5 reasons to use CryptPad instead of Google Docs Apart from security and privacy, as well as being a cloud based solution, CryptPad is pretty feature packed. For me, it is also a great way to share something publicly if I need to. You may compare its privacy and security to something like Proton Docs, but where it really beats Proton Docs is that it also has spreadsheets, presentations, rich text. Kanban, code, forms, whiteboard, diagrams, and it is open source and can be self-hosted too. See

XDA

5 reasons why I use CryptPad instead of Google Docs

I recently switched to something called CryptPad. It is not just a replacement for Google Docs but for the entire Google Workspace suite.

#technology #opensource #privacy #alternativeto

TidyOS is a free and open-source tool to debloat Windows 11 “This tool comes from GitHub user builtbybel, who has made many apps of this nature in recent years, such as Bloatynosy and Winpilot. TidyOS seems to bring together the best features of these apps in a cleaner and more straightforward UI, and it's one of the best ways to clean up your Windows install, especially if you don't feel comfortable using a terminal environment.” This tool makes one realise how much gunk is built into Windows 11. I haven't tested it, though, as I long ago ditched Windows myself. But this may clean up the Windows 11 experience for others at least. See

XDA

If you want to debloat Windows, this free and open-source tool is one of the best out there

TidyOS may just be the best way to clean up all the junk Microsoft includes with Windows 11

#technology #Windows11 #opensource

Ookla Founder Launches “Orb,” a Smarter Internet Quality Tracker "Orb runs on all of your devices to collect minute-by-minute data on internet speed, responsiveness, and reliability. It presents this information in detailed charts that provide deep insight into your long-term home internet performance, though it also gives you a handy "Orb score,” which is just a glanceable figure that rates your internet performance on a scale from 0 to 100. If your score falls below 80, Orb will tap into an LLM and make suggestions for how to improve your connection.” This does look pretty useful as for proper quality of service you really need to test a few parameters over time, and not just rely on a periodic Speedtest. It installs on various mobile and desktop platforms (well not on Manjaro for me, although it does install on Arch, so I suppose I can make a plan). But also interestingly it has a server side that can install in docker container (which I tried) as well as in Home Assistant. The server side apps seem to run 24/7 and your desktop and mobile apps can connect to them. You can create a free account so that the stats remain linked. So my the app on my phone will show its own Orb stats, but also sees the Orb stats from the Docker container. I probably need to try the Home Assistant installation to see if that has a dashboard widget (as that would be really useful). Nope, no Android widget I see, and that was a pretty obvious one I was expecting to find! See

How-To Geek

Ookla Founder Launches "Orb," a Smarter Internet Quality Tracker

Yes, I'm pondering my Orb.

#technology #Internet #quality #speedtest

Valve's Proton 10.0 Beta Released With More Windows Games Now Playable On Linux inc MS Flight Sim 2024 Looks like Proton is still progressing at a steady pace forwards. I was surprised to see about a month back it played the new Assetto Corsa Evo fine on my Linux desktop. It did not play the first week or two after I bought the game (without even thinking of checking if the compatibility was ready yet). Ironically enough the DiRT Rally 2.0 mentioned now for compatibility, I think has a native Linux install of that game as I've been playing that a long time already on Linux. See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Proton-10.0-Beta-Released #technology #Linux #gaming #opensource

This is probably what desktop Linux needed: PewDiePie installs Linux His video has hit over 4 million views in just 2 days. Most videos about desktop Linux are done by passionate techies, and they just don't tend to sway or influence most ordinary desktop OS users. What Linux has probably long needed is a few real “non-tech” celebrities to promote it more. PewDiePie is one of the last people I'd have ever expected to install Linux, let alone to dive into some of the depths that he did. I've watched a few commentary videos today by some popular tech channels, and they are all very complimentary about the tech content he covered. No-one is faulting him on anything he mentioned in his video. He made a very entertaining, but also very informative video. It is clear that PewDiePie is not as superficial as I thought him to be. This is no basic installation that he did, and certainly most beginners are better off just installing Linux Mint and taking it slowly from there. His timing is probably really spot-on, too, given the looming deadline for the cessation of support for Windows 10 later this year. See #technology #Linux #PewDiePie #opensource

