This was an interesting watch and brings home the fact that you should just consider what you are needing your screen for. TVs are certainly also getting better, but there is more to it than just HDMI ports, contrast ratios, and response times.

We've long been using our standard (and now pretty old) TV with HDMI ports as our media screen in the lounge, connected to a Linux computer. It works perfectly for that purpose. But we're not playing high-end games on it.

But even for many gamers, MAYBE a TV could work fine. Given the price differences, it may be worth it. As it is, many say that the ultra-high refresh rates (or FPS) we are seeing on the latest monitors are just not good bang for the buck at all. It is unlikely the human eye is even perceiving much difference beyond 144Hz (I did a post about that in June 2023).

It is certainly something worth considering at least.

See https://youtu.be/rdg8tKNZt1s

#technology #monitors

Don't try memorising all of these, but rather quickly skim the headings in the linked article to give you an idea of what CAN be done with the Find command. You'll realise, too, that using the command line sometimes, offers way greater power, as well as speed.

Find does not only find a file name matching a pattern, but can also be useful to find all files modified in the last 60 minutes, that have executable permissions, that belong to the root user, that are empty files, that were accessed in the last hour, that are larger than a specified size, and lots more.

The find command is an advanced tool for searching files or directories rigorously in your file system, taking a little longer time than its alternative tools like the locate command. It’s due to its nature of searching a specified file by walking through each file for a match in your system, instead of creating a database where all the file paths are indexed.

See https://linuxtldr.com/find-command/

#technology #Linux #Find #opensource

They claim an 8-38% improvement over vanilla Chrome. It is not a completely de-Googled browser, but their focus has been on improving performance as well as a number of patches to restrict what is passed back to Google and generally improve security and privacy.

I know Firefox (and Tor and derivatives) do achieve the latter, but they mostly do not achieve the fastest performance, and sometimes websites don't work well for them (not Firefox's fault, but the website devs who are not designing to be compatible with open web standards).

They have also created a number of their own Chrome extensions, which seem quite unique.

See https://thorium.rocks/

#technology #browsers #opensource

Grammarly is by and far the most popular grammar checker you can use. Not only does it look for grammatical errors, but it checks your spelling and aims to improve readability too. It can cut down on wordiness, passive voice, and repetitious use of words. It can also make suggestions to better align your writing with your audience and overall intent. Grammarly has also added AI features that can help generate text, rewrite passages, and more.

I use a grammar checker which probably corrects every single sentence I type. One should just bear in mind though that a grammar (or spell) checker needs access to every page you visit/type in order to make any suggestions or corrections.

But what I found most intriguing in this linked article, is that LanguageTool was not listed. It supports around 30 languages and installs in just about everything you can think of. Its free tier has a limit of 20,000 characters per text field, and sentence rephrasing by AI is limited to 3 per day, but it is otherwise an excellent free tool to use. It is German based, so under GDPR and funded by the EU, but their privacy policy on their site actually refers to the use of the website. Their core product though is open-source, so you can host it yourself in a Docker container.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/best-grammarly-alternatives/

#technology #grammar #languagecheck

This is at least apparent for what I'm observing in my country on the Southern tip of Africa. The reason seems to be that VarAC provides most of the functions that JS8Call already provides, and then provides a lot of usability improvements as well as transmitting images, documents, faster speed, VMails, etc.

I've been getting up to speed with it the last two days, and am really enjoying using it. I've documenting what it is about, how it compares with JS8Call, and some tips I've been learning, at the web page I've linked to in this post.

See https://gadgeteer.co.za/hamradio/varac-p2p-digital-mode-chatting-application/

#technology #hamradio #amateurradio #VarAC

At first, this might seem like a minor annoyance: You purchase a 1 or 2 terabyte drive at a bargain price, and you receive a 64 GB drive instead. But that's NOT what happens here!

The drive appears to be the 1 or 2 terabyte drive you purchased. You plug it into your computer and everything looks fine. You can even copy files to the drive; as many as you want. And when you look at the drive's contents, the files are there. But what's insidious is that the files' contents may have never been stored.

These fraudulent drives contain just enough storage – typically 64GB – to convincingly hold the file system's directory listing. But once its first 64GB of storage space has been filled, the contents of any additional files will not actually be stored. Their names, dates and sizes will be stored in the directory at the front of the drive. Everything will appear to be fine. But the files' contents will be blank because they were “stored” where no storage exists.

