Thanks to Whiskey, You Will Be Gaming on Your Mac More Than Ever Whiskey is a free app that you can download right now, and use to play Windows games on your Mac. It brings together the WINE compatibility layer as well as Apple's own Game Porting Kit, while removing all the nerdy setup and hassle involved with both. So it seems that Whiskey is stronger than WINE! It seems to be a bit like the Bottles app on Linux. In my own case, Steam on Linux is playing most games that I want to play, but if you want to play games that are not on Steam, then I suppose Whiskey and similar apps would be the way to go. See

How-To Geek

Thanks to Whiskey, I’ll Be Gaming on My Mac More Than Ever

Whiskey is better for gaming than WINE.

#technology #gaming #macOS

GRC's DNS Benchmark software is getting a new version after 15 years Seems that v1, which is now 15 years old and nearly 10 million downloads, still gets downloaded over 1,000 times daily. But it has needed a fresh for a while now. IPv6 is here as well as encrypted DoH, DoT, DoQ, etc. There is a roadmap published at the link below outlining what the planned new features look like. There will still be a free version with some new features, but there are also Plus and Pro versions that have a once-off fee, but do include all future updates. Although it was (and still will e) written to work on Windows OS, it will be fully compatible to run under WINE on Linux. So hopefully this will be available sometime later in 2025. See

GRC's | DNS Nameserver Performance Benchmark  

DNS Nameserver Performance Benchmark

#technology #DNS

HamClock provides real time space weather, radio propagation models, and other info useful to radio amateurs This is a highly customisable application that draws in all sorts of technical information that can help radio amateurs. Each pane can be changed to show relevant information. What I really like is the frequency / band projections to any specific DX location. One really has to read the manual, though, to get full use out of the app. For non-hams though, it is still a very interesting app, being able to show time and distance to any location, as well as weather conditions at those locations. The app runs on Linux (your desktop, a Raspberry Pi, etc) and is accessed via your web browser (any OS). If it does not start properly, especially on a desktop, just make sure nothing else has already got that network port in use, e.g. in my case SyncThing was hogging it, and I moved SyncThing to port 8083. You can also start HamClock with a '-w port' to specify what web port it should use. To exit the app, or look at diagnostics, etc, you can long-click for 3 seconds on the padlock symbol to get a pop-up actions menu. See

HamClock EOL

 #technology #hamradio #amateurradio

Here's how you can replace Google Photos with a self-hosted Immich server Immich is really very good - I did a video about myself a few months ago, which shows what you can expect from it and what it looks like to use. As the article mentions, it looks very much like Google Photos (the closest look alike I've seen), and it can even work from a Raspberry Pi on the home network (with an external drive connected). Immich is certainly not some clunky looking out of date app. It is really well-designed and does much of what Google Photos does. Have a quick look at my video if you are in any doubt. See

XDA

Here's how you can replace Google Photos with a self-hosted Immich server

Take full control of your privacy by storing your photos and videos in a self-hosted Immich server

and my video about Immich at #technology #selfhosted #opensource #photos

How to Install Arch Linux: A Beginner’s Practical Guide Installing Arch Linux has always been a little more daunting for newer users. This is partly because it offers a little less wizard guidance, and also partly because you want to be super careful especially around what partitions to use or format, or which not to format. I know this because the first few times I even installed Ubuntu, back in the day, my biggest concern always was which partition is which, and am I going to install over something I don't want to lose. I learnt later on to separate my home folder onto a different partition, and to use GParted or KParted to carefully note down exactly which partition was which, before I started. But of course since I installed Manjaro Linux, I've never had to do another fresh installation again (basically one of the benefits that Arch Linux will give you too). This guide actually shows you how to install Arch Linux in a virtual machine, which is probably an excellent way to try the installation out first, and will give confidence for the live installation later. Remember too, with Arch Linux, you'll probably never be doing this ever again, so some effort and time is really worth it. Linux is not Windows, and I've even ported my existing drives across into a brand-new motherboard, and it has worked fine (remember to map your drives using their UUID's as that makes them pretty portable). So why not Manjaro Linux or one of the other Arch Linux derivatives? They are friendlier and easier to install, they are intended to run on their stable editions. So if you are in the habit of wanting to run some more bleeding edge git versions from the AUR, you may find things break with those packages as they often don't find some dependencies they require. Arch typically runs most of those more bleeding edge packages, so dependencies are not such an issue. Still, even if you install Arch Linux in a VM, it will make a great festive season project to play with! For some (many?) Linux users, becoming a full-time Arch Linux user is the pinnacle they want to reach. You'll tell these users apart from others, as they may express crude disdain for Manjaro Linux and other Arch derivatives in the forums ;-). But even if you use Arch Linux, they may also state you should not be using it as a new user… That said, forums are all getting a lot more friendly and helpful today, and there are also lots of Arch Linux users from all experience levels. This is really not such an issue today as it was maybe 5 plus years ago. I'm just mentioning it as those stereotypes do still crop up, but there are really tons of assistance and posts online about solving all sorts of Arch Linux issues. I know, because I use them to solve any issues I encounter on Manjaro Linux too. See

