My company has given me a budget of around ~$1200 to purchase a device. Its technically for "education" so my excuse is that I'll be doing online certifications with it, but the reality is that its going to be primarily a toy to play with, watch movies, play some light games, etc.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I know the ipad pro is the big dog in town but I've never been much of an apple fan and don't have any skin in their ecosystem, I'm mostly an android guy but I'm not married to the idea of an android tablet.

Here were some of the ones I've looked at so far:

Surface pro 9

Dell XPS 13 2in1

Lenovo Yoga 9i

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+

They all seem like decent options honestly, but I was wondering if anyone had first hand experience with them and could give some thoughts.

I'm open to hearing from folks who have used iOS longer than me. How is the iOS dialer so terrible when it's supposed to be the primary usage of a phone, calling people?

1. Why can't I type the letters of a name in my contacts list, eg "5-2-6" for "JAM" and have all the "James" show up? Android has had that since forever because it's not rocket science.
2. Why can't I type to correct a digit in the middle of the number dialed? Or correct a number I've pasted in?
3. Seriously, is there no way to replace the dialer with something better? And if there is and I just missed it, what are your recommendations?
4. Same question for the god-awful contacts list. I use Google Contacts, have 3 google accounts in which the contacts are… and the syncing seems piss-poor.

Ok, this turned out to be more of a rant than I anticipated. I've gotten to like iOS quite a bit, especially because the android ecosystem has become a very "worst of both worlds" option. But man the dialer's shit. Someone please tell me I'm missing something obvious.

I'm looking for a desktop monitor for mixed usage (work, gaming, etc.):

• MiniLED
• 4k
• 144Hz
• 27"
• Built-in KVM switch

There are 2 well-rated monitors that fit this criteria:

• Cooler Master GP27U
• INNOCN 27M2V

I'm in a bit of an analysis paralysis between these monitors. It's very hard to gauge anything without buying both and comparing in-person (I might actually do this).

Going by the numbers alone, the 27M2V has x2 dimming zones making it "better". This monitor received a lot of praise for picture quality. Not so much for the rest (e.g. build quality, support, etc.). But I'm willing to sacrifice some of the picture quality, unless it's very noticeable, if it means better build quality and support from the manufacturer.

I hear blooming occurs (even with the x2 dimming zones) during normal usage. Which is fine because, as I understand it, this feature makes sense when you're consuming media (movies, games, etc.). Not so much for everyday tasks. I don't really care about the blacks when developing or browsing the web. I haven't seen anyone do a comparison without going into graphs, charts, and checkerboards. Lab tests and numbers are one thing, but are the differences drastically noticeable to the eye when compared side-by-side?

I currently have an LG 27GL850-B which has been going strong for ~2 years. I'm sure either choice will be a significant improvement, but I'd like to know if anyone here has any first-hand experience with either monitor before I make the jump.

I opened up the Google Earth app on my phone wanting to browse random beautiful and interesting places, but it doesn't seem to have a good way to do it. (Maybe this is a limitation on the mobile app, and the desktop app is better?)

For example, if I try searching for "wetlands", it only shows me a list of maybe 10 places near my current location.

I tried searching the web too, but I mostly get "listicles" like "10 amazing places on Google Earth" but they're practically unreadable with the webpage being covered with ads.

I found Earth View Gallery https://blog.google/products/earth/most-stunning-images-from-google-earth/ and it's nice but it's just a gallery of images with no contextual information (at least when viewing on mobile). It shows me beautiful pictures but no information about where the picture is from... I would have expected it to link to the spot on Google Earth.

Anyway if you happen to have some recommended places for me to check out on Google Earth I'd love to see them! I like:

• wetland-type habitats like marshes, pond systems, mangrove swamps
• beautiful natural scenery in general
• abandoned and/or ancient architecture

But open to any interesting recommendations in general.

Edit: It does seem to be slightly better on desktop. Searching on Google Earth works better, and Earth View Gallery does link to the location on Google Earth. I wish Google Earth had like, a built-in community feature for me to check out other people's public projects.

I have a Pixel 4a which has just reached end of support for Android. However, I love this phone and the only hardware issue is that the battery doesn't last me scrolling social media all day, so I am not looking to upgrade to a newer handheld just yet.

I've been looking into Graphene OS and Lineage OS as perhaps alternatives I should consider, at least just so I can keep getting security updates. However, looking through GOS, they say that their 4a build is an "extended support" build different from the main OS which is described as a "stopgap" before upgrading phones. LOS says it's supported but through an automatically generated page which doesn't leave me with much confidence about the attention and stability of the build on my particular phone.

I'm asking y'all's opinion on whether I should even bother. Security upgrades are important, but my phone is a secondary device at best, one which I always use with the same apps and websites and honestly not really that much of a security risk. Watch hubris get me.

I have a quandary. Even with a decent android keyboard (Typewise offline keyboard), I still find myself hampered by gettingnanstringnofnwordsnwhereni miss the space bar. Sometimes I miss n "A" key. I am very out put by my likelihood of getting "out" when I meant "put" and vice versa.

I am becoming a part time worker / primary parent while my wife goes back to a full time job, which means I do a lot of waiting in places where I'm typing extended sections of text (like this one) in places where its not really practical or appropriate to pull out a laptop.

What I really want is a physical keyboard for my phone. It seems like there are a lot of folding and non-folding options that are meant to work on a table with the phone as a screen. But if I could do that, I could pull out my laptop.

