I've only had exposure to Beyond Compare and would like your opinion/suggestions on what's good.

mostly, I use it to compare two different versions of similar csv and potentially to merge them. Next use case is to compare two versions of simple scripts to see what's been updated.

Command line tools are a little too much for me, but if it seem to be very important to learn I supposed I could be encouraged to do so.

With the growing fragmentation of online streaming services, I'm thinking of setting up a local media server for my home that I can use over Kodi to stream movies/tv shows to my chromecast. I might go Monkey D. Luffy for the content itself.

Basically the basic plan is to have some base features and some add-ons as follows.

Base:

1. Create a media server using a Raspberry Pi and some storage to serve as the base for all my viewing
2. Setting up Kodi on all relevant platforms to consume data from (1) [This should be trivial]

Add-ons:

1. Create a python script to check for new episodes of any existing show available on the net (Imdb, moviedb, wiki can be starting points to check this)
2. Automate download of shows from 1. Can be setup to run at some daily interval
3. Download subtitles for shows from 2.
4. Maintain some Github list to add new movies/tv shows that user might be interested to download. Script from 1 should be able to consume this.

I used Popcorn time was a software that was able to do most of this at some point, but I remember reading that there were some security issues identified with it. I never really checked it afterwards, but happy to be corrected if it's reliable.

Edit: Thanks folks, I did not know that the RR-sphere already solves most of these problems, will look into it. I was looking forward to the scripting, but I'm guessing these solutions handle security much better than I would at my end.

If I wanted to create an Instagram to try to build a brand but value privacy, what are some good tips and tricks for using the app and not have all your personal data harvested by Meta?

Of course they're going to collect whatever info I post but are there some mitigation strategies? Always use a VPN? Should I get a brand new phone number?

Long story short my roommate has a surround system she got at Goodwill and I set it up for her but the internal amps are not functioning properly. It's only using the front two satellite speakers and sub which is independently powered. So it's 2.1 for now.

The front two speakers barely put out much sound even cranked to max volume. The sub is fine as again it's independently powered.

I've ruled out all settings, as there is a 2.1 output mode, and the radio is just as low so it's not an input issue. I have it hooked to her PC's output. I also have proper gauge speaker wire so that's not the problem either. I did hook up the center speaker to one of the front outputs too. Same deal.

So can an inline amp help at this point? Is there anything else I can try or rule out?

Also if this is not appropriate to post here in Tech I apologize in advance.

I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating numerous Google-bound things over to my own self-hosted alternatives. I've moved my storage, contacts, documents, and some (but sadly not all) of my calendars to home solutions, fairly easily too.

But the biggest hurdle I've been facing this whole time, the one I've been putting off the longest, is the act of figuring out how to get almost twenty years of mail archive and history on my primary account away from Google and into a space where I can access it separately. I have been steadily changing the main email on my more active external accounts to a self-hosted one, and now only seeing a shrinking handful of lesser-used services still attached to the old gmail. But that history is too precious to me, and I still find multiple occasions where I need/want to reference some communications from long ago.

I've tried searching the web for options, but so far all combinations of my queries are either really elementary "here's how to set up a new email" crap, or else aimed at moving from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. I've been thinking that the simplest approach might be just to set it up as a POP3 account in my mail client (eM Client, for the record), download it all, and then when I finally pull the plug just drag it into the local client archive, and then remove the account from the app. But I figure there have to be others who have done this, right?

Using iem with ANC on the street

Hello!

I'd appreciate knowing how is it to go out on the street using an iem with ANC. Especially when you are on a sidewalk next to a heavy-traffic street or when you are on the subway for example. Does the ANC eliminate completely those types of loud sounds? Or they are still present but just not on the same level?
I ask this because I use IEM with foam ear tips but with no ANC. I feel that the foam ear tips normally makes a good seal and isolate conversations next to me or other sounds in my house. But when I go to the street in those places I mentioned the sounds are still somewhat present, although not at the same level as the music I hear. So I was thinking if I could achieve more isolation using for example a ANC iem.
Any insight would be much appreciated thank you!

I recently digitized some old home movies from my grandparents and looking through the film I realize I recognize almost no one. This got me thinking, I should go through this with my mother to help me identify family members as she's probably the last person who knows who anyone is.

Obviously I can just make a document with notes ex: 2:53 screen right, great uncle john"
But I'm hoping there's a more elegant solution in which I can keep info with the file and not some auxiliary document that dosent live in the same place.

