yumiris's recent activity

  1. Comment on What's your cloud/syncing setup for files, pics, mail, bookmarks, etc? in ~tech

    yumiris
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    I ended up self-hosting everything, mostly because of the unnecessarily huge amounts of data I've got, combined with the power & flexibility of managing the infrastructure as desired. To keep...

    I ended up self-hosting everything, mostly because of the unnecessarily huge amounts of data I've got, combined with the power & flexibility of managing the infrastructure as desired. To keep things brief...

    Mail

    Eh, still on Outlook. I've got a ProtonMail account since the service's early days. Suffice to say, the worry that it won't be around is what made me hesitate to migrate to it. Clearly that hasn't happened, though it's been a few years since it came out, so what if it will happen sooner rather than later? ^^'

    I could switch to POP3 for the Outlook emails so they're not stored on Microsoft's servers; however, that won't stop any copies of my emails from being stored on the servers, let alone in people's inboxes. With the latter in mind, using a privacy-oriented email service whilst your contacts use Outlook/Gmail/Yahoo! is counterproductive.

    Pictures/Videos/Documents

    What I've used in the past:

    • BitTorrent Sync: it's been a few years, but I recall it to be very reliable and straightforward. Unfortunately, it's close-sourced, and I'm not a fan of Resilio Sync. Older versions of BitTorrent Sync still work, though they're limited in comparison to modern versions. Using an out of date, close-sourced software for dealing with data makes me raise an eyebrow for sure. Using it now, it's absolutely superb.

    • Syncthing: Excellent in the decentralised & privacy department, but initially unintuitive. Once the interface clicked, it was a joy using it. Unfortunately, things got murky when a lot of devices got connected, and things have been getting slow - the CPU usage was getting ridiculous when hashing tens of thousands of files. No iOS support, unfortunately.

    • Nextcloud: Very good web interface and decent syncing client. Mobile application was a massive plus. Deploying it wasn't too much of a hassle, and the mobile app was sweet. Sadly, I did find it to be slow and otherwise bloated for my needs. I find Nextcloud to be excellent in group/organisation settings, rather than solo usage.

    What I ended up using:

    2021: Resilio Sync. I gave Resilio Sync a whirl again, and despite its close-sourced nature, I'm impressed by the practical value it brings to the table. I've found it much more convenient and surprisingly lightweight than Syncthing. It's much leaner on resources, and features like the local-folder sync, ability to set predefined hosts rather than rely on trackers. The best one is the selective sync, which lets you selectively download files from a folder, instead of getting everything.

    2019: Seafile. Pretty lightweight, open-source, straightforward web UI and an excellent syncing client (albeit with a few minor oddities). Some of the technical aspects are my cup of tea, such as block-based de-duplication and versioning of additions/changes/deletions.

    I've ended up testing the platform with a few developers and designers around the world whom worked on the same project. Suffice to say, everything went very well overall. Conflicts were dealt with pretty easily, and any troubleshooting was easily resolved. Most of the issues were people's habits/usage patterns rather than technical quirks.

    It also comes with a mobile syncing program. Not as great as the Nextcloud one; however, it does the job excellently in getting your files to and from the server. It has nifty treats like auto-uploading your gallery; hence, it's pretty good for backing up the gossip and Snapchat screenshots.

    Passwords

    KeePassXC (or equivalent KeePass programs across different platforms). All synced through Seafile (and previously through the aforementioned syncing programs).

    Bitwarden is very good, and technically makes cross-device usage much more painless than a KeePass database would.

    Bookmarks

    2021: No bookmarks; instead, important articles are preserved locally. I've rarely returned to bookmarks after bookmarking them.

    Plain Firefox Sync does the job for me. I contemplated hosting a Sync server a few times; however, I trust Mozilla with my data in that regard. Not only that, but they encrypt your data client-side before synchronising it to their servers.

    Regarding tagging, Firefox does permit you to assign multiple tags to a bookmark. By the looks of it, you can store a bookmark in a folder in the sidebar, but also assign multiple/unrelated tags. ^^'

    *Calendars/Contacts

    Eh, Outlook again. Bite me.

    Programs and General Setup

    Clonezilla is excellent for imaging an entire partition or disk. If you want to simply back up your configuration files, setting up a Git repository does the job.

    You could go a step further and set the repository in your home folder, and have it ignore everything except the files you explicitly add to it.

