elseleigh

I've been using https://startpage.com for more than ten years and can't fault it.

I had a SailfishOS phone for four years; an Xperia XA2+. The operating system was wonderful, and being able to run Android apps when there was no alternative was a good way of filling in the gaps in the Jolla store.

However, as I've got older I find large phones more and more unwieldy, and I couldn't find a small enough SailfishOS phone to switch to. I'm now running LineageOS on a Jelly Star. The form factor is perfect for me.

Would I return to SailfishOS? Absolutely. But there'd need to be a small phone in the line up for me to migrate to.

This is a very nice library. At a first reading it seems complete (but did I see summary/detail - I don't remember). Bookmarked for further investigation. Congratulations and thank you.

I've been running Linux Mint exclusively as a daily driver for fourteen years. The software company I started used it for everything from development to marketing to accounts. We had zero issues, and security audits always gave a clean bill of health.

Full disc encryption is now just a checkbox away when installing your distro of choice. Sticking to verified software is best practice.

I have a 2017 Dell XPS13 that's been hammered as a developer laptop and is still going great guns. It's on its third battery, and I've just replaced the screen. I bought a newer one in 2022 and sold it again a couple of months later because, although it had a faster processor and more RAM, it felt flimsier.

I'm also currently upgrading a refurbed Lenovo X270 for my granddaughter who's starting high school, and I am thoroughly impressed. Newer Lenovos are slimmer and slicker, but this thing will still be trucking after the cockroach apocalypse.

Yes, I still use FreePascal for utilities, libraries and console apps. I write these in Lazarus on Linux, and run them on local machines or (for some console apps) on our Intel Synology NAS. It's nice knowing I can easily recompile for other operating systems if I need to.

For some tasks FreePascal is quite clunky, but the lower level the task, the quicker it is to write a solution.

I live in Aotearoa New Zealand and have only one subscription: to the Otago Daily Times https://odt.co.nz. It comes a close second in annual "most trusted media" surveys, after Radio New Zealand https://www.rnz.co.nz/ which I also read daily but is free.

I switched from Google to StartPage twelve years ago and have seen no need to change. I have trialed Kagi, and would move there if Startpage became unreliable. I've not used any LLM as a search engine alternative, and I have no plans to do so.

I will no longer travel to or through the USA. I'm a white New Zealander, nearly seventy, have no criminal convictions, but will not even contemplate putting myself at the mercy of American border officials.

USD10 a month, as long as it's going to maintaining and developing the browser, not for any other purposes.

I don't directly use any Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta or Amazon products and don't have accounts for any of these. I have one (almost always) off-line Mac used solely for music production, and I realise some web services I occasionally use will be hosted on Azure or Amazon or possible use Google services behind the scenes.

All my computers run Linux. I flashed my Android phone with LineageOS as soon as I bought it to remove all direct Google dependencies. My browser of choice is Firefox, I use Open Office and a raft of open source software alternatives including utilities I've written myself.

For news I have RSS feeds which, yes, will sometimes take me to Reddit and YCombinator. But I'm also active on Mastodon and other ActivityPub apps; that sector is growing steadily in both user numbers and software maturity.

Framework laptops are great, and would be my first choice if I were looking for a new work computer. I've previously run Dell XPS13, Lenovo Thinkpad.

There's no shortage of good distro choices. I've run Mint for ten years on my primary device and trialed a host of others on my secondary laptops. I'd be happy long term with Debian, Fedora, perhaps Arch. I could cope with Ubuntu, at least for as long as it took to overwrite it with Mint.

I wrote my own; Lyricist, to integrate rhymes, synonyms and antonyms without having to switch applications or browser tabs. It's a small, not very fancy, web page you can run anywhere, even from your own hard drive. You have to sign up to a third party to use the rhymes, synonyms etc, but it's easy and free.

https://www.else.co.nz/code/creating-lyricist

I've recently retired. I get up between 0630 and 0700 and do fifteen minutes of core strength exercises. I create a new handwritten task list for the day, then have a long, slow breakfast (at least an hour, sometimes ninety minutes) while I read articles in my RSS feed.

When I was working, I got up at 0500 and worked for two hours (I usually set aside a challenging coding task for this slot the day before). Then the core strength exercises, task list and breakfast (although not as leisurely).

