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I've had ios apple phones all my post-2010 life and am thinking about buying my first android phone, what are some things to know before switching?
  • I've had an Android since probably 2012. It has been nice to see the OS become so mature, and security has been getting increasing attention over the last few years. I don't know iPhone as well, so I will speak more on my experience with Android.

    Brand Families: Many excellent brands exist, but I will really only consider what I think of as the top two - Google and Samsung. I've had the Pixel 3, 5, 7 and my girlfriend has had the 4a and 8. The experience on a Google branded phone is, in my opinion, the best way to experience Android. The Samsung phones definitely keep up with the Pixel line, but the UI feels chaotic to me. Pixel Android is clean.

    Work App Experience: My job is in IT for a government contractor, and my email is configured in a Microsoft Intune container. This feature simply does not work in non-stock OS's, so I wouldn't count on being able to use Graphene. Play store is required, as the Play Store sets up the secure container. This may sound like a downside, but to me it's preferable over relying on Microsoft for this. The secure container works excellent and allows me to shut off all of my work apps with one click. If I was ever fired, my job could wipe the container without wiping my personal data. This is a huge benefit to me. Earlier this year we had an employee stealing data and when we issues the remote wipe command to their iPhone it wiped EVERYTHING.

    Play Store: It's very ad heavy. I typically know what I am looking for before I venture into the Play store.

    **De-Googling: ** I use Firefox Mobile with uBlock (yes it works on mobile) and am working my way towards Proton services (drive, email, password manager, VPN, etc).

    Overall Experience: I own several Android gaming handhelds, an Android audio player, and my Pixel 7. I will probably stick with Android for the foreseeable future. Android is flexible, mature, fast, and secure. My cameras are excellent and really only fall apart when zooming. Newer Pixel phones improve this experience.

  • What are your hobbies?
  • I am a filthy hobby hopper and I spend most of my disposable income on these.

    • Tinkering with retro game handhelds and sometimes playing them
    • Tinkering with bikes and sometimes riding them
    • Tinkering with DIY watches and sometimes using them to tell time
    • Also bird photography
  • Ditching Spotify and YT Music
  • Plex is excellent, and even if you prefer the features or interface of Jellyfin, you should never expose any application (Plex, Jellyfin, or otherwise) directly to the Internet. This should be non-negotiable. Plex solves for external access with the mobile/desktop apps and app.plex.tv by brokering client connections into your network without a NAT/PAT on your router or firewall.

    For a music library, even a small one, tracks should have proper metadata applied to them and be stored in directories. Plex provides guidance on this here: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265296-adding-music-media-from-folders/

    My own strategy: I deviate slightly from Plex's file and directory naming strategy, but it works perfectly. I start with high quality music, mostly from Bandcamp and process it through Musicbrainz Picard into ALBUMARTIST\YYYY - ALBUMNAME\01 - TRACKNAME.FLAC. Picard sets the metadata and ensures that there is an album cover image also.

    Before moving the organized files to my Plex server, I run them through MP3Tag and overwrite any mismatched artist names with the album artist (getting rid of artist fields with 'feat xxxx artist's). This is important for when I sync files in Media Monkey to my iPod, since the iPod would break apart albums with multiple artists. My preference is to keep them grouped together.

    Hope this helps good luck 👍. Let me know if you want to know a decent strategy on movie backups also.

  • Syncthing Android app discontinued
  • I used it on an Android DAP to sync my music collection from my NAS after giving up on Folder sync due to its issues with new file detection breaking after a daylight savings time change. Synching was definitely more reliable but it takes ages to do the scan.

  • Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 sucks up to 180 Mb/s of internet bandwidth while in flight — equivalent to 81GB of data per hour
  • DOCSIS 3.1 is pretty awesome. I heard 4.0 is in testing. Fiber (FttH) is similar to coax in that many subscribers are attached to one head end device. Subscriber throughput is determined by the number of subscribers and the speeds they ordered on the shared resource. Although fiber is leading in total capacity per OLT/PON, it's not like coax can't achieve excellence subscriber speeds by just deploying more head end devices with fewer subscribers on each.

