When I announced I would be closing my communities earlier this year, a curious thing happened: a surprising number of regulars replied with some variation of “I think this is my exit.” While some were specifically talking about Matrix, claiming that mine was the only room they were really active in and therefore they saw no...
Just like anything, that beginning step to assess where you are, and where you want to go, is critical.
Frankly my threat model is way too ambiguous...and I'm trying. I can't imagine trying to convince non-tech folks they need a threat model assessment and then walk them through it, design a plan to improve their security/privacy.
Hmm, well, sounds like I just described a consultancy.
I've run rooted since 2010 because it's my device, there's things I want to do, and now run Lineage/DivestOS or Graphene. But I can't recommend that to friends/family, of course.
I've tried to improve a non-rooted phone, but damn if it isn't a real PITA.
What's your network performance look like? 100mbit? Gigabit?
External drives are terribly slow, USB doesn't have great throughout. Also they're unreliable, do you have backups? I'd look into making those drives internal (SATA) which has much better throughput. I use one external drive on USB3 for duplication, and it's noticeably slower on file transfers, like 40%.
For remote access to your files, look into Tailscale. You run it on your laptop and server (or any compatible device in your network), and it provides a virtual mesh network that functions like a LAN between devices.
Syncthing is great, but it just keeps files in, entire folders of them. So if space is tight on the laptop, it won't really help, not easily anyway.
Resilio Sync has Selective Sync, where it can index a folder and store that index on any device participating in that sync job. Then you can select which files to sync at any time.
The VPN is to give you access to your files from anywhere, since you don't have the storage capacity on your laptop for all of them.
If you have an encrypted connection to home, laptop storage isn't a concern.
As a benefit, this also solves the risk of losing files that are only on the laptop, by keeping the at home.
Yea, Syncthing has it's moments (and uses - I keep hundreds of gigs between 5 phones and 5 laptops/desktops in sync with it).
Resilio does use the bittorrent protocol, but uses keys and authorization for shares. Give it a try, it may address your need to access files remotely. I use it to access my media (about 2TB) which clearly can't be sync'd to my laptop (or phone). I can grab any file, at any time.
This would likely happen to any machine directly exposed to the internet that hosts any kind of service intended for local networks only... (which is the network stack on Windows, and has been so since 1990 with NetBEUI/NetBIOS), and has been intentionally left insecured to boot.
Hell, in the 90's we put windows desktops directly on the internet just to see what would happen (yea, our bosses would yell at us when they caught it). They didn't get hacked much or very fast then, which shows how much automated intrusion scripting is happening today.
Bunch of clickbait nonsense.
Local machines aren't servers. And servers aren't directly exposed to the internet without routers/firewalls/IPS/IDS, etc. The only devices that should be directly connected to the internet are edge routers. And even they should have very secure, layered setups to ensure malicious traffic can't transit to the LAN.
I use OneNote as my notebook currently. It updates very fast on phone and pc. It's not ideal for your use-case, perhaps. But you can share notebooks easily. (Though no Linux client, you can edit notebooks in a browser if they're on Onedrive).
I also use a couple shopping list apps, my current go to is Anylist. I have a bunch of lists in there, and easily shareable, great for shopping with other people. But I also use it for packing lists, task lists, etc, and you can login via a browser, which works well. Sync is instant.
I've tried a few other notebook type apps (Joplin, etc,) and they all have their pros/cons.
Maybe hit the self-hosting community, there's an ongoing discussion about notebooks.
Oh yea, I get the push for open source. It's why I've tried 3 or 4 open source apps already - I really want to get away from OneNote (I've been using it for about 15 years, it's a cluttered mess). It's a great piece of software, but it requires either OneDrive or a SharePoint server to sync to mobile devices. To sync between PCs, you just need a shared folder - the app is smart about updates all on it's own (at least for a few people).
Eventually I'll settle on a replacement. And then do the work of transitioning all that data...Sigh.
Some of the users can barely use computers and phones.
I kind of assumed this was a barrier. Hell, I don't even have family using Syncthing unless I set it up for them.
