đđ» Adulting
- GitHub: skorotkiewicz / earth-game: “An offline CLI for turning life goals into quests”
đ€ Android
- Android Authority: I switched to an open-source notes app for 2 weeks, and I wish I had done it sooner
- Notesnook: “The private workspace for your life. No spying, no tracking, no bullsh*t. Just notes.”
- I’m assuming this is related, if i wanted to look more into self-hosting: GitHub: [streetwriters] / notesnook-sync-server: “Sync server for Notesnook (self-hosting in alpha)”
- Android Police: I stopped trusting standard note apps with my personal diaries and hosted my own instead
- Joplin: “Joplin is an open source note-taking app. Capture your thoughts and securely access them from any device.”
- Synced with Nextcloud: “Nextcloud Hub combines the key Nextcloud products Files, Talk, Groupware, Office, Assistant and Flow, into a single platform, optimizing the flow of collaboration.”
- Make Use Of: Goodbye LineageOS â I tried to love you: “That’s what LineageOS is: a blank canvas. And oh I did paint. Two weeks in, I was recommending it to people, and for months, it was great. So good that I started using it as my main phone. Then it stopped being great.”
- I have run CyanogenMOD & then LineageOS for years, as my daily driver & while i used to have hiccups that caused crashes that would send me to the boot screen but I haven’t seen that in years… from this article, it sounds like issues with VoLTE was the only problem Amir Bohlooli had & from that decided LineageOS couldn’t be a daily driver?
- How-To Geek: 4 free alternatives to popular paid Android apps
- Paid: Life360 / Free: Google Find Hub
- Paid: Tasker / Free: Automate
- Paid: Duolingo / Free: Busuu
- Paid: Torque Pro / Free: Car Scanner ELM OBD2
- Make Use Of: I turned my Android phone into a Linux desktop with a tool buried in Android 16
- Details on how to activate it (thanks to the article):
- Enable Developer Mode by heading to your phone settings, then to the About Phone section, and tapping the build number seven times.
- Head to the developer option settings and tap the Linux development environment option.
- Enable the (Experimental) Run Linux terminal on Android slider.
- You should then have a “Terminal” app you can open, & from there… Linux shell =]
- Then to get a desktop environment:
sudo apt install task-xfce-desktop
- Details on how to activate it (thanks to the article):
- How-To Geek: Someone made a laptop that runs GrapheneOS desktop mode from a Pixel phone
- Goes nicely with the article above.
- /r/GrapheneOS: Remember my Graphene OS Laptop Prototype? I FINISHED IT!!!
đ„ïžđ Apple
- /r/jailbreak: usbliter8: what you need to know about the new A12/A13 bootROM exploit
- This was a nice write-up to see what usbliter8 could be.
- Paradigm Shift: Introducing usbliter8: “An A12/A13 SecureROM exploit”
- GitHub: prdgmshift / usbliter8: “An A12/A13 SecureROM exploit”
- mobileread: Looking for Recommendations for apps that sync epub reading progress across devices
- Now that i’ve been trying to get Grimmory or BookOrbit running with OPDS I’ve been trying to see how i can use it with iOS \ iPadOS since KOReader isn’t “officially” available. Came across this post with some ideas:
- Pocketbook
- Mapleread
- FBReader
- mobile read: BookShelves â Native EPUB Reader for macOS and iOS (looking for feedback)
- Now that i’ve been trying to get Grimmory or BookOrbit running with OPDS I’ve been trying to see how i can use it with iOS \ iPadOS since KOReader isn’t “officially” available. Came across this post with some ideas:
đ€ Artificial Intelligence \ Large Language Models
- How-To Geek: https://www.howtogeek.com/my-favorite-linux-app-didnt-exist-on-windowsso-i-built-a-better-one-with-claude/
- “The Linux app I couldnât find an equivalent for on Windows was Gwenviewâthe default image viewer on KDE Plasma-based Linux distributions.”
- How-To Geek: 4 open-source tools that can replace your Claude subscription (and sometimes outperform it)
- “You can run models right on your computer”: How-To Geek: I switched from LM Studio to llama.cpp, and I’m never going back to a bloated wrapper: llama.cpp
- “Keep your code private while you working”: Continue.dev: Install
- There’s a notice on their side that they’ve been acquired by Cursor, so i guess we’ll see how long it might be available or up-to-date.
- “Connect your local model to the rest of your apps”: n8n: “AI agents and workflows”
- “Bring your local AI straight into your browser”: Page Assist: “A Sidebar & Web UI for your Local AI. Page Assist is an open-source Browser Extension that provides a Sidebar and Web UI for your Local AI model. It allows you to interact with your model from any webpage.”
- Mix Fonts: Ghost Font: “An anti-AI font that can be read by humans but not leading AI models. Type your text below, then download and share the video clip containing your message.”