I have email going back more than 25 years from various software; in most cases an export dump when I stopped using, say, Pegasus Mail or Eudora. Since I started with Thunderbird I've created a new profile each year, and have profiles going back to 2008.

Earlier this year I imported all this historical data into the Mail Server on our Synology NAS. I don't use this server for current mail, but I can now search these old messages easily from within Thunderbird.

One thing I notice is how much more personal email there was before we started using chat services for group conversations. Nonetheless it's great being able to go back and read correspondence with, say, my dad who died in 2010.

YouTube would die.

Although it generates a large amount of revenue, YouTube's costs are substantially higher. It provides Google with engagement and a prime source of user data, so subsidising it has been an acceptable trade-off for Alphabet. Recent attempts to increase revenue, although partially successful, have shown that the platform is unlikely to pay its own way because universal accessibility is fundamental to YouTube's success; removal of the free level is not a viable option.

I have a CardDAV server on my NAS and sync contacts across all my devices. I've been using this for more than ten years now with all types of phones, tablets and computers, and it's not let me down.

For twenty years I've used early church fathers, one device for each letter of the alphabet. So Ambrose, Basil, Clement, Dionysius. When a device is retired, a new device can take that letter of the alphabet with a different name, so Ambrose is replaced by Augustine, for example.

100%. And I only buy phones with these features.

Tons. A few recent pieces are documented on my site, at else.co.nz/code ... but there are also plenty of utilities as well.

I've written "radio station" music software that used text-to-speech to back and pre -sell music and include news headlines and calendar appointments (that was back when I used Windows).

For work, software to build deployment manifests for the various client instances of my research funding web app, software to update the dev MySQL databases for the same clients, software to export zips of all the current code for each client.

My most commonly used cables are stored on the wall using 3M removable clips (they work like lightly sprung clothes pegs). The remainder are coiled and tied, and stored by type in big, labelled plastic bags. The bags live in a large lidded plastic bin.

Periodically I go through the bin and cull unnecessary duplicates. I've had the same bin now for fifteen years.

Prrivacy is important. I kept using my Blackberry Z30 long after its demise had been signalled. I then moved to SailfishOS on a Sony XA2+, which I ran with until late 2023. Unfortunately as I get older, larger phones become less usable, and the full Sailfish experience isn't available on any truly small phones. So ... after a lot of research and with my fingers and toes crossed, I bought a Jelly Star from UniHertz and flashed it with LineageOS without Google.

It's been a revelation. The phone is superfast and very capable. Any concerns about the three inch screen size were quickly erased, and I have the convenience of a phone that fits in any pocket. Flashing a Google-less OS and using non-Google apps and services has been a good fit with the Linux environments I run everywhere else.

A personal website built with markdown and javascript. A website generator to keep that personal site up to date. A utility to download and parse Electronic Programme Guides to schedule TV shows I want to watch. Scripts to build dynamic email signatures for my multiple email accounts. Many others that I no longer use.

Exactly. And day to day, ruthless prioritisation.

Not coding, but my daughter Aelyth and I are a musical duo. Our first album (https://sidesister.bandcamp.com) took four years to complete thanks to COVID lockdowns and living in different cities.

On Thursday evening we rendezvoused at an equidistant AirBnB to sketch out our second album. It's now Sunday morning, Aelyth's just caught the train home because she's working today, but we have a concept, a title and ten songs for the new album!

There are admittedly another seven song ideas we've not had time to explore, but we've accomplished much more, much more quickly, than either of us thought possible. We've also committed to an overall musical style, plus boundaries on arrangements and instruments with the intention of keeping the production phase as concise as possible.

I cancelled my Google account more than five years ago and no longer use any of their services. Email is via a shared hosting account. I host my own CalDAV and CardDAV servers as well as shared notes and backup services. I run Linux on my computers, LineageOS on my phone. I browse with Firefox and use Open Street Maps. I've never been a YouTube user, preferring reading to watching video.

Sailfish OS is a non-duopoly option. There are community builds for a wide range of devices, and official licenses which support a smaller number of devices but include extras including an Android compatibility subsystem so you can run Android apps which don't have Google dependencies (ie, a majority of them). https://sailfishos.org/

Lineage OS offers a Google-free Android operating system that also runs on a wide range of devices. https://lineageos.org/