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.

…

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.

…

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.

…

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.

…

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.

…

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.

…

Why I jumped from Pop_OS to Zorin OS 16

Jan. 12, 2022

For the past few years I’ve been using Pop_OS on my primary desktop and I’ve been really happy. It has been solid as a rock, every update is smooth, and it seems to have more polish than other distros. However, in the last few weeks I’ve switched from Pop to Zorin OS 16 due to breakage of my workflows from updates. There is nothing wrong with Pop and it is still a great desktop OS. But it is not for me.

…

My favorite tech finds of 2021

Jan. 2, 2022

This year was one of the best years for tech finds for me in a long time. I discovered so many new projects that my bookmarks are overflowing with things to test. I love reading lists of the hardware, software, and apps people use. The one’s they use everyday and where the spend most of their time is always intriguing. Because I found so many amazing projects this year I figured I would share what I’ve been using and what I’m looking forward to working on in 2022.

…

Full walkthrough: Installing LineageOS on the Walmart onn. UHD streaming box

Dec. 4, 2021

My OTT streaming interface of choice is Android TV. But, I have been constantly frustrated with the amount of bloatware that comes on my TV and the official Google TV dongle/device. Ideally I would have an open-source based OS that isn’t built to spy on my living room. At the very least I can remove bloatware and whatever my TV manufacturer is running in the background. This is why I was excited to learn that a group of people have figured out how to get a TV version of LineageOS on Amlogic G12*/SM1 family devices which includes the Chromecast with Google TV and the Walmart onn UHD streaming device.

…