Changing Mullvad server at router level

Reddit is becoming increasingly more and more hostile to VPN connections to the point where I often get the "whoa pardner" error message and have to try 4-5 different VPN servers on my desktop or phone before I finally get one to work with Reddit. Same thing sometimes with Google/YT, it keeps asking me to prove I am not a bot and a bit of experimentation with the servers gets me through.

This makes me wonder, is it as easy to switch my Mullvad server on OPNsense? I get the sense from the YT videos I have watched, I have to effectively setup an entry for every Mullvad router as separate instance on my OPNsense' VPN WireGuard settings and toggle which instance is being used at the router level?
I know I can technically have Mullvad on my router to hide all my traffic and then on all my devices that I use Reddit on, I can additionally have Mullvad on them too and play with the servers I am connected to on my device specifically until I find one that works but I am curious what the workflow is if I choose to do all my Mullvad related configs at the router level.

Making custom block?

I have a love-hate relationship with Reddit. On one hand, I can't deny that certain subreddits are useful as someone in tech, but I also can't deny that certain subs are just a time-sink and some subs are just toxic (looking at you AITA). I can often prevent myself from browsing the time-sink/toxic ones but sometimes I lose myself in them and I am in search of a way to block them via Mullvad at my router. Obviously a DNS-block won't work if I want to block reddit.com (the home page) and certain specific subreddits but leave any other tech related subreddits open for me to read so the next best thing I assume is some kind of firewall? But I don't know if such a firewall exists that can basically start doing regex on a URL to see if it should be accessible from within the network? Which makes me wonder if I can create my own firewall but I don't even know the first step, as in would this be something that integrates with OPNsense, or a stand-alone program I have to create myself? I know Python, Java and have some basic knowledge of C++ but don't even know if those are the language I need to know to create such a filter or if the filter I am looking for is even possible? Any and all pointers welcome.

I have been an Android user for a long time, but I never bothered to buy a new phone when I didn't feel I needed one, so my current phone is very old (Android 7.0). There are several annoyances I see in modern smartphones that I'm kinda hoping to avoid, the biggest one being that I want to be able to replace the battery. I'm therefore eyeing the Fairphone for being modular and repairable.

• Has anyone used a Fairphone and can talk a bit about what it's like?
• Does anyone know the best time of year to get the best deal? Should I wait until after Christmas?
• Will I still be able to side-load/use F-Droid? I hear that Google is putting a stop to this but if I get one that allows it now, will it continue to allow it in perpetuity?

Would love to hear some input from fellow nerds who know more about this stuff than I.

Edit to add: I'm in Germany.

Hullooo, today I got updated to Android 16 by GrapheneOS autoupdater.

I'm 99.5% happy with it as I trust them more than myself with regards to privacy & security, but...

The battery icon in the status bar is invasively ugly and disturbing.

It's too big and it changes colour, makes me shiver!

So... Is there anyway to change that? Most importantly the size (to match the other icons) but also the colour stuff.

Hey, tildes - cqns here,

I work in a library and, once in a while, when I have time, I make something called a "display", which is essentially a curated selection of books for the public to check out, which lasts for approximately a single month. Usually, most people do things very linearly with their displays, a single letter-sized paper that serves as the title label for the topic of the display, and then the physical books in an array on the shelf. I, however, think that most of the displays are particularly boring in the way that they approach the public, hence my need for brainstorming.

What I have in mind is an interactive one-stand exhibit, akin to an art gallery in a museum. The title of the exhibit is "Libri Insoliti", which roughly translates to "strange/unusual books". It is a nine item list that includes the following titles in order:

1. The Road - Cormac McCarthy (BOOK, AUDIOBK, EBOOK, DVD, BLU-RAY)
2. The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker (AUDIOBK only)
3. Several People Are Typing - Calvin Kasulke (BOOK, AUDIOBK, EBOOK)
4. Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar (BOOK - as compilation, EBOOK)
5. Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges (BOOK, BOOK en espanol, AUDIOBK en espanol, EBOOK en espanol)
6. The Employees - Olga Ravn (BOOK, EBOOK)
7. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski (BOOK only - Read one page to find out why.)
8. "S" - Doug Dorst (BOOK only - some cutouts missing)
9. Finnegans Wake - James Joyce (BOOK, EBOOK)

Of each title, I have my written piece on the side that informs the public on what to generally expect when reading the specific titles...and then a QR code that links to a Vocaroo recording of yours truly narrating that which I've already written. Therein lies the rub - in my side of town, it appears as though the general public may not know how to use a QR code, hence my idea being to go a bit above and beyond.