Linuxiac

How to Install Arch Linux: A Beginner’s Practical Guide

Install Arch Linux without the hassle! This guide simplifies the process with step-by-step instructions, perfect for beginners and enthusiasts alike.

#technology #opensource #linux

You Can Now Search the Internet With ChatGPT ChatGPT search has been out now for about a month and a half, following a Halloween announcement from OpenAI. With this new feature, the company finally rolled out an official competitor to AI search engines like Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews, and Microsoft Bing (powered by Copilot). OpenAI originally announced its search plans back in July, with a service called SearchGPT. While SearchGPT was a prototype and launched with a waitlist to try it, ChatGPT search took its place, with OpenAI rolling SearchGPT's main features into its new search feature. The feature originally launched to paid subscribers only, but now, all users can access it. We all know that AI can hallucinate, so it is good to now have another good AI search tool that can be used for comparative purposes. Also, for those you actively avoided Google's tool, this will offer a more neutral alternative option. See

Lifehacker

You Can Now Search the Internet With ChatGPT

ChatGPT's search feature is now available to all uses. Here's how the company's AI-powered web search works.

and the web address for SearchGPT is https://chatgpt.com #technology #search #AI

Europe’s Starlink competitor is a go 290 IRIS² satellites by 2030 to provide secure connectivity to governmental users as well as private companies and European citizens. IRIS² is an acronym for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite. The bonuses will be that the service should be fully GDPR compliance, and the German Chancellor should not be spied upon again (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spied-merkel-other-top-european-officials-through-danish-2021-05-30/). In September, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said she wanted to see more competition to Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has already launched some 7,000 satellites since 2018. “Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies... every communications market that has competition is strong, we see lower prices and more innovation, and honestly, space should be no exception.” So, yes it is more than just about data sovereignty, it is quite true that more competition usually will also bring better pricing and services. See

The Verge

Europe’s Starlink competitor is go

“Strategic autonomy”

#technology #satellites

Some Tips on How to Check if a Screenshot Has Been Photoshopped Well, maybe they should not have given away how to easily fake a screenshot yourself, but still some useful tips to keep in mind. It helps to know what to zoom in on to look at. I did not know about the Forensically app, which is a web based app that can analyse any image in depth and create heatmaps of stuff that’s been edited in. See

How-To Geek

How to Check if a Screenshot Has Been Photoshopped

Tell tale signs, and some image forensics.

#technology #scams #forensics

Star Flash is a universal remote control standard because we have too many proprietary remote controls Too often you have a TV or device where the remote has been lost or broken and there is no easy replacement, or you end up having 5 or 6 different remote controls on the sitting room table. Why, when we have been standardising on USB chargers for many years now? This is not about having a universal remote control like Harmony used to make (see it is an old problem), but rather having a standard work across the devices that need to be controlled by a single universal remote control. The standard requires remote controls to allow voice control, and to use one of three means of wireless comms: Bluetooth, infra-red, and Star Flash. This standard reportedly detects which device a user wants to control, makes the connection, and eases the chore of directing a stream from a set-top box to a display. Device-makers have been told that televisions and set-top boxes must support the standard, and they've quickly complied: local media report that Chinese consumer electronics outfit Konka has already delivered the first Smart TV capable of handling the universal remote. Sometimes a simple idea can make a massive difference to consumers, and this one has been needed a long time ago already. See

