I dunno if TV is dead per se as we all enjoy watching shows/movies. Not really interested in gimmicks - we only have 4K as all new TV's are 4K & we only got it because our previous TV failed & they can no longer be repaired.

All i want is a good quality dumb screen. You can stick all your smart features where the sun dont shine, I'll handle everything via a separate box that I control thank you. I'll not be at the mercy of your shitty EULA, you won't monitor my viewing habits or force ads into the UI or remove your dogshit apps without warning. Our TV has never been online, HTPC with a couple of USB TV tuners, uBlock Origin, an interface of my choosing, remote control & lots of storage handles everything. Still perfectly happy watching SD stuff, the only 4K we watch is YouTube.

Some years ago before online banking, buying a fairly sought after but relatively uncommon type of used hot hatch car. Back then there was a strong chance potential car buyers would have cash for the transaction. Magazine ad made out it was from a dealership/garage. Something about the phone calls got my spider sense tingling, especially when they claimed the car was elsewhere so I'd have to meet them off site. I'd already traveled so thought what the hell, I'll look but definitely not buying from this chump outfit.

I'm a big muscular fella, just over 6 feet tall & around 19 stone of solid muscle so fairly intimidating looking & was standing leaning against my own car waiting for them to turn up. All of a sudden I hear the roar of the car, strangely with with a bunch of undesirables in it hanging out the windows. They slowed right down checking me out, thought better of it coz the driver floored the accelerator & disappeared. No doubt in my mind they were planning someone was gonna get mugged for a few grand that day. No doubt they'd done it before.

• OsmAnd. Navigated me through numerous countries on holiday. Found us places to eat. So useful it persuaded me to start updating the map locally to help any fellow travelers

• Joplin notes. Use this every day without fail

• Nextcloud. Self hosted cloud that Ive come to rely on

• Google/Apple/Samsung pay. They've had enough data over the years without knowing my banking habits.
• Alexa/smart speakers. Always listening device in the house? No thanks
• Smart doorbell. I don't want to send data directly to whoever Amazon wants to share it with yet I can't avoid being recorded whilst walking the dogs round the neighbourhood
• AI. Nervous about where this is heading

They hype 4k/8k recording capabilities but the average buyer is unlikely to realise exactly how fast this eats storage.

I had to buy a new phone when my last one broke. Needed S Pen & external SD so I opted for a used Note 20 Ultra in conjunction with the same SD card ive used since I first bought a smart phone.

I self host my own Nextcloud but cloud isnt the answer. Even in this day & age in a big city or driving, streaming is not available all the time. I insist that everything important is available offline: maps, notes, all media be it music, podcasts, audio books ...even movies/TV shows seeing as these phones can easily be connected to a TV for use with Kodi or similar. Another thing is recording footage of holidays etc for editing. It all takes up space.

I'm of the opinion the external SD was only removed for profiteering reasons.

I cant sleep without listening to podcasts & i charge the phone at night so this is one of the reasons why i was reluctant to upgrade my old phone.

When I inevitably had to upgrade I bought a USB C headphone/charging dongle for about €15. All good, I'd been worrying about nothing ...Until it broke within a few months so I had to go without podcasts for a few nights whilst I waited for the replacements to arrive (might as well be prepared & buy a spare right?). Guess what? The first replacement lasted a only few months again. So far, a lack of headphone jack has cost me an extra €45 inside of about 6 months. Absolutely ridiculous

1. I don't want to scramble round in the dark looking for a Bluetooth "bud" when it inevitably falls out in the night
2. I don't want to have to charge yet more stuff
3. I don't want full on Bluetooth headphones, I have Sony MDR7506 when I want quality audio & a set of small in ear Sennheiser for nighttime podcasts

The point is, the dongle is simply not a good solution

Has anyone said Minecraft? I haven't played games myself for years (well before Minecraft) but live in a house where it was played for hours at a time. Soundtrack never became annoying & whenever I hear it it instantly takes me back in time.

Like others have said I too gave up on Play Store a long time ago. If I need an app it comes from Github, XDA, F-Droid etc. Obtainium for updates

Not smearing myself in jam. When I smear myself in jam I find them pesky wasps come buzzin

My other half has new Ultra, I have an older Ultra model. Stuff i find invaluable that she hasn't used once:

• S Pen
• Modes & Routines
• Secure folder
• DeX (to a lesser degree than the above)

I try to use my phone as a Swiss army knife. Stuff I rely on that most normal users likely dont realise their phone can do:

• Using Kodi the phone becomes fully fledged mobile media player. Great for vacations in case of poor weather (in conjunction with HDMI lead, controller/wireless keyboard)
• OsmAnd navigation has an offline Wikipedia plugin. I set up a shortcut in it so i can display/hide all wiki entries nearby. Brilliant when on vacation
• All my main apps will work offline in case of data outage: navigation, notes, password manager, books, music, podcasts, media etc etc
• Password manager has more uses than simply handling passwords
• Playing video sites in the background ...with a timer if desired
• Browser with uBlock "etc"
• Manipulation of .pdf files
• A good launcher. Mine is always set up the same regardless of device - I can access any app within 2 swipes & 2 taps
• A good car dock
• Most don't realise that a simple DNS entry can help reduce the amount of ads they see
• All manner of nerdy tech shit to interact with stuff on my network. No normal human needs to know that this usage factor exists

And most importantly ...using the camera in landscape so images/video can be viewed properly on a TV or monitor. And not using digital zoom in the dark to record an entire concert from row Q

Everyone knows the popular ones so here's a shout out to a few that are perhaps not so commonly known:

• whoBIRD - Shazam for birds
• Subz - Subscription manager
• zCard - Loyalty/membership/store card wallet

My most used can no longer live without app:

• Joplin - Note taking. Various sync options. Brilliant app, helpful community & very regular updates (especially desktop)

I never had any issues before with cheap HDMI leads over a short distance, so just to throw something else into the mix for consideration - 4k & cable length. My scenario was getting 4K picture on TV from HTPC (home theatre PC, a PC based media player) via a Dolby Atmos compatible amp. Cable length approx 10m.

Standard HDMI cables tend to be labelled as "HDMI 2.0/a/b compatible for 4k at 60Hz". I bought several of these cables & had same issues with all of them - they would not display image on TV (though mysteriously they displayed an image if a games console was used rather than the HTPC). They sell them in all kinds of lengths but in my experience they dont work beyond about 5m.

Close to giving in, I bought a 10m "active" HDMI optical lead which is directional - one end is labelled source & the other end labelled display.

First one I bought worked perfectly.

I used Reddit for mindless nonsense but mostly for finding answers in niche topics. As good as Lemmy seems so far it will take a long time for the user count to be suffient enough to fill the information void. I'll bet our time spent here will increase as user volumes increase

I really like it. Tech comminities & some others are very bouyant & interesting but niche communities really struggle. Even direct replacements of big subreddits struggle. Hopefully this improves.

One tip from my own experience. I use Voyager & blocked a load of US politics keywords.

And another, I subscribed to as many interesting Lemmy communities as i could then browse Home feed in the main & occasionally All to see if any other interesting communities crop up that could be worth joining.

Welcome & enjoy.

I got sick of corporations forcing restrictions so looked into alternatives. Learned how to do it myself & haven't looked back:

Joplin notes - use this every day synced to multiple devices Nextcloud - self hosted on a Raspberry Pi 4. Cloud storage plus syncs multiple stuff including Joplin

So many brilliant options on mobile: OsmAnd+ (nav), Antennapod (podcasts), Keepass (password manager), Obtainium (app updater). Was also enjoying Fritter/Quacker (Twitter without needing an account) until Elons recent meltdown. Also enjoying Liftoff lemmy app for Android

EDIT: hot off the press. For those interested, Quacker is back in the game. Not had chance to check Fritter yet

An old version of Nova from before the big data collection switch. Use it because it has a scrollable dock. I have all apps inside folders in the dock, the folders are sorted by category. I can scroll between app categories & get to any app within 2 or 3 touches.

I really want a launcher which has a scrollable dock with a user defined news feed such as NeoFeed.

Smart Launcher has user defined categories which negates the scrollable dock requirement, but the news feed is Microsoft which is as bad as Google in my eyes.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to know them

Good job I don't use any Googles apps. High proportion of my apps are from the likes of Github

Wouldn't trust any of them. Who knows where that data will end up. Especially when they suffer an inevitable breach

My Philips shaver does not work whilst charging. What's that all about?

Luckily the battery is good but it gives very little warning when its about to run out. I dont grow facial hair very quickly or very thickly but several times I've had to leave the house partially shaved. Doesn't make any sense. That's the whole point of electricity, to use stuff whilst plugged in!

I personally would be very wary of eBay as even with a paid check before buying, the seller could potentially take your money then claim on their insurance. The phone then becomes blacklisted (sim no longer works, only works abroad or on wifi). If you confront the seller they could just say a previous owner must have reported it stolen.

CeX used electronics store guarantees against this & also gives a 2 year warranty

Open sourced password manager + open source 2fa wherever available. For password managers many will suggest Bitwarden & i recommend that to my family for its ease of use, though I personally use Keepass (because it allows me to store multiple documents & have them readily available offline. Its not as straightforward to set up sync compared to Bitwarden, which does it by default).

I would never allow a browser to store any information such as passwords, credit card info etc

On mobile I use password in conjunction with biometrics. Sensitive apps are only ever stored inside secure folder which has no biometric access & has a different password to main area of phone.

I absolutely refuse to use google/apple/samsung pay.