If I had a wish that could get me anything, I'd like a split thumb keyboard where the two halves sandwich (and grip) the phone the way the joycons go on a Nintendo switch.

The best thing I have found so far is this keyboard puck. I have bought a similar device for HTPC, and it is surprisingly easy to use. This still has the downside of requiring the use of with hands and not having a way to hold the phone. Maybe I could 3D print some kind of mount, but something with a built-in mount would be much better.

I'm wondering how others have solved this problem? I'm open to almost anything that makes me a faster /more accurate typist on the go.

I don't want to pay an extra thousand dollars for 'rugged' design suitable for military deployment, but the user in this case is not well coordinated at all and it should be able to survive being dropped.

I otherwise need sufficient memory and speed to boot reasonably quickly and to run standard text, spreadsheet and database programs without annoying lag.

my old regular app has been dead since it got underwent featurecreep and got bought out by underarmour.

lots of apps now have way too many features.. social this, calorie burning that. i know its probably a good thing for them to branch out but i'm one of those luddites that prefer simple and to-the-point apps with no social features, no account needed, etc.

all i really need from the app is gps distance tracking and a clean interface with some basic readouts for pace and whatnot. having audio readouts for pace every kilometer was a nice feature but ideally the app would be simpler than that.

if all else fails i know i can just fallback on one of those 'full featured' apps like strava but i figured i'd ask here before i got too tied into any particular app (creature of habit)

I'm curious if anyone here is currently using the 6GHz channel with WiFi 6E devices and whether you're seeing a benefit in your experience. Do you feel it was worth purchasing a router/access point with WiFi 6E over WiFi 6? I've been following the rollout of WiFi 6E for a while but I haven't heard much real world feedback.

Context: I have 3 access points at home all at the WiFi 5 standard and I'm considering updating each to WiFi 6/6E. I have few (if any) 6E devices at the minute but would plan to keep the access points for at least 5 years or more.

P.S. this is my first post so apologies if it's in the wrong location or a duplicate. I searched and found no other WiFi 6E discussions ✌️

In the corners of Tildes that I read on, I’ve noticed that a lot of us on here subscribe to online services like - Netflix, Kagi, Spotify, Dropbox, Mailbox.org, Patreon, Twitch, Bandcamp, etc.

I, myself, am kind of stingy about subscriptions but lately I’ve been considering subscribing to some online services.

So I’d like to know which online services (like those with monthly and annual fees) have you subscribed to (which tier if applicable) and which ones do you think is worth it and which ones are not?

To get the ball rolling, the only regularly recurring monthly payments I have right now are with Namecheap for the domain and IONOS for my server (the cheapest tier).

I’ve managed to avoid subscribing for entertainment like Disney+ or YouTube Premium or even music streaming platforms. Though I’m considering Deezer for the hifi option.

I’ve at some point subscribed to Patreon, Bandcamp and Twitch for artists I really liked.

And I’m currently looking into productivity apps that might be worth it to me.

—-

PS: It’s my first time posting and if this post would be better elsewhere, don’t hesitate to move it. Thank you!

Specifications:

Computer: Framework 13" DIY Edition.

• 32GB RAM
• 11th Gen i7-1185G7
• Windows 11 Pro

Browser: Brave Browser

• Current Version

Displays:

• Samsung LC27JG50QQNZA Series Curved 27in
• HP VH240a

Dock:

• Dell WD19TB Thunderbolt Docking Station.

Issue:

• If I move it to the HP display it stops.
  • sometimes when I move it back it continues and sometimes it doesn't.
• If I try and capture it via the built in screen recorder in windows it doesn't show up in the recording.

Have any of you had this experience or know what is causing this?

P.S. Thank you in advance for whoever corrects my tags and title which seams to happen evetime I post. I'm still trying to learn the correct way to post here on Tildes.

***EDIT***

• My monitor also blinks now and then video starts to slide
• I've only gotten it to reproduce on Brave Browser.
• I put Firefox and Brave side by side when it started happening. When I clicked on the Firefox browser it stopped. Then when I clicked on to Brave browser it started again... Like WHAT!?
• With the browsers side by side the video on the brave browser started to slide again but now slid across both browsers...
• Every time I try to record it stops... It's mocking me at this point.

Hey, I thought folks on tildes might have some personal experience here. For context - I'm not stuck on the raspberry pi zero, and I'm open to alternatives. I'm looking at it because it's inexpensive ($15), which is my limiting factor right now.

I am curious to play around with pihole to block ads network wide. I'd also love to be able to run a web server to host my website. After some precursory research, I learned that raspberry pi zero w is a good option.

My question is - are there any other things that are good (or necessary) to purchase to go along with it? Asking because I am going to have to buy it online (one of the authorized sellers), and since I'm going to pay for shipping, I only want to make one purchase. So, if there's other things I need to get, I'd love to know.

Alternatively, if you have personal experience with an alternative device, I'm all ears. (P.S. I realize I could just run pihole on my laptop, but I don't want to do that, as I'd need to keep it running 24/7...) I did see some alternative devices (orange pi, for example). But they were all much more expensive ($40 + rather than $15 for raspberry pi zero w)

We recently had a big thread about all of the subscriptions we find valuable.

This is a follow-up to that: how do you keep track of and manage your subscriptions (if you do at all)?