Something to add that may help with the sync part (that doesn't require effort on end users): if you self-host something, you can provide access to it via Tailscale with the Funnel option.
Tailscale is a virtual mesh network and typically requires the client on every machine. The Funnel option "funnels" public traffic into your Tailscale network via a hosted domain name provided by Tailscale.com. Since Tailscale.com exposes the entry point, then encapsulates that traffic into your network, you never have to open a port to the world.
I've been using RealVNC for family computer help and have been wanting to setup a self hosted replaced for a while now, but haven't had the time. RealVNC has recently axed their free levels, so I'll use it as a reason to setup a self hosted solution....
You can run the client on every machine, so they're all members of your mesh net. Easily access any of them from anywhere, at any time, using whatever remote utility you choose: VNC, RDP, Dameware, etc. You can easily map drives too, since your on the same LAN. (Just turn off MagicDNS - it can interfere with local name resolution).
You can run it on a single device in each location, enabling Subnet Routing, and that device will route traffic into the LAN on which it resides. I use a Raspberry Pi W Zero for this, and it works fine. I can print, configure my NAS, cable modem router, from anywhere. Q
I run the TS client on anything that can, Disable MagicDNS, set the TS network metric to 5000 (this pushes it's routing priority way down, preventing accidental routes over TS when I'm home), and enable it to run as a service.
Worst case, if someone doesn't want to run the client, you can setup Reverse VNC using your Tailscale network with the Funnel option enabled. This Funnels traffic into your network via an internet-exposed interface hosted by Tailscale (you can also host it yourself on a VPS).
Hello everyone, I hope I came to the right place to ask my stupid question. I'm currently working in a company that stuck way way back in time. I'm talking some people are still working in DOS level back in time. There is some revamping of this in progres, but it's going to be a long run....
MD is a great idea to promote during this transition.
I've found you also need a company system that is independent of system management tools - some places use a help desk ticketing system, some use a change management system.
Some friends in the SMB space use a single system for their company (IT consulting firms) to track their clients, client hardware purchase dates, contracts, warranty, every change they make, Admin accounts, device ID's, their billable time, etc.
This way all info on a client is maintained in a single place in case (this is the important bit) you get hit by a bus.
That's a common refrain - "what happens if bob gets hit by a bus?". Can't have any knowledge dependent upon a single person, everything needs to be maintained in a single, accessible form, hosted on company servers and backed up.
Being a small operation, this could be a hard sell. Maybe an open-source help desk solution that you can host internally would be acceptible. The hardest part with that is defining roles and who has access to what.
Something you may consider - small orgs have difficulty documenting their systems (basically it's a lack of manpower, you got shit to do, and documentation seems unimportant). Since there's a transition, it would be incredibly useful to introduce requirements gathering and documentation. A typical model defines Business Requirements, which are mapped to System Requirements, which are then mapped to Technical Requirements (e.g. One Business Requirement will often map to several System Requirements, which usually map to multiple Technical Requirements).
Look into Business Systems Analysis, there's some intro docs out there for how to do this, it's pretty straightforward, and you don't have to do all the detail, just having some documentation is better than none.
If you're buying dozens of Office keys, then a site license for Windows and Office makes a lot more sense.
And those licenses are managed between you and MS. Then it's a simple count of Office installations and you know how many licenses you should be using. You typically do an annual license "true up" with MS.
Here's an idea, since you're an MS shop - OneNote.
My SMB consultant friends use it as a secondary, shared, more comprehensive and free-form way to track system docs, changes, etc.
It's so easy to use, just using it yourself will sell it to other people in the company, besides giving you a single place to store stuff (that can easily be shared or copied elsewhere when needed).
When someone asks "where's this" and you can pull it up in seconds in OneNote, they'll be impressed.
Just don't use the Universal app version of OneNote, or use OneDrive - use the full version included with Office. I'm still using OneNote 2016,though I think there's a 2022 version (I keep all notebooks in the 2016 version just in case)
Store your OneNote files on a file share (that gets backed up, and that you can control access), so it only syncs locally. You won't get mobile device sync this way, but it never leaves the premises, and it's not sensitive to OneDrive issues (I've seen OneDrive hose a notebook). (You can do mobile device sync if you store notebooks on a SharePoint server).