Winget brings Linux-like centralised package management to Windows “A package manager is a little bit like an app store, but it is both more fundamental and more versatile. Unlike app stores, which primarily deal with distributing first and third-party applications, package managers can also be used to manage the basic components of an operating system, like drivers, or major system updates.” Yes, Linux generally manages the installation and update of all apps centrally from their package managers (you can even activate Snap, Flatpak, etc updates from inside the package manager). It makes the process pretty seamless, and often involves no rebooting even. Apparently this Winget app is built into Windows already, and if so, I'm pretty amazed it is not a well-known utility already. It just needs to be activated. Certainly, if I used Windows still, I'd want to be using it. I suspect though the issue for Windows users may be that it appears to be terminal based (which is easily remedied with a batch filer and desktop icon), but seeing Linux could do GUI package managers I really wonder why Microsoft never turned this into a GUI package manager. Actually, anyone who knows Python could also make this into a GUI package manager. See

How-To Geek

This Forgotten Windows Utility is the Best Way to Update Your Applications

One of the greatest Linux features is on Windows—and everyone forgets about it.

#technology #Windows #updates

7 network security myths that make you less secure Number 5 interested me specifically as I recently installed Zenarmor to monitor my network from the inside using packet inspection. It demonstrated point 5 quite well in showing what the apps on mobile phones actually get up to in the background. I did a post a day or two back about that one ad-tracking app that tries to push lots of information out, but Zenarmor identified and blocked it. The point is, we have phones and desktop computers behind the firewall that are installing sometimes suspect applications. The apps can scan networks, can watch keystrokes, report location, and lots more. It is not wise to think the firewall is just keeping everything out, when we have brought these apps inside, and they are calling out with data. Your firewall may block all inbound traffic, but various apps, IoT devices, cameras, open their own pipes to the outside world. Even worse, some still have their default admin and password as their login credentials. So, the linked article is good food for thought. One has to think a bit deeper than just the main router, and especially if you are sitting with a default router that your ISP gave you for free with your Internet service. If your router is no longer getting firmware updates (you do update it regularly, don't you?) then you should be thinking about replacing it. My own case is a bit more exposed, as I host some services from home. My post a few months back, after I had installed OPNsense as the firewall, showed the constant barrage of hits from outside against the firewall. 99.9% of this is all automated, so no-one is worried about whether your setup is a juicy target or not, as everything gets hit from outside today. See

XDA

7 network security myths that make you less secure

It's time to put some network security myths to rest.

#technology #security #networking

SmokePing is a cross-platform open source deluxe latency measurement tool SmokePing can measure, store and display latency, latency distribution and packet loss. SmokePing uses RRDtool to maintain a long term data-store and to draw pretty graphs, giving up-to-the-minute information on the state of each network connection. Its Main Features are: * Measures latency as well as latency variation. * Wide variety of probes, ranging from simple ping to web requests and custom protocols. * Advanced alarm system, triggering on configurable 'latency patterns'. * Master/slave deployment model to run measurements from multiple sources in parallel. * Ajax based graph navigation. * Chart mode, to show the most interesting graphs first * Plug-able probes, alarms (matchers) and charting function. * Written in Perl for easy expandability. * Fully documented. But whilst it is really feature packed, it is a pretty steep learning curve to just get going, compared to say the proprietary Windows version of PingPlotter that I used many years ago. I'd say the Docker install of SmokePing is maybe a trifle easier, as the config files etc are a bit more standard than the various flavours of Linux install (the AUR install was putting config files in a different place for me). However, if you do want a more of a PingPlotter alternative, there is also Pingnoo for Linux that is as easy as PingPlotter to get going and shows traceroute as well. See

