Why not the black ones?

Power over ethernet + ethernet over wifi

== Wireless power transmission!

The IT Crowd is boosted by having a quote that’s genuinely a best first-response to IT problems.

Ooh, I’ve thought of one: a helium balloon. Imagine the tension as he occasionally forgets to hold the string!

Can I just suggest that to mix things up a bit, this one should be set on a peninsula.

I’ve seen a collection plate with a tap-to-pay terminal so that would make it more difficult.

Syncthing seems to be a good way to get real-time two-way sync so far, but I’ve had a few accidents while setting it up, overwriting latest changes. Probably my fault, but I’m glad that I have backups to other machines.

I tried owncloud years ago and I didn’t want something that heavyweight for file syncing. And I think it stores a copy of all it’s days in a database too. I just want to sync files in-place only. I haven’t tried that or nextcloud in a long time.

I’ve always preferred it to similar programs, it’s a really good balance of easy to use viewer and those basic editing features that you mention. Really good for printing, too, you can specify size and/or position on a page.

My current plan is to use SyncThing on the phones and on a linux PC. I’ve set up Obsidian to use a directory locally on the phone (Open Folder As Vault) and use SyncThing to sync that with the PC. As this is only a recent test, I’m still using resilio to sync that dir to other PCs such as my laptop. I just added to a note on my phone and it appeared in Obsidian on my laptop a few seconds later, despite two different syncs being involved.

I’d commented about bugs such as the sync percentage being stuck at 91%, but on reading up on it more, that’s due to a mis-match of ignored files (the ignore patters were the same, but it was still indicating that the files did not match between the two devices).

So my thoughts still stand that SyncThing has a lot of things to set up manually (e.g. it doesn’t automaticall sync between all peers) and the mobile app is strange for having two different UIs, but it looks like as I understand it better I’m happier to keep using it.

If I find that the Resilio phone app is better on battery life, I might switch back to that because I use resilio everywhere else and it’s simpler to set up (and I like that it archives old versions of files for a while).

I’m not familiar with Folder Sync.

I prefer resilio because it seems more straightforward to set up. Add a shared folder to it, then it can provide a code to sync that folder to other machines. Then all the peers can sync files from any of the other peers. (I actually use to paid version, so that adding a new folder becomes available to sync everywhere).

I’ve recently tried SyncThing and first I accidentally created separate sync folders with the same name on different devices. I also didn’t realize that I had to set up which peers to sync with on each device, so some files did not sync to one phone because it only synced with a laptop that was offline. Also, the mobile app is limited until you use the “open web view” option that views a web page allowing more features to be edited (e.g. I could not change a folder to be bi-directional syncing on a phone and kept having it overwrite files with old ones until I found that setting).

However, last time I tried the resilio phone app (admittedly a few years ago), it worked by pollng for changes which drained the battery. Synching has not done that, it probably uses change notifications. So, despite the more confusing setup, I’ve started using syncthing for syncing to phones. Once I’ve become more familiar with it, maybe I’ll be happier to use it more.

But so far, in my limited experience syncthing is a little buggy - I’ve just checked my phone now and it’s just stuck on “syncing 91%” for the one small folder that I’m using. And the mobile app having two different interfaces is a strange choice.

This sort of problem, btw, is why I mentioned installing winmerge! It’s a great tool for sorting out merge conflicts in files.

Thank you! That had6 given me much more to be outraged about!

Veracrypt so that I can keep personal files safe from being read from the hard-drive (eg if it’s stolen and removed).

Winmerge for comparing files.

Obsidian for organizing notes (and emacs, but you probably don’t want that unless you already use it!)

Resilio sync so that I can mirror files to other PCs to be backed up.

Irfanview for image viewing.

Plus stuff that others have mentioned.

Nutrition information based on unrealistic serving sizes.

I’ve seen an individually wrapped muffin “servings per pack: 2”.

Then there’s that Tom Scott video on how “zero calory” sweetener can be 4 calories.

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/twins.png

That reminds me of the joke where a factory has a big machine break down. They call in a specialist to fix it.

The specialist looks at the machine for a moment, hits it with a small hammer and it starts working instantly.

But on being told that the repair cost is $500, the factory owner is outraged and asks how that can possibly be justified for less than a minute’s work.

“Well, it’s $5 for use of the hammer, $495 for knowing exactly where to hit the machine.”

Lots of ideas on Microsoft’s site:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/linux/install

FR, FR.

You can use it as a webcam if you suddenly need to work from home and there’s a shortage of webcams.

Originally I had to install an app for that, but it shows up as a standard USB option on my Pixel now.

So we would have come full circle. That actually has a retro appeal to it that it could catch on!

https://youtu.be/8EWDRHC2dzg

It’s not a simple story of just taking away the phone.

I discovered she’d circumvented the screen limits and had been using social media into the wee hours of the morning.

And later, after she did take the phone away, she found her daughter had kept all old phone that was supposedly sold.

It does seem to be a pretty extreme case, but there was lots going on here.