I’d love to have a sort of one-stop subscription management tracker where I can toggle things on and off and it can email me when something is coming due soon, but I’ve yet to find something like that I love.

If anyone has any tips, tricks, or pointers, I’d love to hear them!

It seems to be very good as an even easier way to send files like AirDrop but also to keep them in one distributed place in a privacy-affirming and respectful way.

Is there a catch or is it really a free lunch in this regard?

Hello everyone, my CPU died and I'm at a crossroads and hoping for some advice. I bought my rig 4 years ago second-hand. It was originally built in 2017 using high-end parts. It was not something I was looking for TBH, but at the time GPUs were hard to get and it was a crazy deal. Here is what's left of the rig:

• Motherboard - ASUS x99 Deluxe II, fits Intel i7 LGA2011-v3 CPU socket
• PSU - EVGA Supernova 850 T2
• RAM - 32GB, 4 sticks of G.Skill Trident Z 3200 DDR4
• GPU - EVGA 1080 Ti Founder's Edition 11 GB
• Case - In Win 904 plus - large and spacious case
• Storage - Couple of Samsung SSDs
• CPU Cooler - Have ditched the Corsair AIO, picked up a lowest tier fan for $10 to keep it booting while I figure out what to do

Options I'm floating.

1. Get a compatible CPU, but that socket is harder to come by for my MOBO and likely to be second hand + get a new CPU cooler, and upgrade GPU.
2. Replace MOBO, GPU, and get a new CPU and CPU cooler. The PSU is 6 years old but it's decent quality and 850 watts should be enough?

Price range/goals:

• Happy to spend a bit on something that is mid to slightly upper range, but not high end. Thinking $$ will go into the GPU and CPU (maybe $600-800 USD ea?), something reasonably good that's just before the latest gen to get a discounted price. If replacing MOBO, something simple and medium range would be ideal.
• Play some current AAA games like Baulder's Gate 3 and Elden Ring decently, at medium-high settings (not ultra), and don't need super high FPS.
• Ideally supports 4k resolution for desktop use but for gaming I'd be mostly sticking to 1440p/1080p.
• I don't want to overclock (those days are over)
• Likely to sell in 2ish years, don't need heaps of futureproofing
• If replacing MOBO, open to going to the AMD ecosystem for price/performance ratio. I've only ever used Intel so know less about AMD systems.
• Don't need raytracing, DDR5
• For CPU cooler I don't mind AIO but if anyone has any non-water cooled recommendations I'm all ears

I'm at a bit of a loss at what to do, and there are not many PC-building threads here on Tildes, so I thought I'd ask for some advice. Anyone have opinions on option 1 or 2 above, or is there a third option I'm not thinking of? And does anyone have part recommendations? Thanks in advance.

I'm not new to two-factor authentication (2FA) as a concept, but available options and how they'd fit into a workflow has always felt somewhat opaque. Everytime I've been required to use 2FA, I've used SMS despite knowing how insecure that really is.

GitHub's 2FA requirement is about to lock me out of my personal account, so I figured it's time to get a grasp on this:

• What second factors are available to me and what do the workflows looks like?
  • Preferably these second factors wouldn't require me to sign up for some associated service.
• What are my options for redundancy?
  • Can I have multiple second factors?
  • Where are you supposed to keep recovery codes? (I've read that keeping them in your password manager essentially defeats the purpose)
• What happens if I screw up and lose my second factor? With services that just have password requirements, you can use your email to reset, are there analogous systems for 2FA?

I have a business phone number that I use for work in addition to my personal cell phone number which I’ve had for 20+ years. I’ve always used my work number for anything job-related (colleague contact, vendors, sales reps, networking, LinkedIn, etc) and only provide my personal for, well, personal contacts.

But having had my personal number for as long as I have, it’s very easy to Google my name and find that number associated to me.

My issue is that I’m constantly receiving phone calls and voicemails on my personal number from vendors, sales reps, etc that are either for services we use at my job or from vendors in relevant fields contacting me for various reasons. I realize some may lump this kind of outreach into “spam”, but I want to differentiate this kind of outreach from what I consider true spam (robocalls, phishing, non-work related sales calls like for home internet, etc) which just goes ignored and blocked.

I don’t want to answer every call to correct someone to use my work contact info. I can continue ignoring but it does fill my voicemail and I’m hoping to reduce the number of calls I receive on my cell every day (even if it were to only cut it down by 5). Someone suggested changing my outgoing voicemail message to flag it’s my personal number and any work related messages would be ignored while providing my work number. I think this may be the best approach (though I’d skip providing my work number as I don’t need it to start receiving robocalls). I know I’m not the only one that deals with this (but maybe I’m in the minority rather than a majority) and am curious if y'all have this issue and if so, how you manage it?

Hi all - I need some help troubleshooting my internet and really don't feel like dealing w/ customer service reps. I don't consider myself a tech savvy person, so I'm wondering what this community might know..

