I'm running Windows 10 now, and I understand I can still use Emacs, but I'm seizing the opportunity to give it a shot to other tools. In part because I'm not sure how "native" my Emacs setup would feel on Windows, but also because I reached a point of "tinkering fatigue" and I want things that require less maintenance.

I used Org Mode a lot and was thinking if there is something with a similar feel that is more plug-and-play. Programs like Notion, Obsidian, and Roam Research are like that, I think.

These are some of my requisites:

• FOSS
• markdown or org markup
• I don't wanna pay for anything, ever
• plug and play
• text-based
• easy export and backup
• keyboard-centric or keyboard-friendly
• can be used offline
• local database can be synced using Dropbox
• Emacs-like and/or Vim-like keybindings

I'm in the market for an external monitor for my Macbook M1 and wanted some advice on what I should get. I pretty much only code, read pdfs and webpages, and watch videos (not movies really) on my laptop, so these would be the use cases. I'm trying not to break the bank here so I was looking at some budget options. The Macbook has USB-C so I would be looking for a monitor with that, but my main question is regarding resolution. Do I really need a 4K monitor for my use cases? I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences with 4K versus without — I've never had one but I'm wondering if now is the time to splurge and get it? Will the difference be very noticeable if I'm primarily looking at text?

My first place option right now is this one from Asus, so I'm curious if the brand is reliable as well. I don't think I've ever had an Asus product. If I were to splurge and get a 4K monitor I would probably get this Dell, but at $400 its a bit more than I was hoping to spend. But I also don't want to get a monitor that I immediately want to upgrade. Curious what other people's thoughts and experiences have been.

EDIT: See my comment for some updates. I've backed away from the 1080p options!

So I've been watching a lot of Youtubers the past year or so, and I'm about to run out of content! So I'm curious what you all are enjoying? I'll start of course - some channels I really like:

Contrapoints - rarely uploads nowadays but makes great videos about social issues, especially trans and queer issues as she is herself lesbian and transgender.

Perun - weekly 1-hour videos consisting of analysis of military economics, primarily about the Ukraine conflict. He also branches out though, and has done great videos on China's military's modernisation, and the German military's procurement processes, to give some examples.

World War Two - you may remember him from The Great War, this is Indy Neidell and co. who goes through the Second World War in chronological order. It is very in depth as they do it week by week, so this is the most thorough documentary on the war available.

Skip Intro - analysis of TV shows, particularly his Copaganda series is very interesting, in which he goes on deep dives of different TV shows' portrayal of police and how, most of the time, this portrayal is very dishonest.

Climate Town - very informative and funny content about the climate crisis. Lots of things impacting the climate that you wouldn't have ever thought of before.

Jenny Nicholson - makes videos about her own interests, fandoms, nerd culture etc. Very funny but rarely uploads.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the recommendations and discussion! Lots of stuff to sift through now, thank you!

I'm spending time at a new city and Google Maps is shit for walking. It's hard to say exactly what's wrong with it, everything feels wrong. Car centric logic just doesn't work for walking I guess (yes I'm using the walking mode). It feels bad, unreliable, and I'm lost all the time. Yesterday I ended up 2 hours away from my destination and had to call an Uber (big humiliation!). Walking is my preferable way of urban exploration and I hate talking to strangers.

What I want is a simple compass that tells me "go to that general direction and you'll get there". No map, no street names. Just an arrow and a linear distance (like, in a straight line). Like a videogame. Without foreknowledge, street names are just confusing and unnecessary. I can handle the route myself.

Does such an app exists?

I will shortly have need for a small, low power (power as in watts, not compute power) system for always-on Home Assistant use. However, Raspberry Pis are out of stock everywhere and while they can be had for extortionate prices on various auction/marketplace sites, I'm not sure I want to spend a load of money on something which might not even be what it claims to be.

Home Assistant suggest Odroid which I'd probably go for the C4 edition but it's relatively expensive (I need to add an MMC and a psu and various other things to the listed main board price)

Any suggestions? The Asus Tinkerboard looks overkill and is very expensive. It needs to be capable of running a standard Linux distro, ideally Home Assistant's own OS. Low power consumption is a definite, 2-3W at idle is probably the maximum I'd be happy with. Wifi is a bonus although not required right now - but the ability to add it if needed is essential. Some amount of expansion capability would be good if I want to add hardware sensors or bluetooth or a Zigbee transceiver or whatever. It needs some reasonably amount of compute grunt I assume but I don't think HA is all that hungry for number crunching power. The machine will more than likely be headless at first but a little bit of GPU and graphical IO would be handy if I want to stick a display on it in the future, which I might want to.

Any ideas? Oh, and also must be easily available in/to the UK.

I happen to host my blog https://prahladyeri.github.io/blog statically, built using Pelican and served on Github Pages. Plebs like us can't afford a backend server infrastructure, so we must rely on external services like Disqus for comment hosting.

So far, Disqus was the only fellow in town who allowed us to host comments on a free plan. Though there were some issues (bloat, adware, etc.), people seemed to be generally happy with it so far.

But now, a new fellow named giscus commenting system has entered the town, it's basically powered by github. Since I already host my blog on github pages, this should be a natural choice for me, right? Many bloggers seem to be migrating to this new system and I might too soon. The downsides however are as follows:

1. It won't allow me to export existing comments from the old disqus system. Understandable to an extent as those exact author usernames may not be on the Github platform?
2. Disqus interface seems to have improved all of a sudden in last few days! There no longer seem to be any ad and even the comment interface seems to be less heavy or cluttered now. It might sound a bit conspiratorial in nature but could this be the result of rising competition in the form of Giscus!

I'm a lazy status-quoist by nature and might well end up retaining disqus if they don't deviate too much from where they are now. But I'll keep an eye out on Giscus too and its progress. What do you guys suggest?

I'm a solo freelance programmer who codes on small to medium sized projects, and I realize that I can upskill myself a lot by keeping up with the industry trends, by listening to what the best in this field have to say. The problem is that there is just so much information overload everywhere, just so many youtube videos and articles that it seems overwhelming to differentiate the wheat from the chaff!

Since reading is my preferred medium of instruction, I want to know what are the blogs, journals, etc. on this topic with some street cred? And preferably individual experts and blogs, not companies. Company or corporate sites and blogs seem to be more hype than substance these days.

Which ones do you refer for keeping up to date?

I am looking to buy a new laptop soon because of the holiday deals.

I am looking for a laptop with:

1. high performance (most important)

2. high battery life (i dont mind carrying a charger around, but I would like not to).

3. does not overheat too much (not much of a problem since I will be living in basically a tundra for the next few months, but it might be a problem around summer).

My current laptop is a Macbook. I don't mind buying another one but I prefer Windows so I can game. My one problem with Windows is that every time I buy a Windows laptop, it gets slow as fuck for no reason after a month of use, which isn't a problem I've had with my Mac.

Cost isn't much of an issue. And feel free to get into the nerdy details. I don't know much about hardware and would like to learn.

Thanks!

EDIT: If you have any recs for cool accessories, let me know about those as well.

I started studying again this semester, and have to read a lot of stuff because of it.
As we get nearly all our Books as PDF and reading on my notebook or my phone gets tiering quite fast. So I'm thinking about getting myself an e-reader to make things go easier.

So i tried to find some ressources to learn about e-readers, but the internet (or search engines) these days seem to suck.
So maybe my lovely tildes can help.

must haves:
can read PDF
needs to make reading this "shitty" two colums pages my PDF have good and easy

nice to haves:
FOSS
Backlight

can somebody help me out? or do you know about a resource where I can learn about the pro and cons of the different e-readers, I'm starting with close to 0 knowlege as I never thoght I will need one, I generally prefere to read proper books.

My child (who does not live with me) has a PC. He's pretty good at sorting problems out for himself, but he sometimes needs extra help. We've tried doing this over phone and video calls, and it's an unfun experience for both of us.

Is there a remote access software that would fit our needs? I want to be able to connect to his computer over the Internet and have some level of control when he's logged into his account. I'd need to be able to open files, I wouldn't have to be able to save them. He's using Windows 11. I think he's using the home version. I'm using Windows 10 Pro. We both have reasonably good Internet speed.

After reserving a Steam Deck twice, and letting it drop, trying to get FTL running acceptably with touch controls on my old generic Windows Tablet, and doing the bulk of gaming and leisure time with my phone, I wonder if the best solution to my varied tech needs might be just to bite the bullet, turn in my Android cred and take a walk on the iPad side. I haven't used an Apple device regularly since my iPod touch from ten years ago and ever since that was stolen, I was all Android, all the time. But if I want a device to read comics (PDFs, Kindle/Comixology, Hoopla), watch streaming (Netflix, Prime Video, Youtube), try out games (Apple Arcade, Xcloud Web) but have the option to go back to my old reliables (FTL, Binding of Isaac), should I consider dropping $200 on an older iPad and see if it fits my needs? Should I do it now, or wait on rumors of new ones in October? I know they're supported for longer then the average Android, but at the same time, I don't want to pick one up just in time for it to be a security risk either.

I've been slowly more frustrated by the Spotify client updates particularly on android and short of getting all my music offline which I'd like to do eventually I want an alternative client that isn't going to change the layout constantly and make listening to the music I want to listen to any more difficult than it should be.

I'd also like to filter out podcasts if possible because I have my way of listening to podcasts and spotify filling my home screen with them isn't going to make me any more likely to use them. Especially if they keep fucking pushing podcast episodes featuring deceased family members just to ruin my morning.

I need to put Linux on a laptop, but I'm afraid I may not be around to upgrade to major versions (which usually means reinstalling everything) and maintaining the machine. Something like Arch or Manjaro (which I use) might be good because I wouldn't ever need to reinstall the OS, but stability leaves a lot to be desired for a non-technical user. So I was thinking of getting something with an enormous support lifecycle, like Rocky Linux (10 years). Is that a terrible idea?

Hello everyone,

I recently moved to a new town and I'm looking forward to walking on all its streets and discover its secrets. However, it's relatively a big town and it will take me a while to do that.
I also don't like walking all that much and I'm not an outgoing person at all, so I want to gamify this a little bit to trick my monkey brain.

So, as an idea, I wondered if there was an iOS app that used the GPS on my phone (or some other trick that I can't think of) to map my route, save it, and place it on the map of the town so I can coordinate my future routes according to the places I've already visited. It's sort of like those running apps that shows you your route after you finished running, except I want it to be not about running and I want them to save the route data, preferably locally.

Thank you everyone in advance for their time.

I have a burner phone for the next month.

(Lately a number of services refuse to accept my google voice number, and I refuse to share my actual number.)

Are there any cool services I should try out that maybe require a phone number to sign up?

Looking at the available options, I see many programs such as Ardour and Audacity that seems to focus on recording, mixing, streaming, etc. But what should use it to actually edit the thing?

By that I mean changing the order of things, removing silences, involuntary sounds, and noises, adding music and sound effects, as well as making what I'm saying more concise and intelligible.

I have a background in video editing, and I'm used to working in the "timeline paradigm" that is common to Adobe Premiere and older versions of Final Cut (I have no idea what Final Cut looks like now...). But I have no idea how to edit stuff using actual audio software, I've only used those to treat audio and then finish editing on other programs.

I'd use a video editor for that, but I currently don't own any machine powerful enough to use a video editor software comfortably.

Building myself a computer for the first time, and I have most of the parts specced except for the GPU. I don't play a lot of video games, so my first priority is getting something that can display output at all; but I would like something a bit capable, as I do play some 3d games from time to time. Prefer an nvidia gpu, as I would like to play with some nv-specific features (nv_path_render, maybe cuda), but not a hard requirement.

I've spotted the following gpus on craigslist:

• gtx 1070 - C$260 (~$200 usd)

• gtx 1660 super - C$320 (~$250 usd)

• gtx 1070 ti - C$300 (~$230 usd)

• gtx 1050 ti - C$120 (~$90 usd)

Any suggestions? Something else I should look out for? Are these good prices?

I love mailing lists! They are my preferred way of discussing interesting topics with people. Please share your favourite lists, and any directories or search engines you know of. 🙂

• nettime - net art and media crit
• JISCMail - UK academic listserv

Final update: See here.

Update: Thank you ALL for your valuable feedback. I'm definitely looking into refurbished models now and I have a lot better grasp on what what I should be considering. I'm going to do some digging and a ridiculous amount of overshopping over the next couple of days, and then I'll let you all know what my final pick is!

Hey techy Tildes! I'm back with another support request from you knowledgeable and helpful folks.

I need a laptop that does exactly three things: gets me online, displays PDFs, and runs office software. I have a large number of online courses that I have to take in the coming years, and I need something that I can just grab while on my couch or in bed to work on papers and assignments, hence the 13" size preference. Long battery life would be highly preferable.

I looked for options that come with Linux preinstalled, but there's really nothing available that hits what I'm looking for -- there isn't much of a market for 13". As such, my plan is to just buy a standard Windows laptop and then put Linux on it, but I have no idea which particular hardware will play nice with a Linux installation. Budget would be sub-$500 (if possible). I don't need the laptop to do anything other than stay on for a long time and let me type, so I have no need for a powerhouse.

Can anyone point me in the right direction with some recommendations?

Hi folks! I am, unfortunately, probably going to have to build a new PC soon; my beloved Thelio-r1 is slowly failing, and while my original plan was to buy a Ryzen 7 5800X and keep riding this PC for another three to five years, I don't know that I'll actually be able to make that work.

I like the NXT H510 I used for my boyfriend's gaming build, but the thermal performance isn't amazing and, most importantly, I hate tempered glass!

Yes, I understand that people want to show off their (ridiculously!) expensive components. I understand that lots of things have RGB. However, metal is cheaper, easier to work with, doesn't shatter, and I can modify it if I need to.

So, does anyone know of a good mid-tower PC case with decent airflow, up-to-date features (no 5 inch bays, good cable management hardpoints, a cable hiding bay, etc.), and no tempered glass or, preferably, acrylic?

Thank you!

One of the greatest sources of stress in my life right now is noise. This is consistent with the (presently unconfirmed) hypothesis that I'm probably on the spectrum.

I live in a very noisy neighborhood, with many sources of loud music several days a week. I use a regular headphone to try to isolate myself, but they're not always effective. I was thinking of purchasing a noise canceling headphone (NCH). I'd listen mostly to podcasts and white noise. Hence the title question: can these headphones cancel variable non-regular noises like loud music around me? And to what degree?

Product recommendations are welcomed, with a focus on great noise canceling. I have a preference for over the ear headphones, but that's not a hard requirement. Other than that I don't have any requirements.

Thanks!

Hey folks.

May someone recommend a good web dev community out there for quality discussions?

Right now I'm using Vue for a project and I'm wrestling with architectural decisions. I'd love for a place where I can discuss different approaches' trade-offs and merits.

Many thanks. :)

Alright, so I fell down a rabbit hole of trying to understand a whole bunch of techy things that I don't fully understand and could use some help:

What I'm looking for: a pair of Bluetooth wireless earbuds that I can pair with my computer, with low enough latency that it won't impair my enjoyment in casual gaming/video watching

What I understand so far: Almost nothing. 😔 I get that Bluetooth will always have some level of latency, but, beyond that, I've got nothing. I'm so confused.

There are lots of different versions of Bluetooth, and then there are different Bluetooth protocols within that, and then different audio codecs, and each piece of hardware seems to support completely different combinations of those, and I'm not sure if the devices have to match configurations or even how to figure out what my computer supports? It seems Bluetooth will gracefully fall back to worse codecs/protocols if better ones are incompatible, but I don't really want to buy something that's just going to fall back to its worst usecase.

I also don't know what's an "acceptable" level of latency. What's reasonable versus what's intolerable?

It also seems like the information I read online is subject to rapid decay. I read a bunch of stuff only a few years old saying I should look for aptX Low Latency capability, but then I read very recent posts saying that's dead and to go with aptX Adaptive instead. Meanwhile there are a handful of gaming-focused headsets that say they're low latency but don't really say how (e.g. Razer's Hammerhead). And some, like Samsung's buds, having a "gaming mode" but it only works on special hardware.

Also, how do I know what my computer itself will support? Is there anything I can do from the computer side to reduce latency, or is that strictly a function of what my hardware supports and which earbuds I buy?

My usecase:

My computer is a System 76 Oryx Pro (5) running Pop!_OS 21.10. I think its Bluetooth adapter is version 5.1 (though I'm not confident on that). I do not know which protocols/codecs it supports, nor how to find that out.

Audio quality isn't too important. These will be for everyday video-watching and gaming, which is what's prompting the latency requirement. I'd rather them be responsive than rich.

Active noise cancelling would be nice to have (especially if it has a toggleable transparency mode), but I don't know if ANC adds latency and is therefore incompatible with what I'm wanting.

I don't have a specific budget for it, and that's honestly the least important requirement. If the solution exists I'm fine paying for it (within reason, of course). These will end up getting used for thousands of hours, so even a big price difference upfront will even out over time.

I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer in pointing me in the right direction on this!

I have an HTPC (a shitty asRock beebox) away from my main router and all. For the most part the wireless signal is fine, but it can act up at times or completely cut out.

The design of the beebox is bad for wireless. I get a more consistent connection running from USB C > USB hub > USB Wireless stick -- but it still isn't great.

I'm thinking I should just bit the bullet and use ethernet. Would it be better to go with powerline or a wireless bridge for this? The reviews for powerline stuff are all over the board.

The HTPC pulls everything off the LAN, so outside speeds are about 99% irrelevant. The most it'll ever pull is metadata for Kodi's library, and even then it doesn't pull a lot.

Which is best? I'm running an RT AC68U running Merlin if that matters. I also saw a lot of gripes re: the AI Mesh stuff.

We have 2 boys, one of which is 4 months old and my wife is looking for new ways to share updates with friends and family. She doesn't want pictures publicly available anymore but still wants to cast a wide net to many different people. I think she's open to a newsletter of some sort that would allow people to opt in or unsubscribe.

What's the best way to manage a newsletter like this? I want her effort to be the same as Facebook. She can add photos and text to a "post" all from her iPhone and then it gets emailed to everyone that we've added to a list.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Hey all, I'm transitioning from a plain old software engineer at my company to tech lead (first in responsibility, then eventually in title)!

I'm very excited about the opportunity, but the role is new, both for my company and personally. Would anyone have recommended reading I could peruse? I'd love to get a solid footing for what I should be doing as a tech lead, and how I can do it well!

Hello everyone.

The other day, Firefox Monitor warned me that my personal e-mail was found on a data leak from Gravatar (belongs to Automattic; WordPress's parent company). Funnily, I don't have any account (and never had) with them, but nevertheless, I tried to log in, and it failed. I tried to recover my password, and it said "no e-mail found". Maybe a false positive from Firefox's side?

Anyway, that situation got me thinking that I should never use my personal email except on super important websites. For example, with Christmas gift buying, I've used my personal e-mail on multiple online websites (I usually try to avoid Amazon) and I shouldn't have done that.

Of course, Firefox recommended their own service Firefox Relay, which it does look interesting. Afterwards, I've searched on HackerNews to see what other people recommended.

These were the recommendations (apart from FF Relay):

• SimpleLogin
• AnonAddy

A few questions:

1. Do you use any of these three services?
2. How happy are you with the service that you use?
3. Is there something better?

I actually like Firefox's implementation because it is actually quite cheap (€12 per year), it is an easier way to support Firefox's development (instead of donation to the Mozilla Corporation) and I trust Firefox more on the security side of things. Nevertheless, the other two services seem more feature complete and I actually do not like that FF Relay "forces" you to use a domain like "alias@mozmail.com" or a custom domain like "alias@mydomain.mozmail.com". My goal would actually be "alias@mydomain.com" for my own contact with other people. On website registrations, @mozmail.com is okay, I guess.

I already have my own domain that I've bought from Namecheap and I think instead of associating an e-mail to my domain, I actually would prefer to use one of these services. The reason is that my website/e-mail domain could be reused if I stop paying. Some websites and/or people could have this e-mail and someone could impersonate me. With an e-mail forwarding service, I can easily and quickly delete/disable/change the alias. I'm not sure if I'm putting too much expectation on a forwarding service, but, I would like to know what do you think. 🙂

Hi Tildes,

I'm looking to introduce my children (aged 10 or so) to simple electronics (blinking lights, simple sensors, ...). I've played with Arduino in the past, but I see that there are now many competing options: Arduino, cheap rip-offs, RPi zero, adafruit, ESP32, ... It's easy to get lost!

Which do you recommend? Ideally, I'd like something cross-platform and open-source, easy to set up (ideally a kit with everything included), and of course not insanely expensive.

Edit: thanks everyone for the good advice! There are so many good options...

I am considering the purchase of a Garmin GPS watch, but I don't want to run the bloated Garmin Connect app on my phone. Really all I want, is the ability to pull coordinates from my watch (.gpx files) and put them on my phone or computer. Does a privacy-respecting app like this exist?

And no, I'm not talking about git. I'm looking for a tool that I can use in scripts to automate non-git tasks on GitHub such as creating new repositories, drafting releases, uploading assets to a release, etc.

I started dipping my toes into gh, GitHub's official cli tool, but when I created a repository it immediately cloned it, which is not what I want. I know I can just rm -rf the repo but ideally the tool I use would do only what I tell it and nothing more.

Reading the docs for hub, it might do what I want, although I have some reservations about the project after reading this post written by the developer: https://mislav.net/2020/01/github-cli/

I've also come across git-hub, which doesn't support creating repos AFAICT, and git-spindle, which doesn't support uploading assets.

Are there any other command line GitHub clients I should consider?

Which one do you use? What's your experience with it been like?

For all its flaws, Reddit is still a great news source, especially for niche areas. Unfortunately, more and more dark patterns are being added to Reddit's official site and apps. I'm reaching a saturation point and thinking I should probably switch to an alternative way of browsing it. I see a lot of apps aimed at browsing images/GIFs. I'd like something more similar to old/compact Reddit, optimized for text without distractions, but ideally less buggy. Any recommendations?

Edit: thanks all for your answers!

So I recently started working at a company that uses Slack (free tier), Google Drive and Google Docs. Being a privacy conscious person I decided to do some research to see if we could transition out of at least 1 of these tools.

For Slack I thought about Element. However I have a question: is it possible to create a closed channel (meaning no unauthorized person has access to or can discover the company chat) on Element with only the free tier (it's easier to convince my boss to transition if it doesn't add to the cost structure)?

For Google Drive I don't think there are other free options that offer the 15GB of storage we have. 10GB would probably be enough. But I am also open to paid solutions.
I found out about CryptPad. They offer cloud storage but one has to pay to be at the same level of Google (which is totally understandable). They also have productivity tools integrated with the storage solution which is great.
Maybe there is some cloud storage solution that doesn't have integrated productivity tools and offers more storage. I would like to know.

I'm open to suggestions and thoughts. My functions at the company have little to do with all this, I am just interested in open source and privacy. EDIT: I am not interested in self-hosting.

Any recommendations for those? I'd like to replace all my house lights with colour-programmable GU-10s. I've had poor experience with Philips Hue... They do the job but I'm not a big fan of them, the app sucks etc.

I'm sure someone here has smart home / iot as a hobby :) thoughts?

Hey all, recently bought a Synology NAS and looking for suggestions for things to do with it.

I'm not exactly tech saavy when it comes to something like this, so guides accompanying suggestions would be super helpful.

I'm rather bored of the constant pop up ads on my current one that I paid for ads to be removed for years ago before more recently they changed to a subscription requirement for advert removal.