With the QR code method, people may not realize their device's volume level is extremely high and cause distraction. The library is ideally a quiet place for people and I would like for the exhibit's audio to be non-intrusive, leading me to another idea: the purchasing of some type of equipment that allows patrons to listen to the exhibit audio with attached headphones only. There are many things to consider, because the exhibit is in an area which a plug is not easily accessible, so ideally, it may need to work with a battery pack of some kind. I do have, in my possession, a Raspberry Pi5, but, it needs to be plugged in to work. So, does such a device exist? I've searched it up extensively and came across this (https://www.digitalaudiotechnologies.com/product/soundclip-2-2-button-looping-or-pir/), but I don't know whether or not this would even work. Any suggestions?

I use a Mac for work, Linux for my personal machine, and the same mouse between the two. I’m accustomed to the dpi/acceleration on Mac, so when I switch to my PC at the end of the day there are slight inaccuracies with the pointer. My wrist compensates to cover the gaps and I develop wrist strain after short periods of use.

Does anyone know how to make the Linux mouse dpi/acceleration as close to identical as possible with my Mac?

chimera linux w/ gnome btw

Hello!

I recently reworked my setup such that I have my drive which holds the operating systems (dual boot of Windows 11 and Linux Mint Cinnamon) and another drive which holds all my actual data. This is my first dive into trying to move to Linux as my daily driver but I'm noticing some performance issues.

The first thing I noticed is that transfer speeds are much less than expected. Copying a large file within my data drive I get about 300MB/s on Linux, which is pretty slow for M.2 drives- I get about 10x that speed doing the exact same operation on Windows. I could be okay with this but I also noticed that some video files, like the 4K mp4s off my phone, are virtually unplayable. They'll run at maybe 1fps and/or bog down the UI so much I cant even use the seek. This is the case in both the default media player and VLC. These same files play with no issue on Windows.

I suspect the reason for all this stems from my data drive being NTFS, though my file system and Linux knowledge is pretty weak so this is just a theory. Any ideas / best practices that might help me here?

Hey Tilderinos.
I've been looking into buying several flash drives since my largest flash drive is a 32GB sandisk, and I use or interact with all the 3 major OSes, I use Linux on my desktop and on a secondary laptop, I use MacOS on a Macbook and everyone else I know uses Windows(So I'll need an exFAT drive for them).
My recent experience with flash drives though makes me more willing to trust my data to a system's RAM than to a flash drive. At least RAM wouldn't lure me into a false sense of security then spontaneously fail, I know that my data isn't going to last a reboot.
I've got 3 sandisk cruzer blades fail on me, once was an error on my part where I accidentally hit it with my knee while plugged into a device(device unharmed, the drive is dead), one time I upgraded the SSD on my SteamDeck and flashed the steamdeck recovery to an 8GB stick, it worked fine while restoring and it still can be read... it's stuck on read only and, Gparted, Windows formatter, Rufus, Mac's disk utility nor mkfs can make it reusable, I assume it entered read only because it tripped some "whoops I'm dying" thing like some SSDs have(from what I know). The last one is effectively a resistor that connects to a USB port, it heats up, SOMETIMES appears on PC, Linux can open it, copying things into it via Nautilus works albeit very slowly, then when I try to open the root of the flash drive it is stuck perpetually trying to load, when I unplug it and plug it back in again, I can see the folders but entering any of them immediately goes into the permanent loading state, mkdir, cd and ls can work on the drive... intermittently, but I'm treating it as dead.