    If you're feeling particularly adventurous, you could set up the Git repository at the root level of your Linux installation, for the sake of being able to track configuration files outside of your home directory (e.g. in /etc). I haven't tried this one, nor do I condone it. ^^'

    Bonus: Notes

    I used to store plain-text files in a Git repository for notes, diary entries, and everything... well... textual. ~~Recently, however, I've switched to Standard Notes. I'm finding the experience and sleekness to be a delight. Both the philosophy of security/longevity, and the technical aspects (data being encrypted, seamlessly backed up, minimalist base w/ fancy extensions), made the software worth getting a 5-year subscription for.

    I would've switched earlier if it weren't for the abysmally painful process of getting self-hosting working. What ended up being the problem was poor/outdated documentation; however, I've written some notes on how to get the self-hosting working successfully if ever needed. Indeed, such notes are stored in Standard Notes. ^^'~~

    Went back to Git repository with plain-text. It's as simple as it gets, with lots of flexibility and portability.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    yumiris
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    They're getting there bit by bit! Damn, that's jarring. I played FFXIV now and again for the past several years, but only since Shadowbringers' release I properly dived into it. I can only try to...

    They're getting there bit by bit!

    Damn, that's jarring. I played FFXIV now and again for the past several years, but only since Shadowbringers' release I properly dived into it. I can only try to imagine how difficult it would be to relearn everything again like that.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    yumiris
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    It's not too far away from where you are. The first dungeon is a bump in how much damage you take, though the trials & subsequent dungeons do get a little more tricky. Bard and Gunbreaker main...

    It's not too far away from where you are. The first dungeon is a bump in how much damage you take, though the trials & subsequent dungeons do get a little more tricky.

    Bard and Gunbreaker main here! The GNB combos are pretty fun from what I've experienced so far. Yeah, I've heard about the jobs being changed drastically in the last major patch - I can imagine things becoming pretty confusing.

    I'm on Aether's Adamantoise. Seems like I can only visit other worlds which are on Aether and not Primal (which Exodus is on). Saddening times we live in.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    yumiris
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    Glad to see an FFXIV player around here! Heavensward was absolutely superb, and I'm really looking forward to Shadowbringers. How's the Stormblood experience going for you? I'm currently going...

    Glad to see an FFXIV player around here! Heavensward was absolutely superb, and I'm really looking forward to Shadowbringers.

    How's the Stormblood experience going for you? I'm currently going through SB myself, and so far I've been liking the music and atmosphere. I also noticed the dungeons & trials are much more merciless, which makes tanking even more satisfying.

    If by any chance you're up for it, I'm down for doing some SB quests together or partying up for a dungeon sometime!

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Antergos Linux Project Ends in ~tech

    yumiris
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    What security issues and what maintenance aspects?

    I can see why a power user would want arch but I think the security issues and the maintenance aspect is just not something I can get onboard with.

    What security issues and what maintenance aspects?

  6. Comment on What is your note taking workflow? in ~talk

    yumiris
    Link Parent
    Had a bit of a play with iA & NextCloud. I created the file in NextCloud and edited it from iA Writer. A pretty straightforward approach -- here's a video.

    Had a bit of a play with iA & NextCloud. I created the file in NextCloud and edited it from iA Writer. A pretty straightforward approach -- here's a video.

  7. Comment on What is your note taking workflow? in ~talk

    yumiris
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    In the case of Working Copy, I didn't need to share the files from iA Writer back to it, so the same should work with Nextcloud. You've actually gotten me curious about this - will get back to you...

    In the case of Working Copy, I didn't need to share the files from iA Writer back to it, so the same should work with Nextcloud. You've actually gotten me curious about this - will get back to you on how it goes.

  8. Comment on What are your top three favorite games of all time? in ~games

    yumiris
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    Picking three favourites ended up being a pretty difficult task! The games I've played are pretty different from one another, so it's essentially comparing apples and oranges. NieR:Automata ended...

    Picking three favourites ended up being a pretty difficult task! The games I've played are pretty different from one another, so it's essentially comparing apples and oranges.

    NieR:Automata ended up being the top favourite of mine. It's easy to overlook it as a fanservice-y game with graphics that aren't something to write home about (in comparison to what you get from Triple A games). Though, like many Automata players say, it's the furthest thing from that once you've played through the game.

    I found the existential storyline, blending of different genres (RPG, hack and slash, bullet hell, etc.), brilliant soundtrack, and melancholic atmosphere, to be absolutely fantastic. On top of that, it's an outstanding example of a video game that makes use of its medium to the fullest potential. It demonstrates it through the little details in the UI and through, well, moments that will leave an incredible impact on you if you are an emotional and existential type of person.

    The game isn't without flaws, particularly when it comes to its difficulty system. In the prologue, hard mode is too hard, and overall, normal mode is rather easy. The game gets too easy the more you level up, to the point where I had to make a program which lets you reduce your level back down for the sake of raising the challenge again.

