Gmail Hooked Us on Free Storage. Now Google Is Making Us Pay

November 29, 2019

I’m not saying Google was/is running a long con with Gmail. However, if they were, it’s pretty smart to train users not to delete, but to archive, so that they’re slowly using up “free” storage space. Then, years later, completely dependent upon a product and out of “free” storage space, you can begin to charge them. And while the charge might be nominal at first, it’s easy to see how a company might eventually increase the price, knowing how many people depend upon a service.

Please. Buy a domain and use it for your email. Even if it just ties back to a “free” service. This will let you eventually leave the “free” ecosystem without upending your life.

But, also, maybe check-out a paid service, like Fastmail, so at least your costs are predictable.

Gmail Hooked Us on Free Storage. Now Google Is Making Us Pay | Bloomberg

A little less automation, a little more friction, please

November 26, 2019

“But perhaps we shouldn’t expect Big Tech to provide the solution, because for many companies efficiency is the business model. So we shouldn’t expect them to introduce more friction, as they will lose revenue.”

Reading about the techniques used by technology companies to keep us captive engaged, I’m reminded of casinos, where there are no windows or clocks to remind you it’s time to go home.

So as a reminder to myself, and anyone who needs to hear it, it’s time to go home!

A little less automation, a little more friction, please | The Correspondent

Firefox at 15: its rise, fall, and privacy-first renaissance

November 21, 2019

Firefox has gotten much better; especially in terms of memory usage. I switched to it at work on Windows and haven’t looked back. But the reason I was open to revisiting Firefox was a desire to want to escape Chrome. And I spent my first few hours with Firefox making it behave like Chrome, which wasn’t hard at all.

So yeah. Try Firefox because it’s not Chrome but stay with it because it’s good.

Firefox at 15: its rise, fall, and privacy-first renaissance | Fast Company

Back to windows after twenty years

November 19, 2019

This is a post from David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, about switching to Windows from Apple, mostly because of not loving the new MacBook keyboards.

He reports that Windows didn’t work for him either and it made me wonder where Linux fit into his math. Over in the comments, Hansson says he’s open to trying it.

Based on his issues with Apple and Windows, I suspect Linux will be a great fit.

Back to windows after twenty years | Signal v. Noise

Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours

November 14, 2019

This is a very thoughtful essay about how so much of our technology is access and not ownership. It’s sort of a mainframe model, where we’re using terminals to connect, but there’s nothing local for us.

Of course, I say us, but I try to own my technology. I’m not an ebook person. I use Netflix, but I buy DVDs of things I love. And while my CD collection is constantly shrinking, I at least buy MP3s (rather than streaming). So there are choices to be made in terms of what we actually own.

Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours | alexdanco.com

The Linux Setup – Akash Angle, Blogger

November 13, 2019

Akash reached out to me through the contact form, and I’m very grateful! Akash is a distro-hopper, which I respect. I very rarely change distros now. I wouldn’t mind if Ubuntu went to a ten-year long-term support cycle. Things run so well now, I never feel the need to change, where a while back, sometimes it felt easier to start over with a new distribution. I hope I haven’t jinxed myself!

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow me on Mastodon here and follow me on Twitter here.

  1. Who are you, and what do you do?

    I’m an avid Linux user who ditched Windows for some unknown reason, trying to make my life fully compatible with free and open source software. I’m a distro-hopper, a hardware enthusiast, blogger, and, in my leisure time, a console gamer. I was introduced to Linux back in mid-2008 by a school friend. I’m a senior support networking specialist currently working on the outskirts of Navi Mumbai, India.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I’ve been primarily using Linux on the desktop for 11 years, starting the day I was introduced to a shiny new desktop in those old, golden days. I started with Gentoo Linux; it immediately stole my heart and I fell in love with it almost instantly. I started using Linux as my primary machine. I also tried Ubuntu 9.04 on my aging hardware. I had no clue about using the terminal, and just stuck to the graphical interface, but I kept Gentoo as a secondary boot option under GRUB.

    I would classify myself as a Linux pragmatist, rather than a Linux idealist. I use Linux because the workflow and speed better suit my needs. I still believe that *nix is simple and it takes a genius to understand its simplicity. I love the flexibility that the operating system provides. The community, openness, and lack of malware is a bonus, plus all the bells and whistles that a distribution can throw at you, for free of course. 🙂

  3. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

    Fedora 31 is on my desktop and Peppermint 10 on my laptop. However there are a few other operating systems which I keep in my arsenal for my testing as I prefer installing them and dual or multi-booting them, rather than taking them for a VM spin. Parrot, Mint, Lubuntu, Bodhi, and Q4OS (based on Debian Stable) do come to the party, as I’m a distro-hopping freak!

  4. What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?

    Initially I was a GNOME 2 fanatic, because of its simplicity and snappiness. But I’m now happy and settled with GNOME 3, as there is vast amount of community support, big names in the game are funding it, and it seems to be rock solid, with performance-enhancements and tweaks rolling over into every release.

  5. What one piece of Linux software do you depend upon? Why is it so important?

    I cannot live without a GUI-based text editor and IDE. I’m not much of a command-line user in terms of getting my day-to-day work done. So gedit, Geany IDE and Sublime Text are favorites. Apart from these, I use Shutter and GIMP for graphics, and mostly the default GNOME screen capture tool for daily chores. Also, I use the terminal for system maintenance, and casually use the htop tool, as well as its GUI counterpart.

  6. What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?

    I use a Lenovo B490 laptop at work. It is equipped with an Intel Core i3-3310 processor, and a 240GB Kingston SSD. This laptop is great for day-to-day work, like surfing the Internet, blogging, and a little bit of photo editing and video editing too. Although not a professional laptop, and the specs not being that high end, it does the job perfectly.

    I use a Logitech basic wireless mouse and would like to eventually get a mechanical keyboard. My custom-built desktop has the latest 7th-generation Intel i5 7400 processor, and 8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM. It’s not overkill but allows the daily chores to be easily done. I have been using this machine for a few years now.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Sure, here is one from Ubuntu 19.10, which I’m logged into right now, using the default terminal app, as seen in GNOME.

Interview conducted November 7, 2019

The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.

You can follow me on Mastodon here, follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to the feed here.

Going from macOS to Ubuntu

November 7, 2019

This is a solid article about switching to Linux, but I love the quote Kev mentions, from Michael Hermann, about using Linux:

macOS is like a hotel. Everything is polished, designed and cared for. But it’s also sterile and you can’t bring your own furniture or cook your own food. On Ubuntu / Linux, you need to do the dishes and take out the trash yourself. But it’s yours. No one forces their agenda on you. It simply feels like home.

Going from macOS to Ubuntu | kvz.io

How to support open-source software and stay sane

November 5, 2019

It’s a familiar problem: open-source software is widely acknowledged as crucially important in science, yet it is funded non-sustainably. Support work is often handled ad hoc by overworked graduate students and postdocs, and can lead to burnout.

This is a great article, found via Scott Nesbitt’s fantastic Monday Kickoff newsletter.

Open-source work is work. People depend upon it, yet it’s not in many institutions’ budgets. I work in a large public university system and I’m fairly certain there’s no way for us to contribute money to an unaffiliated open source project.

The article gets into all of this and it’s worth a read because a lot of people are suffering while this challenge isn’t being solved.

How to support open-source software and stay sane | Nature