Looking to buy a new laptop, and of the model I'd like (thinkpad carbon x1), it seems like I can choose one with or without an NPU.

My surface-level understanding is they make built in AI processing and a couple other niche uses more efficient. Flip side, they're maybe a marketing gimmick?

Price aside (price difference doesn't seem too great), I'm wondering: should I buy a model with an NPU to help potentially future proof? Are there potential downsides to an npu model? Upsides?

I know there are lots of technical people here, I'd love to hear your thoughts or experiences!

I recently “upgraded” my wife’s computer, since it was about 7 years old and I think the WiFi chip in the motherboard was starting to go (and the motherboard wasn’t Windows 10 compatible either, and she wanted to upgrade to Windows 11).

Of course, upgrading the motherboard to the latest WiFi standards meant upgrading the CPU (also swapped from Intel to AMD), which resulted in getting new RAM as well (a rough time for that, given the prices).

All of that to say, I’m now sitting on a mostly functional old motherboard, cpu, and ram. Basically an entire computer sans case and power supply (I’m sure I have a hard drive laying around somewhere).

Any thoughts on what I could do with it? I’d thought of trying to build out a NAS (or some other home server of sorts), but I’ve been thinking that for 2 years and haven’t done it yet because I haven’t really found a “need” for one. I basically just use my computer for gaming, and I don’t really have or plan to have media collections with seem to be the main use case of a hobby NAS.

I've been trying to use Gimp to replace other options for years now, but it feels so abstruse and severely inefficient. I used to use Photoshop around 15 years ago but have stuck with Paint.NET since - my problem is that I now use Linux and paint.net isn't available natively. I was using Pinta, but it just is like temu paint.net, and I wanted something more/better (also it has a number of bugs that can easily frustrate me and often crash/hang when doing work on larger files or for longer times).

And for decades, people (both Windows and Linux users) have tried selling me on Gimp. I've tried over and over to get into it, but nothing made sense and it took way longer to do simple things than I thought it ought... but I'm trying for reals about 10 years since my last attempt.

Please does anyone have a page that explains how to do things without everything being convoluted? There seem to be no ways to turn commands into keybinds or icons I can just click, and all the keyboard shortcuts I find are in relation to nothing I want to do. Ultimately, I prefer keyboard shortcuts, but I can do icons as well.

Latest example: I want to draw a rectangle outline. Should be simple, but there is no tool to draw shapes (at least that I can find, and the tutorials online don't seem to imply the existence of one either). Okay... I have to select the rectangle select, then I have to go to the menu (Edit) and choose Stroke Selection... which pops up another menu with a ton of options. That's great and all, but in every other program I've ever used (even MS Paint!) you just click an icon and make the rectangle. If you want to alter the shape or something you right click or hold click, or maybe you can bring up a menu. But if I want to make a number of rectangles over and over? Even with keyboard shortcuts I have to make the rectangle (no issues there), then click Edit, "s" apparently takes me to the stroke menu, then enter. Bloated at best.

So, if anyone has a good tutorial or something similar that can help me out here, or an alternative Linux-based raster graphics editor that is free, I would greatly appreciate to know of it/them. I really want to like Gimp, and I'm hoping someone here can either help me get into it or direct me elsewhere. Thanks!

Edit: I realise I forgot to mention, I did use Krita for a bit. It felt like an in between Pinta and Paint.NET, but iirc, it crashed somewhat often or had enough bugs that I went back to Pinta.

I heavily utilize ChatGPT to generate .ics files to populate my Apple Calendar with various events, but I have been wanting to upgrade my time management and also use the Reminders app.

I recently used ChatGPT to help me populate a Trello board with tasks associated with a project I am working on, but I was getting annoyed with having my workflow split across Apple Calendar and Trello. I exported my Trello board as a CSV and was trying to have ChatGPT turn it into a file I could import into Reminders, but as it turns out, this is not easy.

.ics files do contain syntax for reminders tasks with due dates that populate the Apple Calendar, but generating an .ics file with only reminders tasks and importing into Calendar doesn’t actually work. Calendar recognizes that the .ics contains Reminders tasks and opens Reminders to import the tasks, but Reminders returns an error because it doesn’t support import, it only supports export to Calendar.

I found that Reminders has a Reminders.scpt dictionary file within the .app package that details .applescript commands that can create new tasks, so I fell into the world of AppleScript. The issue with AppleScript is that it was created in the 80s and hasn’t been updated since 2013. It has no native CSV support and is pretty clunky.

AppleScript does have text file support, so I was able to have ChatGPT convert my CSV into a .txt that I could parse with AppleScript. This allowed me to automate the creation of tasks in the Reminders app from my Trello CSV, but it was annoying and I still feel like there must be a better way.

Does anyone here use AppleScript regularly and know its full capabilities?