SmokePing - About SmokePing

#technology #opensource #networking

This is why Big Tech sites are free of cost, and thriving I picked up on this today after noticing ZenArmor blocking masses of attempts on my network from a mobile device trying to phone home for an app called Appsflyer. It seems it is embedded into apps for Meta (which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), X, TikTok, Google Ads, Hulu, eBay, etc. It tracks and analyses user behaviour, supposedly inside those apps. The linked video is explaining to app developers and its customers how it works, and how in 2022 there were nearly 2 billion active users. But pretty damning, at 04:14 it says it can even track users who have uninstalled the application (really, how?). No mention at all in the video about any customer rights, or rights to opt out of this tracking. The company, Appsflyer I imagine, is a licensed partner of Apple and Google. Now we can see why some companies get really rich off their free sites, and why decentralised open source platforms have to keep appealing for donations and cannot scale very big otherwise. The difference is those open source platforms respect their users' privacy, and they live or die by donations and grants (whether in money or labour forms). See #technology #adverts #tracking #BigTech

A solution to turn YouTube video playlists into a cleanly formatted text document “But when I wanted to actually study the content, make notes, or review everything without distractions, I realized how limiting YouTube really was. There is no easy way to extract the content, structure it, and turn it into something readable offline. That's before I discovered an incredible GitHub project that lets you take a YouTube playlist and spit out a clean, formatted document that you can turn into an eBook, a PDF study guide, or even a blog post. It’s a simple Python-based tool, but what it enables Python-based tools is kind of magical. Here's how it works.” This could be pretty useful for those who want an indexed reference to a long series of tutorials on some topic covered on YouTube, to study, share, or archive. It basically involves cloning the GitHub repository provided, and having Python installed. It also makes use of Google Gemini to help with formatting, summarising, etc to make the output more meaningful. See

XDA

I turned YouTube Playlists into eBooks with this self-hosted app

If you use YouTube to learn, this tool will blow your mind.

#technology #learning #YouTube

Samsung's Glasses-Free 3D Gaming Monitors Are Now Available I do love my 3D TV, so this looks quite interesting. But lots of information not really given, so it is difficult to tell whether there is processing in the display too, or is it all driven on the computer side. Yes, no glasses required, but does it work on Linux or is Windows required (I'd rather buy glasses to be honest). So, this is rather going to be a matter of watching some real-life reviews when those get published. And of course, the little matter of the price tag being basically US$2,000. See

How-To Geek

Samsung's Glasses-Free 3D Gaming Monitors Are Now Available

Samsungs got some great gaming monitors for those who want them.

#technology #3D

Vivo has an optional Photographer Kit adds a removable grip and a telephoto lens with an 8.7x zoom This looks quite interesting, as I was saying just this week, I'd love to see proper lens attachments for Android phones. Ideally, though, I was wanting more standardisation on the lens positioning and a provision of a bracket that standardised lenses could be attached to any conforming Android phone, and not be a unique lens per brand. It is going to be intriguing to see what DXOMARK's camera tests reveal in practical testing. It's true too that the sensor is still smaller than a DSLR, and there is no variety of other lenses to choose from. Still, I hope this spurs on more brands to consider proper lens attachments. See

The Verge

Vivo wants its new X200 Ultra smartphone to replace your camera

Leave your camera at home.

#technology #mobile #photography

The cross-platform open source Kate Text Editor is a powerhouse of features So many of us just use an editor for basic document or text file editing, but this editor does go way past that, and is also a very user-friendly graphical user interface too. The editor has numerous plugins available to further extend that functionality. Apart from code formatting (as in for many coding languages), it also has sessions, colour schemes, debugging adaptors, move and splitting of views, a terminal, Git integration, snippets, and lots more. You may say that VSCode also has this, but Kate is a lot simpler to navigate, and it is open source and will be around for a long time to come. It's been my own go-to editor for as long as I've been using a KDE Desktop. See

How I use Kate Editor

Akseli's various rambles and posts about gaming, gamedev, FOSS, programming and other things.