China’s homebrew Bluetooth alternative is on the march

'Star Flash' is said to include 5G tech and leave rival wireless protocols struggling in the crack of a sofa

#technology #openstandards #remotecontrol

Seafile is an enterprise-ready free and open source alternative to DropBox or NextCloud for file syncing and sharing Seafile provides very fast file syncing. Tens of thousands of small files can be synced in a minute. It does what it does very well, without including an entire kitchen sync of extras. Seafile's built-in collaborative document, SeaDoc, make it easy for collaborative writing and publishing documents. Seafile keeps versions for files and snapshots for folders. Users can restore a file or folder to an old version easily. Snapshot for folders is a handy way to protect files against ransomware. Using de-duplication technology, file versions are kept in an efficient way with reduced storage occupation. Seafile supports online editing and co-authoring for office files (including docx/pptx/xlsx) with integrating with Microsoft Office Online Server, OnlyOffice, or Collabora Online server. Seafile also has a built-in preview for videos, audios, PDFs, images and text files. Seafile supports client-side end-to-end encryption to protect your data, which is a unique feature that you can rarely find in other solutions. Seafile WebDAV interface can be used to integrate Seafile with many mobile apps, like Documents, GoodReader, allowing them to access files. This performance is also partly due to its file system not storing plain text format files. Which is one reason why it is much faster than NextCloud. It is fully cross-platform for Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS clients. On the server side, it will run on Linux or Raspberry Pi. The Community Edition is fully open source. There is also a paid Enterprise addition that has some additional functionality, but the good news is that for up to 3 users the Professional Edition is actually free of charge (requires registration though). See

Seafile - Open Source File Sync and Share Software

Seafile is an open source, self-hosted file sync and share solution with high performance and reliability. Sync, access, and collaborate on files o...

#technology #opensource #selfhosting #filesync

Does your phone yet have a Silicon-Carbon Battery? The biggest change lies in the anode—the part of the battery that stores and releases electrons during charging. Traditional lithium-ion batteries use graphite here, but silicon-carbon batteries replace it with a silicon-infused anode. Why? Because silicon can store up to 10 times more energy than graphite. The result is a battery with higher energy density, meaning more power packed into the same space. But silicon isn’t perfect. It expands and contracts as the battery charges and discharges, which can cause wear and tear over time. By combining it with carbon, manufacturers have stabilized the material, making it both durable and energy-dense. In short, these batteries last longer, charge faster, and take up less space. These batteries can recharge fully in minutes, not hours. For users, that means a quick 15- or 20-minute top-up gives you enough juice to power through your day. Phones like the Realme GT7 Pro, iQOO 13, OnePlus 13, OPPO Find X8 series, Vivo X200 series, and Xiaomi 15 series already have these batteries inside them. Yes, Samsung and Apple are lagging here... See

How-To Geek

Smartphone Batteries Just Leveled Up—And You Didn’t Even Notice

Say goodbye to battery anxiety.

#technology #batteries

Your brain can grow from reading and learning - e-books offer the same benefit as paper books The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42 percent in 2015) and almost one in four young people aged 16 to 24 say they’ve never been readers, according to research by The Reading Agency. Two regions in the left hemisphere of the brain, which are crucial for language, are different in people who are good at reading and are likely to be shaped by the habit. Clearly, brain structure can tell us a lot about reading skills. Importantly, though, the brain is malleable—it changes when we learn a new skill or practice an already acquired one. Reading is likely to shape the structure of the left Heschl’s gyrus and temporal pole. So, if you want to keep your Heschl’s thick and thriving, pick up a good book and start reading. Reading is the same whether you read an e-book or a paper book. The big difference is e-books are generally a lot more accessible, are cheaper, take up less space, and usually have some form of dictionary for quick word lookups. There is really no excuse not to read: Books are freely available in libraries, many classics are in the public domain, and there are very diverse topics to cover ever possible interest type. Time though is typically the excuse most give, but this is also not very true, if you consider carefully what a 24-hour day looks like. I set aside 30 mins, when going to bed at night, to read. It also has the added bonus of relaxing the mind and readying it for sleep. See

WIRED

Good at Reading? Your Brain May Be Structured Differently

Two regions in the left hemisphere of the brain, which are crucial for language, are different in people who are good at reading and are likely to ...