I have a personal notebook I work from, plus a work notebook (which is just mine, not shared). I then create other notebooks as needed - I have an IT Reference notebook with saved web pages and docs of how to fix problems. My personal notebook has a section for a current laptop rebuild, with a spreadsheet embedded that I open every day to track changes and problems.
OneNote auto syncs between all devices using a given notebook. You can copy anything into it, even zip files or executables (don't do this, since OneNote keeps 3 copies of a notebook locally - working version, cache, and backup).
Last year I started using the PARA model for my notebooks, and it's a huge help with business stuff: one notebook with section groups (Tabs) for Projects, Area of responsibility, Resources, Archive. I've added a fifth section, Reference, to my work notebook.
I do things like share emails from outlook to OneNote - it puts the email in there with all it's info, then I can add notes as needed for reference. Great for tracking Approvals.
If you start using OneNote, there are numerous paid and free add-ons for it that really extend its ability to sort, search, layout, edit, etc, such as OneMore and NoteGem. Just the calendar showing notebook changes is worth installing either one, but the section and page sorting is a massive help.
I have 15 years of nitebooksbat this point - be judicious in setting up and organizing your notebooks. I've found the idea of Archiving to be hugely helpful.
Small business that can't afford dedicated IT usually outsource to a consultant or MSP, who damn well better sell them on Pro.
If you can't afford proper licensing as a business, I doubt you're gonna make it
I have friends in the SMB consulting space - ALL of their clients run Pro, with at least one DC. Their smallest clients are 2-3 person environments.
A business needs a lot more than a workstation or two - backup, security (IDS/IPS/firewall/spam filtering), email (pretty much all hosted these days). You're not doing this without pro licensing. You can't even use Group Policy on home.
These issues truly only affect home users - specifically the non-technical. And that's such a small set of people it's almost doesn't matter to MS, which is why they're pushing this crap there.
*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be...
MakeMKV hasn't failed to rip a DVD to MKV for me yet. I have hundreds of videos from DVDs.
Most I convert to MP4 using Handbrake to save space and for compatibility.
As for playing, look into running something like a NUC (small PC about 2x the size of Apple TV), with Kodi on it. It can play your entire library either stored on it or on a NAS or practically from any storage on your network, and connect to your TV via HDMI. It's effectively a local streaming box.
With streaming, you're licensing the use of the media, but only until said media is no longer licensed to the streaming service by the media copyright holders.
I'm guessing you haven't seen shows fall off your streaming service? Hell, Netflix warns you of things dropping off. Doesn't sound like ownership.
I have been pro privacy and anti data harvesting for many years now, however it is becoming increasingly more difficult staying off some platforms. Mostly Meta....
Ive refused to use anything FB since it first launched and I wasn't permitted to use it anyway (not that I cared).
I've never once been to FB intentionally. I've accidentally clicked a link, then closed the tab as soon as I realized.
I was sent an FB link the other day. Replied that all FB domains are blocked on my networks and devices.
Sometimes doing what you believe in comes with costs. Oh well. My life is for me, and if someone can't be bothered to look outside their bubble, put in a tiny bit of effort, then I guess I'm not worth it in their eyes. Message received.
I even have friends who've complained how shitty SMS is for 20 years. I've offered multiple solutions, and they simply refuse to change. OK, not my problem when you message me and I don't get it because SMS sucks and you refuse to solve the problem.
Warranties are practically useless, or I should say I find better value buying a 2 year old phone for a fraction of new. I can own three or four Pixel 5/6 for the cost of a new Pixel.
I prefer having a spare around. One dies, just swap Sim and move on.
Custom roms are significantly easier today, and you can buy phones with them pre-installed, e.g. Graphene, /e/, and Lineage. I'd look at those 3, noting that /e/ also provides some google-like convenience.
He also said he can't bring it in for lack of warranty.
Well, ignoring warranty, used pixels are so cheap you can own 2 or 3 for the cost of one new one with a warranty. Basically eliminates the warranty concern.
I've replaced exactly one phone under warranty (well, the expensive extended warranty bullshit), and since then I only buy used phones and just keep spares. It's a far better value in my opinion, and I can switch phones nearly instantly.
You can't legally work in the US without a Tax ID (generally your social).
Hospitals used to track you by name and address, with no problem. They did for me for decades. Using a government ID number isn't necessary, organizations just like exerting control.
And no, in the US you don't need to have ID to go anywhere. You can drive from California to Maine never having to show an ID - why should you?
I just did a 7 hour road trip, never once even opened my wallet.
Also, your social security number is not to be used as an ID - states so right on the card. Let's think about the implications of that statement, vs what is occurring today.
I've been a social media hermit for the past 3 years but recently I've given up and created a few accounts across different apps again. It's unreal how strict the requirements are now....
Though I'd love to see what they think they have on me.
I'm old enough to well pre-date digital cameras, and of the photos I know I'm in, those people are unlikely to have uploaded pics (very few of those photos are with phones, and those people don't share online with others much anyway).
Genuinely very curious, since I'm such an outlier - it would be really insightful as to how effective FB is at piecing together disparate and tiny elements, including the tracking pixels, etc.
I've never intentionally even been to the FB website - the first time a college kid in the family talked about it, I knew it was bad news, but couldn't convince them.
Maybe I'll spin up a Linux machine off of usb, fire up a VPN, hit FB and see what I can find. I'm kind of curious now.
I don't remember the last time I was in a group taking photos. Family, years ago, but the older person taking the photo was using a digital camera, not a phone, and would maybe share via text.
No one in my family really uses Facebook, and wouldn't waste their time tagging anyone. Anyone looking at those photos would know who is who - no need to tag.
The photo would have to be tagged by someone I don't even know, like a sibling's friend's kid or something, and there's no reason for them to be viewing these photos, let alone tagging them - they likely wouldn't even be interested in the first place.
I currently use TinyWall Firewall, it works very well, it's small/portable, no complaints I even donated to the Dev but I would really prefer open source, also it needs to be user friendly like TinyWall so my non-tech family members can/will use it like they do with TinyWall.
Because spending years setting up a system using nothing but open source from the start, you'd still not approach what windows can do out the box with far less effort.
I'm also not spending my time teaching old dogs new tricks, nor spending my time solving problems for them which just shouldn't exist (e.g. The stupid print monitor mentioned below).
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it's still no competition to Windows, even with the dumb shit MS does.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I'd stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won't even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn't compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let's look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that's just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. No, I'm not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That's just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn't realistically shareable with other people.
Now there's that print monitor that's on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking... Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn't say "save creds"? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I've installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it's gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn't look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works.... only it doesn't save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically.. but that doesn't work, so now I can't boot.. so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that... then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution... wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it's been four hours, it's 3:00am and I'm like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren't supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can't wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can't do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I've loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM's on Linux (Proxmox) because that's better than running Linux VM's on a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment, or for people who are already well versed with windows.
Linux doesn't even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it's own way), and that's a massive barrier for users. The Mint shell doesn't use right-click... Really?
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would've had a chance to beat MS, even then it would've required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980's to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
Because it's awful to use, counter-intuitive, and fucking breaks network connectivity all the time by switching private networks to public on a whim.
Fuck that piece of shit for that reason alone. I've seen it fuck domain controllers doing this, when "supposedly" it can't do this on a DC. Know what happens then? I can't RDP to the server from it's own local network.
This is such a problem we run a powershell script on a schedule to ensure the connections remain private.
Frankly, I never understood why businesses were invested in the office suite anyway.
Then you've never worked in an environment of many people, where nothing compares to office, and you can be confident the file you send will look the same on the other end. This is crucial.
Considering there are so many good open source alternatives.
Oh really? Let me see some tables in Open Office Calc. Oh, yea, the devs flat out said they will not support tables in Calc because it's "bad practice", and you should use a database app instead.
Sorry, it takes me seconds to setup a table in Excel, and I can do all kinds of sorting, filtering, etc with trivial effort. I'm not setting up a DB everytime I need to ad-hoc sort/filter 20 rows. There are constant annoyances like this with these open source office apps. Counterintuitive ways of doing things (or not being able to do things at all).