I've been having issues with my internet for a while. we have xfinity with a plan that promises up to 1000mbps. I'm lucky if i get up to 250 on a good day. beyond that, we constantly lose connection, or get very slow connectivity. i'm using a Netgear c7000v2 as my modem/wifi router combo paired with a Google Nest Mesh router. My home is roughly 1000 sqft footprint split level. my computer is in a different room, but there's no doors between and about 600 ft from the modem/mesh routers.

i called xfinity to talk about the issue, they said that my modem likely needed to be replaced. the initial modem was also a Netgear c7000v2, but i figured maybe the hardware just burnt out(?) they sent me an xfinity modem, and everything seemed to work great (still not 1000mbps, but definitely better). when I realized they were charging me more than I was willing to pay monthly for a rental fee on the modem, i decided i'd go back out and buy a new modem. i bought a Netgear c7000v2 again, because it should be able to handle those speeds, and to my understanding is a decent enough modem. i also bought a new coaxial cable to double check. but after replacing, my internet is still spotty and constantly goes in and out.

i don't have any device to plug directly into the ethernet cable (because it's 2023...), so i can't pinpoint the issue through that. i haven't had an xfinity tech come out yet, because apparently that takes anywhere from 6-8 weeks to get a visit...

any ideas on what i should do? part of me is convinced that xfinity is throttling my internet because I'm not using their modem and paying them a rental fee, but i don't want to give into conspiratorial thinking...i'm about to file an FTC complaint on them because I'm just fed-up at this point.

So for various reasons I can't use paper books very well. I've been reading almost exclusively on epaper for... 15 years or so now?

My current reader is a Kobo Aura One which has done very well but is starting to get a bit tired - the screen is a bit scratched up and the battery life is measured in days rather than weeks (at around 1hr/day reading with the frontlight on low). Plus the usb socket has done that annoying thing where the cable needs to be at the exact right angle in order to charge.

So I'm in the market for a new one. I'd like it to be >7 inches, 300ppi (same spec as the Aura One or better). Overdrive support is nice but not essential. EPub support is a must, as is orange/red frontlighting. Linux slightly preferred over Android. Battery life in weeks. Waterproof doesn't matter. Cloud sync, bluetooth, audiobook support, apps (other than a decent reader), note-taking - I don't care about. It's for reading books, nothing else. Budget is not a huge issue but I don't want to spend more than I have to.

I have had zero time for the last few weeks to look into what the market is doing now and it's been many since I paid much attention to the world of ereaders, so anyone who is more up to date than me who can offer some suggestions would be much appreciated.

I haven't really messed with printers in probably 15 years or more, but it felt like any time they were brought up, there were two flavors:

• Older printers, which decided if they wanted to work or not based on absolutely nothing at all
• Newer printers, which are covered in DRM and mostly a nickel-and-diming scam

Now, for the former I remember having some issues, but generally just clearing the printer's cache (or whatever it was called) would fix most of the problems. I think the bigger issue is that I always helped people set up cheap Walmart-sold inkjet printers that had more hardware issues than software, along with ink that would go to shit instantly.

But I was out today at a thrift store and they had a Brother for $25, with an entire extra unopened toner cartridge (I think that's what it's called?). I asked them if it worked, they said it did, but if it didn't I could return it by tomorrow.

So I brought it home, assuming something would be wrong with it, but in about 10 minutes I had it plugged in, connected to my wifi network, and connected to my computer. I tried scanning-- it worked fine. I tried copying-- it does that no problem. It took longer to install the drivers on my PC than set up the printer itself.

So are printers really as straight-forward as I experienced with this cheap used one, or am I just lucky?

I'm making an effort to declutter and trying to get rid of my old electronics. I have a bunch of old Oculus hardware, my old gaming PC with a Ryzen and a RX480, an old Xbox console and other things around the house. Do you recommend going through eBay, or Swappa or another specialty website, or if there may be a hobby shop willing to take things off of hands, or just go to Goodwill and accept the resale value as sunk cost?

I got a tablet a few years ago, and I've struggled to use it as anything other than a big phone. Sure, it's really nice watching videos on the larger screen, and messaging is nicer too.

Do you guys have any recommendations for apps that are either tablet only, or have a much better experience on a tablet? I have a Galaxy Tab S6 Lite running Android version 13.

On a semi-related note, I am looking for good emulators for android(NES, SNES, Genesis).

Specifically this week I have to choose whether to create an account with paypal, cashapp or venmo but I am also interested in a broader discussion including other apps. Any advice or information would be welcome.

It's seems to have been common sense for a while now that Windows has good-enough security software that you don't need 3rd party tools but is it actually the case now? Is there anything to lose or gain from trusting 3rd party with this stuff?

As you may well know, Fairphone is a company that originally arose from a kickstarter campaign and makes phones that are as easily repairable, as sustainable and as fairly sourced as possible. They do have their issues, but compared to other big phone companies they've done a great job with this.

Now it appears that Fairphone is due to announce the so called 'Fairphone Keep Club' on the 14th of September - a bonus program as we all know it. You buy stuff, you get points for what you buy, and when you've got enough points you can redeem them to buy more stuff.

The keep club website claims that it's the only rewards program that gives back to those who keep their Fairphones as long as possible, but judging by the listed 'challenges' it appears that the most efficient way to gain points is to simply buy new stuff.

Personally I'm a bit torn on this, due to the idealistic viewpoints I tend to judge Fairphone under in accordance with their stated sustainability goals. I do realize that is a much higher standard than the big-players in the phone industry achieve. I also get that Fairphone wants to build its brand identity and create incentives to keep customers and sell their products. But at the same time I can't help but think that in the end that program is an incentive to be less sustainable, as it ultimately provides you with those fancy points as a psychological incentive to buy the newest and latest Fairphone product.

