error, however, I discovered that there are some apps that are far superior for specific things.

The apps below will help you move around cities with great ease.

Waze

This is a great app if you’re driving. It displays instructions in big and easy-to-read text so that you can just attach your phone to the car’s dashboard and drive away. Need parking? Waze will show you where the nearest one is. Running low on fuel? Waze will show you all the gas stations on the way to your destination.

Waze is definitely better than Google Maps when using your own car/motorbike in a city or using a rental car or car sharing service. As expected, Waze comes with voice instructions as well, just like Google Maps.

CityMapper

This is the app I use when I’m using alternative modes of transport such as public transport or my foldable bike. It can also combine public transport and bike, for example. Google maps will only give you directions and time estimates for, say, bus/metro + walking. CityMapper can combine bus/metro + bicycle. The difference can be pretty significant at times so with CityMapper I can plan my trips more accurately.

Another awesome feature is that CityMapper taps into the bikesharing system here in Barcelona, so it will calculate the time needed to walk to the nearest bike station, then from the last bike station walking to the final destination. Before you plan a route, you will need to select whether you will choose your personal bike or the bikesharing service, and CityMapper will calculate accordingly.

Sygic

I find Sygic super useful when I am running low on mobile data or am in a foreign country without a data connection.

When driving at night, I find Sygic’s heads up display to be super cool. Basically, you put your phone flat on your dashboard and it will display directions, speed etc on the windscreen just in front of you. Don’t worry it’s not distracting at all and very easy on the eyes. At night I find it better than having to glance away from the road and into a bright phone screen to get navigational information.

Hope that was useful, if you have any other tips regarding using mobile apps to get around, let me know!

How to Find a Coworking Space in Barcelona

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Coworking spaces are a great way to get to know people and get work done, especially if you don’t have a home office and need a place where you can focus and immerse yourself in your project.

I’ve already written about the elements that make up the ideal coworking space, so armed with that knowledge, it’s time to actually find a coworking space.

Barcelona is one of the best places for coworking and digital nomads, and here are a few websites that will help you find your ideal space:

With regards to the best areas in Barcelona to work from, I would say that Gracia is my favorite just because there is so much life in this area. It’s easy to find a coworking space there and there are a ton of coffee shops and restaurants around so you basically have everything you need to survive and have a productive day.

I’ve personally moved away from coworking spaces to a hybrid home office and club setup. The club has not only a work area but also a gym, restaurant, bar, spa and parking, so I can better optimize my time. Going to a coworking space in the past has meant that I end up losing time in commuting and making it much more of a hassle to organise my padel matches and other things I enjoy on a daily basis.

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Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete