pengo

Divorce proceedings are over for me.

I've never used Amazon. I stopped using Microsoft products eight years ago. I left Facebook five years ago. I exited Google's ecosystem shortly afterwards. I closed my Twitter account the day Elon walked into the executive suite. I do have a small exposure to Apple which I mull over daily like probing a suspect tooth with my tongue. But I'm centred on Linux, with a SailfishOS phone.

I found my tribe in decentralised social media. I have two Mastodon accounts, a personal one and one for the music duo I'm in, and a Lemmy account. I'm considering Bookwyrm right now too. All of these took a lot of effort to get to the point where they're worthwhile. The first months were not rewarding but, gradually, I hooked up with people I wanted to chat with, found the hashtags and forums that were a good fit for me.

If you're prepared to invest some time in your social network, I recommend checking out the Fediverse. But it won't hand you anything on a plate.

I set up a Lemmy account yesterday. It has promise.

My daily driver is still a Dell XPS13 I bought in 2018 when it was the highest spec XPS13 available. I replaced it with a later (and higher spec) XPS13 in late 2021, but didn't like Dell's changes to the keyboard layout and returned to using the older machine. I'm looking at a 13" Framework with the AMD chipset, but holding off for now in case Linux on an M2 Macbook Pro matures quickly enough to be an option.

We're a duo from Aotearoa New Zealand currently finished our first album. Some of our music is at https://sidesister.bandcamp.com/

We upgraded our home studio three years ago; it's about as compact as you can get, but super efficient.

You can contact us at hello @ sidesister . com

We still use Object Pascal (in the freeware Lazarus IDE) for dev utilities. Mostly they're native desktop apps, but some interface with cloud services.

I continue using https://startpage.com without any issues.

Eating Marmite instead of Vegemite. Only in my fifties did I discover that Marmite tastes different because it contains sugar.

Sixty eight year old female here. I start every day except Sunday with 30 situps, 30 pushups and 30 squats. I ride my (non-electric) bicycle when I go shopping (including supermarket shopping for two), and do two or three 45 minute rides a week which include sprints. One long walk, often on the beach, completes my usual weekly routine.

In our environment support trumps sprint every time, regardless of whether the support task is legitimate or not. By legitimate, I mean that many of the "support tasks" are things clients can do for themselves, but rather than point the client to the (excellent) documentation, the development team ends up carrying the baby.

It's just a shame Windows is the only operating system in the world, otherwise we could all use something else.

I've run Linux on a series of Dell laptops (same model, different versions), all with i7 processors. There's no appreciable difference running 32GB RAM over 16GB, but there is an obvious difference for many proc intensive tasks between 8GB and 16GB.

I'm not saying you couldn't live with 8GB, but I'd strongly recommend 16GB.

I wrote a web app that moved paper-based funding submission and grant management online. A second client wanted the same thing, so I wrote it again with newer tech. When the third client asked for the same thing I spent eighteen months creating a customisable framework, which is in use for increasing numbers of clients.

Buy a decent protective case when you buy your new phone, and never remove it.

I've never lost a phone yet to accidental damage, while friends without cases break screens and destroy phones every 12 to 18 months.

I work at home in a low light room. I have my 4K laptop screen at 25% brightness, and the 38" 4K monitor above it at 5% brightness. I eschew dark mode in my IDE and other apps in favour of a light theme. Since making these changes I no longer suffer eye fatigue.

Interestingly when I create music (same monitor but a Mac Mini) I turn the 38" monitor up to 35% because the Mac fonts are harder to read at that resolution that my Linux laptop's.

I worked on a messaging convergence product in the early 2000s. I'd written several components including the POP3 server. The product owner had a demonstration scheduled with a potential telco buyer. Two weeks out, we learned that having IMAP4 capability was critical for the client. IMAP4 was on our roadmap, but still twelve months away. The requirement was to demonstrate IMAP4 in two weeks, not to provide a finished IMAP4 implementation, but neither of the architects could see any way of delivering a demo.

I had a bright idea in the shower one morning, went to work and told our project manager that I could deliver an IMAP4 demo in two days. I explained how, the architects admitted it would work, so I knuckled down and wrote a new API for our POP3 server that understood and responded to high level IMAP4 requests (we didn't need to return message parts or anything more atomic that an entire body).