I'm looking for something easy to use that has no ads by default or has a one time payment to remove them. Extra features such as tags/folders would be great but not 100% required. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Weird question, but does anyone know of a simple tab viewer or organizer for Firefox (bonus points if it works on iOS)? I have... way too many tabs open, and I want to see what I can bookmark before closing rather than having to either close everything or manually check each tab.

I once heard about a website that does this, but I cannot find it. You would give the website an RSS feed, and it would give you a new feed to subscribe to. It would then release “new” episodes on a set schedule. This way you could listen to, for example, a weekly podcast starting at the very beginning, released on a weekly schedule as if you were listening to it when it first released.

I hope one of you awesome tilderinos know a website that does this. Thanks in advance!

I'd love to get a passable alternative interface to YouTube that just shows me what I'm subscribed to, a search bar, and nothing else. Does this exist as a userscript or alternate site?

Edit:

My current solution is to have my YouTube bookmark go directly to my subscriptions listing. I also have my ad blocker cut out the recommendations feed on the side. It works okay but maybe there's a better solution out there.

This is the ad block rule:

www.youtube.com##.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer
www.youtube.com##.ytd-guide-entry-renderer[title=Explore]
www.youtube.com##.ytd-guide-entry-renderer[title=Home]

Last time I owned an inkjet was well over a decade ago. I had a nice HP color laserjet that Just Worked™for almost a decade (and PS, I bought it used), and then I just lived w/o a printer for the past 3-4 years. Now, I'm window-shopping for inkjets, it sounds like the whole "use-our-ink-or-die" business model has only gotten worse.

Are there any good inkjet printers where I can just use it like a normal printer, just buy ink (cheaper than the printer was) when I need it, yada? Or should I just write off the entire industry (again), and go straight to the laser printers?

And does anyone actually have a decent (color, all-in-one) printer that works reasonably well with their (YourDistroHere) Linux machine?

Danke

ETA: Thanks for all the feedback. I'm now prioritizing a Brother laser (maybe just mono), or possibly an Epson Ecotank.

Side-note ... how cool is it that we have so many Linux-folk in our midst!?

Thanks again.

Hi Everyone!

I'm looking to donate some money to a charity that is focused on helping children learn how to code.
I've always heard that lots of charities are scams, and I was hoping to get the opinions of you fine folks about a good charity to donate to!

I recently moved apartments. I have a Ubiquiti Edgerouter POE that's served me well over the past few years.

I unplugged the router at my old place, drove over to my new place, plugged it in, and...it failed to boot. I can log in to the web UI, but I immediately get an error that I can't get past. SSH, which normally works, comes back "connection refused" indicating the SSH daemon isn't even running.

There are forum posts about this problem from five fucking years ago. The only solution offered is to do a factory reset. I could do this, and I have a config backup somewhere, but I'm not going to put up with a device so unreliable that a power cycle bricks it.

I was a big fan of Ubiquiti up to now. I have two of their routers, one at my home and one at a vacation home my family owns that I'm the IT guy for, as well as several of their access points. After this, as well as the recent data breach (which didn't affect me personally but gives me a bad taste nonetheless) I think I'm done with them.

So, Tilderinos, any recommendations?

Some specifics:

• I have gigabit internet so I definitely want something that can handle those speeds and not be a bottleneck

• I'm knowledgeable about networking and have no problem with "user-unfriendly" setup & configuration.

• I have a site-to-site-to-site Wireguard VPN between my home, my family's cabin, and a server I run in the cloud. I'd strongly prefer to keep using Wireguard, which effectively limits me to Linux-based options, because FreeBSD support for Wireguard is still WIP. If it weren't for this requirement, something BSD-based like pfSense / OPNsense would be at the top of my list.

• I'd prefer to keep the router and access point separate rather than go with a typical "all in one" type device. The wifi spectrum at my new place is much less congested than my old apartment building, but I'd still like to keep the option of having multiple APs. I got spoiled by my old apartment being wired for Ethernet so running multiple APs was easy. That's not an option at my new place so I may look into either powerline internet (yes I know it sucks) or mesh wireless.

Hi everyone, I'm looking into getting a new laptop for university work. Thanks to a scholarship, I can get up to $2000 covered off a laptop purchase (and I'd be willing to pay a few hundred more out-of-pocket too).