Also, are there any good resources out there for learning more about AppleScript? The Apple documentation is very out of date and it seems like more of a legacy language than something Apple regularly maintains.

This college term I was signed up to a class on Digital Electronics, and it kicked my butt on the very first week because the learning materials were extremely obtuse; I actually dropped the course because I could not see myself being able to keep up no matter what I did, especially because my university does not allow late work. I'm going to have to go back to it next term in order to get my degree, so I'm looking for any learning resources anyone can recommend me to give me a head start.

Just to be clear, I'm primarily looking for good resources that covers basics like boolean algebra (which I already understand but am terrible at) and logic gates. I know we'll be using VHDL later, so those will also be appreciated.

I'm thinking stacking running laptops on top of each other ( two ).

Would a rubber pad between them protect the laptops from each other's heat?

How thick would the pad have to be?

Would other materials work too?

I'm guessing this is something I can have cut to size in a hardware store.

I am looking for a new mouse, and I am overwhelmed by the choices.

I would be grateful for recommendations.

First, will a USB 2 mouse work in a USB 3 port?

What I would like in a mouse:

1. wired
2. reasonably immune to dirt buildup causing false clicks

Thanks for any input.

Edit: Thanks for all of the replies. I read everyone. I decided to go with something cheap and basic since people told me my current mouse that does unwanted clicks is likely just worn out.

My (older, now) computer has started having issues with the WiFi cutting out.

I looked at the connection strength and saw it was sometimes dropping to 0, so I picked up a WiFi extender, and now it’s signal strength is usually around 70% (Windows only shows a percentage). However, even while monitoring the strength via a PowerShell script to watch the connection strength, it still drops out while the connection strength is > 70%. When it “drops out” I’ll run a speed test and see that it is basically uploading/downloading with kbps speeds instead of Mbps.

My other devices in the same room don’t seem to have any issues, so I’m wondering if my antenna or WiFi card (built in to the motherboard) are just failing.

I know PCIe WiFi cards are better, but unfortunately, as it’s an older computer (can’t even support Windows 11), the motherboard only has one PCIe slot that is in-use by the GPU.

So, any suggestions for a USB WiFi card that actually works? (Or additional ways of troubleshooting a failing wifi connection…)

Any clever ways to connect to the Internet safely to update drivers, security, etc? I'd only want to connect to Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc, and then would physically disconnect the lan card. I know, dangerous, but I'm trying a piecemeal approach with a flash drive and getting mixed results. I tried to update to Service Pack 2, and it bricked the computer on restart, back to flashing Vista.

It just so happens that I was asked to write a paper about goals I hadn't achieved and I just thought about how I haven't touched my video game engine project in any meaningful way for around two months or so. On reflection, the main thing that is preventing me from working on it is that when I try to get back into it, I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm unorganized and can't figure out what exactly to do next because it's so open-ended. I'm absolutely terrible about writing down plans for what I should do.

I know that I'm not the only person who is trying to work on big solo projects, so I thought I'd ask: what are you doing to keep your project organized? Are you using any tools to help you? What do you find is most helpful to help you anticipate steps you'll need to address when things aren't very clear?

Most of my professional work involves the plumbing side of things (e.g. APIs, integration etc.) So I've come to front end quite late, and dabbled in HTML/CSS/JS frameworks, and tried to create a thing or two using Python GUI frameworks too.

After spending a bit of time learning about game development in Godot, I decided it might be fun to try and build a simple desktop app in the engine, and it surprised me how easy it was, it took me a day or two to build a basic git front end.

Of course, if you ever need to build something outside of GDscript, it'll require building an extension, probably in C++, but it makes me wonder if those sorts of tools exist outside of games engines? It feels like game devs get a wonderful tool that they use as a garnish on top of the real work (the game).

I'd be keen to know what people who regularly build front end tools tend to prefer to use.

ETA: I just realized the title is a poor summary of what I'm actually asking about, sorry!

I'm looking to better organize all the computer and electronics parts I have laying around and am looking for recommendations for software from people who are already doing this. I saw InvenTree but wasn't sure if there are other alternatives I should look at. Most of what I found so far is focused on companies and is therefore a bit more than I need. My only major requirement is that I can self-host it, or at least easily export all my data out of it. Ideally, the same software would work well for organizing home workshop parts as well (e.g. bolts, sockets, glues), though that's not a hard requirement.

Also, I'm not sure if this makes more sense here or in ~hobbies, but I figured the computer/electronics focus means it makes more sense here.

I’m wondering what software I should use to stream games from my desktop to my laptop. I’ve migrated from mostly using my desktop to mostly using my laptop in the last year. But my desktop has a substantially better GPU and I would love a convenient solution for streaming both Minecraft and Steam games to my Macbook. I’m personally not a fan of Steam’s client on MacOS as it is severely buggy for me. So any alternatives would be nice. I’d probably be happy with a low latency low compression full screen desktop mirroring app. But anything more targeted at games could be nice.

Edit: I'm using the free version of Parsec and it seems pretty good.

I have been planning to make the switch to Linux as a daily driver for a while and have researched many different distros. I have seen a lot of discussion online about Bazzite and other similar distros based on Fedora Atomic. It sounds like it would be more stable, and less likely for you to accidentally break something, but installing software other than Flatpaks requires running it in some kind of container such as Distrobox. Some people say it's annoying, others say it's good since you mess up the container rather than your system.

I have used SteamOS on Steam Deck, and notice that things have "just worked" more than what I have personally seen with "normal" distros on laptops or desktops. For example, I've never really had any issues installing things and running software on SteamOS, but someone I know using Mint has seen seemingly minor things cause massive glitches on their system, or they've run into strange difficulty just installing certain programs like Steam. Would one of these types of distros, especially Bazzite which specifically is trying to be like SteamOS, be closer to that Steam Deck experience?

Has anyone here tried one of these distros and had any thoughts? Anything you loved, or was anything a deal breaker?

I'm currently using AWS to run a couple of t4g.nano instances for a few little services but I'm wondering if there's a good hosting service in Canada, owned by Canadians, etc.

Basically I don't really like handing money over to daddy bezos and due to current political tensions I'd rather not support US companies, but I have NO IDEA how to find a reputable VPS provider.

I am a scientist who has semi-frequently written code in C (and other compiled languages like Fortran). When it comes time to compile, I typically tape together a Makefile from past projects and hope for the best, but even then I spend more time than I'd like to admit trying to figure out why my project is not being compiled or linked correctly. I've had a hard time finding any resources that aren't extremely surface level, or else are not behind some type of paywall. Can anyone recommend me some reading so that I can confidently write Makefiles and compile programs and actually understand what the different flags and commands are doing? I don't need extreme "under the hood" information as I don't intend to do things like write my own compiler, I just want to understand the process a little better. Help a scientist out!

I want something like typingmind but for free, and that doesn't require installation. mainly for gemini and mistral (or perhaps groq too) I just want to be able to paste my API key and just use it. I know about OpenWebUI and msty but OpenWebUI requires installation, and msty doesn't have an android version.

anyone know something like this ? (would also be nice if it supports LaTeX)

By "modern-ish" I mean support for wifi, USB, etc. Maybe modern is the wrong word, but "not prehistoric" fits better? I primarily want to use these machines for some old school mudding. Bonus points for a browser that works with encryption to make web browsing somewhat usable.

Computer #1: "Ole trusty"

This one came with the OG Windows NT. I've toyed with FreeBSD installs from version 4 to 7 or so. Right now I believe it has Windows 95 or 98.

• Compaq / Pentium
• 3.25" disk drive
• Broken CD-ROM and I haven't found a plug-and-play replacement yet, even though I've tried 3 or 4. I can get it to work by forcing the tray open and closed, but I'm certain the tray is going to snap soon.
• I've replaced the hard drive with a compact flash
• Right now it has a PCI LAN adapter, but I have the option to replace this with a wifi adapter (Linksys I believe)

Computer #2: "MTV was still cool"

This one's running Windows 3.1 at the moment. It's going to be much tougher to get a network connection going. Is it possible to do some sort of modem-to-wifi bridge?

• Compaq / 386
• 5 1/2" and 3.25" disk drives, no CD ROM
• Compact flash HD
• It has a modem, I'm not sure how fast. I'm also not sure how many expansion slots are left.

Preface: I am familiar with Habitica. This idea would probably scratch a similar itch, but I'm also using this as an opportunity to sharpen my Rust skills.

My idea came about when I was trying to find out some new tactics to curb my alcohol consumption, which isn't quite out of control yet, but I don't want to tempt fate.

I've also really liked the progression aspect of RPGs. What if I could gamify my quest to not drink alcohol and make it sort of a fun, unique RPG experience at the same time?

In the broadest sense, it would go something like this:

• You open the game up, ideally each day. You are instantly prompted: "Did you drink yesterday?" (and perhaps it will go back a few more days if you skipped).
• For each day you answer "no", you are rewarded with some sort of tokens, credits, etc. -- currency to play the game. If you answer "yes", maybe you get penalized somehow.
• Then, you pick up your journey, which is sort of a standard RPG experience -- fighting battles, buying gear, learning spells, leveling up, advancing through the world, you name it.
• The game should get progressively more difficult, but should not have an ending, as "quitting alcohol" does not have an ending either. At the same time, it should scratch the RPG progression itch.

The initial game concept I came up with is just one that I see as the quickest way to get this off the ground, which would be something CLI-based, where you are presented with a menu ("visit shop, enter arena, view equipment" etc.). You spend battle tokens to enter into arena battles, which reward experience points, money, and gear. You level up, work towards a build (there needs to be a way to respec because restarting isn't really an option), and progress through the arena.