So I wanted to bring this topic into a wider community that may not currently be as deep in the Fairphone bubble: Do you think such bonus programs will rather help spread the idea of a more repairable, sustainable approach to phones, or will it rather serve as an incentive to artificially shorten a phone's lifecycle by prematurely buying a new one? And more generally speking: Do you think advertising strategies rooted in consumerism and classic capitalistic company goals are compatible with sustainable product lifecycles somehow, despite not exactly having aligned interests?

Note that I also posted this on Lemmy. I'm interested to see how those discussions will compare.

I was scrolling through Tildes a while ago when I can across a comment talking about how employers fed data into a credit-bureau-esque application that they could check to see things like your past salary data. Unfortunately, I can’t find that comment anymore. Does anyone know what it was, or where to find it?

I find the concept to be incredibly worrying, especially as it seems like unregulated technology or at the very least operating in a gray area carved out by existing credit reporting.

(Please let me know if this should go in ~misc or somewhere else. Wasn’t sure where to put it!)

For a long time now, I have been using KeePassXC for desktops and KeePassDX for Android. I keep everything synchronized neatly with Syncthing, which can be configured to operate over your WiFi or the internet through their gateways. This allows me to share a single KeePass file with another individual, provided I tell them the password.

I have a co-worker who is loving 1Password and while it looks great, something irks me about paying monthly for a password manager. I looked into Bitwarden for a "local cloud" and have seen very mixed results as well as not being sure if I could trust my own security configurations to do so.

I am primarily wondering what everyone else is using in search of something a bit more convenient (I'm not opposed to using the cloud) that has an app like KeePass that I can use for desktop apps, and not just in the browser (though I don't use that function often, truthfully).

Edit: Passkey support was mentioned in this comment and made me realize how important such support will be in the coming years. For those of you with password management solutions supporting it, how has it been?

I'm normally the tech guy in my social circles and can make good recommendations but its been a few years since I was a collage student so when one of my associates who is about to start her college journey as a dental student asked me for my recommendation, I wasn't sure exactly what to recommend.

My first thought was an iPad paired with an Apple Pencil and a Logitech portfolio case. This was because she mentioned lots of note taking and drawing. I figured that option gave her the most bang for the buck and versatility to accomplish any tasks necessary while also having longevity to get her threw the next few years. As for what model, I haven't really figured out just yet.

My main drawbacks here are that iPads still don't fully replace a Mac or PC. I don't know what software her college will require and while many schools are modernizing some are still not quite there yet and may require specific software that can't be run on iPads.

Of course the solution to that problem is to purchase a MacBook as well. That should handle most any applications and maybe make longer essays and research papers easier to get through. Ideally that would be option number one, but obviously that's very expensive, and while I do not know what her and her families fiscal background is like, I think its safe to assume that in this economy, even with educational discounts, that's not the most feasible option for most students.

On the other hand just purchasing a MacBook instead of an iPad would work but not be as versatile since apple has yet to produce a 2in1 like the Microsoft Surface. Speaking of 2in1's I thought about the Microsoft Surface and even some Samsung 2in1's with their s-pen equivalent, but longevity has never really been Windows or Chromes OS's strongpoint. Not to mention I really am not a fan of Chrome OS and its many limitations. I know there is a lot of schools that use them, but they also tend to end up unfixable and unsupported.

Again... its been a minute since I was a student, so maybe there are things that I am not thinking about or realizing. I told her I would think about it and come back with some recommendations so I figured I'd ask here for some real life experience while I do some research on the subject.

EDIT

• Her major is dentistry
• She curranty has an iPhone
• I'll ask her to check her schools requirements
• I'll reply to everyone soon, I just wanted to make those things known for everyone.
• Thanks for all the input so far!

I've always been a bit of a privacy enthousiast. Have had everything blocked that Google and by extension YouTube wants to scrape off you. This means I've also blocked my view history.

Recently YouTube started giving out a warning on the homepage that you have blocked your view history, that you can change it in your privacy settings and that it helps them serve you better content. What it also means is that your homepage is just one big popup to guilt trip you into sharing your data. The homepage won't show any suggested content anymore.

While it is in their interest to do so and since they are a company wanting to make money it is understandable. Nevertheless it seems harsh from going to see content that you might like to only seeing a big warning sign right now.

What are you experiences with this?

Edit: I've just purchased an Unraid license. I'll give it a go and it may not turn out well, but for the time being, the question is settled. I appreciate everyone for providing insightful and informative answers!

Hey everyone,

I've recently bought myself a NUC (NUC11TNHi3) that I intend to run as a home server, using many of my external USB drives as the storage.

My use case is very narrow. I'll use it as a Plex server and seed/leech torrents with it.

I've never built a home server like this before (I did dabble with it on a RPi, but that was just for PiHole), so I've never had to research what operating systems are available to me. After some research, I narrowed it down to two options.

1. Windows
   This option is the most straightforward given that it's the system I'm familiar with the most. My use case is also very narrow, so I could set everything up in a couple of hours. All I'd have to do is install Plex server, a torrent client, exposing them to the outside world with port forwarding or Tailscale (never used it before but seems easy enough), and share my external USB drives locally so that I can access them using my regular desktop computer at home. The downside of this is that Windows can be finicky. I'd also prefer to have my drives pooled under a single drive. A cursory research suggests that Windows can do this as well, but not in a way that inspires confidence.

