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    1. Cell phone advice

      My current phone is about 6 years old and has a lot of signal problems and I replaced the battery about 6 months ago and the new battery is even worse than the original one was and I think it's...

      My current phone is about 6 years old and has a lot of signal problems and I replaced the battery about 6 months ago and the new battery is even worse than the original one was and I think it's time to get a new phone.

      Things I want in my phone:

      • Android
      • I would love to have a microSD card but that seems impossible
        • if there's not microSD then I need min 512GB of internal storage and I would prefer 1TB if that's not like +1k to the cost
      • Headphone jack
      • If there's AI, then I can disable it
      • Excellent battery life
      • On the smaller end

      Things I don't really care about:

      • Camera quality (I'm a shitty photographer, the camera wont help)

      Things that might be nice:

      • Having a stylus but not at the cost of the phone being enormous. Reason I want this is because it gets cold in the winter in Chicago

      I hope this phone lasts another 6 years and will be pissed if it lasts under 4 years; at that lifespan and amount of use I get out of it I'm pretty price-agnostic. I live in the USA but expect to travel to Europe a few times next year so it should do decently well when traveling. Network is T-Mobile.

      This is not SUPER urgent right now so if your advice is "wait til January because the XYZ phone releasing then is probably better than anything available right now" I would be willing to do that. But my current phone is really not doing great.

      Happy to answer any other followup questions if anyone has any!

      Thanks!

      26 votes
    2. Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news

      Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like the game awards.2025, devices.smart and gift cards. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if...

      Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like the game awards.2025, devices.smart and gift cards. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was out of the loop.

      But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

      17 votes
    3. What programming/technical projects have you been working on?

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...

      This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

      15 votes
    4. Midweek Movie Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      6 votes
    5. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      7 votes
    6. Anyone else using the Zed editor?

      A month ago I decided to take a look at Zed. It hasn't hit 1.0 yet so I wasn't sure if I'd like it. But I haven't opened any other code editors since the first launch. It's open source and seems...

      A month ago I decided to take a look at Zed. It hasn't hit 1.0 yet so I wasn't sure if I'd like it. But I haven't opened any other code editors since the first launch. It's open source and seems to be cross-licensed with multiple free software licenses.

      Beyond the nice GUI performance from their use of native code it's clear that my use of VSCode forks for the last few years has kept me held back. There are lots of little things I love about Zed like how you can edit code within the search results page. Or how you can use your own self-hosted LLM without the outrageous shenanigans required to do so with Cursor.

      22 votes
    7. Windows 11 cleanup/configuration script(s)?

      I'm doing a long overdo computer update (new CPU, mobo, and RAM), and am going to be reinstalling windows for the first time in a while. My current system is still on Win10 due to incompatiblity...

      I'm doing a long overdo computer update (new CPU, mobo, and RAM), and am going to be reinstalling windows for the first time in a while. My current system is still on Win10 due to incompatiblity with Win11, however I wouldn't have updated to Win11 until now anyway. I have Win11 on a Surface Pro and with recent updates adding features that match my existing muscle memory better (such as allowing expanded window buttons and putting Start on the left), I'm not as resistant to installing Win11 on my new hardware. I have access to the Education version of Win11 which after some research looks like it's basically Windows Enterprise and that itself seems like a big feature since it shouldn't come with a lot of the bloat apps already.

      With that in mind I have few questions:

      1. Does anyone have a PowerShell script they've put together to run on a fresh Windows 11 install that configures a lot of the settings to make it behave more like Win10 (and it's predecessors), toggles privacy settings on, etc. I am not looking for something that tries to strip anything out, I just want something that will save me time chasing down all the settings I've slowly found and adjusted on my Surface. I have the default folders like Pictures and Documents pointed to a drive on a seperate drive from my Windows drive specifically to make migrating to a new installation easier. I'd love something that prompts me to update where those shortcuts should point as well.
      2. Does anyone have any protips for getting the bulk of programs I need installed? I looked at Winget and Chocolatey a couple years ago, but they didn't quite look as fuss free as I was looking for. I generally avoid installing things from the Microsoft app store (which I understand would make this easier if I was willing to lean more into the Microsoft ecosystem). I'd love something (script based or otherwise) that's going to grab and install the program (rather than app) for a list of things like Firefox, Spotify, Steam, Miniconda, etc. I plan to make a list of programs I have installed that I know I will want to reinstall before doing the fresh install, but I'm making a plan to make installing everything as easy as possible. If there's a reliable script based way to install like 80% of my main programs I'd be thrilled to only have to track down and install more specialized stuff.
      3. Any general advice for transfering my browser data? I use Firefox, am signed in to an account, and think I have everything set to sync. However I'd love to bring over all my browser tabs and windows I'm still working in. I did look up how to transfer the browser data and found a Mozilla article for it, just wasn't sure if anyone had a method they discovered and like better.

      Thanks in advance for tips and advice.

      25 votes