In total, you would probably spend less than 5 minutes every day playing the game, which is by design. It should be an every day habit. But, there should be enough entertainment value that, if I'm not getting those sweet battle tokens by not drinking, I'm missing out on experiencing the game (or, I could lie, which defeats the purpose of the app).

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts, ideas, critiques, etc. before I spend a free weekend building out a concept.

Some questions in particular:

• I was leaning toward just building this in CLI because it will be extremely simple. It could just be a matter of STDINs. However, I'm open to other Rust-based options. Is there a good Rust UI toolkit or web framework that is worth looking into that would make this a little more modern?
• What about game features? What could make this a really fun experience, while also balancing the whole concept of being built around your life and your habits?

In the end, this is a deeply personal project that would be built, first and foremost, for my specific needs. But that's not to say I couldn't build it with some scalability in mind. Rather than asking about alcohol, perhaps the "habits" can be customized, and so forth.

Anyway, have a great weekend!

I am planning on switching to Linux Mint as my first Linux daily driver. I know someone who's used Cinnamon (the default) and it works fine, but I was wondering if the other options officially provided (Xfce and MATE) are any better? I have a little bit of (pretty trivial) GNOME experience on Ubuntu, but I don't really understand the pros and cons of different DEs. I've used KDE on the Steam Deck, and I hear that's a popular one, but can I get that on Mint?

I stopped blogging several years ago. Over the last few years, I've been writing plenty of private essays. However, very recently I have been considering starting to publish my writing and, well, start blogging again publicly. I have no desire to waste time on templates, look-and-feel, visual stuff, etc. I just want to write a bog-standard html file, and then publish it...I do value leveraging html elements that help with meta data (e.g. microformats, etc.), but don't care about how things look - and these elements that i value are all invisible to most users anyway. I would be fine with just crafting html by hand, deploying it via sftp or some boring deployment pipleine, and that's it. But, then, I started thinking: what about having an RSS/Atom feed? I used to consume content via an rss reader, but have not done so in years. But, I don't want to manually craft that feed file; nope, sorry. But, I've heard a comment or two from acquaintances that rss/atom feeds and syndication are really something that people - like my potential audience - might really desire. So, I should really consider having one. This means that either I have to craft several things manually (from the blog post itself, the list of archived posts, the feed file, etc.), or use a static site generator that will handle all this for me, etc. I don't want to get trapped down a rabbit hole where I am spending so much on the tooling, the scaffolding, twiddling with templates, or the publish process itself. I just want the minimal for writing and publishing, I want it to live on my domain name, and that's it. Am I crazy or extremely lazy for not wanting to generate an RSS/Atom feed file?

So, here's my ask of you all nice people: are feeds like RSS/Atom feeds even worth it? If so, does anyone have recommendations for a manual process where i can craft the blog post's html by hand, but somehow leverage a portion of a static site generator (or some minimal tool) to only automate the creation of the RSS/Atom feed file? Thanks in advfance for any constructive feedback!

P.S. - One thing that re-ignited my desire both to write more in public, and keep it alive with minimal fuss was my re-reading of Jeff Huang's excellent "This Page is Designed to Last" post: https://jeffhuang.com/designed_to_last/

Has anyone used a free, offline, open-source, real-time speech-to-speech translation app on under-powered devices (i.e., older smart phones)? There are a few libraries that written that purportedly can do or help with local speech-to-speech:

• https://github.com/ictnlp/StreamSpeech
• https://github.com/k2-fsa/sherpa-onnx
• https://github.com/openai/whisper

I'm looking for a simple app that can listen for English, translate into Korean (and other languages), then perform speech synthesis on the translation. Although real-time would be great, a short delay would work.

RTranslator is awkward (couldn't get it to perform speech-to-speech using a single phone). 3PO sprouts errors like dandelions and requires an online connection.

Any suggestions?

One thing I really enjoy is being able to share my screen with family and friends to watch movies together or share gameplay. On Windows, you can do this trivially with Discord. On Mac, you can do this on Discord if you install some software they recommend. On Linux, I believe it's impossible with Discord unless you use a third party front end, which I'd rather not do. Zoom has screenshare with sound, but I don't know what the Linux support is like, and it's capped at 40 minutes unless you pay.

Are there other messaging services that have voice call and audio screenshare support on Linux, no unofficial front end necessary, that's also available on Windows and Mac? It's ok if it requires some setup. Ideally it would be a group chat as opposed to streamed publicly on a site like Twitch.

Wondering if anyone has any good books or other content to recommend on software design. I feel like when I start out on a new project I always get stuck in a rut of trying to design something good, then end up with an awful design anyways. On the other hand, I've been around professors and more experienced software engineers who seem to effortlessly come up with simple, powerful architectures and interfaces.

