Yo dawg, I heard you like language in your language.

It’s my opinion that most people think of all the technology as it were 15 years ago. Apple was innovative, Google wasn’t evil, Windows worked well, and Linux was not as accessible as it is today.

I had two bouts with Linux in the distant past, and neither time did I think Linux was anything worth pursuing. Not that it was bad, I just didn’t see a benefit over the alternatives. In fact the alternatives had all the benefits in my mind.

When I switched a year ago, I was blown away how far it had come as far as being accessible. Now I can’t imagine using Windows as my primary OS ever again.

The other major advantage is your ISP can’t build a profile on you. Considering they know who you are and where you live, that’s a pretty important air gap to me.

Windows troubleshooting is always SFC and DISM as the new “have you tries turning it off and on again” default first recommended step lol.

I believe self hosting should be made easier. Definitely easier to understand.

If its not going to be that, then the opinion that people should self host is flawed. Not everybody can self host. They don’t have the knowledge or time to commit to it. So either it’s wrong to not have a better entry to them or it’s wrong to say they should self host.

I don’t self host much. What I do I keep with local access only. Why? Because while I’m no dummy, I also am very out of touch with modern tech and don’t have the time or energy to learn what I need to for it to be done right.

I didn’t play any BF6 this weekend because Arc Raiders sucked me in. My first extraction shooter too, but nice to see that it isn’t crazy sweaty (at least in the first map). I’ve run into people left and right who just mind their own business, or I like to jump in and help others if I come across them.

It depends what experience you are looking for and why you are switching. Plus what region you are in because some phones are not available/the same in all countries.

But I prefer Pixel with Graphene OS installed. Very private and granular controls, but not always the smoothest experience because locking down for privacy isn’t convenient.

Stock I really like the Samsung S series. Decent UI and doesn’t feel bogged down.

I think for “gotchas” you should consider how you message people and how you pay for things. Not that those are deal breakers for you, but they seem to be the most prevalent daily use cases that can’t always be gotten around.

I hear you. I’m not as doom and gloom as everybody else, but its definitely a shift away from their model. I mean, technically they are keeping their word by keeping Affinity separate and not subscription based like Canva. But I still don’t like it nonetheless.

The problem though is that there isn’t an alternative. Affinity was the alternative. Inkscape and Gimp have their place, but they are not the same level of software. I guess I’m just going to run my v2 into the ground waiting for other software to step up.

I get your point, but the fact that the data is available elsewhere isn’t really an argument for allowing another vector to collect the data (and also cross verify it).

There’s more of an argument if there’s not really another choice, say buying a new car that doesn’t collect data isn’t really an option since they all do it on some level. You either buy a car or not.

But cameras there are options that are not cloud based. Safemo is probably the best comparable product to other WiFi cameras, and then there’s any NVR system. You can accomplish the same thing without much sacrifice or compromise.

Then there’s the its “fine” today but tomorrow things change… Like Ring now feeding images to Flock and their surveillance/facial recognition system.

So no, its not quite okay that “they already have my data from other places so it doesn’t matter”

I switched to Linux about a year ago. I was a windows power user and now I’m a Linux noob, but couldn’t be happier.

I hate to say it, but there’s still reasoning to have Windows. I use a VM with ameliorated windows running for the few things I can’t get away from.

For others, I tell them my story. Most people I talk to won’t or can’t make the switch, which I’m respectful of. To those that would benefit, I recommend at the minimum O&O Shutup but highly recommend ameliorated. This has been more welcomed.

People won’t care until they have a reason to care. I’ll still be around when they do.

I have kasa switches and everything is blocked on my firewall so they can’t phone home.

Overall they function fine. But I have 1 pesky switch that is constantly in a disconnected state (red light) no matter what I do. Every time I reconnect it it disconnects not too long later. It functions fine though, possibly because its a 3 way and the paired switch is fine.

I have another set of 3 way switches that have disconnected a few times but reconnecting them works just fine for a long while (years).

So my questions are, that pesky red light switch sounds kind of like your situation. When you say they reset themselves, do the lights go red?

Secondly, yours reset every 10 minutes? Most of mine seem fine. I’m not sure what’s different between our setups.

I didn’t say anything about the Trump tweet. I only mentioned the journalist comment, which there is more information an nuance to it than you allow for.

But you assume because I say one thing I must be your enemy. You call me names. You refer to me as a group instead of a person.

So clearly you are an island to yourself. I hope your relationships in real life are far more fruitful.

There has been enough information released to essentially debunk the connotation you are implying.

I’m sure its in the link the other comment provided, but I’ll call out that you not only can unlock your bootloader to install your OS but you can relock it so nothing can install anything afterwards.

So if your phone is ever not in your possession you can be sure that nobody installed anything. Also keeps your phone safe from malware (at root level).

Oh definitely. Xlookup and sumifs are probably my most common formulas. But I also source and combine data sources on a regular basis which is the real hitch in my use.

LibreOffice is great, but one of the problems is its not a business product. So sure, most everyone can do basic stuff and its fine. But if you’re a business, it really won’t cut it. And if you’re a power user of any of the app types, shifting away might not be possible.

But yes, my goal is 100% shift from MS. I just can’t shake excel until there’s a better alternative (or I stop having the need).

No, they shut down Wordpad since it was the awkward step between simple notepad and full blown word processing. It didn’t do anybody any harm, but it never really had a home.

To be fair, I use excel (2019, not 365) frequently and I’m never prompted for anything. I had to jerry rig the installation so only excel installed and not the full suite of products, but other than that it’s been clean and perfect. Sure, I’m missing some features from 365, but one of those missing features is copilot. Everything else is perfect (and I need data sources and some other functions that aren’t in Calc which is why I still use it)

I agree, but the lack of solid alternate platforms is the main issue.

Opnsense with unbound DNS here. Running on an old PC that got converted to dedicated firewall (with added NIC card for ports). Nothing crazy, just enough to control what communicates out of my network.