I could just dump all that info into Metadata but that's maybe the lowest quality solution.
The xray function of Amazon prime video is the example of the best solution in a perfect world. (if you don't know, when you pause or bring up the context menu on prime video, there's a bar that identifies everyone one scene with a matching headshot)

I actually looked into it and there's an API that amazon uses for this called "RecognizeCelebrities" and uses images to train the program to recognize faces and populate it's menu. I'm not sure if it's open source but even if it was, it's over my level to use it practically I think.

The last option I can think of is using a video markup platform like frame.io but that's not really a long term solution.

Any ideas?

So I am a member of a social/hobby group that has been doing hybrid meetings with some people attending via zoom. We have picked up a troll who finds a way to join the meeting, waits about fifteen minutes then starts yelling expletives and insults until he is expelled. He doesn't rejoin until the next meeting.

We are not particularly tech oriented people, and I don't personally organize the zoom link so don't have much knowledge about what is currently being done re security.

Does anyone have tips or advice? I know I haven't given you a lot to work with. Thanks.

I'm talking about this 2 TB LaCie Portable SSD and this Samsung T7 2 TB SSD. They both have the same ~1 GB/s read-write speed, the same 3-year limited warranty, and the same USB 3.2 Gen2 connector. But the LaCie drive is $369, while the Samsung drive is $130.
Am I missing something? Or is it just luxury tax?

I'm looking to buy a new device and have started to look at chromebooks to see if it would be a suitable option. My use cases are pretty mundane:

• Online banking and other similar services
• Emailing
• As a tool for GMing RPG campaigns (probably managed through some online service)
• Stream video while traveling (eg Netflix, YouTube)
• Note taking & drawing (possibly with a stylus)
• Occasionally ssh to remote machines

Arguably the heaviest of these would be streaming, but I guess most devices can handle that decently. Since I won't be doing any gaming or heavy dev work (on the actual machine) I figured I don't really have very high hardware requirements. As such perhaps a chromebook would be a good option. There are some downsides, mainly for me that it is heavily tied to the Google ecosystem. Can chromebooks be easily jailbroken and run a lightweight window manager on Linux? If so does the device retain its battery life okish? Could I still use a stylus with the device? Would I be better off buying a cheap laptop and install linux on that?

Finally I've read that Google cancled their Pixelbook 2 last year. Has there been any updates or rumors of it coming back (I tend to like Google's hardware)?

Just got a new laptop. Downloaded firefox plus a few extensions, found a thing that fixes Windows 11's weird task bar, deleted the bundled McAfee, installed steam, GOG, and Epic and switched everything to dark mode. I feel like I'm forgetting a ton of things, but I'm not sure what.

What do you include as part of the standard setup anyone should do with a new computer?

I know the scene is in a rut right now with iOS 16 having pretty much no hope (and with iOS 17 right around the corner), but I wanted to see if anyone else is using a jailbroken iPhone (or any other device) on a day to day.
If you are, drop your device, version and tweak list, I wanna add some new tweaks to my collection! My favs at the moment are Jellyfish (LS clock replacer), Saw (removes space at the bottom of the screen) and Ampere (iOS 16 style battery)

Hey everyone,
I’ve been messing with complex nested if/then statements in Excel for many, many years, and recently dabbled in VBA. I’ve decided it’s time to learn Swift for Apple. Mainly for kicks, but also the fun of creating an app if I find a need.

For those of you that know these things, what’s your biggest suggestion for learning? Most useful tips? Things to watch out for? Etc.

Thanks!

Hi,

I saw that Proton now has a Family Plan that includes all of their services including mail, calendar, drive, etc.

I've been looking to detach my and my family's life a bit from the big corps like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Proton sounds interesting.

At the same time I am wondering if they're really to be trusted any more than any other company. I found some critique of the E2E encryption being basically snake oil and not properly implemented etc. I am of course aware that there're always tradeoffs and while privacy is definitely nice, I don't need to go to an extreme degree of "no logs whatsoever, never even turning anything over to the police", I think I am just mostly looking to make me and my family less of a product of advertising, possibly AI/ML and so on, so some compromise is definitely possible.

I am curious, does anyone here have any experience with or opinions on the company and their products?

I signed onto Reddit six years ago because that was where I could discuss stuff I liked intelligently. Due to social awkwardness and poor conversational skills, I feel like I contribute nothing to the conversation anywhere, on forums or IRL. I even signed up for Stack Exchange, Hacker News, and Ars Techinca for discussion, but they all look like you need a Ph.D. to contribute anything meaningful?