While I know that reading a book or two won't get me the experience I need to improve, it does seem like that might be a good jump-start. Anyone have any suggestions for me? Thanks!

I am currently preparing for a new job and cleaning up my dotfile repository. During the process, I had the idea that it would be nice to create a list of amazing tools, aliases, functions, and recommendations together.

I will start.

First, here is a list of nice tools to apt-get install or brew install that I can wholeheartedly recommend:

• nvim is just an amazing text editor.
• fzf is a very good fuzzy finder util. For example, you can quickly find files with it.
• eza is a good ls replacement (and the successor of exa).
• bat is a great replacement for cat with nice integrations and many options.
• stow is great for managing your dotfiles. Thanks to @TangibleLight for telling me about it some while ago. I really love it.
• tmux is a terminal multiplexer, i.e. you can have many sessions in one single terminal window. It's easy to use and super helpful. (When on a mac, I prefer iTerm tabs, though.)
• nvm is practically a must if you are working with Node.
• glow is an excellent markdown reader.
• tldr is a nice man replacement. (You must run tldr -u after installing it to update available texts.)
• z, an amazing tool for switching directories quickly.

Also, I can recommend Oh My ZSH! which I have been using for years.

Here is a small list of aliases I enjoy (I have 100+ aliases and I tried to pick some others may enjoy as well):

# Serve current dir
alias serve="npx serve ."

# What's my IP?
alias ip="curl --silent --compressed --max-time 5 --url 'https://ipinfo.io/ip' && echo ''"

# This should be the default
alias mkdir="mkdir -p"

# Nice git helpers
alias amend="git add . && git commit --amend --no-edit"
alias nuke="git clean -df && git reset --hard"

# Make which more powerful
which='(alias; declare -f) | /usr/bin/which --tty-only --read-alias --read-functions --show-tilde --show-dot'

# This saves so many keystrokes, honestly
alias -- +x="chmod +x"

# Turns your path into a nice list and prints it
alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}'

# Map over arguments and run a command
# Usage: map <command>
# Example: ls | map cat
alias map="xargs -n1"

And, finally, here are some fun functions:

# Get cheat sheets for almost anything!
# https://github.com/chubin/cheat.sh
cheat() {
    WITH_PLUS=$(echo $@ | sed 's/ /+/g')
    CAT_TOOL=$(command -v batcat || command -v bat || command -v cat)
    curl "cheat.sh/$WITH_PLUS" | $CAT_TOOL
}

# Send everything to /dev/null
nullify() {
  "$@" >/dev/null 2>&1
}

# Create a new dir and enter it
mk() {
  mkdir -p "$@" && cd "$_"
}

# Create a data URL from a file
# Source: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.functions
data-url() {
	local mimeType=$(file -b --mime-type "$1");
	if [[ $mimeType == text/* ]]; then
		mimeType="${mimeType};charset=utf-8";
	fi
	echo "data:${mimeType};base64,$(openssl base64 -in "$1" | tr -d '\n')";
}

TL;DR: recommendations for a small or folding keyboard that in addition to Bluetooth, also connects directly by USB C.

Hello all. I'm a contractor who does a bunch of different stuff, and one of the areas I occasionally do is on-site IT work.

I'm always looking for better tools, and while I can and do keep a standard full-size USB keyboard in my van, I'd like something more space efficient that I can fit in a small toolbag. There are tons of mini and/or folding Bluetooth keyboards out there, and some of them have USB-C or mini-USB ports, but so many of them are either only for charging, or just don't tell you if you can connect to a computer by USB. Since most rack servers aren't going to have Bluetooth and I want an option that involves the least number of steps (trying to avoid a bluetooth keyboard and having to use a USB bluetooth adapter), I'd really like a mini or folding keyboard that, while it can do Bluetooth, also can connect to a computer by standard USB. I specifically want a USB C port since I'm trying to standardize my gear on that.

Thank you everyone!

Can someone recommend a KVM that works? I've been looking for a couple of years now.

Requirements:

• 2-port, 1-monitor, DisplayPort 1.4 KVM
• Has a wired push button switch (and cable can be extended if needed)
• Runs at 3840x2160 @ 120 Hz (or 60 Hz)
• Works with HP docking station (HP USB-C Dock G5 for business)
• Works with Classic 101 Black Buckling Spring USB keyboard
• Works with Logitech TrackMan Marble Trackball
• Works with HP laptop and custom desktop build (NVIDIA T1000 GPU)

Anti-requirements:

• Does not intercept keystrokes (or can be disabled)
• Does not intercept mouse scrolling (or can be disabled)
• Does not randomly repeat keys
• Does not block certain keystrokes (e.g., ctrl+shift+t)
• Does not let Windows laptop go to sleep
• Does not require manually re-waking Windows laptop by pushing power button
• Does not require switching back-and-forth to re-establish connectivity to both computers
• Does not take more than 3 seconds to switch between computers
• Does not randomly blank the screen for 1 second
• Does not require unplugging and re-plugging the USB keyboard

