Redesigns and chasing new users always screws over existing users.

At $700 and no firmware updates, is this device worth the money and the wait?

Its officially summer and that means our sprinkler and irrigation business is going gangbusters. We have been working our butts off and have had our biggest month in sales, ever.

In fact, we’ve been so busy that I officially ended all my marketing freelance contracts so I can exclusively work in the sprinkler business. I just couldn’t give any time to freelancing, although it has been nice to have a little secondary income.

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Building a portable server for extened power outages to serve media, news, and more on a LAN.

Suddenly need a budget Android phone? Start here.

Update: Dec. 13, 2022

I originally wrote this guide at the beginning of the pandemic, when many people I knew were losing their jobs and their company provided cell phone. With all signals pointing to a recession in 2023, I have updated this post with a few more notes and a phone I recommend.

With the ongoing and upcoming economic catastrophe, this is causing individuals and companies to make hard financial decisions. One of which are mobile phones and associated carrier plans. People might be looking to cut their monthly expenses and looking for new carriers to reduce their monthly bill. Others might need to get an entire new phone, after handing in their previous flagship device back to their employer.

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Archiving Podcasts & Serving Them in Local RSS Feeds | Internet-in-a-Box Project

Nov. 17, 2022

This project is to setup the automatic downloading of podcasts onto my internet-in-a-box homelab box and then serve each podcast in their own custom, LAN-only RSS feed.

Motivation

The reason why I want this setup is to have a fully functioning internet-in-a-box server for if I ever go offgrid or lose access to the public internet. My internet-in-a-box project is to build a server that will replicate many services I use to make it feel like I am still connected. There are many reasons why I may lose connection to the public internet, but in no way am I truly a doomsday prepper. Although there is some motiviation there just in case SHTF, most of my prepping is for a personal financial catastrophe. Like, if I lose my job and we have to make serious cuts to our budget.

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My new favorite messaing app: Delta Chat

June 29, 2022
I am always on the search for a safe, secure messaging app that also has an easy on-ramp for my family and friends. Recently I was introduced to Delta Chat and I have been truly enjoying the experience. What makes Delta Chat unique is it doesn’t have a central system or even registration. Rather, it uses the Push-IMAP protocol to send messages via email. Instead of creating yet another account with a messaging system, you simply login with your email provider credentials (or OAUTH) and can start chatting. You don’t even need other people to use the app, they can receive and reply to messages in their email.

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Building the ultimate Android gaming console with a Nexus 5x & Razer Kishi

May 6, 2022

I have been completely enamoured with the seriously amazing Android-based handheld retro gaming consoles. The idea of using Android as the base for a mobile retro gaming console inspired me to build my own using an old phone and an extendable mobile gamepad. This guide is a complete rundown on the OS, Android tweaks, emulators, and more to get just about any Android device in shape for a full retro gaming console.

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A (mostly) free Android phone

May 5, 2022

This is how I’ve been testing a completely free phone, plus numerous blockers and ways to force looking at various websites in a free way.

F-Droid

This is an obvious place for all the apps. But, I have found others that are in their own repositories.

I’ve used Aurora Droid in the past, which makes adding other repos easy. But its very slow and buggy, which is saying a lot compared to the stock F-Droid app. So, I’ve just been adding the repos directly to F-Droid.

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Todoist CLI on the Pinebook Pro with Docker

Feb. 4, 2022

I have switched back to Todoist after an extended period with Nextcloud Tasks. There’s nothing wrong with Nextcloud Tasks and worked perfectly over the last year. However, I am now working as a marketing freelancer and separately a partner in a landscaping business. I wasn’t able to work with Nextcloud Tasks both personally and as a project management tracker and I didn’t want to use two different productivity services. It just makes way more sense for all my work and personal tasks to be one place. I tested several self-hosted solutions and none of them matched my workflows. So, back to Todoist, which I reluctantly left to begin with.

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