- How-To Geek: I fired Claude after forcing it to build a private, self-hosted replacement
- “Building a self-hosted alternative to Claude means putting together a few key pieces of software that handle both the heavy computation and the ability to pull in your own data. The first thing you’ll need is what actually runs open-weight models, like Llama 3 or Mistral, on your own hardware. For a single developer working on a workstation, Ollama is usually the go-to choice. It’s lightweight, uses a compressed model format called GGUF, and gets a local LLM running without much fuss.”
- How-To Geek: I run local LLMs on slow hardwareâhere’s what actually works
- Generating morning briefings
- Creating an RSS newsletter
- Stripping personal information from documents
- Recommending books to read
- Reminding me to clear up the kitchen
đ Current Events
- BBC: Why a Diljit Dosanjh film vanished from streaming after two days
- “Satluj is inspired by the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who investigated allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings during Punjab’s separatist insurgency - and then he himself disappeared. "
- IMDB now has the film under Punjab ‘95 (2026): “Based on the life of prominent human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra”
- “Satluj was released on the ZEE5 platform on Friday but removed two days later.”
- Crooks & Liars: ‘Prophet’ Claims She Opened âHeavenly Portalâ So Trump Gets âIntelâ From God
- “Right Wing Watch caught Donna Rigney explaining her âwork.â She said that she opened a heavenly portal at both the White House and Mar-a-Lago. Now, Donald Trump will âeasily be able to get intel from the Holy Spirit, that God was going to easily be able to give him wisdom for decisions he has to make.â”
- Sometimes there are jsut no words for these cult members…
đ„đș Entertainment
- How-To Geek: 5 famous books that are genuinely better to read on a Kindle
- A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
- Marienbad My Love by Mark Leach
- Make Use Of: 8 sci-fi sagas you can binge start to finish, because the author actually finished
- The Expanse by James S. A. Corey
- The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- Remembrance of Earth’s Past by Cixin Liu
- Saga of Pliocene Exile by Julian May
- The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
- The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin
- The Horus Heresy
đź Games
- How-To Geek: Steam’s hidden storage trick just saved me $200 on an SSD
- Steam Support: Moving a Steam Installation and Games
- IT’S FOSS: I Mined and Built My Way Through Space Haven
- GOG: Space Haven: USD$24.99: “Embark on a space voyage with your ragtag crew of civilians in search of a new home. Build spaceships tile by tile, create optimal gas conditions, manage the needs and moods of their crew, encounter other space-faring groups, and explore the universe in this spaceship colony sim.”
- Engadget: Palworld 1.0, Tiny Bookshop on mobile and other new indie games worth checking out
- Palworld 1.0: “The Palworld 1.0 update brings 72 additional creatures to the game, along with new areas (such as an archipelago of floating islands) and points of interest, a higher level cap for players, audio and visual upgrades, an overhauled story and much more. To give you a sense of just how enormous this update is, the patch notes are over 10,000 words long. Developer Pocketpair suggests that players should start from a fresh save to get the most out of the revamped experience.”
đ„ïž đ± Hardware
- Make Use Of: I tested my eGPU with Oculink and Thunderbolt, and it wasnât close
- OCuLink: “OCuLink is a technology that enables fast and efficient data transfer between devices. Find out the latest news, inventory, and popular brands of OCuLink products, such as laptops, mini PCs, GPU docks, and cables.”
- Make Use Of: ESPHome’s new update just made YAML obsolete: “With the release of ESPHome 2026.6.0, the legacy in-tree dashboard has been retired and replaced with the ESPHome Device Builder. The headline feature here is a full visual component and automation builder that lives right alongside your YAML editor. For the first time, you can configure an ESPHome device without writing a single line of YAML if you don’t want to.”
- IT’S FOSS: This E-Paper PDA Wants You to Ditch Your Smartphone for a Keyboard and Two Tiny Screens
" - Web Site: PocketMage: “This is PocketMage, a PDA designed and built for productivity and fun. PocketMage “features a dual-screen design, leveraging the refresh rate of OLEDs and the power savings of E Ink technology. The E Ink panel acts as the main display, and an OLED panel acts as the secondary display. This setup allows the PocketMage to remain responsive and quick when navigating or typing while retaining an easy-on-the-eyes reading experience.”
- Crowd Supply: PocketMage: “A distraction-free, e-paper personal digital assistant”
- I have a think for little gadgets like this, but i’ve been burned by too many crowdfunding projects in the past that I’ll unfortunately just have to pass on this one… Especially for US$185 & these specs:
Specifications
- Processor: ESP32-S3 Microcontroller with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- Flash: 16 MB quad SPI Flash
- RAM: 2 MB quad SPI SRAM
- Displays: 3.1-inch, 320x240px e-paper main panel & 1.8-inch 256x32px OLED secondary display
- Input: Built-in tactile QWERTY keyboard, capacitive scroll bar, USB keyboard support
- Storage: MicroSD card slot
- Sound: Piezo buzzer for beeps and boops
- Time: Integrated RTC (real-time clock)
- Battery: 1200mAh LiPo with integrated charging and battery management
- Connector: USB Type-C
- Hardware Expansion: Expansion port with power, I2C, SPI, UART, and GPIO
- Dimensions: 100 x 73 x 21.7 mm (3.97 x 2.87 x 0.85 in)
- Engadget: [The PocketMage is an E Ink digital assistant that's absolutely obsessed with wizards](https://www.engadget.com/2211733/pocketmage-e-ink-digital-assistant-that-absolutely-obsessed-with-wizards/): "As previously stated, this is an E Ink device, so it'll be easy on the old eyeballs. Otherwise, it features an old-school clamshell case and a tactile QWERTY keyboard. It also has two screens, which are used in a fairly novel way. There's a 3.1-inch 320 x 240 E Ink panel for reading and writing, but there's also a much thinner OLED strip above the keyboard. This offers a fast-refresh rate for menus."