I plan on using this laptop primarily for basic web browsing, word processing, and Zoom calls. I may be playing some video games on it like Slay the Spire or Hollow Knight, but these aren't too demanding and most of my time will be spent working anyway. My use case shouldn't require a lot of processing power or a high-end dedicated GPU. After graduating, I'll have more consistent access to my desktop anyway, which already has a dedicated card for gaming and can easily be upgraded to suit my needs if I get into video editing or programming, which further reduces the need for a laptop that can do these things. In light of this, I'm looking primarily at a laptop that is lightweight, has a long battery life, good build quality, and a 14-inch screen, to upgrade from my current 13-inch. I haven't decided whether I'll be dual-booting Windows/Linux or running Linux only, but I do plan on running Linux so compatibility is important. Ports aren't a huge deal since there isn't much need for anything more than HDMI/USB on a college campus and I can get a docking station for post-graduation needs.

After lurking around on this forum and others, I've settled on a few potential options:

• Thinkpad X1 Carbon
• Thinkpad T14s
• System76 Lemur Pro
• MacBook M1 Air (added after suggestions, link to specs)

ThinkPads seem to offer the best build quality and potential to last years after purchase, so I'm leaning towards those, but System76 appears to have upgraded their build quality recently, and I just love their designs as well. Lenovo will be releasing the next-generation X1 Carbon soon, but it may be priced out of my range, and I'd like to purchase soon. Even the Carbon Gen 8 is above my price range, though as I understand it Lenovo usually offers discounts so I'm waiting for the sale on customizable builds (they already have discounts on pre-designed builds). I'm totally open to suggestions not on this list, and I've also read that purchasing refurbished ThinkPads can be the way to go, though I'd like to take full advantage of my budget if possible. If anyone has any experience with the above laptops, reason to recommend one over the other, or knows why I might want to wait on purchasing (e.g. for a release of next-gen hardware), please let me know!

edit: Table working now!

edit2: Thanks for all the suggestions and discussion everyone. I've yet to make a final decision but will update again later.

I am looking to buy a headset. It's for my child to use on PS4, and when stock comes back in on PS5.

Which models have you used and liked? Are there any you'd avoid?

I think I'd prefer either USB, or something easy to repair, or cheap so I can just buy a new set of this one breaks.

Here's a list of Paid Games & Apps that I already have bought.

Utils

• Tasker
• KLWP
• Sleep as Android
• Nova Prime
• One or two Icon packs for Nova

Games

• Desert Golfing
• Death Road To Canada 2
• Meteorfall
• Mindustry
• Mini Metro
• Ordia
• Prune
• Reigns
• Reigns: Her Majesty
• RowRow
• Teslagrad
• UnCiv
• .projekt
• Sword and Sworcery

I'm looking for something worthwhile to spend it on. Is there a lesser known utility app that you use all the time? What about an indie game not getting the praise it deserves? Tell me about it!

I usually setup debian or ubuntu servers. One of the pain areas I have avoided is email and usually just off-load the email to a 3rd party service. I currently need to setup a server with an email server and need a really simple straightforward tutorial. I thought I would see if the community has any suggestions.

What are your favorite youtube channels to watch when you're in the mood for something positive and uplifting? No genre restrictions or anything, just something that really oozes the joy and passion that the creator has.

I'll throw this one out there to start: Bicycle Touring Pro. He makes wonderful, slow paced and positive documentaries about his solo and group travels on his bike around the world. If you ever want to just zone out for a moment, throw this on and you just might be inspired.

This is more specific than ~talk would normally have
, but tildes doesn't have anything for shopping yet, so...

I'm using my laptop right now, but I've found that for a lot of the stuff on my computer,
I don't really need a screen. I like using the terminal, and can get a lot done just typing:
no mouse or display. I think this would be great, as I already do a lot of my casual writing
and note taking my eyes closed, leaning back in a chair.

What's the best machine that meets these qualifications? Basically, I just need a way to read memory
out to another drive. Battery would be a must as well.

Thanks