#technology #ebooks #reading #health

5 self-hosted apps that could improve your life Useful self-hosted solutions can make great weekend projects (just saying). This collection covers: * Recipe management * Gamifying productivity and habit management * Expenditure management * Workout manager * Password manager Often these solutions will run even on a Raspberry Pi connected to your network at home. They are open source, too, so there is no cost to installing or running them. See

XDA

5 self-hosted apps you need to be using that will improve your life

Make your life easier by hosting these cool apps on your home lab

#technology #selfhosting #opensource

6 reasons why OnlyOffice is a great Microsoft Office alternative OnlyOffice is a suite that is available as a paid enterprise version for broad deployments, but also works completely for free on desktop and mobile operating systems. It is fully cross-platform including Linux. While it's not exactly the same, the OnlyOffice UI is very close to what Microsoft offers with its own Office suite. There's a ribbon-style UI and all the tabs are very similar, with the same options generally being available in each tab and presented in a very similar way, too. Another great thing about OnlyOffice is that it includes some PDF tools that you can use for free, too. Essentially, this allows you to create easily fillable PDF forms, which you can send to people when you need to collect some kind of information from them. There is also online collaboration and an OnlyOffice account is available for free with 2GB of cloud storage. What I do like about the cross-platform support is that you can use and be familiar with one tool across all your operating systems. Another plus is, apart from full Microsoft DOCX compatibility and some other formats as well, it also supports the open standards ODF format. It is free to use for non-enterprise users, but is not open source. See

XDA

6 reasons why OnlyOffice is a great Microsoft Office alternative

Microsoft Office is expensive, so why not try this free alternative?

#technology #alternativesto #officesuite #crossplatform

Why a Chest Strap Is the Best Way to Track Your Heart Rate During Exercise I knew that a chest strap was going to be more accurate than any watch based tracker, but I was not aware that a Coospo H808S chest strap heart rate monitor (quite a bit cheaper than the Polar H10 chest strap I'm using) can also connect to various third-party fitness apps like Polar, Wahoo, Endomondo, UA Run, Garmin, Peloton and more (seemingly via its own CoospoRide app). This chest strap does basically what the H10 does, and is also waterproof, and has Wireless HRM Dual Mode Connection like the H10. I'm very happy with the Polar H10, but I'm due to replace the strap soon, and they are not exactly cheap (in South Africa anyway). For me, it looks the Polar strap will need replacing every 14 or 15 months. See

Lifehacker

Why a Chest Strap Is the Best Way to Track Your Heart Rate During Exercise

The optical heart rate sensor on your watch isn't perfectly accurate. Chest straps do the job better, and you can even use one without a watch.

#technology #health #hheartrate

EFF Launches Digital Rights Bytes to Answer Tech Questions that Bug Us All Yes, politicians and Big Corporates do twist narratives to suite their own agendas. EFF is aiming to try to give more objective and honest answers to technology questions, especially those which affect users' privacy and security. EFF is the leading nonprofit defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology Development. Its mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice and innovation for all people of the world. An interesting twist is that you can submit your own questions and answers too (without providing your name, e-mail address, or a completed reCaptcha). See

Electronic Frontier Foundation

EFF Launches Digital Rights Bytes to Answer Tech Questions that Bug Us All

SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation today launched “Digital Rights Bytes,” a new website with short videos offering quick, easil...

#technology #privacy #security #EEFF

PeerTube, the Open-Source YouTube in the Fediverse, Now Has Official Mobile Apps PeerTube is an open-source and decentralized video network, with videos hosted across thousands of interconnected servers, from large YouTube-like public servers to smaller ones set up by individual creators. You can browse and watch videos from over a thousand different servers—the app calls them "platforms" in some places—and you don't need an account with any of them to use the mobile app. You can also favourite videos, subscribe to channels, follow your favourite creators (regardless of the server they're hosted on), create custom playlists, and add videos to a watch list. Created in 2017 by a single developer, PeerTube is now maintained by the French non-profit Framasoft. PeerTube uses the same ActivityPub protocol as Mastodon, Meta's Threads, PixelFed, and other services, meaning you have a bunch of servers to play videos from. I can imagine that funding for a video based platform is going to be a bigger challenge than for text based posts. I also post my own videos to a Peertube server. See

How-To Geek

PeerTube, the Open-Source YouTube, Now Has Mobile Apps

Watch videos without becoming a product.