Here's the setup showing both computers and the push button switch:

• https://i.ibb.co/5nrDk21/kvm-setup.jpg
• https://i.ibb.co/hFsjT3S/kvm-switch.jpg

I have tried:

• IOGEAR GCS62DP (almost perfect; kills keyboard after 60 swaps; RMA'd)
• DiamondTiger KVM Switch EDID 8K@60Hz, 4K@144Hz, DP 1.4 (repeats keys, blanks screen, has screen tearing, and many other issues)
• CanadaComputers iCAN HDMI USB KVM Switch 2x1 with Switch Extension 4K 60Hz (completely blocks certain keystrokes)

Wendell's Level1Techs Store offers a highly recommended KVM, yet lacks a wired toggle button.

What other KVM switches are available that "just work" and have a wired push button for switching?

The next KVM I'm thinking about trying:

• GiantMatrix with LINDY EDID Emulator

ATEN also has a switch, which is on par with the IOGEAR (4K @ 60 Hz, no EDID):

• 2-Port USB DisplayPort/Audio KVM Switch

I'm looking for recommendations for good web tech job sites, ones which are most likely to lead to interviews. While I can always do a websearch myself, I haven't done a job search for many years, so I don't know what job sites are trustworthy or not nowadays. Working remote is almost must-have, otherwise Canada would be the region of interest.

I know this can be a bit of a heated debate sometimes, and with so many choices people will have their preferences. I wanted to hear some noob-friendly suggestions for me and some friends.

What distros would work well for an old laptop repurposed as a glorified Chromebook (web browsing, Netflix, emails, etc) with some light Steam 2D indie game usage? It would be borrowed by less tech savvy people.

What distros would work well for gaming desktops? Either current high end desktops or desktops that are a few years old.

I've been using Google's Keep Notes for all my note-taking, but I would like to shift away from that and use an app that is more secure. I've heard of Notion and Evernote but I'm not sure about their level of security/encryption. Any suggestions?

In light of Google's recent, tragic, and inevitable closure of Google Domains and sale of their customer list to Squarespace: what are you using for domain names?

Google Domains checked most of the boxes for me: good price, availability of TLDs, features, interface. The company's reputation went both ways, as we're now dealing with. Can't even remember what I used for domains before GD.

This thread is inspired by the recent thread on hosting providers, where I saw a lot of people were using Namecheap for domains. The name of the company sounds like a .biz from 2002, but if it's good it's good.

Let's figure out the best option for domain name services as of October 2023.

Hello Tildes,

I am currently taking DSA in college and struggling a lot with the math and algorithms. Recently had to solve Karatsuba questions and I don't even know what I wrote down on the paper. I have been trying to look for videos on this and only really came away with a vague understanding.

What I've noticed is that I struggle with solving the math part of the questions.

For example: "Describe a divide and conquer algorithm to compute the square
of an n-digit integer in O(n log3 5) time, by reducing to the squaring of five [n/3]-digit
integers"

I have zero clue how I am supposed to understand the latter half of the question. It makes no sense to me beyond I am supposed to be multiplying squared numbers. How do I even begin to turn this into an algorithm? What is the solution even supposed to look like?

Needless to say, I've struggled with math my entire life and I've been trying for years to be decent with it, and I have nothing to show for it.

So, do you have any recommendations that could simplify the math needed for DSA? Videos are preferred but I will textbook recommendations as well.

Thank you, and have a good day!

Way back in the day, I used to run a fan site for a game that ended up teaching me a lot about PHP, perl, databases and so on. Currently, I'm looking to rebuild that site, but PHP nuke is now hopelessly outdated and joomla/Drupal are not the direction I want to go in. So far, I've found php-fusion (from GoDaddys cpanel installer) which seems close, but I'm curious if there is a closer analog out there.

The ideal for me is the old school blocks down the sides with content in the middle layout, with add-ons like forums, image gallery etc. Cheers for any help 😁

The end of the year is approaching fast and I still have some educational budget to spend. Therefore I would love to hear your suggestions for educational resources to spend some money on.

I'm open for all suggestions, but I would love to dive more into low level programming. I spend most of my work time as a backend dev. And it is nice for a change to something else than REST-endpoints.
At the beginning of the year, I bought the amazing Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom and I'm enjoying tremendously.

So any recommendations going into the same direction or similar deep dives into topics like OS-dev, Game dev/graphics (tiny renderer comes to my mind) or writing emulators would be appreciated.

To get the discussion started, my top recommendation for his year would be Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom.
If you are interested in the inner workings of interpreter and compilers and want a nice "program-along" book get it. I would recommend the paper-version, it is a beautiful book.