This leaves me with only 2 other drives, my largest drive, is a 32GB Sandisk Ultra, and my smallest drive which has been more reliable than the Cruzer Blades is a 4GB Sony... USM4GP thing, which I have no idea what year it was from and a quick googling didn't bring up any release date, but it had faster read/write than the cruzer blades, and it's been my main drive for things like installing an OS/burning an image into it yet it lasted all these years.

I'm trying to get a USB-C drive specifically since all my laptops that are in use and my PC have a USB-C port, but all I see in local big retailers are Sandisk, Sandisk and more Sandisk, Amazon however has some that aren't Sandisk.

Does anyone know a USB-C flash drive that is genuinely reliable? Was it specifically Cruzer Blades that is garbage? I've not had a Sandisk SD card fail on me yet, should I just avoid Sandisk for anything but SD cards? Should I just say fuck it and buy a bunch of enclosures and NVMe drives?

I've read that flash drives get bottom of the barrel NAND chips that can't be used on SSDs, too. I know that flash drives aren't meant for long term storage/backup but a drive that old shouldn't be still going on that strongly against new ones.

I've been looking at PNY Elite V3 with USB-C as a connector that I've seen a few listings on Amazon but it's 1TB price is almost the same price as a 1TB NVMe SSD(Though not factoring in the enclosure).

Ive been using Linux Mint for like 10 years now but my s/o still wants to use Windows

Win 10 is about to lose support, and they cant upgrade to Win 11 cause its missing some new chip?

Anyone have details or fixes? Im way out of the loop cause Linux is just plug and play for me so I don’t keep up with this stuff any more

I saw a smart home the other day and I got to admit, my caveman DNA was activated and I got jealous. My caveman DNA demands that I also make my home a smart one.

The thing is, I kind of don't really know how and where to begin, thus why I came to you guys for help.

I know that I want to do this gradually, over months or years, apply new smart devices like smart plugs, sensors, cameras, and the like little by little. As for appliances, only when mine stop working and need replacement.

I also want to be able to control my AC, my electric shutters, check how much energy my house is using and how much my solar panels are producing. These ones, I admit, are the ones that I'm most unsure about on how to go about it. I'm not an electrician, and might need to hire one.

As for a server, that's already taken care off. I have a synology server, or a raspberry pi 5 if for some reason my synology can't handle it. I know of "Home Assistant", is this the best software or do you recommend others?

Needless to say, I don't want to be dependent on companies or cloud services. This is a self-host project. I'm tech-savvy, I don't mind to get my hands dirty, but I do want to build something that is stable. "Set it and forget it" kind of thing.

So my question are:
1- Do you have any recommendations of where I should start? Like for example, light switches first, then smart plugs, etc.
2- If I should take into consideration the number of devices. Could they potentially clog my router or my wifi AP's if they get too many? If yes, is there a way to prevent this?
3- Do you have any article or guide or video that you recommend me checking out?
4- Do you have any tips, advice or warnings in general? Like problems that you know that I'll run into later, or things that you don't think are worth smartifying, etc (whatever you want to say, give it to me, I'll appreciate anything)

Quick background: wife inherited an iPhone 8 plus from a recently deceased relative. Said relative used to have AT&T, wife and I do not. I was hoping to possibly use this phone on an upcoming international trip but it would need to be unlocked from the carrier first so I can put a new sim card in it. (Just to be clear, I don't mean getting into the actual phone, we've already saved the few photos and messages that were on there and reset the phone to factory settings). Tried doing the automated process on the AT&T website and it was denied immediately, no explanation given. Tried calling them and the automated system straight up hangs up on me because I don't have an account with them. So lastly we tried taking it directly to an AT&T store where they directed us to either call the number that keeps hanging up on us, or to "take it to one of those places at the mall that can unlock it for you". Useless.

I've done some research on this and seen various solutions online. Most of those solutions I have already tried (like calling the number or trying the online portal thing) or their situations don't apply to my case (like having purchased a new phone or having an account already with AT&T). One thing I've seen mentioned multiple times that seems to get results is to file a complaint with the FCC, so I went to do that and welp... government is shut down. FCC not accepting any complaints at the moment.

Another thing that I thought of was jailbreaking the phone, but I haven't done that to a phone in many years and am not even sure if that would resolve the issue of it being carrier-locked. But surely if 'those places at the mall' can unlock them without going through AT&T, then I might be able to as well. Hence I came here asking for help.

Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

For reference, here is the ODbL. There is a nice human readable summary. You can also read more in the Wikipedia entry.

The most famous database available under the ODbL is OpenStreetMaps.

I recently found out about OpenCorporates, which is a global database of companies, published under the ODbL. I thought this was great, so I applied for access to use the database for a project. I was denied because I'm not a journalist or a nonprofit and instead was invited to pay for access instead. And it's not cheap, likely because company databases are often used in the B2B space.

I replied that this seemed to be in conflict with their mission, especially given that my project was focused on using the data to create a benefit to the public, and their response was that they wanted to protect against their database being copied.

From my reading, this seems to be in direct conflict with the ODbL. Egregiously so, which has me thinking I'm missing something.

Does anyone have any insight? It seems to me that the whole point of the ODbL license is to make data freely available. This is backed up by interpretations I came across while searching and by the ethos of other orgs using the license, such as OSM. What am I missing?

Edit: I'm still excited to hear from anyone with knowledge in this area, or just general insights into how I'm misunderstanding the license.

And also, having learned that The Open Data Commons, which publishes and maintains the ODbL, uses this definition of the concept of open... I'm leaning towards the interpretation that OpenCorporates wants the aura of using a reputable license with the word "open" in it, but isn't genuinely interested in the ethos. Which is disappointing but not shocking, they'd be far from the first.

I work for a GIS company and our tools have not grown with our projects and client base. We use ArcPro personal geo databases (GDBs) for ALL data. We recently had a project where shit really hit the fan, one major issue was related to invalid values from poor version control. Everything uses personal GDBs and is just "version controlled" by dating filenames in Explorer. It would have been trivial to fix in a proper database. We also have operational constraints, like we can only have one person doing X job at a time since all the data for X job is in a personal GDB.

But I'm just an analyst. I've garnered some attention for my technical expertise beyond processing the data. PostGIS is a thing so it isn't as though we'd be recreating the wheel. How can I push for that sort of change? I'm thinking I can sell it using how much we lost on this project because of these avoidable failures. I'm also wondering if I can make this an opportunity to create a "database administrator" position for myself

My current computer is finally old enough that we need something new. Something nice. Something that doesn't run modded Xcom 2 at sub 15fps. But the long gap in my knowledge has left me wondering in a state where I don't even know enough anymore to make educated decisions on a new PC build.

Here's what I do know:

• I want a microATX board
• I want a quiet and smaller case
• I want to keep my current Geforce 3060
• My Budget is roughly 1k, but flexible

Past that, my knowledge is now pretty much out of date. Is AMD currently better? Is Noctua still a good and quiet fan? How fast does ram really need to be? Are things pretty standard priced, or do I need to wait for Microcenter to have a sale?

Thanks for your help, appreciate you!

Ok, so my computer is starting to fail in a way I can't fix (never get an Alienware, folks. It's not easily user serviceable, and the parts are very specific to fit in the fancy case so you can't easily replace things when they fail,) and so I'm back on the market for something new. Given the impending forced transition to Windows 11, I'm thinking this is the right time to also switch from Windows to some Linux distro, so I can have all the fun of figuring out a new OS on new hardware.

Given that I'm stepping into unknown territory here, is there anything specific that the fine people of Tildes can suggest/advise/warn me about when it comes to getting a new computer with Linux? I know there's a bunch of different flavors of Linux, and most of the major computer brands seem to offer Ubuntu as a default OS if desired, but I'm just hoping y'all can help me avoid any really obvious pitfalls.

I use my PC for a combination of work and gaming, but the work is all entirely online, so Firefox is all I need on that end. I play a bunch of games, but from what I can see most games can be played in Linux these days?

I guess I'm mostly hoping to not get caught out by anything I don't know I don't know. Help?

I've been in the lengthy process of degoogling myself. Email is done, Calendars are done, drive is more or less done (but now at MS, so... yeah) - but a real sticking point is Google Photos.

I just love looking up places and faces and the occasional "This day one year ago" albums really lighten up my day.

Additionally, I am a bit of a hoarder, I never ever throw out photos, so I have right now 101 GB of pictures since 2012. This will be a pain to migrate so I only want to do it once.

I tried Immich, but could not make it work on my NUC with a very limited connection to the Internet and probably because of the vast number of images.

I came across ente.io, and it looks promising. While 4.99€ per Month for 200gb isn't exactly cheap, it feels still okay for hosting all of my visual memories.

But before committing, I would like to get some more feedback on this service, what is nice and what is not so nice and why you feel comfortable with entrusting them with your pictures.

Edit
After the very helpful answers in this thread, I signed up for a 200 GB plan, downloaded all my pictures from google and I'm currently in the process of uploading them to ente. This takes a bit longer than I thought, but then again, these are 45.000 pictures and live-pictures.
So far, this feels pretty slick. Thanks for the feedback here.

I recently moved to a place and unearthed an old Pixel 3. I updated it to the last official update (October 2021) but not sure what to do with it. It’s not worth any money (or at least I don’t think so) and I have a dedicated Android gaming device (Retroid Pocket 5).

What could I do with this device?

I was trying to think of a way to use it. Was thinking of setting it up facing my backyard to film squirrels/possums/birds, but it would likely fill the storage up in less than one day of continuous recording. I’m probably getting way ahead of myself but would there be a way to use it like an IP cam or Ring doorbell that records everything not on the device?

Any other unrelated ideas are welcome too. I just don’t want to throw it away since it’s functioning quite well.

I noticed today that there are a large number of devices on my home network, all claiming to be ethernet connections. They kind of claimed all free IP addresses from x.x.x.63-253. They are not all on from what I have seen (and they are currently almost all off). Normally, my network should have only a handful of ethernet devices, which are my Fedora desktop, my Proxmox host, my OpenMediaVault VM on Proxmox machine running 24/7, and then the occassional VM I boot up as needed. I searched the occasional MAC address of one of these devices, and nothing came up. Does anyone know what the culprit of this would be or what I could use to diagnose it?

Screenshot of some of the weird devices listed (I blacked out my known devices)

Edit: It appears to be solved. I believe my OpenMediaVault VM was acting up/having issues and was gobbling up IP addresses. The issue has not occurred since restarting my Proxmox host.

Hey there Tildes, hopefully someone could help me with this. I'm having problems importing all my emails I exported from ProtonMail into macOS Mail app/iCloud.

Recently decided to move my custom domain email addresses to iCloud so I could just use the built-in Mail app on my Mac and iPhone. I backed up all of my emails with ProtonMail's own export tool. It exported every email (or maybe email thread?) as a .eml file and .json file (metadata I believe). After exporting, I switch the domain names over to iCloud. It was pretty easy. I guess I assumed all of my emails would somehow come with me? Seems silly thinking about it now. But I have a backup of all my emails!

All seemed fine until I tried to import them into macOS Mail. Mail wants a mailbox format (.mbox I believe), but I only have .eml files. It let me select all of the .eml files and import them anyway but it's taking about 10 seconds or more per email and I have like ~17,000 emails. ChatGPT says thats 47 hours 13 minutes 20 seconds. It's also freezing the mail app during this insane import process. It would be great if I didn't have to wait that long and that's assuming something doesn't go wrong/the app crashes.

No, I don't need all of those emails (I actually deleted about 10,000 over the past month) but now I'm kind of screwed. I guess for security reasons, when you delete the domain from ProtonMail, it deletes all the emails (as far as I can tell, at least). I'm mentioning this because I was thinking I could have tried to find a way to export it in .mbox format or even delete more emails but it's too late for that.

The way the emails were exported, the filenames are jumbles of letters and numbers so I cant even use Finder to search for specific emails when I need them. I can open each individual email in Mail, so it's not like the files are encrypted, I don't think.

One thing I thought of -- I once used Mail with ProtonBridge that would allow you to use ProtonMail with the Mail app, but still use Proton servers and it synced all my emails with my computer. I disabled that account some time ago (didn't delete it or remove it completely from the list of accounts, just unchecked it). Do you think that directory of emails is still on my computer somewhere? And would it be useable in my situation?

I do realize this is completely of my own doing and should have been more thoughtful but I'm here now and would love any help y'all could give. Thanks everyone!

Edit_1: Oh no... I found the directory for Mail in Application Support and it looks like the Mail importer is making a mailbox for every single email. I tried importing these emails earlier today and it looks like it might have imported everything? Here's a screenshot. 🪦

I wonder if I could try and import them into another app and then export in a better format? Thunderbird? Ugh, I really do need a lot of these emails…

Edit_2: So the export tool mentioned above has a restore feature so currently trying that. It will just import these emails back into ProtonMail and I’ll have to figure out the export part again. Hopefully this works!

My understanding is that Android emulators primarily exist for mobile development and app testing and such-like, and maybe secondarily, to play mobile games.

I want to explore the possibility of using them as a, basically, full-time replacement for installing apps on my phone. More and more apps and services have no "desktop/laptop" version, and no website version. Installing the app on your phone is starting to become a non-negotiable requirement ... one that I'd like to find a work-around to.

So, yeah ... I guess that's the question. Is this a 'thing'? Has anyone experimented with--or flat-out used--an emulator on a desktop/laptop to run their banking app and the like? Is this even possible? Can you connect an emulator to an app-store and just start downloading/installing stuff?

Thanks.

A long, complicated story, summarized: (apart from Tildes, on which I lurk) I swore off all social media years ago. Then my job required that I have an account on LinkedIn. I reconsidered, and attempted to make the least disclosive account possible in an effort to protect my privacy. Things aren't going well. Despite logging in with the correct credentials, on the same device, using the same browser; and with access to my signup email, and access to the phone I used to enroll, LinkedIn has flagged my account the second time I tried using it and now requires me to upload images of myself and my government ID to regain access to their cesspool. Are you familiar with their protocols and can share insights, so that if I start again I don't face the same problem?

I have read what LinkedIn says and I have read discussions on Reddit on the topic. LinkedIn says you can opt to "use your work email" or mail them an affidavit. These options were not given to me. Everyone else I have seen reporting facing this seems to have triggered the system by losing their login credentials or moving countries; what brought this upon me and can I avoid it?

1. Is it that I use a VPN, and it may have routed through a different IP address on the second login?
2. I use an email alias. Is LinkedIn purging accounts with email domains that offer aliases?
3. Is it a result of clearing cookies?
4. Is it easier to maintain a Google account (!) which LinkedIn allows as login without this ID thing coming up?

Please be gentle with your advice as I am kind of panicking.

so Google's AI Studio used to have an option to finetune gemini flash for free by simply uploading a csv file. but it seems they have removed that option, so I'm looking for something similar. I know models can be finetuned on colab but the problem with that is it's way too complicated for me, I want something simpler. I think I know enough python to be able to prepare a dataset so that shouldn't be a problem.

Hello, Tildes Tech Support Team,

I'm doing some Homelab stuff. And I'm looking for a way to set up an inexpensive back-up Internet connection. Less about having a connection when I'm home and Internet goes out (Phone hotspot works in a pinch), but more about getting in and getting statuses of stuff when I'm not home and Internet drops.

For background, I have a Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine Pro that can do WAN failover. My primary Internet connection is through Verizon Fios. The UDM and the Fios ONT are directly connected via ethernet; I'm not using Verizon's crappy home router. Also, I rarely lose Internet connectivity. This really is just a Homelab experiment to see if it can be done.

I've seen some stuff about getting a cheap, refurb smartphone and a cheap MVNO plan like Google Fi that nets me a handful of GB a month, and then tethering the UDM to the phone somehow (maybe through some cheap router in bridge/passthrough mode like a GLinet travel router). Has anyone had any experience doing this?

But...I actually have a secondary Internet connection already. My apartment complex has WiFi across the complex and for each unit. That I unfortunately have to pay for, even though I don't use it -- I want FULL control over my home network. But since I do have it, is there a way I can take advantage of this? I'm thinking something like a reverse AP, if that exists. But it has to pass through the IP from the apartment WiFi.

I know there will likely be issues with double NATing. But depending on the services/things I'm trying to access or keep access to, that may not be a factor. Like my Unifi hardware talking with the Unifi cloud access stuff. I think double NAT shouldn't matter.

Anyway, appreciate whatever you all got!

For reference, I have next to zero knowledge of building electronics. I've replaced the joysticks on two Nintendo joycons (which I actually found pretty fun), and that's it. I also have no experience with 3D printing or designing specific products.

I am also sick of touch screen keyboards on phones, do not like any of of the phones that do have keys or the Clicks phone case (why is it on the BOTTOM—), and currently have a lot of free time.

So my question to you: how would I go about designing my own slide out case with its own keyboard?

Because that is my ideal solution at this point. And in fact, it turns out someone DID make a 3D printed "slider terminal" this year. Except it's for the Note 10 (I have a Galaxy S9), and seems to be used as a full-fledged replacement for a desktop experience with a trackpad. That's neat and will probably appeal to a lot of people here, but personally, I just need physical keys.

Along with the keyboard used for that terminal, I also found this other tiny keyboard which doesn't have the trackpad and is about the same dimensions as my Galaxy S9. Actually I found that first and was trying to figure out if there were any cases that could store and pop that out. The biggest issue is that it would cover my camera except maybe when it's slid out, but screw it, I want a damn physical keyboard.

I do have access to 3D printers (yay public libraries!) and I'm willing to learn Blender in order to make this thing. I just need advice on where to begin and how to tackle this. In particular, I have no clue how to go about the slide out part. I feel like I should be able to figure out how to make a case that fits the dimensions of my phone and the keyboard fairly easily, but no idea where to begin with researching the sliding component.

Besides that, I also know that I'm not alone here in my frustrations with phone keyboards, so I'm hoping we can pool together ideas on how to do this. As far as I can tell there's not really a "one size fits all" solution that would work for all phones (well, except perhaps a foldable case instead of slide-out), but maybe we can at least share decent starting points for people to design their own. For instance, the slider terminal uses a keyboard that came with a remote, and it would never have occurred to me that could be used for this sort of project. And there are a lot of potential workarounds for the camera placements, so Person A may have an idea that doesn't work well for them, but does work better for Person B than their own original idea.

So yeah. Advice, ideas and general brainstorming are welcome!

Hello Tildes!

There's an open-source app I would like to work on and contribute code to, but it uses a toolchain that I'm not terribly familiar with (Deno), and I'm not a huge fan of letting tools like this have full access to my system and files.

Do any of you use a system to containerize different development environments for software development? I could definitely use a standard Docker/Podman container to run the app, but I'm not aware of a good system where you can edit a program's source in an IDE, make changes, build the app, open a local port, and save your new code, all within a sandboxed environment.

If anyone uses a system like this or something related, I would love to hear about it and share ideas.

Edit: Decided to go with the Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro. Thank you for all the suggestions and advice!

Hey Tildenauts,

I'm planning to help a local nonprofit replace their aging hardware firewall pro bono. I have a fair amount of experience with networking and security, especially where web servers are concerned, but I haven't setup a hardware firewall recently enough to know off the top of my head which are the best options here.

