Media player with apps like media monkey

Just be aware that Media Monkey has issues. It regularly swaps my track numbers for the play count, and has consistently lowered the volume of my tracks.

I used the volume leveling function, and found out that it was decreasing the volume of all the tracks it had access to. Luckily the originals on the computer were unaffected

I do this by running a MagicMirror server on my media server, and Fully Kiosk browser on the phone / tablet. It’s pretty handy in the kitchen, as we’re all in there in the morning :)

It’s a nice little party trick too. When iphones could first detect heart rates, some of my friends were talking about it, so I said that I could slow my heart rate down. None of them believed me, so I got them to measure it. Once it was done I asked them if they wanted it to be faster or slower. They still didn’t believe me, so I did both.

It’s one of those silly little things that isn’t really useful, but can shut your friends up for a bit :p

I know what you mean, there was something that changed. I can’t remember exactly what happened either though. I just know that I can uninstall a lot of the apps that I couldn’t before :)

I had something similar when I first set up the phone, but I disabled it along with most of the other junk. Apart from immediately after an update, I haven’t seen it again. Even then it was easy to disable.

I had an automatically installed games folder after the update too, and that was a bit trickier to remove, but it was just a case of finding it in the settings. I’m stuck with Facebook because of a music festival I’m involved with, but long pressing it and dragging it to the top of the homescreen gives me the option uninstall it. I don’t know if it’s an actual uninstall or just disabling it, but it looks legit

I’ve just switched to a Motorola from a Xiaomi, and I’m in the UK. The Xiaomi wouldn’t let me uninstall quite a few apps. The Motorola is giving me the option at least

I use Firefox with Ublock Origin on Android, and if I watch youtube in the browser, it filters pretty much all ads. Sometimes I get one at the start of a video, but closing the tab and starting again has got rid of them so far 👍

Nice!

Just remember to check the price. I’ve seen Cex selling things for above retail if they’re popular

Define donate or give away.

I’ve mentioned before that I help run a small music festival, and that it’s to help my local area. Raising money for that is a lot of work and takes a lot of energy. Pumping some money in would massively help the festival, which would help me. Would that count as donating, or would it be selfish because it helps me?

On a similar note, my area is quite poor. If I set up a factory with offices and other facilities that employed the low and unskilled workers at decent living wages, and included child care and employee training and education, would it still count as giving the money away if I made a profit, even if a small one?

I would be a bit selfish though, I’d build a house and some outbuildings on a large plot of land and soundproof everything completely. I function better at night, but still want to fix up my motorbike and do some woodworking, and I don’t want to wake the neighbours.

I’m not sure how long they take off the top of my head, but I think it’s quite quick. A lot of the apps only update once a month though, so it can feel like longer

To add to this, Street Complete and Every Door are great for getting started. They ask straightforward questions like what’s the house number of this building, or does this bus stop have seating. If you can’t answer a question you don’t have to, you can just go back and answer a different question instead :)

I volunteer at a small music festival. We’re trying to help keep the village alive at a time when more and more facilities are closing. I run the website and social media, and take photos over the weekend.

Taking the photos is probably the most fun, as you get to be part of the festival and watch everyone enjoy the event you set up, as well as watching some of the acts. It’s exhausting though, as you don’t stop for the better part of three days.

This year I had a lot to do with booking the acts and liaising with the acts and the venues. That was really interesting, but it nearly killed me. I’ve got a chronic illness that tires me out, but I thought this would be ok as it’s mostly emailing and messaging. I had no idea how many random things have to be organised and rearranged in the run up, or how much can go wrong on the day!

I’m sticking to photos next year!

Well, until you get that one that’s randomly hotter than the sun and turns your eyes and nose into gushing torrents, while you try not to cough it out in front of everyone else.

Always when you least expect it

I have got a mental picture of a Linux super nerd trying to browse through a text only browser on their oven’s display now though 😁

What? Nobody’s using their browser on an appliance (except for a handful of masochists with Samsung fridges). I said to most people their browser is on an appliance, as in they treat computers, phones, and laptops like appliances, in that they’re mysterious boxes that do a particular job.

Hardly anyone is trying to hack their appliances, and the majority of people just lump their computing devices into the same category - it does what it was designed for and nothing else

Don’t forget that most people don’t know that blocking ads is possible. To most people, their browser is on an appliance, like a washing machine or fridge. They know how to do the basics, but that’s about it.

I usually listen to punk and rock, but today I’m having a boiler replaced, and the gas engineer introduced me to Gold Radio, a UK based station. They’ve been playing classics from the 50s to the 80s, so I’ve heard loads of old songs that I haven’t heard for years.

Right now one of my favourites is playing though, Mister Blue Sky by ELO. Possibly one of the best songs of all time :D

Depending on the project, absolutely yes. I’ve got a load of maintenance projects that need doing on my house that I’ve been putting off because there’s a huge time investment, or they need to be done in nice weather. I wouldn’t be learning anything that would be particularly useful to me in the future, so getting them done instantly would be a massive help.

As an example, my garden is very overgrown and needs a few days of dry weather to complete. It’s mostly going to be cutting everything back with strimmers and hedge trimmers and then clearing the cuttings away. I already know how to do it, but even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be difficult to learn so that I can keep on top of it going forward.

It depends on what you’re doing. I’ve got Mint on my laptop and main PC, and the experience is different on both. On the laptop I tend to play Minecraft and do some basic tasks like taking notes and browsing the web. There’s nothing in Mint that really affects that, so it doesn’t hold me back at all.

On the PC though, I’ve got all of my important software, and some of it has had to be installed manually because the Mint repos are outdated. It’s nothing that’s particularly difficult to fix, but I know my way around computers. For your average user, it would be too much.