Tux in Brussels @tux@mastodon.multimob.be

I find it disturbing that the simple RPN calculator from F-Droid’s main repo triggers a huge pop-up box at first launch.
This is a big disclaimer about the non-warranty implied by the GNU GPL licence. Maybe they fear that someone might sue them because of miscalculations on a small Android app like this. Really?
Imagine if every single piece of software in a GNU/Linux or Android system would start doing this.

Is there a name for this email #scam? Somebody forging your email address to send you a message pretending to have hacked your devices, owning compromising videos or browsing history, and asking for a ransom in bitcoins.
Not the same as "sextorsion", right?

Here is the editor I was mentioning (apparently no longer maintained): https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.paulmach.textedit/

(This is because most text editors have a similar name.)

Looking for a lightweight text viewer in F-Droid with a good search function, to retrieve information quickly in a long list. (User needs to open TXT files, some up to 20,000 lines or 2 Mb.)

Using Text Edit (paulmach.com) but all editors I’ve tested so far have many drawbacks such as:
– slow to open, especially with large files
– they are meant to *edit* files and show the keyboard first
– search function non-existing or awfully slow

Any suggestion anyone?

#Android

Protip for 2019: If you have an algorithm, call it "artificial intelligence". Non-technical people will start buying it, because it sounds so cool!

I wish people would understand that #FLOSS is not always designed to be a free-of-charge replacement for every piece of software they use.

If you drop your car and start riding a motorcycle, you know that you should expect a different look&feel, even if the basic task of getting from A to B is still the same.

Same goes for other piece of software: don’t expect every button or every fancy option to be exactly the same.

I’ve been trying this for a while now: "Yes, I can fix your computer if it’s a _hardware_ problem. If you use free software, I can also fix software-related problems. No exceptions."

It saves time.
So far no friends lost. 😉
I’m curious about long-term effects.

This one has always puzzled me: #GPS is only to locate a device by communicating with satellites.
When people speak like on this sign, they are confused about all other stuff: #maps, routing algorithms, and much more.
#funny

There are dozens of potentially significant social impacts of driverless cars, eg.:
* Will it help build compact cities or increase sprawl?
* Will people walk or cycle less?
* Will the market be segmented between incompatible providers?
* Will it create its own filter bubbles, eg. privileged destinations?
* Privacy concerns
* Will it be full of annoyances such as unskippable commercials (like on planes)?
Surprisingly, people focus on one minor—and highly unlikely—aspect: the "trolley problem".

#TreacherousComputing here: A tablet with Samsung WatchON on autorun, which repeatedly triggers error messages and drains battery. User doesn't use it anyway... but even with the "Force stop" option from Android's Applications settings the app will restart a few hours later. Forever. And Samsung's built-in apps cannot be uninstalled.
Any idea anyone how to stop that? This is #Android 4.2.2 and my user is not tech-savvy and won't let me root her device.

Today (Oct. 11):
1 EUR = 1.15722 USD

If you live in the Eurozone and buy something in dollars with#PayPal, this is how you will be charged:
1 EUR = 1.11340 USD

This is how PayPal makes money, while providing a service that looks like it’s free of charge.

According to a study by Kaspersky, more people would accept being involved in a (minor) car accident than losing their smartphone.
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/stay-tuned-report/

It reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld explaining that the fear of public speaking was stronger than the fear of dying, i.e. at a funeral the average people would prefer to be in the casket than being the one doing the eulogy. 😂

Postfix’s "transport" rules look like an interesting option here, though it looks like they only work with a static table of known domains to reject. But maybe I’m missing something here.

One of my users wants to avoid writing to users whose email is hosted by Google. This excludes not only gmail.com but also thousands of other domains.
Are there desktop email clients that do a "host -t MX" check? Any idea, anyone?
#deleteGoogle

I always create aliases on my machines to include the "-i" option for cp, mv and rm. A real life-saver.
There is an additional benefit: sometimes, it’s faster to type "rm *" and answer "n" to the files you want to preserve, than writing a complicated regexp.
But here’s the drawback: if you are on another machine without this alias, it hurts!

Let's treat our users well! 💞

The last days, I have seen lots of times this in my web server logs:
GET //libs/js/iframe.js
I suspect that the script-kiddies looking after a vulnerability here are focusing on very old bugs that were fixed years ago, weren’t they?

I ordered a laptop at ubuntushop.be. Here is my experience:
(post 3/3: negative points)
(➖) Website looks unprofessional: bad English, no search function, most of the site is about why Linux is better than Windows
(➖) Too much emphasis on distributions: are "Ubuntu laptops" totally different from "Mint laptops"?
(➖) "Pre-2005" UX: as soon as they see your order, you will not hear from them for 8 days before they start shipping; you don’t even see a message when your payment has been accepted.

I ordered a laptop at ubuntushop.be. Here is my experience:
(post 2/3: neutral points)
(0️⃣) I cannot comment on how they configure the OS, I asked for a blank drive to do it myself.