Am I alone on this? How can I be a productive part of the conversation?

So, I’m moving to a new phone and revisiting a lot of accounts, apps, and settings.

When it comes to things like location history or ad personalization or whatever, is it even worthwhile to turn it off? Am I really supposed to believe that because I have some toggle off that Google suddenly doesn’t track where I drive on Maps? Like if they are going to be tracking me, which I assume they are, I might as well be able to see it to rather than have it exist in the aether somewhere where the info is attributed to me but not viewable in the UI.

Even with ads, I know shadow profiles are a thing, and that they definitely have data beyond what they show in the UI, so might as well opt in there too right? Plus, the non-targeted ads I get are basically porn-tier ads or stuff for gay men.

What should I do here? Move into the woods? Feels like I can’t win.

Hey everyone. I’m a Computer Science major who feels very behind. I don’t have any substantial projects to put on my resume. I look at basic open source stuff and can’t understand it.

I’m currently attending WGU online, but also work full time so I don’t have a ton of free time to learn or work on side projects.

Anyone have advice for a guy in my scenario? I ended up dropping out of college a couple times during COVID and now I’m just trying to get back on the right path.

The language I know best is Java, but I’ve been trying to learn C++ and web development as well. Applied for internships but no luck so far, I think I need to make some better projects.

I saw all the hype about Google's new passkey rollout on Hacker News and Ars Technica in the past month, and have even read an article stating that, paraphrased, "I should start using passkeys immediately, even if the tech is not all the way there yet."

Some questions:

• Are you using passkeys currently? Which provider?
• Is there a fear of vendor lock-in (looking at you, Apple) or ditching the product in the future (looking at you, Google)?
• Any other concerns I should be aware of, e.g. what happens if my phone gets run over by a bulldozer?

I know very little about Linux but have a good overall level of technical aptitude.

I have a device called an eDrumin 10 which uses an app to change the internal settings. https://www.audiofront.net/downloads.php I would like to use the control app from a tablet, but would prefer not to buy a ipad if I don't need to. Would it be possible to run the Linux version from an Android tablet?

Well, as the headline says my son wants to join Discord to talk to his friends while playing Roblox on the iPad. Up until now he's been using Teams to communicate while playing. Recently his friends have been switching to Discord so naturally he wants that too.

I only know Discord by name so I'm looking for insight into how it works and how safe it is for children and in general. I'm aware that the age limit is 13.

I know it's a technical question but I want to know specifically from freelancer perspective. A freelancer's decision making differs from that of regular corporate worker in this regard due to many reasons:

1. Freedom to choose: Unlike corporate, a freelancer isn't imposed any process or specific software guidelines to follow. They're free to use Linux and open source if they want to.
2. No team compatibility: A freelancer can work on specific project with a geographically distant team but they don't have to submit to any long-term compatibility constraints.
3. Budget constraints: A freelancer can't typically afford costly licenses. With corporate, they can scale well and bring down the licensing costs which isn't true for freelancers. Hence, open source software is typically more suited to their workflow (even when using a Windows OS).

Given all these factors, do you think a Windows or Linux laptop is more suited for a typical Freelancer? What do you happen to use?

So I disassembled my old PC, and there are a few spare parts that I believe are still good. According to the technician, the motherboard is fried. I have no way to test this, so I'm believing him for now.

I wish to use those parts on a new desktop PC, but I have no idea where to begin... what do I need to buy new? Of what kind/brand/specification/pricepoint?

So here's what I got:

• AMD Ryzen 5 2400G processor
  • with the AMD cooler that came with it
• 1TB 7200RPM non-SSD hard-drive
• 1 Ballistix by Micron 16GB 2400MHz RAM stick
• 1 240GB WD Green Sata SSD M.2 2280

I may have access to another 8GB RAM stick of unknown origins from my partner's old PC, but she's a bit protective of those things so I'll way for her to be home to open it in front of her :P

There's a power source attached to the case, which reads ATX-600W. Image1, image2.

The computer case itself is a little beat up but I don't care about looks at all. Its external dimensions are 34.5cm by 35cm, with a width of 16cm. Here's how it looks (Xbox controller for scale).