Please consider password manager, once you wrap your head around not knowing any of your passwords except the strong master password it becomes second nature. Get out of the pen & paper habit!

Top tip. For any new signup, once you've generated a strong password make a note within the password manager of the email address you used to sign up with (yep, get used to using multiple email accounts). When that site inevitability suffers a data breach it makes life easier when they send the change of password verification email

Its an additional repository (source) for apps. You can add extra repositories in F-Droid settings.

...or rather than waiting for apps to become available on F-Droid, download from Github etc & use Obtainium to let you know when app updates become available

Came here since the Reddit 3rd party app fiasco. Initially I blocked a load of non English language communities which at the time seemed to fill the All feed. Kept adding to my subscribed communities list then in my app (Voyager after Liftoff stopped being developed) blocked a load of keywords, essentially Trump/US politics related.

Now my Home (subscriptions) feed has some great content. I check out All from time to time to see if I can subscribe to more communities.

Niche communities are still lacking but hopefully that improves over time.

Maybe im in the minority as Ive never had an account on any social media. I have no interest in following anyone & I can't stand so called influencers, I buy products on merit not because some numpty tells me to buy it. I don't class Reddit as social media as I only used it for obtaining/giving information in niche forums.

I'm hoping Lemmy/Kbin will prove just as valuable a resource over time, hopefully I can chime in here & there to help someone occasionally

Another vote for Nextcloud which I self host but paid plans are available. I use Libre Office on PC. Docs synced to Nextcloud can then be viewed/edited on Android using Collabora

Lemmethinkaboutit

mobile Chromium doesn't have ublock anyway...

Kiwi browser on Android is Chromium based & has had the ability to add extensions such as uBlock for years

My bank literally forces me to use their godforsaken shitty app but wherever possible I use web over app especially for corporations (eBay, Amazon, YouTube, catch up TV etc). Like you & others said, reduces exposure to data harvesting

Great machines, I use an NUC8i7 as our HTPC. Supports 4K 60fps. Got it hooked up to a Denon amp for Dolby Atmos. At some point i hope I'll find time to look into Home Assistant, I'd use another NUC for running that.

Good so far. Though I miss seeing videos in the feed

Windows, free, not well known/talked about?

Hands down qttabbar. Adds tabbed browsing to Explorer. Absolutely no idea why this isnt built into Windows, I've used it for some years & hate using a Window machine without it.

More well known:

• Joplin. Markdown note taking app. Also has a portable version (I use this over the .exe version). Can be set up to sync with your other (multi OS) devices
• ShareX. Screenshot clipper. Has a learning curve but the initial pain is worth it. Greenshot is a good portable alternative
• TeraCopy. File transfer tool. Much faster & far more reliable than Explorer copy/paste
• Everything. File search utility. Use this once & you'll absolutely hate having to endure using the built in Explorer search. Also has a portable version

No because I haven't used the app for years so I'm not signed in. I use browser with uBlock "etc" on both mobile & laptop/desktop.

Any feeds that I watch regularly plus interesting videos I stumble on or recommended in places like !videos@lemmy.world i put directly into a notes app which syncs to all my devices. All grouped by length so its easy to find something depending on how little spare time I have to kill. Its a slight extra step compared to clicking "watch later" in the YouTube app but ive done it for so long now its become second nature

Yeah I just use a HDD. On the whole its pretty stable though through tinkering Ive managed to crash my setup a few times. Sometimes restarting the Nextcloud Docker container is enough (Portainer makes it simple), when i really break it i start from scratch. I use a simple script to automaticacally back up all my data to another drive weekly

For images, on Android you could use Imagepipe.

Once you've set it up, simply "share" the image to Imagepipe, it does its thing then automatically passes it on to whatever app you want - for example a messaging app for you to send on to others (it stores a copy of the image minus its metadata in an Imagepipe folder in your gallery for ease of access should you need it again).

For video, from memory I think mp3tag for Windows/Mac can remove metadata from some video formats

!asklemmy@lemmy.world is very active, though more question driven

MiXplorer. If you don't already use it theres a bit of a learning curve but I just ran a quick test & it found a file 6 directories deep in /android/data/... with no problems at all

Just a few of my daydreams whilst getting kicked by The Man:

• Video editing in TV industry
• Owning a cycle/Segway hire place at some beautiful tourist spot
• Buying, improving & selling property

I check in occasionally to see if my 3rd party is still working (strangely it is). Checked a few of the subs I use & some are still dark. A poster on Worldnews this morning was complaining about the lack of posts in the Ukraine thread, though sadly thats likely a combination of 4th July in the US plus the current Elon clownshow on Twitter rather than due to the blackouts

I only witness it whenever any of my work colleagues anyone with a phone wants to show me a video. Always have to sit through ads before & during the video. Absolutely horrific. Mind you they also have to close multiple pop up ads in every app they ever use on their phone. I couldn't live with it & not learn how to deal with it