#technology #opensource #editors

Bluesky Is Rolling Out Official Verification “Starting today, Bluesky is rolling out a new verification system, complete with the familiar blue check marks popularized by Twitter. The highest-priority accounts right now are government officials, news organizations and journalists, and celebrities.” This is a good move as the platform has attracted quite a few celebrities as well as mainstream news media. There is also provision for some organisations to become their own trusted verifiers, I imagine for their journalists. And of course, anyone can still self-verify against their own domain name (just without a blue tick mark). See

WIRED

Bluesky's Blue Check Is Finally Here

Bluesky’s new verification process launches today. It mixes the old-school, Twitter-style blue check bestowed by the platform with a more decentr...

#technology #bluesky #socialnetworks

You're Missing Out on Hidden Android Updates Yes, apart from the cascading OS updates through each manufacturer, there are also Google Play system updates which are firstly hidden away under the About Phone menu, and most weirdly of all, they don't auto install or even notify you of updates. These are quite important actually, as they are generic app updates that Google rolls out across Android devices, and they get past manufacturers which no longer update some system apps. They also add new features to the Google Play Store and Google Wallet. They do come out every month, but my experience is I don't see them monthly on my phone. However, if you leave it too long, I'be seen like three updates in a row that I've had to apply, so check again after you've applied one. Interestingly, too, the linked article also gives a link to a page where you can see what each month's update has brought as a changelog. See

Lifehacker

You

You might be familiar with Android system updates, the which bring new Android versions and features to your smartphone. But you might not know abo...

#technology #Android

You Don’t Have to Choose Between iPhone and Android With the New Chipolo Pop Tracker Well this tracker does tick most of my boxes as I do like that it can leverage off both the iPhone and Android tracking networks, and that it also has separation alerts. The replaceable battery, with 12 months expected life, is also a plus. The dual network support is important as it prevents any vendor lock-in if you decide to change your phone ecosystem (which I've done more than once). It however does not seem to support UWB (Ultra-Wideband) to show the distance and direction from the tracker for closer range finding. It can though activate an audio alert on the tracker when nearby to assist with finding it. See

How-To Geek

You Don’t Have to Choose Between iPhone and Android With the New Chipolo Pop Tracker

Works with Find My and Find My Device.

#technology #trackers

I Didn't Think I Needed Noise-cancelling Headphones—Until I Tried Them I also resisted worrying about paying a bit extra for active noise-cancelling (ANC) earbuds, until I finally bought a pair a bit over a year ago. Now I would not consider buying again without ANC. I go to shopping malls once week and that constant noise level and background announcements are just silenced. But actually that is not the only reason, as this linked article points out. The other two reasons are just as important, and I probably just took them for granted. Because the ambient noise level has largely disappeared, you can reduce the volume level and listen better to quieter music or other audio. This means you don't have to have a higher volume level, which is safer for your ears. The other reason, which I use every single time I am out, is that because ANC earbuds and headphones have microphones in, they usually have a pass-through or transparent mode. So whenever I need to speak to someone I just do a long-touch and transparent mode activates and the microphones pass the sound through, without me having to remove an earbud. Yes, they do typically have an auto-pause for if you do take an earbud out. That also serves as a warning if one happens to fall out (that's never happened to me). Some will say that ANC is not going to be pure Hi-Fi sound, and maybe that's true, but I listen to podcasts mostly and my hearing is anyway nowhere good enough anymore to detect 40 Hz to 20 kHz anymore. I found the Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC's have worked well for me and were pretty good value, but there are now many brands making good ANC earbuds and headphones. See

How-To Geek

I Didn't Think I Needed Noise-Canceling Headphones—Until I Tried Them

It's like a mute button for the whole world.