I wanna build a new machine with the goals of:

• video editing
  • so Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, some audio work, and maybe streaming.
• gaming
  • nothing super high-end, I'll probably get one or two 1080p 24" monitors because 4K reduces my options quite a bit. But here are some of the games I'm looking forward to playing (all MMOs): World of Warcraft Classic and Retail, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, and the upcoming Ashes of Creation (which I believe is an Unreal 5 game).

My budget (including the monitor or monitors) is roughly 1400 US dollars. I understand that is not a lot of money for the majority of Tildes users, but that is just my reality. My 1400 US dollars PC is very much a luxury around here.

If needed for budget purposes I can get just one monitor now, and another down the road.

So, what's the best I can do?

Thanks! ;)

[SOLVED]

Thank you so much for everyone's support and suggestions, it seems that I may have overreacted a little bit. One of the things that I did was send a form to Google, but the form was not really for this issue, so I wasn't hopeful at all. To my surprise, I received a message just now with instructions to recover the account and change the 2-factor phone number to my mother's current one. The cause of the issue is not clear, but whatever it was, they sorted it out. She is obviously ecstatic, when I went to her house two days ago I couldn't disguise my pessimism.

I set her recovery email to my own and will generate recovery codes shortly, so we're good for now. I instructed her on how to download all her data from Google (it's easier than I thought), just because this made her quite paranoid, and I'll take the opportunity to gradually move my family out of Google, as well as myself. Thanks for being so supportive, this was very stressful, to say the least! Sometimes it's nice to know we're not alone ;)

Original post

So, for some reason Google logged my mother of everything at once: browsers in two laptops and two smartphones (one Android and one iPhone). Trying to recover the account sends a message to a cellphone number she no longer has. I understand Google is basically unreachable, but there must be something I can do, right? We're not famous, but she does pay for YouTube Premium.

So, next year, I will spend two 3-month periods at a place that is 1400km away from my home. Because of my somewhat large, superfast dog, with a tendency to run away and topple people, I will have to go by car, dog in hand (don't worry, I won't be driving :P). Each roundtrip amounts to 42 hours on the road.

At the same time, I'm budgeting for a new desktop workstation for gaming and video editing (so both fun and work). I could get a much inferior gamer laptop with the money, but I wanna have a good machine for things like Adobe After Effects, and the inferior part bothers me quite a bit.

Hence the question: how can I safely transport a desktop PC plus monitor for an 84-hour car trip? Should I take it "whole"? Disassembled? Or not at all? I really don't wanna screw up my brand-new PC!

As with many Twitter users, I'm finally at the point where I want to leave and join Mastodon. About a year ago I set up an account after seeing some people on Tildes talk about it, but I found it confusing and ultimately closed the account. I want to give it another go, but I'm a bit confused about all the different instance options, what the practical differences are, and more. Are there any comprehensive getting started guides? Does it matter which instance I join? How did you choose for yourself?

I subscribe to quite a few youtube channels to get notified when there are new videos posted. I've had this set up for several years.

Today I tried to add a new channel I've discovered. My RSS reader informs me it's blocked. I check all the other youtube feeds. Every single one of them reports "Error transferring <feed url>." server replied Forbidden (201).

Update: One day later and every feed is connecting and transferring again. It seems to be a temporary block. My IP address has changed overnight though so that's still my main suspicion.

It seems like I'm not the only victim

That contains a link to the author's issue on google's issue tracker

The official response is

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29752447/how-to-get-a-youtube-channel-rss-feed-after-2015-april-20-without-v3-api


They completely misunderstood the question - it's not asking how to find a feed, it's asking why that feed is getting blocked.

Not only this but using DuckDuckGo bangs for to search google get randomly sent to a captcha page - issuing the exact same query a second time goes through perfectly. The same is happening with keyword searches I set up in my browser. .

Any ideas what to do about this?

So sick of google's monopoly.

I'm starting to get tired of being complacent about the fact that I am using Google's services when I'm well beyond the 'reasonable doubt' phase of Google being evil. They're a giant monopoly and I want to stop making them money as much as I possibly can.

Thankfully, I'm not as badly intertwined with them as I could be; I have already downloaded all the music I bought from them and since I have switched to iPhone, I'm not reliant on too many of their services. They do have some of my old files and pictures, but that shouldn't be too hard to get out. The biggest problem I can see is my email. Right now I'm actually paying $4/mo for an Amazon WorkMail account for a failed venture (which I'm planning on getting rid of), but I'm sure there are much better alternatives out there. I'd prefer something that has good spam filtering options including custom filtering. I was also wondering if anyone would recommend Apple's email service since I'm already paying for iCloud+ to store my backups.

Another more specific recommendation I need is for a replacement to Google Authenticator that works on iPhone. It looks like there are several options but I'm frankly not sure how to evaluate them.

If you have any other resources you'd like to share, please feel free to share.

Long story short, I wiped my keyboard with a moist towel and I knocked out exactly 6 keys on my mid-2020 MacBook Pro (Magic Keyboard, A2251).

I'm now looking at either paying $300+ to have it serviced by a technician. But I have the tempting option of buying an aftermarket replacement keyboard for less than $100 and replacing it myself. That + I'm in the spirit of DIY repairs to keep my things going longer.

Has anyone attempted this before? Any tips and advice?

It seems slightly daunting because the keyboard is adhered to the aluminium body so I would have to literally tear the existing one off.

I currently dual-boot Arch and Windows and just use the Windows EFI partition in Arch as well, however I only have about 13 MB of space left on it.

I’d like to try installing Gentoo on an extra SSD I have with nothing on it, but don’t really want to have a second EFI partition if I can avoid it.

So my question is, can I shrink the Windows main partition towards the right and expand the the Windows EFI partition into the newly freed space?

So far I have been having a surprisingly easy time learning iOS. It is incredibly intuitive! Though to be fair, my friend who has always been on iOS said the same thing about Android when she switched.

There are so many things that are basically identical on the two operating systems. But I am sure I am missing out on a lot of things that my iPhone 13 can do that my Samsung A50 could not do.

So far I'm really loving the switch, everything feels smooth. But I am very accepting of any tips and tricks that anyone might have up their sleeves! 😊

Hey folks,

I want to prototype a tool to help groups of people make decisions using a new decision making mechanism.

We have two systems of democratic decision making that have major downsides:

1. Direct democracy - everyone votes on every issue. Downside: not everyone has the time and the necessary expertise to vote on every issue.
2. Representative democracy - everyone votes who will represent them and the representatives vote on every issue. The downside is the corruption - the representatives may not represent the best interest of those who entrusted them.

The idea I want to explore is a hybrid of the two systems:

• Like in a direct democracy you can vote on every issue.
• If you do not vote on a given issue, then your vote is automatically delegated to people who voted like you in the past.

To test this out I want to build a website [1] where anyone can create a group and invite others to the group. The group members can create proposals and vote on them to make a decision.

For the idea to be tested the group needs to make many decisions over time (ie, not one-off polls like strawpoll.*). Only then can it take advantage of the delegation based on “voted like you in the past”.

The details of the design will depend on the use-case:

• How should the group roles work? Would it be enough to have owner & member roles?
• How to invite to the group - by sending email or a link.
• Should every member be able to propose options or just the creator or the vote?
• Should the voting be closed automatically after some time or by hand?
• Do you delegate implicitly or explicitly - ie, have a vote option to delegate.
• Do you vote for a single option or can you rank options in the order of your preferences?
• Open ballot vs secret ballot?

Some ideas for use-cases:

• Choose the next “team-building” activity at work.
• Make content moderation decisions.
• Which book to read next in a book club. Maybe transfer the list of books and the votes from the previous vote to the next.
• Make and record company decisions by shareholders. In this case you would want to weigh the votes based on share ownership.

I think starting with a specific use-case in mind is a better strategy than trying to build a generic tool.

What do you think? What would you use such a tool for?

[1] - I will likely make it part of my existing project https://linklonk.com/ unless I find an available good-sounding domain name.

I've been using Tbird since forever, the past 6-7 years on Linux (Debian/Ubuntu downstreams). A couple years ago, I think during the 68-71 release cycle, there were are lot of panicky blogs about "don't upgrade; the new Tbird will irrevocably screw up your Contacts/Calendar/Other Plug-ins", I may even have tried it and experienced issues myself (I don't recall) ... and as a result, I've held my copy at the 60.something release since then.

Now the 91 update has been out and stable for awhile, and a major overhaul upgrade to 102 is in the offing ... and I'm looking for feedback ... is it safe to upgrade? Might I still hit breaking issues? Or was it always safe?

Hello everyone,

This will be a long post because I want to give my post the proper context. I apologize in advance for taking your time.

About five months ago, with the help of relatively high ceiling of Windows 11's system requirements, I finally pushed myself to use Linux exclusively on my desktop. It was a decision between using Windows LTSC or Linux and I went with the better long term option.

I am not a programmer but I'm also not unfamiliar with the Linux world. I believe I've used one distro or another on a spare computer for shorts period of time since at least 2008. But those use cases have always been to satisfy the curious side of my brain as I am always interested in technology. So after installing distros ranging from Ubuntu to Arch, my curiosity waned enough to never look deeper into how these systems work. They were, after all, a hobby project on a spare computer that was often gathering dust.

When I decided to switch exclusively to Linux, the next decision I had to make was to pick a distro. Naturally, I looked for the established players first. Ubuntu was the obvious choice because it has long been the distro for newbies and there are a lot of guides on the internet if I ever needed help, which was inevitable. But then I read about snaps and thought that was a deal breaker. I was moving to Linux specifically because I don't want things shoved down my throat. I had no intention to relive that¹.

So Ubuntu was a no go, but I was certain I wanted a Debian based distro as their support and software availability was unmatched, maybe save for Arch². At this point, why not Debian right? It's known for being rock solid and it's Debian itself, not some derivation. Well, because I had various issues with Debian before. These issues were always fundamental and not very specific too, so I didn't want to risk wasting a lot of time fixing things I didn't understand, only for them to break again after a couple of days. Then I came across Pop!_OS, which seemed like a perfect fit. It was Ubuntu without its worst parts, came with Nvidia drivers and it had a company behind it that seemed to be committed to Linux. I installed it and everything just worked. I had zero issues.

But then I started getting that FOMO itch again. GNOME 42 was out and it looked great, but Pop!_OS was two versions behind. I also found out that they're working on their own DE, which might end up being great (it looked nice) but I didn't want to leave an established player like GNOME behind, including all the benefits you get from its wonderful extensions. I started looking for other distos again and Fedora caught my eye. I was obviously aware of Fedora, I even used it once back when YUM was still a thing, but it didn't leave a lasting impression on me. The fact that it wasn't a Debian based distro was also a disadvantage because that meant something different and at this stage of dipping my toes into Linux, I didn't think different might be the best way to go for me. Still, despite my best judgment, I installed Fedora on a USB and used it live. When my gut feeling was confirmed by my research about how Fedora leaves things as stock as possible and is ahead of the curve in terms of upcoming technology (btrfs, PulseAudio, Wayland et al.³) without sacrificing on stability, I was hooked.

After renewing my Timeshift backup, I formatted my Pop!_OS system and installed Fedora. The installation process could use a facelift, but it handled everything perfectly. I didn't even have some of the issues I had with Pop!_OS right after installation. It was literally problem free. I'm now on day #3 of using Fedora and the experience remains the same. The only issue I had to deal with was trying to get Timeshift to work (apparently it doesn't play nice with btrfs on Fedora), but instead of wasting my time with that, I just installed Déjà Dup and I'm good to go again. Barring any drastic issues, I don't plan on changing my distro again.

Now, onto my plea for guidance.

I'm looking for comprehensive resources that will teach me how Linux works under the hood. Considering my non-programming background, I'd appreciate it if the language is approachable. The reason why I want this, for one thing, is to learn more about the system I'm planning to use probably for the rest of my life (in tandem with macOS) but also, I want to do some cool stuff Linux allows users to do.

Just to give a quick example. Yesterday, I installed Rofi, which is, besides many other things, an app launcher. I got it to work just fine, I even got a configuration of my own with a theme of my choosing, but when it comes to using some scripts, I just couldn't do it. Every video I watched on YouTube told me how easy it is to use scripts with it as if it's a self-explanatory thing, but I was simply clueless. There was a lot of lingo thrown around like environment variables, setting up $PATH, making the scripts executable with chmod etc. I have very little knowledge of these things. I want to learn what they are, why they exist, and how they all tie together. I want to learn how /etc/ is different than /usr/ and the difference between X11 and some DE (or if they're even in the same category of things). Now, at the risk of sounding impatient and maybe even worse, I also don't want to go way too deep into these things. I am not, after all, trying to become a kernel developer. I just want to be better informed.

There are a lot of information on the internet but most of this information is scattered and out of context. If I try to learn more about one thing, I'm bombarded about other things that I don't know, so in the end I learn nothing. In short, I'm looking for a comprehensive, entry level video series or a book about Linux written in an easy to understand language that assumes no prior knowledge.