Hi everyone,

So, I have a DS923+ with 4GB of RAM and while it is running fine most of the time with my Docker containers, I guess everything could be more fluid (e.g. scrolling on Jellyfin while it is loading info / images).

Since the Linux OS uses free RAM as cache, I was looking to buy an extra stick of RAM. I was thinking of buying a 8GB of RAM which in total my system would then have 12 GB. Not sure if overkill, but still, I run a few containers.

I’ve actually searched on the Synology subreddit, but everyone is basically buying 16GB of RAM or maxing out the GB allowed for the RAM on the DS923+. So, that is the reason why I’m asking here.

I know that Kingston has some 8GB RAM sticks which should work with DS923+ but it seems they are blacklisted by Synology, so it seems you will always have a warning on the notification list which I wanted to avoid. :/ But on that list (see here: Ram list), it seems the 8GB RAM that Synology uses is sourced from Innodisk or Adata, so you shouldn’t get any warning there. Sadly, I can’t find them anywhere for sale. Even when I contacted the companies directly.

In conclusion, has anyone bought a 8GB ECC RAM for the DS923+ which doesn’t give a DSM warning?

Thanks everyone in advance!

Cheers!

As an amateur photographer, I'm looking for recommendations to improve my process for reviewing and selecting the best photos from my albums.

Currently, it goes something like this:

• (after I copy the photos to my PC) I open the folder containing the album
• I open the first photo and start looking at the pictures using the default photo viewing app
• I note mentally, on paper, or in a digital notepad the names of the files that I like the most
• manually select the files that I noted down

My ideal workflow would be something like:

• open the folder, open first photo, look through them all
• each time I see a picture that I like, hit space or some other simple shortcut, which adds the picture to the current selection
• after I am done viewing, I have all the files that I want already selected to do with as I please

I have tried multiple apps over the years but I haven't come across anything that had something similar, or I was too stupid to figure out how to do it. The workflow I described is using windows/linux, on macOS it's even more cumbersome (since one needs to select all photos in a folder before previewing them).

Do you have any recommendations for an app that has functionality like this, or if not, on how I can make my workflow better?

Thanks

Hey! I’ve been trying lately to get rid of big platforms from my life. One part of it is that I usually buy ebooks/audiobooks from apple, Amazon or google, however I’m then also forced to use their reading app, which is a vendor lock-in I’m not comfortable with.

I know there are plenty of ebook readers out there, but I’m trying to find

1. A store where I can buy ebooks that can be opened in a ebook reader of my choice.
2. A way to then sync my progress between phone and laptop. I have nextcloud setup, so if I can make use of that then it’s perfect.

Anyone here got any tips?

I used to work in IT but left the field in 2018, so I'm not as up to date as I used to be on things. I'm looking for a new laptop to use for work (primarily word processing and web browsing), ideally something portable with a good sized screen (larger than 13"). I've had a Dell G5 for the last five years because I thought I'd do more gaming on it when I bought it, but it's largely just been a heavy brick in my backpack on travel.

Back in the mid 2010s, I recommended Lenovos to everyone who would listen, but I fell out of love with them toward the end of my IT career when the build quality seemed to be rapidly declining. I haven't really touched them recently, but my dad loves his Lenovo Ideapad Pro.

Honestly, something similar to a Dell Latitude might be what I'm looking for, but I'm open to any recommendations. I need a responsive keyboard and clickable trackpad. Bonus points if there's somehow a laptop out there that has a nub!

ETA: Not looking for a macbook -- will be running Windows!

Hi everyone — I am trying to get a job in web development after a decade in a mostly unrelated field.

I am looking for ideas and tips to create a portfolio to send with applications. All of the websites I worked on ages ago have been taken offline or redesigned by someone else. I do have a website I created for my music, but it’s just vanilla HTML. I also have a personal website which is really the only thing I have to show.

I know HTML/CSS quite well, but that’s basically it. I’ve worked with WordPress for years but only just recently began learning enough PHP to do anything custom. I don’t really know Javascript much at all.

I have quite a few paid courses through Udemy for all these different areas but even as I have completed them, I don’t feel confident in knowledge of the different languages. These courses nearly always come with projects that the students create with the instructor. Should I use these as part of my portfolio? For some reason I never felt right doing that, since I didn’t build it myself.

So I guess I’m curious (if any of you are web developers) if you have suggestions for how to fill out a portfolio without any previous work examples.

Side note: I wasn’t sure how to word the title or my question particularly well so please edit it more clearly, Those Who Can Edit.

edit: thank you to everyone who took the time to reply to this. it’s all been very helpful and i appreciate everyone’s input immensely!

I mean this in the sense of "I find a file on a website that I want to have download directly to my laptop without having to download to my phone and then transfer from my phone to my laptop?"