2. Unraid
   I hadn't heard about this since last week, but it seems like a nice option. It costs money, it's proprietary, and I'd likely have to reformat all my NTFS drives to be able to use it but I was wondering if this would be the best long term solution. The learning curve will be there. Arrays, cache drives, share drives etc. are terms I'm not familiar with (though I can guess what purpose they serve) so it will be more time consuming to set things up properly. But given how narrow my use case is, as elegant a solution as it seems, is it necessary? I'm only considering this because seems like this is the best purpose built OS in the market right now.

Some clarifications:

• I'm sure someone will suggest a Linux distro. I have used Fedora as my main OS for a couple of years and I was quite happy with it, however I could never wrap my head around the Linux permissions structure, which Plex is awful with, as it creates its own user and look for drives under that user. I must have spent hours and hours to make Plex read my external drives properly before, but I've never managed to make it do so without some sort of hacky way and I don't want to do that with my home server. I don't want to have any doubts that things can go wrong. I want something that just works. (If only Synology had a capable device that could handle multiple simultaneous 4K transcodings. I'd have just throw my money at them instead of buying a NUC.)

• My use case will remain narrow. Maybe way down the road I can automate stuff with Sonarr or Radarr or stuff like that, but I don't think I'll ever consume enough recently released stuff to justify it. One thing is for certain, I'm never going to host my password server, feed reader, or something like that on this device.

That's about it. What should I do?

Given that I'm a novice is this area, I'd be all ears to listen any other related or unrelated advice for someone who's just starting to build their first home server.

Thank you in advance.

I use Slack, WhatsApp, Discord and Facebook's Messenger. On my computers, rather than installing dedicated apps, I've always just used these services' browser versions. It allows me to block ads with my browser's ad blocker and modify the UIs with other extensions that I use.

But in terms of privacy — and more specifically, in terms of what the service has access to outside of their own walled gardens — is there a difference between using these services through a browser or their dedicated apps? I use both Windows and Mac computers, if that makes a difference. My browser of choice is Firefox and I run the services in their own containers.

On my phone, I just use the provided apps and get notifications that way. I am well aware that most of these protocols are not great for privacy to begin with, but I'm not currently looking for other messaging systems.

My new Synology DS923+ should be delivered next week, together with 3x6TB drives for a RAID5 setup, 32GB of RAM, 2x1TB NVMe drives and an APC UPS. It's almost certainly overkill as I'll be using the NAS mainly for automated backups (of computers, web servers and cloud services) and as general file storage, although I will also be looking into file syncing, running background scripts, using the NAS as a light development server, and maybe also for surveillance cameras.

Any tips for a beginner? I can find my way around most modern desktop and server systems but I have never set up or maintained a NAS. Are there uses for the system that no one talks about but which you have personally found incredibly useful?

Hey all, hope everyone is doing well today. I've been using a Pixel 6A for going on a year now, and I'm not very satisfied with my purchase. It's a decent enough phone, but it seems that the fingerprint reader doesn't work more than half of the time, and Google Assistant is about as reliable. It also just has a lot of weird little things that add up (for instance, plugging in the battery may not indicate that it's charging until you unlock the phone). Not to mention that I'm just not fond of the company these days, and I'd like to gradually ween myself off of their applications and such.

I actually upgraded to this phone from a Moto G6 plus (bought for >$200 via Amazon, compared to this $500 device), and I find myself wishing I hadn't hopped in the hot tub with it in my pocket that day.

With that said, what sort of alternatives do you fine people suggest? I'm not too concerned with specs (as long as it plays Pocket Trains, I'm happy lol), mostly battery life, Android, and sustainable company practices if that's still a thing in tech.

Currently looking at the Fairphone 4, but was wondering what else may be floating around out there. Thanks in advance, and have a great day.

I'm looking for input from the Tildes community about experiences with Android parental controls apps. My daughter is 8, but she rides the bus, so we want to make sure she has ways to contact us if something happens.

Other than that use case, I intend to limit her to offline content (audiobooks and music loaded directly on the phone) and some games.

The platform for this is an older phone (Android 9). I'm not averse to buying a newer phone if that makes the solutions workable, but I wanted to start with the "free" option.

I've installed Google Family Link on the phone. It does a nice job of restricting access to apps, setting time limits on individual apps, and filtering some content. The major limitation seems to be there's no way to restrict what numbers the phone can text or call with.

Bark seems to be the most visible alternative, and adds a lot of features for content monitoring social media, which is not really our use case. The main thing I'm looking for is an app that would let me administer the calling and texting features of the phone. I'm not opposed to paying for a service if that's what's needed.

Anybody have insights into tools? There's a ton of noise in the search results. Other solutions to the problem?

Just wondering how other technically inclined individuals go about this.

For my daily driver machines I usually buy Macs and build towers, which are simple enough — on the Mac, figure out needs and slightly overbuy, and on towers put some research into parts to find those with the best reviews and bang for buck. Pretty straightforward.

I also keep around a generic x86 laptop though, and I might be replacing the one I have currently in the coming months. Shopping for its replacement unfortunately is not so clean and simple. There is to my knowledge no laptop-shopper analogue of PCPartPicker for laptops for instance and retailer search tools are terrible (especially Amazon's), which makes filtering out the noise practically impossible. It gets even harder if you're looking for certain features and especially less tangible things like build quality, QC, and battery life. Review sites often aren't of much help, with skin-deep reviews that frequently miss major points and pay little mind to things that may become issues in long-term usage.

And yet clearly, plenty of people are buying laptops, which brings me back to the topic question. How does everybody go about their laptop shopping?