Additionally, I'd appreciate any website, YouTube channel and what have you to keep up with recent developments in Linux. I already found a couple as there are plenty of them, but I'd like to learn more about how people here keep up with this fast changing environment.

Thank you for reading and sorry for being so verbose! 😊

^{1: I know you can remove snaps, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of any possible issues deleting a core system functionally might bring about.
2: Despite finding its approach fascinating, I had no intention to get into Arch because it's a rolling distro and I didn't want an advanced system that can break at any moment in the hands of a novice like myself.
3: To be clear, I don't know how most of these technologies are better than alternatives, but the Linux community at large seems to think they're drastically better than alternatives and are the future.}

I've decided I'm going to start looking for a new job. I'm a software product manager in the US and will be looking for senior positions, hopefully remote. Has anyone used a service to help find jobs before? This is the first one I've come across and I'm considering it.
https://www.findmyprofession.com/career-finder/

Any thoughts or feedback welcome. Thanks.

I don't use Windows 10 all that much, but there's a Windows laptop in the house that I use from time to time.

I generally wait like a year before upgrading, but I heard Windows 11 has better support for running Linux GUI applications with the Windows Linux Subsystem 2. Command-line Emacs is fine but is not exactly the same and there is no clipboard integration. That is the sole reason I'm thinking of upgrading. I don't care about any details or aesthetic changes, since I'll just make everything look and feel more like Windows 7 anyway. I just wanna know if it's stable enough, and if it will get in my way.

Thanks!

So I wanna purchase a domain for my personal website (just a WordPress thing), and I wanna pay for three years in advance (I have my reasons). Which domain sellers are reasonably priced, trustworthy, and more likely to assist a less technical, non-developer user like myself?

Thanks!

I've got a 2TB Toshiba drive (formatted as NTFS) that has become very slow and I was wondering if anyone here as any ideas what the problem could be and how I could fix it. All the data I'd need off the drive is backed up, but I would at least like a drive to put it back on to!

In short, it became slow after I had to force power-off the system it was connected to (Pop OS installed on another external drive which I unplugged by mistake) and I haven't bothered to try to fix it in the six months since.

I've tested it on Pop and it takes about 10-20 minutes to mount, and 2 minutes to unmount and safely remove. The data itself seems fine but performance is slow, accessing a 20MB image takes several seconds and selecting the drive in GNOME Disks caused it to freeze.

The drive sounded louder than normal, especially after plugging in.

On Windows, the drive was recognised and browsable immediately, but browsing through folders was very slow - opening some folders causes Windows Explorer to freeze for a while. Some of my double-clicks were mis-recognised as click-to-rename, which took several seconds to activate and during which time Task Manager reported the average response time between 5000 and 11000 ms.

Attempting to load an audio file resulted in lots of buffering. Task Manager reports an active time of 100% (even when not loading files or folders) and the activity never exceeded 100 KB/s (and doesn't sustain it for more than a second). Ejecting the drive takes forever - after ejecting it using the tray icon, the tray icon is not removed (even though there are no other drives connected or listed) and the active time is still 100% with the indicator LED blinking non-stop. The system did not enter sleep right away after me asking it to either.

All of that to say, does anyone know what the issue could be, or how I could find and fix it? Thanks!

Edit: fixed and normal functionality restored (at least so I can check the drive a bit easier) using Scan & Repair in Windows (see my comment).

I was just thinking and wondering why people are so incredibly anti NFT. I recently posted about my art here and someone was compelled to post an angry comment about NFTs. I have come to expect this and just wonder why?

It is a strange thing to collect digital items, I get that. Personally I find it hard to understand most of what people do including collecting stuff. I'm try to get rid of stuff.

We know some crypto is bad for the environment. This is why I didn't buy bitcoin in the first place, it seemed like a huge waste of energy for nothing. Many companies support this now though. If you invest in Tesla, you invest in bitcoin. You may not even know or care that your 401k hedge fund is investing in crypto.

But some crypto like Tezos (which is what I use) is in line with energy use you would expect from credit cards and the like.

The other thing is that some people are making huge sums of money from crypto and maybe there is jealousy involved. I've felt it too! Then I remind myself what life is all about, that I am happy where I am, and that fame would not help me create better art, in fact it would likely work against it. Money is much so much easier to make then art, it's not even close.

Thoughts?

Hello everyone.

Sorry if this is a long post.