Something I can use in the case "ope that's an interesting file that I'll forget about before I'm at my laptop"

Hey y’all. Recently picked up a Cyberpower prebuilt. Looking to install a Linux distro on it for gaming. Currently have Ubuntu on my laptop, so I’m not a total noob, but my experience is still low. Not a big fan of having to use the terminal. Any distros y’all would recommend? Am leaning toward Pop_OS or SteamOS.

I'm starting grad school in neuroscience/biomedical engineering soon, and one of my most dreaded parts of it is inevitably having to develop Matlab code. I understand why people use it -- it's arguably best in class at a lot of engineering tasks, and the matrix-first approach of the language makes it very fast to prototype things if you think like a mathematician/engineer.

However, the language also seems to actively discourage good software practices, and many frequently used scientific projects have atrocious code. Think python dependency management is bad? How about NO DEPENDENCY MANAGEMENT? Yes, that's right, the way you share code in matlab is by importing collections of loose files from github/matlab file exchange. The Matlab neuroimaging code that I have worked has also frequently abused the workspace to share state implicitly between scripts, which makes the code virtually incomprehensible. Instead of using packages to create namespaces, common practice is give function names a prefix and import them into the global namespace.

I know there's multiple large companies that rely on Matlab for their products, so it must be doable; I just haven't seen it for myself yet.

Do you guys have any experience developing in Matlab, and if so, are there any good resources to learn how to build robust software in it? What are some open source projects that have good Matlab code?

Hi
Android Mozilla browsers with access to about:config.
Examples are...
Firefox Beta
and
Firefox Nightly

Back in the day there were lots of config tweaks for PC Firefox.
But there's not much config information about Android Firefox.

I found these two posts on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/11shvus/fixing_performance_problems_in_firefox_on_android/

https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1278zp5/improving_performance_in_firefox_android_part_ii/

Does anybody here have other about:config suggestions?

For most of my life, I've been a hobbyist programmer. From Qbasic to Python and JavaScript. I've always wanted to create an Android app, really just for me, just to do it. It's a bucket list thing.

Can you give me a book or a website guide that is up to date and complete but not 100,000 pages long that could help me get it done? A book would be preferred! I just want to cross this off my list!

Hey folks, looking for recommendations. What's your go to word processor on Ubuntu? (EDIT: For regular writing, not a text editor for coding.) I haven't been the biggest fan of Libre office tbh (please don't hate me...) There were just several bugs in Writer that made it unusable for me. I'm curious about alternatives. I read that WPS office is on ubuntu, but I've always found it to run kind of slow (however, my experience was on Windows.).

I don't need a lot of fancy utilities, but would enjoy something a little more beautiful than notepad++ :) My biggest concern is just that it's a stable software. I'm OK with glitches or UI bugs, just nothing that's going to crash and burn and corrupt my work. (I mention this because there are several newer word processors made by single developers, and I'm a little weary to use them because I don't genuinely know how stable the software is.) I'm also not a fan of software that saves in some special format where you rely on that software to open it (or have to go through hoops to convert it.)

Any recommends?

EDIT: I'm new to Ubuntu, in case it makes a difference.

I'm currently using Navidrome to self-host my music collection, while using DSub to listen on-the-go.

This works very well for most genres, except for the bulk of my music which is classical music. This presents its own host of problems pertaining to cataloguing and using metadata, since there are often multiple recordings of the same musical composition, recorded by multiple conductors with different orchestras and/or soloists. There may also be different instrumental arrangements of the same musical piece. Merely sorting by "Artist" is therefore quite unsatisfactory in this scenario.

Some streaming services have come up with quite satisfying solutions in my experience (notably Apple Music Classical and Idagio), but I am not sure how to go about listening to my own self-hosted classical music.

Is anybody here on Tildes familiar with this organizational problem? I would be very eager to hear how you have tackled this. Is there any self-hosted software more suitable to cataloguing musical collections with extensive metadata?

I use Github and Netlify to run some simple websites for free. It works well. However, I've been thinking of experimenting with a database-backed website for fun and Netlify doesn't have any persistence.

What's a good way to do this that scales to zero when nobody's using it? I want to be able to forget about it entirely for months or years at a time. When someone visits, it should start up and run on demand without costing me $20 a month on standby.

Back in the day, I used Google App Engine for this. I learned a lot of datastore tricks to get around its poor latency, but I'm lazy and don't want to do that anymore. I'm pretty sure I want a SQL database and full text search. Either sqlite or Postgres would do, but I doubt there's a cheap enough way to run Postgres.

Litestream looks interesting and so does LiteFS, except that it's pre-1.0 and I don't know what changes fly.io will make that I have to keep up with. If I used Litestream, I'd have to figure out how to run it and where to store the replication logs.

Edit: one nice-to-have is being able to easily dump the database and run it locally or on another cloud provider. (I don't anticipate it getting so big that it's impractical.)