Operating systems do not verify that the data they write was actually written. They rely upon the honesty of storage devices to report errors. If a write error occurs, then the operating system will rewrite the data elsewhere. But these deliberately fraudulent drives never report any problems – they just silently discard any data written where there's no storage.

It is a freeware, and very small footprint (written in Assembler), portable utility, so no installation required, but unfortunately does only run on Windows OS.

I was listening to feedback by Steve on his Security Now podcast (episode 943), and the scary part is he has already tested 12 USB sticks he bought off Amazon, and EVERY one of them was found to be fraudulent. Many show 4-star reviews full of praise for the devices, but you'll see some reviews mention the drives "stopped" working after a few months. It is easy to fake what capacity is reported to Windows, and that is why a proper test needed to involve writing and reading back every region of the drive. ValiDrive performs a quick, random-sequence spot-check across the drive's entire declared storage space. At every location, it verifies the successful storage and retrieval of random (unspoofable) test data.

He goes on to also explain why some drives can be very slow during the test, due to needing to step up the voltage from 5V to 20V for the write operations. This is apparently why SSD's can be so much faster than a USB drive.

So if you buy any USB drive online (or even from a retailer) you may want to run this test first and check you got what you paid for.

See https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm

#technology #USB #fakeUSB #Amazon

To enable connectivity with regular phones, Starlink will fit some of its satellites with advanced eNodeB modems that act like a cellphone tower in space.

Starlink said this would allow for network integration similar to a standard roaming partner.

For South Africa, with its strict Black Economic Empowerment requirements, it has so far meant no Starlink access unless there is a local BEE ownership. But this new service may "fly" as it would be an upstream service rendered through the local cellular providers (not directly to end consumers), much like any roaming cellular partner.

Because this would work with any cellphone, it will be even more important for under serviced areas, and those travelling in more remote rural areas.

The plan is to launch texting services in 2024, followed by voice and data connectivity in 2025.

Very interesting too, to see IoT support planned from 2025.

See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/511228-starlink-launching-cellphone-towers-in-space.html

#technology #Starlink #SouthAfrica

Firefox’s Review Checker is now preparing to give users the tools to weed out unreliable reviews. Screenshots posted by MSPowerUser show how the tool is accessible via a price tag icon in the browser’s URL bar, which brings up a sidebar with details on the current open product page. The tool assigns the product’s reviews a grade based on how reliable it believes them to be, offers an “adjusted rating” out of five stars with “unreliable reviews removed,” and pulls out some highlights of the existing reviews.

Fakespot already offers its review checking services via its website, extensions for browsers like Chrome and Safari, and iOS and Android apps.

It is being tested in the USA currently, but unfortunately, Fakespot only works with some of the major US shopping sites. Currently, those sites are: Amazon, BestBuy, Flipkart, Home Depot, Sephora, Steam, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Walmart. It would be really useful if this could also work on AliExpress and many other international eCommerce sites.

It's worth noting that such extensions require access to the content of visited pages to work, so where you have this installed as an extension, you can use an extension like Extensity to quickly deactivate/activate it when needed.

See https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/11/23912457/firefox-review-checker-fakespot-feature-test-experiment

#technology #fakereviews

The linked article really focusses on physically printing photos and sticking them in an album. But I've actually found printed Photo Books to work very well. They do achieve the same purpose of sitting around a table and being able to enjoy looking at the memories together, and they both last 100+ years. I've been able to add the text captions, stickers, etc quite well to Photo Books, and they look great with their hard covers which also include selected photos.

Digital photos are very easy to share, and to forget, as the constant stream on Instagram or Facebook moves relentlessly onwards. People die, and hard drives crash: It's easier than you think to lose thousands of photos in a flash. We're not even sure if the JPG format will be readable in 100 or 200 years time.

A photo book is a great birthday or anniversary gift, as memories are probably more precious than a pair of socks or another T-shirt. By doing a book, you are also forced to select the very best memories to be printed.

And it's not just about family or friends, organisations should also be producing similar printed Photo Books. When I left my company I was working for, I had 10+ years of photos and videos. Hopefully, many of those are still on one of the servers, but a collection of printed Photo Books by the year, would have been really worth something to have on a bookshelf or even in the reception area.

I've been slack myself, but I'm going to now commit to doing at least just one such Photo Book annually from now on.

See https://www.wired.com/story/photo-album-rave/

#technology #photos #memories