    As mentioned at the start, some people could be put off by the "fan service" and somewhat budget graphics. In actuality, though, the fan service is rather minimal and is especially overshadowed by the gameplay and story itself. For me, the atmosphere made up plenty for the lack of 3xA eye candy.

    Nevertheless, the game shines in the aforementioned departments. Of course, there is an inherent bias to my choice. Hack n' slash and bullet hell are among my favourite genres. Orchestral soundtracks are my cup of tea, and I'm fond of dystopian settings and melancholic atmospheres. There are plenty of games that match my preferences; however, Automata somehow fulfils all of my tastes, so it's subjectively perfect for me.

    I'd actually discuss this in deeper detail, but I'm afraid of potentially spoiling. If anyone here is up for discussing just about any aspect of Automata, do get in touch with me!

    5 votes

  9. Comment on What is your note taking workflow? in ~talk

    yumiris
    Link Parent
    Hmm, what if you install Nextcloud, and in it, you open up a file, then share it to iA Writer? That's what I do when browsing files with Working Copy and editing them with iA Writer.

    Hmm, what if you install Nextcloud, and in it, you open up a file, then share it to iA Writer? That's what I do when browsing files with Working Copy and editing them with iA Writer.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on What is your note taking workflow? in ~talk

    yumiris
    Link Parent
    When writing, I share the file from Working Copy into iA Writer. I usually do this when writing for extensive amounts of time, as the experience in iA Writer is much more joyful. For very brief...

    When writing, I share the file from Working Copy into iA Writer. I usually do this when writing for extensive amounts of time, as the experience in iA Writer is much more joyful. For very brief writing, I do it directly in Working Copy.

    It's not automated; however, Working Copy does have a "Synchronise" button that pulls and pushes the revisions for you. If you want to only pull commits, swiping down (think refreshing on Instagram or Twitter) fetches the latest revisions from the Git remote for you to merge them in one tap.

    For committing, my commit messages are usually along the lines of Append 2019-05-07 diary entry. That ended up making the iOS keyboard offer predictions, so that speeds things up a little!

    I personally do prefer to manually commit and synchronise, as it gives me control over the contents of each revision, and also prevents merging conflicts. Working Copy does make it pretty straightforward on mobile, so the manual work isn't particularly tedious as it would be - for example - when using a terminal on mobile.

    If you want automation, using Dropbox instead of Working Copy/Git would drastically speed things up. Dropbox also keeps revisions of your files. The same applies for OneDrive and Google Drive, so using Dropbox isn't a requirement. If you care about privacy/self-hosting, Nextcloud would do the job.

  11. Comment on What is your note taking workflow? in ~talk

    yumiris
    (edited )
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    Before the method I'll outline below, OneNote was my main driver. Its flexibility over organising notes, combined with the infinite page size, was absolutely superb. I found that the version...

    Before the method I'll outline below, OneNote was my main driver. Its flexibility over organising notes, combined with the infinite page size, was absolutely superb. I found that the version distributed with Office is superior to the web and Windows 10 one; however, Office isn't free nor cross-platform compatible, so I eventually had to give up on using OneNote, unfortunately. I have thought of returning to it, but I'm too deep into the system I'm using now.

    After going through countless methods of note-taking, I've finally settled on simple plaintext files (with Markdown syntax for consistency & rendering support), in a Git repository. The notes are categorised by directory trees. There is a top-level readme file that summarises all of the notes and links to them.

    notes
|
| -- readme.md
+ -- administration
     |
     + -- vmware-shared.txt
+ -- programming
     |
     + -- csharp
          |
          + -- compression.txt

    This offered the most flexibility, simplicity, and compatibility. I use Visual Studio Code for the convenience and Markdown-related features it provides; however, on iOS I use iA Writer. For the Git software on iOS, Working Copy works wonders for me.

    The entire repository also serves as a diary. The years and months are sectioned into directories, and each day has a text file dedicated to it:

    diary
|
+ -- 2018
|    + -- 12
|         |
|         + -- 2018-12-30.txt
|         + -- 2018-12-31.txt
+ -- 2019
     + -- 01
          |
          + -- 2019-01-01.txt
          + -- 2019-01-02.txt

    Initially, the diary folder had its own readme summarising what I've written each day, but that quickly became a nightmare to maintain.

    A convenient alternative to using Git is having the text files in a syncing software. Syncthing does the job for me when I use it to sync my KeePass databases. The reason I chose Git for the notes is for the sake of revisioning. It's nice going back in time to see how your notes have evolved over time!

    5 votes