#technology #opensource #video #PPeertube

Location data firm helps US police find out when suspects visited their doctor A location-tracking company that sells its services to police departments is apparently using addresses and coordinates of doctors' and lawyers' offices and other types of locations to help cops compile lists of places visited by suspects, according to a 404 Media report published today. Fog Data Science, which says it "harness[es] the power of data to safeguard national security and provide law enforcement with actionable intelligence," has a "Project Intake Form" that asks police for locations where potential suspects and their mobile devices might be found. Who needs a surveillance state when the data can just be purchased by the government? This all comes down to the power of aggregating lots of metadata. If one takes just a single app like WhatsApp where the T&C's allow for a full range of metadata to be collected by the app and passed upstream to Meta, who leaks data to 3rd parties, it is very easy to see how all this is possible. WhatsApp (just as an example as it is not known whether WhatsApp is the source of this data) knows who you talk to, when you talk to them, where you are exactly, where you live, how often you use your phone, what roads you travel on, where you visit, and lost more. It may not be able to read your E2EE messages, but it knows everything else, and its users have given consent for the data to be passed to 3rd parties. I really have no idea how such information can be allowed to be traded and sold to interested parties. Many countries only allow such data to be collected and provided to law enforcement after a court order is obtained by law enforcement. As TikTok is still Chinese owned, I'm doubting if this data is being provided by TikTok to US data brokers. It is more likely US owned social networks providing this data themselves (purely my guess though). I can see why more and more users are distrusting these companies which provide free services, and then sell their data. The thing is, if law enforcement and governments are buying the data to get around their own legal restrictions, I just don't see this situation really changing. As users, we need to shun the use of such services (which is why I deleted my WhatsApp account when the T&C's changed). It is also worth trying to rather use social networks that fall under the legislation of more privacy-friendly countries. Which also makes me a bit suspicious of why the US wants to maybe force the sale of TikTok to a US company... If that happens, I'll be deleting my TikTok account too. It seems more and more to me that social networks are the ideal way to find out who goes where and who they are communicating with... There is certainly lots of economic value in this, otherwise data brokers would not be doing such a roaring trade. They should just be aware though that they are very likely breaking the privacy laws of many non-US countries (not just the EU) if those citizens data is being sold in the USA. It's time these other countries woke up and took note of what is going on. See

Ars Technica

Location data firm helps police find out when suspects visited their doctor

Leaked form shows how Fog Data helps cops find where suspects have been and when.

#technology #privacy #ttracking

Before Replacing Your Phone Battery Watch This — Scams Abound Bottom line is, you really cannot trust ad hoc online or flea market sellers (and neither Facebook Marketplace sellers). As shown in this video, even 500+ “positive” reviews really mean nothing at all. That online “bargain” may not just cost you a fake battery, but could even damage your device. Watch #technology #batteries #sscams

The Raspberry Pi 500 with an integrated keyboard is the perfect starter mini-PC The Raspberry Pi 500 is a mini-PC that's tucked away within a keyboard, which makes it super portable and easy to plug in wherever you want. It's the next step up from the Pi 400, utilizing the Pi 5's hardware to make an even better companion. I'm thinking that this enclosure should probably also be able to have a SSD drive tucked into it. The new Raspberry Pi Monitor is also interesting as it can be connected, and powered, directly from the keyboard. Now that it also includes a GPU, and can run most OSes as well, this all makes it a very compact and useful computer. It looks like it will even handle two display outputs. The total cost then would probably come to about $220 (with mouse, screen, and power supply), but that really includes everything you need. See

XDA

Raspberry Pi finally releases its own monitor for your SBC projects

Plus, the Raspberry Pi 500 is here to make your mini PC dreams come true.

#technology #rraspberrypi