I'm looking for suggestions for a free, customizable minimalist launcher for my android smart phone. I am currently using indistractable, and while I like how it looks and the core functions, I don't like that I can't redirect certain apps, and it seems to have problems syncing my calendar. Ultimately, I'm not opposed to buying the premium version of this, but from my understanding that wouldn't provide the functionality I am looking for.

I did a little bit of researching and right now I'm looking at Lawnchair 2, Takan, and Olauncher as alluring alternatives. Does anyone have any experience with these, or any other recommendations? Primarily something that is entirely free, but if there is something that has a one time payment that really knocked your socks off I'd be open to that as well.

What was your favorite web page back in the day that you would visit religiously and tell all your friends about but have since lost? Did it shutter permanently or did you lose the bookmark when switching computers never to find it again?

Back in the days of printed web page yellow pages and search engines you had to submit your page to be reviewed before it was listed, I had found a page about movie easter eggs, errors and insider information. It had factoids about nearly 1000 movies ranging from obscure facts, mistakes in editing, anachronisms, funny on-set stories and the like.

It was fun to read that this character was named after the art directors niece, the stunt car is visible losing 8 hubcaps in the main chase, etc. It was amazing to read how different movies would interact (IIRC, Kim Bassinger's gasp/jump reaction to opening the door in "Batman" was real due to them having a xenomoprh from Aliens there instead of Jack Nicholson since they were filming at the same time). It was also cool to read that certain characters made cameos in other movies (most people caught that Randolph and Mortimer Duke from "Trading Places" were in "Coming to America" but there are so many other not as obvious blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos). I never would have noticed the car visible in the background of Johnny Cage vs Scorpion in the orchard fight in "Mortal Kombat" without this page--and now I can never unsee it when I watch it.

I don't know if I lost the bookmark or if the page shut down so I deleted it but any search I've undertaken for this page in the last few decades only seems to return listicles like "21 obvious anachronisms in modern movies!" but not my all comprehensive target.

Honorable mention to Damn Interesting (although I did find that one again after a few years). Although it's underwent some turbulance and changes since I first disovered it, I would often reread the articles and gleefully looked forward to each new article when I was younger. With article names like Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom it was hard not to be intrigued.

I'm wondering if anyone here might be able to help me with this.

We've bought a Amazon Echo Dot for my Grandma who's no longer able to see very well. The idea was to connect it to her Smart TV so that she would be able to navigate it using voice commands rather than the remote (which she can't see).

I've been able to add the TV as a device on the Alexa app, however I'm unable to get Alexa to carry out any commands on the TV - change the channel, open an app etc.

I believe that what I need to do is connect the TV to the Echo Dot via Bluetooth. Is this correct? Is it functionally a different thing than having something as a device in the app? Currently when I go to the TV under devices and click to manage linked Alexa devices, the Echo Dot is greyed out because it's already paired with a device (presumably the iPad where I've downloaded the app as there are no other devices connected).

If the lack of bluetooth connection is the issue, I'll need to buy a Bluetooth transmitter for the TV has it doesn't have bluetooth capability. So I just wanted to see if anyone had any advice for me before I invest in another piece of tech.

I haven’t touched reddit since the APIcalyspe. I’m planning to delete my account but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I was a heavy Apollo user on iOS but never subscribed to it for its push notification service, instead I kept the official reddit app installed and the only thing I used it for were its notifications. I still have both apps installed.

Anyway, I was surprised to see one pop up yesterday, especially since it wasn’t connected to my user activity (a new private message or reply to an old comment of mine or something). The notification was just an ad. More specifically, it was promoting some trending post on the site that had “>12,000 upvotes.” In many many years of having the app installed I’ve never seen that before. Is it new?

Reddit’s had a mildly antagonist relationship with its users for ages, but it feels like they are REALLY intensifying things now. I’m glad I got off the train when I did. And sorry for making yet another post about reddit, I think we’re all getting tired of harping on it here.

Hey Tildes,

I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a way to transcribe voice memos on iOS/macOS.

I want to take up a weekly/daily/whatever journal, however, I felt it may be good for me to use the voice memos feature on my iPhone as I go on longer daily walks and I always have my phone on me. However, going back to look at old voice memos can be rather time consuming rather than just reading/skimming through a text version.

The app can be paid or free. I am hoping to be able to export into multiple file types as well that I could open on any device I really want.

I have way too many bookmarks. Currently, I use firefox's bookmark manager to categorize my bookmarks within folders, and to assign tags. However, I'm looking for alternate solutions. I am not a fan of online services where you need an account, personally. Curious if anyone knows of any offline software to store your bookmarks, that you have found useful?

Tbh I was thinking of just throwing together some web page that I can just host myself, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. That said, I hate depending on more and more software, as none of this stuff lasts forever.

I'm open to other software that could be used for this purpose, not just something devoted to storing bookmarks. Ideally something that is simple, and just allows you to visually categorize into folders. Tags are a huge plus.

For the past 5 years or so, Ive been using a Samsung J36v as my primary mobile phone. I mostly bought it in the wake of my CDMA based dumbphone being, effectively, bricked by verizon shutting down the 3G network in my area. It wasnt my first choice, but it was dirt cheap and served my needs well enough.

However, the last couple of months, the microphone has just... died. Got quieter and quieter, until now I need to plug in headphones in order for a person at the other end of a call to hear me, let alone understand me. I think I need a new phone.