  • Insurance 'nightmare' unfolds for Florida homeowners after back-to-back hurricanes
  • If everyone in the US paid to rebuild Florida over and over that's not insurance that's practically a subsidy. Do you think it's fair for someone in Illinois who has no benefit of Florida beach front views pay the price to fix a snowbirds vacation home over and over?

    Florida is different because the risk is perpetually high and living there is a choice. It's fine for people to choose that risk, but I would expect sky high coverage.

  • Insurance 'nightmare' unfolds for Florida homeowners after back-to-back hurricanes
  • My insurance company has determined that my house would cost about $450k to completely rebuild in the event of a total loss. Thankfully in the Northeast the risk of my house being destroyed is low, so they charge me $1,100 annually. Even with a few houses in my area being destroyed by fire, flood, or extreme weather, they still make enough to build up their reserves, pay their employees, and kick back some to the investors.

    How much would that company need to charge in Florida so they could still pay to fix the houses and pay everybody that works for them? Definitely not $1,100/yr because replacing just a single broken window costs $1,100.

    Now think about if the Federal government began covering Florida. They would have the same issue as private insurers - there is no amount they can charge that will not deplete their funds faster than they take in premiums.

  • Insurance 'nightmare' unfolds for Florida homeowners after back-to-back hurricanes
  • I agree with nationalized healthcare insurance, but I don't know if I agree with using taxes to fund an underwriting account for houses in Florida that are guaranteed to get destroyed year after year.

    Hurricanes are not getting smaller. Continuing to rebuild in Florida seems like building in the shadow of a smoking volcano.

  • Russian Su-34 supersonic fighter-bomber shot down by F-16: reports
  • Those planes are workhorses, they would hardly need a dozen. We could probably put two of them on loan for a weekend and the Ukrainians would have the majority of the trenches converted into graves.

  • The Case for Kamala Harris
  • There is only one sane choice. People who abstain are choosing insanity the same way that those who abstained in 2016 allowed insanity to prevail.

    Having said that, I think voters would be pretty excited to get out and support a candidate that they had actually chosen in the primaries after seeing them go through some campaigning and debates. None of us chose Kamala, and Biden's late dropout was not ideal. I am hoping that America can have this opportunity back in the next election.

  • Nintendo Targets YouTube Accounts Showing Emulated Games
  • I'm going to stand by what Retro Game Corps stated that they don't want to advocate for piracy. Lawful backup of your own games is protected. The aggression against Russ and others is uncalled for.

  • Nintendo Targets YouTube Accounts Showing Emulated Games
  • I've been gradually building up my Switch digital and physical library and stuff like this makes me want to just switch back to Steam and spend my dollar elsewhere.

    The strikes are absolutely frivolous and Russ sets a great anti piracy example for others. Backups of your own content are protected.

  • Shigeru Miyamoto comments on AI, says "Nintendo would rather go in a different direction"
  • Over the years I've gotten rid of every console except for my Nintendo consoles. Sure their hardware is not cutting edge but I don't really care because I always enjoy myself when I play my Nintendo consoles.

    If you want the 202[3/4/5] version of COD at 4k 60fps then an Xbox is probably more suited to you. Nintendo just isn't going after that segment. The variety is a good thing.

  • Horizontal Lines on Lab Scans

    I've been shooting for years and sometimes my lab scans come back with horizontal lines in them. It's somewhat rare that I see them, but I was sad that it happened on this roll as I liked a lot of the shots. I asked one of the employees, and he was not certain. I think it might be something in the scanner or density adjustment, but can't say for sure.

    The details:

    • ProImage 100
    • Nikon F100
    • AF-S 85mm 1.8 G
    • Noritsu scanner
    • Processed in a rotary machine, as their mini lab is down for the moment.

    I put a curve on this shot to emphasize the lines, but they were somewhat apparent. These lines look somewhat bowed, but other times they are straighter.

    3
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)MS
    MSids @lemmy.world
    Posts 1
    Comments 84