Of course, the day after we finished testing this, the product owner decided we wouldn't include it in the demonstration, but that's life.

Shared notes, timesheets, device backups, video and audio streaming, calendar, email, addressbook, various utilities.

I chose to cut out the middle man. I'll only buy mobile devices with SD card slots and headphone sockets. Loading all my music onto an SD card is an order of magnitude quicker than uploading it to the web. And I have all my music everywhere, even when there's no internet connection.

Call me a freeloader if you wish; I'd welcome the moniker. I use Twitter lists and Tweetdeck's filters to enjoy a firehose-free Twitter experience. I follow accounts from around the world representing a broad range of interests and views, and almost none of the problems listed by the originator of this thread.

Therefore I have to conclude that "the issues of Twitter" experienced by most users are intentional.

I also have to say that should Twitter make the mechanisms I rely on unavailable (definitely a possibility given the new CEO's track record), I will have no option but to leave Twitter. I'm not willing to subject myself to sort of user experience described by the originator of this thread.

Work: Dell XPS13 with Linux Mint Home: Dell XPS13 with Linux Mint, and Intel Mac Mini with Monterey

I've built up folios of RSS feeds over more than ten years, and continue to curate them. Every day they throw up a fair percentage of content I'm not interested in, but that's easily ignored, and the good stuff is excellent.

Absolutely. I've had multiple careers, my most recent starting when I was 46. N

In 1990 I was programme director of a radio station and had an ongoing requirement that only software could efficiently deliver. There was no suitable app available and I had neither the budget nor management permission to pay for it to be written. In the end I said "How hard can this be?", took home a (very primitive) laptop with DOS and GB-BASIC on it, and taught myself to code.

With the lessons I learnt from that I bought a c compiler and kept learning. Six years later I left the radio industry to work full time as a developer.

I was a company of one, providing specialised web software powering research funding for multiple clients. I deliberately chose a dead-simple tech stack, and had a backup agreement with a suitably experienced former colleague who could step in if required. I've recently sold the business and now provide the same backup for the new owner.

I still write static sites which are hand-coded in HTML and CSS augmented by a (very little) javascript. They're quick to build and easy to deploy and, for some clients, they're all that's needed.

I've used frameworks for twelve years, and covered most of them across various projects. I particularly like the direction of recent frameworks like Svelte and Vue3.

I've migrated family, friends and neighbours to Linux Mint and had nothing but positive responses. In most cases they had a middle-aged computer that was not eligible for a newer Windows version; in others their existing computer died. Most mainstream Linux distros are not significantly different from Windows for your average user once they know which software is equivalent to what they used to use.

Improvements in architecture, bus speeds and external ports mean there now no need for audio to be handled by an internal card; Thunderbolt or USB is more than adequate. This has moved the focus to "external soundcards", more commonly referred to as audio interfaces.

I've had a good run with Dell XPS13 laptops running Linux. The only negative has been the battery swelling when it reaches the end of its life; you need to watch for this to avoid it damaging other components. Thankfully it's easy enough to replace the battery yourself.

The PinePhone (and the PinePhone Pro) are close to daily driver status, but I'll also make a plug for SailfishOS.

I've been using SailfishOS on my Sony XA2+ for nearly three years and it's brilliant. Using the licensed version, I can also run Android apps as long as they're not dependent on Google services, although I prefer the UX of the native SailfishOS apps.

I left the Android ecosystem in 2014 because I couldn't get OS updates despite the hardware still being better than most newer phones.

I moved to a Blackberry Z30 (best phone I've ever owned); it gave me five good years and is still my backup device despite now being unsupported. The Sony XA2+ I replaced it with in 2019 is running SailfishOS. It's given me three years and I expect at least another three. Meanwhile my partner's Samsung S10, also bought in 2019, is already struggling because there are no Android updates.

It seems to me the key to longevity is the availability of OS updates. Or perhaps I should say; the availability of OS updates that don't cynically downgrade your phone's performance to encourage the purchase of a new one.

The answer is so simple the problem isn't worth spending time on: delete your Amazon account and don't visit the site. Everything you need is available elsewhere.

I've not bought anything on Amazon for more than ten years.