The organization is fairly small but on its way to medium sized, around 30 employees at the moment but will likely expand to 50+ in coming years. So I'm looking for a solution that will comfortably scale up to 100 employees. There is remote work, accessing their local server via VPN, so something that comes bundled with a user friendly VPN client would be ideal. I haven't seen their physical setup yet but I know their server gets a lot of use. Not all employees use it remotely on a regular basis but many do.

From past experience I know that Cisco, Sophos and SonicWall are potential options. Cisco seems to be pushing their Meraki platform pretty hard but I don't think this organization needs a subscription based solution.

Anyone have recommendations for hardware firewalls I should consider? Any potential footguns I should know about?

Thanks in advance!

Ok so I have a Google account for an organization. But when I have that account logged in on my phone some of the security restrictions impact all accounts on my phone. I have a pixel 7a with Android 16 if it matters.

I would love to have access to this gmail account, with notifications, on my phone without forwarding the emails to one of my personal accounts. Any way to do that within the Gmail app itself, or if I need a different app, any recommendations?

In my perfect world I'd have OneDrive access too, but I can use a browser window there if needed.

My parents are about to get a new TV because theirs is faulty and they don't seem interested in repairing it. I'm going to be taking the faulty one from them and, because it's ridiculous that the TV only worked normally for 3.5 years, am very tempted to try a repair. It's an LG CX OLED from 2021, here's a description of the issue:

• When plugged into the mains, the standby light will come on and the TV can be powered on and used as normal. However, if too much time elapses after plugging-in without fully powering on (I don't actually know how long, somewhere between 5-10 minutes), the standby light will switch off and the TV will become unresponsive.
• When the TV is in this "unresponsive" state, the only thing that will bring it back to life is to unplug it from the mains and wait a bit (again, somewhere between 5-10 minutes), then plug it back in and turn it on. This happens every time the TV is plugged in, with no variation.
• The TV is fully functional when it's turned on, and there's no other issues with it at all.
• If the TV is turned back off (back to standby mode), the clock starts again until it becomes unresponsive.

So clearly there's some problem with standby mode. Some searching has indicated that other customers are frequently having this issue, and that replacing either the PSU or Motherboard of the TV will solve the issue. It's out of warranty, so I'm going to be spending money if I want to fix it. Replacement PSUs are about $250, and replacement Motherboards are about $350. I can only really afford one of these parts right now, so it's a gamble if I can't figure out a way to isolate the issue to one of the boards. I don't own a multimeter to test power, nor do I know anything about electronics, so I'm slightly fumbling around in the dark on this one.

There's always the alternative of getting up and switching the power on and off every time, which is significantly more convenient for me than it is for my parents because of room size and outlet placement, but I'd like to be able to use the remote as intended (and, as I mentioned before, it's ridiculous that the thing is falling apart after only a few years, it's a very expensive TV!). I could also... find an IR controlled outlet or something? I don't know if that's a thing, but you know what I mean.

I will end up using this TV regardless of whether or not I can get it fixed, because OLED is unbeatable, and it's not every day that my parents will replace something that isn't outright destroyed, but if you have electronics experience, or have had this problem (it seems like it's super common) any recommendations or help would be appreciated!

I have updated the Portuguese section of my blog with many posts that I scavenged from past blogs I've had since 2005. In order for everyone to be able to go through them chronologically, I gave them their original dates. In the end of each of these posts there is a link to the original publication, many of which came from the Internet Archive itself.

One of my oldest blogs was removed from blogspot decades ago either by a hacker or something obscure about blogspot. So I had to use the archived version to reconstruct my history. I was very surprised to find it there because it was seemingly archived a decade after blogspot removed it. I have no idea what happened but I was so glad to find it!

I have been trying to archive that page for days. The posts within that page are archived but not the page itself. The current August 2025 snapshot is not shown, and if I click on the link that they give me after the archiving process is done, I am directed to a snapshot I did back in May. I have no idea why this is happening, and the "help" section of Wayback Machine doesn't seem to have anyway for me to talk to someone.

Can someone help?

This is the page: https://daviramos.com/br/. It is also available at https://daviramos.bearblog.dev/br/, and yes, I tried archiving that one too.

Thanks!