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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • A close friend sells a product on eBay. A product most households have & my friend collects when it’s no longer wanted which is cleaned, sorted & resold. Has now left 9-5 job to run it as a business.

    This friend is exceptional at exploiting niches & will likely become amongst leading sellers of this type (is well on the way already having done it before with a particular collectible). Interestingly, reading through the suggestions here, previously collected & sold scrap before pivoting.

    I’m very proud of them!



  • My other half has new Ultra, I have an older Ultra model. Stuff i find invaluable that she hasn’t used once:

    • S Pen
    • Modes & Routines
    • Secure folder
    • DeX (to a lesser degree than the above)

    I try to use my phone as a Swiss army knife. Stuff I rely on that most normal users likely dont realise their phone can do:

    • Using Kodi the phone becomes fully fledged mobile media player. Great for vacations in case of poor weather (in conjunction with HDMI lead, controller/wireless keyboard)
    • OsmAnd navigation has an offline Wikipedia plugin. I set up a shortcut in it so i can display/hide all wiki entries nearby. Brilliant when on vacation
    • All my main apps will work offline in case of data outage: navigation, notes, password manager, books, music, podcasts, media etc etc
    • Password manager has more uses than simply handling passwords
    • Playing video sites in the background …with a timer if desired
    • Browser with uBlock “etc”
    • Manipulation of .pdf files
    • A good launcher. Mine is always set up the same regardless of device - I can access any app within 2 swipes & 2 taps
    • A good car dock
    • Most don’t realise that a simple DNS entry can help reduce the amount of ads they see
    • All manner of nerdy tech shit to interact with stuff on my network. No normal human needs to know that this usage factor exists

    And most importantly …using the camera in landscape so images/video can be viewed properly on a TV or monitor. And not using digital zoom in the dark to record an entire concert from row Q





  • I never had any issues before with cheap HDMI leads over a short distance, so just to throw something else into the mix for consideration - 4k & cable length. My scenario was getting 4K picture on TV from HTPC (home theatre PC, a PC based media player) via a Dolby Atmos compatible amp. Cable length approx 10m.

    Standard HDMI cables tend to be labelled as “HDMI 2.0/a/b compatible for 4k at 60Hz”. I bought several of these cables & had same issues with all of them - they would not display image on TV (though mysteriously they displayed an image if a games console was used rather than the HTPC). They sell them in all kinds of lengths but in my experience they dont work beyond about 5m.

    Close to giving in, I bought a 10m “active” HDMI optical lead which is directional - one end is labelled source & the other end labelled display.

    First one I bought worked perfectly.




  • The days before everything became enshittiffied, before 6 or 7 giant corps took over, the days before social media became a cesspit of slanging matches & false lifestyles, the days when search engines worked & displayed what you searched for not what they think you want to see, the days before shitty algorithms clogged your feeds up endlessly with shit that you searched for once during a conversation you had with someone at work, the days where news sites showed news headlines not bullshit clickbait lies, the days before evil corps tracked every move you make, the days before you were forced to have a shitty app for everything.

    The days when going online was fun & interesting. I hope Lemmy continues to bring back some of that fun!



  • Windows, free, not well known/talked about?

    Hands down qttabbar. Adds tabbed browsing to Explorer. Absolutely no idea why this isnt built into Windows, I’ve used it for some years & hate using a Window machine without it.

    More well known:

    • Joplin. Markdown note taking app. Also has a portable version (I use this over the .exe version). Can be set up to sync with your other (multi OS) devices
    • ShareX. Screenshot clipper. Has a learning curve but the initial pain is worth it. Greenshot is a good portable alternative
    • TeraCopy. File transfer tool. Much faster & far more reliable than Explorer copy/paste
    • Everything. File search utility. Use this once & you’ll absolutely hate having to endure using the built in Explorer search. Also has a portable version