Nothing out there compares to Office. Considering the licensing costs for enterprise (where you can have 50,000+ users), if they could eliminate that cost without incurring massive productivity losses, don't you think they would?
Plus you have millions (if not billions) of docs, templates, processes (where automation exports their data into Office apps e.g. Word or Excel), for users or business management to use, perhaps in other apps or systems. Whose going to pay to reproduce all that work in another system?
Plus historically, Office 4 (in about 1997) had tight integration - nothing else came anywhere close. And that's been the case ever since. I know when I copy data from any office app that it will properly support OLE - OneNote will embed an excel sheet (or publisher/word doc) just fine. Try that with Calc, and you get some weird behaviour.
I'm glad to see the competition, but it's got a long way to go to make inroads against office.
Depending on the group/team/organization, physical presence makes a huge difference.
Even though I can work from home at will, I still go to the office a lot, about 60%-70% of my time is there. Physical presence just makes a lot of things easier, and it makes teams more cohesive. I can't imagine spending less time at the office - those random hallway conversations make a world of difference. If you're not there for the convo, they'll tap someone else, not by design or intention, just by that person being in front of them.
Now a call center? Maybe not so much, though I was once on a call center team and the ability to tap a teammate on the shoulder was a big help. Much better than using chat tools. So it really depends on the organization.
And then there's management that need you there to justify their role. That's just a poorly managed company, when senior management permits that (though some of them need their own staff count to justify their roles).
Interesting problem here. So I self host jellyfin, happy to share my (owned) movies with my family. Well, my mother has asked me to digitize her collection too and have me host it. Originally, fine, you give your movies to me, I host them, same thing....
I've found the disks hurt my power less than choosing a good motherboard/cpu, and using M2 for the OS drive.
Using it drives up power. At idle, my latest 5-drive setup draws 20 watts, it goes up when I'm copying files to it (usually syncing media files from 2 other local storages).
Compared to my old system which was an ancient gaming rig that drew 120w at idle, with only 2 drives (OS and storage).
I also have a 5 disk NAS running some old drives, it's idle power is so low I've forgotten - maybe 15w? The most it could potentially draw is about 60w, since that's the power supply max - I've seen it draw 45w while rebuilding a disk.
And it's not like you're going to reuse the drives internally - if you were, there's no issue - reformat and move on. But that doesn't really happen either - each project has accounting, and it's more effort to adjust the accounting, plus the risk of moving a used drive.
Risk really drives a lot of enterprise stuff. Good way to lose your job is to accept risks, especially ones like this that can be completely mitigated by simply destroying drives. That money has been amortized/allocated already, so it's a much better value than the risk.
And RAID hardware and software do too - this can be a problem with some drives (I always forget which ones, WD black? Or is it the reds? I'm almost positive Greens are not recommended for RAID arrays)
It's a mix of crap I've acquired over the years, all 1TB drives, 3.5",most 5-10 years old, in an old Drobo I inherited. Yea, it's a massive risk, but it's one of 3 storage systems replicating data locally, plus a Crashplan backup.
Since it's 5 drives, I'm pretty sure it spins them down - at best if they drew 3w each, it'd be 15w in drives alone.
Running it on a smart switch, I've never seen it draw more than 30w, and that's at boot time with 5 drives.
My 3-drive Proxmox box (a Dell SFF) drives are a mix of spinning metal and SSD (2.5"), it idles about 20w, peaks at 100w when I'm converting video files with a VM. That hardware is about 5 years old too, 32gb of ram, booting from an M2 drive.
My use-case is very high idle time (95%+?), so I'm targeting lowest idle power consumption. Pretty much anything will suck power once I'm doing anything heavy (like video conversion).
There has been a lot of talk about companies and individuals adopting licenses that aren't OSI opensource to protect themselves from mega-corp leechers. Developers have also been condemned who put donation notices in the command-line or during package installation. Projects with opensource cores and paid extensions have also...
[help] could use some parts advice on building a diy nass for docker/media
hi...