While Im not a fan with the software side of my current phone (locked bootloader, loaded with bloatware from the factory), I rather liked the hardware, as it had a swappable battery (like, not just easily replaceable, but swappable with only ones fingernails), an sd card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. All of these features are ones that I regularly use.

Because of this, anytime I look for a new phone, they just seem like an expensive downgrade. I dont care too much about the SOC performance so long as its reasonably modern and can be expected to be usable for 5ish years. (I dont do gaming, YT watching, etc. Just signal, discord, call, text, and gps navigation). The things I do care about is a user-replaceable battery (screws are fine, but no solvents or heat needed), the ability to install either stock android or lineage-os or /e os (to get rid of carrier bloat), an sd card slot and physical SIM card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

However, I havent been able to find anything on the market like that. I tried the pinephone a year ago, and while Im a competent linux sysadmin, I was never able to even get MMS texting working reliably, and calls would not always be received while sleeping. Ive been reluctant to try other phones since then due to being afraid of spending money on something that wont work. At this point, its seriously affecting my mental health, as I go into a bit of a panic attack whenever Im reminded of the fact that my current phone is failing.

So Im asking for help. Ive compiled a ranking of the features I need/would like on a new phone, ranked from 'wont even consider a phone without it' to 'would be really nice to have, but I can still use it as a phone without it'.

Must haves (not an option without it)

• Needs to run some form of reduced-bloat android. I use signal and discord to communicate with my network, and while I could give up discord, only using it in the browser or desktop, I cannot give up signal.
• Needs to have a user replaceable battery. Doesnt need to be hot-swappable or anything like that (though that would be awesome), but needs to be replaceable without having to break the screen. (so, no requirement to break adhesives to replace the battery)
• needs to have a physical SIM card, and be carrier-unlocked. Me and my wife will be moving overseas in a year or so, and I will need to change carriers during that move.
• Must be able to use both USA and EU 4g bands. (for same reason as the SIM card)

Really, really nice to have

• Sd card slot. I dont stream music, and have a rather large collection of music on my home server. The storage space to sync that to the phone for offline playback would be a massive plus.
• capable of running a degoogled andriod version. While I could make do with stock google android (at least I wouldnt have the 'official nfl app' force-installed on me), it would be really nice if the phone was supported by either lineage-OS or /e OS.

Nice to have

• a 3.5mm headphone jack. I have trust issues with bluetooth, never had a BT device that worked reliably. I want to keep my copper wire headphones in use, and having to choose between charging the phone and using a DAC dongle doesnt really cut it.
• usb-c charging. Yah, usb-c is nice, but its actually less of a concern for me than the above categories. My micro-usb on my current phone has lasted 5 years, so I wouldnt be too fussed if my next phone used micro-usb.

This is my first Tildes post and I'll remove it if needed!

I recently dumped some photos from an old cell phone on to an old windows 10 laptop to be stored on an external hard drive.

The phone is a 4 year old Galaxy with 128g onboard storage.

The laptop is an HP running windows 10 and is a notebook-like machine with about 30g total hard drive, the max usable is like 4 or 5 gigs after the OS etc.

At the time of transferring files, I found it quicker to use the available 2.5 gigs I had to put pictures directly on the laptop and then transfer them from there to the external hard drive.

Here is my problem:

2 folders, from separate camping trips, totalling about 380 photos and a few videos are stuck on the desktop and are claiming to take up 4.02 terabytes and thus cannot be moved.

I did notice the file type .heic is not recognized by windows 10, but all my other photos (several thousand,) are the same file type and take up a normal amount of space.

These individual photos in question are claiming to be around 7 to 8 gigs each.

There's not 4 TB between the phone(128g,) laptop(30g,) and the external drive(3tb.)

So the pictures are stuck on this laptop which is only acting as a surrogate computer while I'm building a real desktop PC.

I can keep this laptop forever, even though I'd rather donate it or something, but one of these folders has pictures from the last camping trip with my brother before he took his own life last year, I'd really like to keep them archived and backed up.

Any ideas? Anyone have a similar experience? Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Again, I'll delete this post if it's inappropriate.

Cheers.

EDIT: I just realized while proof reading this, that if I can update the codecs where windows can view the files, I could screenshot the photos, but that still leaves me at a loss for the videos.
I miss his goofy laugh, and want to preserve it for his son also.

I tried out Sync for Lemmy. Loved it, but I was not a fan of the tracking for ads and the price to get rid of that being $20. Anyone tried the free open source Lemmy apps? I used to use RedReader for Reddit, so I don't mind it being a bit worse than something like Sync.

I recently switch browsers from Safari to Orion after many, many years. I imported all of my bookmarks and then realized that I couldn't remember the last time I went through them to see what was still useful (or even around).

I also realized that I don't save a ton of bookmarks anymore as I keep all of my browsing history available and search through that.

How often do you all go through your bookmarks/favorites?

What are those programs that you used back in the day (or even recently!) that you look back on fondly and think about how they once were-- or worse, programs that seemed to have just up and disappeared?

What made me think of this question, for me, was Opera. It had everything: browsing, RSS, and torrenting all in one browser. However, a lot of sites loved to break in it since it was the least supported and I eventually moved to Firefox (then Chrome, then Firefox...). Looking at the browser now-- and unsure if I'm just picky or its a case of enshittification, or both-- I'm just "meh."