Happy to be part of the top 1% in this case.

No, I setup a MacOS VM on my home Linux server using docker-osx which runs a bluebubbles server. It doesn’t use Matrix.

This is cool but I’m happy self hosting bluebubbles.

If I’m home, I use just one towel and keep using it for like a week or two. If I’m in a hotel, they usually have so many towels so I’ll use the whole variety and fresh ones each day. It’s nice, but too lazy to constantly be washing towels when I’m home lol.

I didn’t like Voyager initially, mostly because it felt weird having iOS style on my Android device. The Android theme didn’t seem that different too me either. But I’m actually using it now and think it works great and don’t even mind the iOS styling anymore either!

I installed nameless on my 8t. It works well but Google Pay breaks occasionally with a “Device doesn’t meet security requirements”. On both instances, was able to fix with using a play integrity module but kinda annoying knowing it may not always be reliable.

Might regret it but I just ordered an S23 after trying it out at BestBuy. I saw that Samsung had a Black Friday deal for $200 off with trade-in of an old device. I have an old Galaxy S7 just sitting in a drawer and was amazed to see it on the list of accepted devices.

I’ve really been wanting a smaller phone as my OnePlus 8T gets really uncomfortable to hold after a while. Love everything about it except the size.

I also looked at the Pixel 8 but the S23 felt like the better choice with less compromises. Pixel 8 Pro is even bigger than my 8t, so no-go there.

Really wish the S23 was rootable (in US at least). That’s prob the biggest drawback for me. Will see if I can live without that.

Yes, you should support open source when possible if the project(s) you use are beneficial to you! Your dollars are far more valuable to help out a small team of independent volunteers vs multi-billion dollar corporations that really don’t need it.

If you can’t donate money, donate your time / skills or do both! Make the world of software a better place, one small contribution at a time!

Used to hate it being on the bottom but now prefer it as it’s easier to reach. All the way at the top with as large as phones are these days isn’t as convenient. But ya, at least they give the option for either.

I had a flip phone up until 2012 and then got an iPhone 5, then switched to Android in 2016 with the Samsung Galaxy S7. I really liked my iPhone 5 but have stuck with Android since then.

I got my first taste of Android in 2008 though when my brother bought the T-Mobile G1!

Might as well make it a burst of 9 presses, wait, and then 2 single presses /s

Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box

The original Sims + expansion packs. I haven’t played any of the newer ones but I spent a lot of childhood playing the original with my mom and we had so much fun together.

Livin’ Large was my fave expansion pack because of the servo. Such a fun game!

For the technically skilled, there is BlueBubbles to get iMessage on Android. I set this up recently and it works quite well. I’m running a MacOS Ventura virtual machine using docker-osx on one of my personal servers and pretty much all iMessage functionality is available. I modified the Android (flutter) project locally to get my own push notifications working using my self-hosted ntfy instance as a UnifiedPush provider instead of needing to use Firebase.

There is also Beeper which bridges iMessage and many other chat services in one app, but I wanted something fully open source that I can manage myself, plus I think there’s still a wait-list and I didn’t want to hand over my Apple ID to a third party.

It’s hard trying to convince people (esp. iPhone users) to use a cross platform solution because they perceive us Android users as the problem and they know iMesssge just works. And for the non- technical, that’s understandable even if frustrating. So as a software engineer, I am the one making accomodations so they can still use iMessage. But it also made for a fun project for me to learn about.

Ya Plex vs Kodi is really more an apples and oranges comparison. Should be Plex vs Jellyfin.

That said though, I did start off with Kodi as my own media center on a Raspberry Pi, but eventually discovered Jellyfin and have really enjoyed it. Kodi is great too, but I think Jellyfin is the more refined modern streaming equivalent akin to Netflix that’s fully open source unlike Plex.

Butter. Kerrygold is simply the best.

I used to use Brave, then used Bromite but that got abandoned. I think there’s another fork of it, but ultimately I just use Firefox which has worked better for me overall.

Browsers are a big attack vector for exploits and security is very important. Firefox releases patches regularly and I don’t have to worry about it being abandoned like some others. I disabled whatever telemetry / sponsored stuff they have enabled by default and feel it’s a good balance of security & privacy + doesn’t have the DRM crap chromium is trying to add.

Their extension support is nice too.

Glad it has an actual display as compared to all those previous imposters /s.

PiHole with the Star Trek web UI theme. I think it looks pretty nice and has worked well for me.

It’s a good feeling knowing that my basic non-internet connected car can’t receive an OTA update to make me start paying a subscription to use something I already have just because the company decided they want more money.