Is Privacy Worth It? ( blog.thenewoil.org )
When I announced I would be closing my communities earlier this year, a curious thing happened: a surprising number of regulars replied with some variation of “I think this is my exit.” While some were specifically talking about Matrix, claiming that mine was the only room they were really active in and therefore they saw no...
Platforms wonder why piracy is spiking ( www.skynews.com.au )
It's not even surprising anymore platforms do this & act all Pikachu face why piracy is spiking...
How to speed up accessing lots of files on another computer? Some kind of local cache?
Title is TLDR. More info about what I'm trying to do below....
Idle Windows XP and 2000 machines get infected with viruses within minutes of being exposed online — legacy OSes compromised by just connecting to the Internet ( www.tomshardware.com )
Any Calendar app for windows?
I'm trying to find one. Any recommendations?
FTC Warns Car Makers Regarding Privacy ( arstechnica.com )
It's not quite enough for me, personally, but this is a small step in the right direction....
Looking for a collaborative notes app
Hi all, I need your expertise please :)...
remote assistance software suggestions
I've been using RealVNC for family computer help and have been wanting to setup a self hosted replaced for a while now, but haven't had the time. RealVNC has recently axed their free levels, so I'll use it as a reason to setup a self hosted solution....
Dumb Q: How to manage sw licences?
Hello everyone, I hope I came to the right place to ask my stupid question. I'm currently working in a company that stuck way way back in time. I'm talking some people are still working in DOS level back in time. There is some revamping of this in progres, but it's going to be a long run....
Windows 11 is now an ad platform--this is why we're here ( www.ghacks.net )
The writing is on the wall--I suspect the next Windows OS will be a subscription service. Gather your ISOs while ye may.
‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services ( www.theguardian.com )
*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be...
What is the cost of privacy?
I have been pro privacy and anti data harvesting for many years now, however it is becoming increasingly more difficult staying off some platforms. Mostly Meta....
[Repost] Reliable alternatives to AWS Deep Glacier for ~5TB?
Hi everyone,...
Which Android mobile phone brand brings less pre-loaded 3rd-party apps?
Please write the 3 phone brands (in order please) which you think they bring the least number of third-party apps....
Why the state monopoly on identity is worse than Big Tech ( medium.com )
Instagram locked my account and forced me to appeal and send a picture of my face, so I sent a picture of Shrek. They deleted my account
I've been a social media hermit for the past 3 years but recently I've given up and created a few accounts across different apps again. It's unreal how strict the requirements are now....
Does anyone know of a FOSS Firewall for Windows
I currently use TinyWall Firewall, it works very well, it's small/portable, no complaints I even donated to the Dev but I would really prefer open source, also it needs to be user friendly like TinyWall so my non-tech family members can/will use it like they do with TinyWall.
A Staggering 19x Energy Jump in Capacitors May Be the Beginning of the End for Batteries ( www.popularmechanics.com )
Microsoft wipes out evidence of real ads in Windows 11 Start menu ( www.xda-developers.com )
Dell responds to return-to-office resistance with VPN, badge tracking ( arstechnica.com )
Surely the clearest path to retaining only the best.
I used an original iPod in 2024, and it was pretty fun ( www.spacebar.news )
How do you handle family requests that you disagree with?
Interesting problem here. So I self host jellyfin, happy to share my (owned) movies with my family. Well, my mother has asked me to digitize her collection too and have me host it. Originally, fine, you give your movies to me, I host them, same thing....
Here is what 6 decommissioned servers looks like. My Jellyfin will be very happy ( lemmy.world )
6 servers were decomissioned, Iwas able to only get the disks, RAM, CPUs and Network Card....
How are companies or developers supposed to make a full time living with OSI opensourced projects? ( opensource.org )
There has been a lot of talk about companies and individuals adopting licenses that aren't OSI opensource to protect themselves from mega-corp leechers. Developers have also been condemned who put donation notices in the command-line or during package installation. Projects with opensource cores and paid extensions have also...
Why people don't talk about Google Maps' privacy issues ( www.youtube.com )
Title is editorialized because the original is, frankly, clickbait garbage