#technology #ANC #audio #noisecancelling

Mapping legend UK Ordnance Survey releases blocky Britain in Minecraft – again “This cubist version of the British Isles is estimated to be made up of more than 100 billion blocks, and contains all the features you would expect to see, such as motorways and roads, vegetation, meadows, woodland, lakes, rivers, sand beaches, railways and islands.” I just love this spirit of adventure and can see how this could appeal to adults and kids alike. It also sort of “puts your country on the map” so to speak. What I love even more is this challenge to other countries: “We want this to be a resource for anyone to try. Ordnance Survey is an organisation founded on exploration and we encourage anyone to do the same with these maps!” See

Ordnance Survey releases blocky Britain in Minecraft

: A thing of beauty for map fans and those with kids

#technology #UK #Minecraft #gaming

7 cable management tricks I regret not learning sooner “Cable management is a boring but necessary part of any PC build. Without it, you'll struggle to make sense of the cable jungle inside and outside your PC, and end up shoving cables wherever you can. That poses other problems related to airflow, dust accumulation, cable damage, diagnostics, and, of course, aesthetics. When I first started building PCs, I never did any cable management. Gradually, I learned the hard way that I should have picked up some tips along the way.” The very first tip about choosing the right case in the first place really brings something home to me that I have been learning as I got wiser in life. Buy the cheapest device/components, and it will last a much shorter time than a well-thought-out and maybe slightly more expensive purchase. Too often, we aim to save money up front, not realising it will actually cost us more over time. This is true from CPUs, to smartphones, to chargers, to cables, and most other things. Buy a bit better, and it won't run out of steam too early, won't cause RF interference, will have some capacity to take upgrades. Just some examples: * choosing an AMC CPU often means you can upgrade it later without having to buy a new motherboard. * a higher end smartphone can typically be used longer because it gets updates longer, and it was faster to start with. * a better power supply will give more stable performance, and may well have modular cabling. * a good choice of case, will mean you can likely do a few motherboard etc upgrades without having to replace that case for many years. * even a simple thing like an air duster, if you buy the cheapest, you just don't get the performance that does the job a lot quicker. * a slightly better buy also frequently comes with better support, a better warranty, and longer software upgrades. * a better office chair may not look glitsy, but it can have a 10-year warranty (I've had to throw out cheaper gaming chairs after just two years of use). * in a NAS type setup, using a desktop rated hard drive is going to last a shorter time than a NAS rated hard drive. See

XDA

7 cable management tricks I regret not learning sooner

These tips would have made life so much easier, both inside and outside my PC.

#technology #cables #quality

Hackers Exploit WordPress mu-Plugins to Inject Spam and Hijack Site Images “Threat actors are using the “mu-plugins” directory in WordPress sites to conceal malicious code with the goal of maintaining persistent remote access and redirecting site visitors to bogus sites.mu-plugins, short for must-use plugins, refers to plugins in a special directory (“wp-content/mu-plugins”) that are automatically executed by WordPress without the need to enable them explicitly via the admin dashboard. This also makes the directory an ideal location for staging malware.” This is actually a major problem because just about every WordPress site has this directory by default. It can just be deleted in many cases, but right now it is probably just sitting there waiting to be exploited. As the majority of websites on the Internet do use WordPress, this is a concern right now. So if you are a WordPress admin, you want to read the linked article and do the checks. If you don't use that directory, then it is probably safer to just delete it. Just keeping your installed plugins and themes up to date won't mitigate this risk, but updating is always a best practice, and WordPress lets you enable auto-update for plugins. See

The Hacker News

Hackers Exploit WordPress mu-Plugins to Inject Spam and Hijack Site Images

Threat actors hide malware in WordPress mu-Plugins, exploiting 4 CVEs in 2024 to hijack websites.

#technology #WordPress #vulnerability