I currently have a dumb TV 1080p at home and, during my searches on Reddit and so on, I've chosen between the Nvidia Shield Pro and the new Apple TV 4K, at the end, I've concluded to get the Apple TV because of the regular software updates. With the Shield, people are already complaining, and they aren't having updates for a while (but please, you can try to convince me otherwise).

My main objectives for the box are:

• Watching YouTube / HBO;
• Watching / Listening my local content (films, music, etc.);
• PC gaming streaming from desktop to the TV.

1. About game streaming directly from my desktop, how good does it work? I saw people saying the Shield is better for gaming but, if I use AMD Link or Steam Link, I would think it does not matter if it is the Apple TV or Shield, or? Maybe the Shield has better support for GeForce Now, but I do not use the service.

2. How easy is to watch / listen to my content that is currently on my laptop / desktop? I saw people simply saying to use Infuse or Plex and stream it to the Apple TV. Is there a better way?

3. Are there things that I should be "careful" with the Apple TV? I remember the time that my wife bought our iPad, and it was hard to just find how to upload a TV series and run it with subtitles. (facepalm) There is no complexity like this on Android, honestly, no software to install on my pc, etc.

4. I saw a lot of people complaining about the support of codecs on the Apple TV comparing to the Shield. Stuff like, no TrueHD audio, no DTS:X, no lossless audio pass-through, transcoding, etc. So many topics that got me confused, since I'm not an expert in this field. If my goal for the future is to buy an amazing 4K "smart" TV and soundbar that both have Dolby Vision and Atmos, and most of my content are local downloaded films or streaming from HBO or Netflix, how important are all of these missing "features" from the Apple TV? People also said to just use Plex or Infuse, and they will have the "audio features" that the Apple TV is natively missing. So, honestly, I didn't understand all the discussion regarding this and why was the Shield better if other apps can support the codecs and missing features.

I think that is all, thank you in advance for all the replies 🙂

I tried to do a quick search and can't find an example of exactly what I want to do. I want to keep my email provider but change how it "looks" or said in another way, change the address itself. The reason for that is that I ditched Google to a lesser known email provider but I hate having to spell out my address to everyone because they don't know about said provider.

My idea would be to create something like myname@personal.com. Is there a name for what I want to do? Is it possible?

Thanks.

I don't necessarily want to delete everything there is about me, but I want to significantly clean it. I've been deleting old accounts lately, I've seen some screenshots of my tweets on Reddit and I've asked the authors to delete them. They've been kind enough to do it.

But I feel like there's more that I need to do. I just realized that there are probably a lot of screenshots of YouTube comments and Tweets that I've put out there in the world with my name and face. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't drastically increase my footprint last year during my time on Twitter.

I'm not a techy person, I was thinking about asking or hiring some type of hacker or expert to help me. Because they could probably find more information about me than me.

Can anyone help?

OK, so this is kind of a weird question, but has anyone here ordered a USB cable recently, and if so, how long did it take to arrive? I ordered a 3 meter USB A male to USB A male cable on June 27th from NewEgg, who have been fairly reliable in the past. I got an email later that day or the next saying the shipping label had been printed. So I thought, OK, it will go out in the next day or two. It still hasn’t shipped. After about 2 weeks of waiting, I ordered another one from B&H Photo. It also hasn’t arrived yet. I know there is a global chip shortage. Would that affect cabling too? It just seems odd that it’s taking so long to get a single USB cable. Anyone else experience this or am I just unlucky this month?

So my spouse is getting fed up with Facebook and would like to download all of her photos and ideally any photos others have taken that she’s tagged in. She’d like to do a single bulk download, but is having trouble navigating Facebook’s intentionally confusing settings to do this. I don’t have an account and have never used Facebook beyond reading the occasional post a friend has sent me, so I don’t really know how to help in this case.

This guide claims to be from 2021. Following the steps in section 3 we see something that looks very similar but not exactly the same under her settings. Where they have a list containing items like “Posts”, “Photos and videos”, “Comments”, etc. We see a different list and it doesn’t have any option for “Photos and Videos.” There is one section titled, “Short videos”, but nothing about photos at all. Has Facebook changed this recently, or does she have some weird setting that’s causing it not to show up? Or is the guide just wrong? (Or maybe they’re A/B testing something and that’s why she isn’t seeing it?)

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: I think we figured it out. It looks like Posts and Photos have been combined into just "Posts" with no mention of photos whatsoever. When you get the resulting .zip file, it contains the photos, though. It's typically shitty of Facebook.