- Hack A Day: Get A Handle On This Compact Pi Portable
- I already have way too many devices like this, but can’t help but look at smaller, new devices like this.
- Hack A Day: A Super Cheap Desk Toy Becomes A Hackable Desktop Notifier
- More little trinkets that i don’t need, but still want =]
- “The GeekMagic SmallTV is as its name suggests, a tiny, vaguely TV-styled, device with a screen, thatâs sold as a desktop notifier. Depending on the firmware running on the device it can display various pieces of information, ranging from the time and weather to the current price of Bitcoin. What makes it interesting is that it supports software updates over WiFi, so [Giovi321] has made a new firmware package for it.”
- GitHub: giovi321 / smalltv-mod: “Custom ESP8266 firmware for the GeekMagic SmallTV: a configurable stock/crypto ticker with web UI, OTA updates, and n8n webhook data.”
- smalltv-mod: “One firmware, three modes, two boards. Turn a cheap SmallTV cube into a ticker, a Claude usage meter, or a plane radar.”
- GitHub: GeekMagicClock / smalltv-pro: “PRO version of GeekMagic smalltv”
- This might be the official firmware, so probably wouldn’t want to use that…
- How-To Geek: Orange Pi 6 gives homelabbers what Raspberry Pi 5 doesnât
- “If you’ve never heard of Orange Pi, it’s effectively another version of the RaspberryPi, just made by a different company. However, their ARM processors and single-board computer design are basically where the similarities end.”
- “If you’re looking for a single-board computer that packs a punch and don’t mind doing a bit of legwork on your own, then Orange Pi might be the best choice for your homelab. Otherwise, stick with a Raspberry Pi.”
âïž Health
đĄ Home (Homelab \ Self-Hosted)
- How-To Geek: 5 overlooked Jellyfin features I wish someone had told me about sooner
- Hardware acceleration
- Intro-skip detection
- Trickplay: “Trickplay generates a series of tiny thumbnail images for when you’re scrubbing through a video.”
- SyncPlay: “SyncPlay is a feature in Jellyfin that lets multiple users synchronize their video playback so they can watch the same videos together.”
- Third-party client support: How-To Geek: This alternative Jellyfin app gave me a Plex-like experience without any fuss: Wholphin: “An OSS Android TV client for Jellyfin”
- Hack A Day: Homelab Gets Linksys Themed Aesthetic
- Justin Garrison : wrtK8s
- Sidero: Talos Linux: “Bare metal to Kubernetes in under a minute.”
- How-To Geek: 4 things you can plug into your Home Assistant server’s USB ports
- Mesh network radio: i.e.: Zigbee, Thread, Z-Wave
- Bluetooth dongle: Not something i need because I’m running my HomeAssistant server off a Pi, so i already have Bluetooth if i need it.
- External drives: I have been meaning to look at this & see if it would be helpful for some more central storage for backups (along with copies elsewhere to be safe)
- Sensors and devices that use USB power
- Hack A Day: This DIY Time Server Is More Accurate Than You Need
- Saved this just because it talked about running a local NTP & i curious.
- Make Use Of: I finally tried Tailscale, and now I get the hype: I’ll give this a read too since it seems pretty detailed about the setup & use.
- tailscale: “A Zero Trust identity-based connectivity platform that replaces your legacy VPN, SASE, and PAM and connects remote teams, multi-cloud environments, CI/CD pipelines, Edge & IoT devices, and AI workloads.”
- tailscale: How Tailscale works: Definitely going to spend some time reading thid.
- How-To Geek: 4 ways I’ve repurposed a cheap old Motorola phone for my homelab
- An always-on clock display: Zen Clock Flip
- Test various phone functions with bash, Termux, and the Termux API: Termux
- Using Phyphox
- Playing text-based and graphical games in your terminal: “As I learned more about Termux, I learned you can play âtext-basedâ games, but they’re not all classic adventure titles like Zork (there are a few; Nethack is pretty good). It’s more like games where the graphics are made from text elements. Take Moon Buggy, for example. Your lunar lander and almost all the elements are made from letters and characters. It’s also quite hard, and I’m terrible at it.”
- mrl5@tuxnet.dev: TLS certificates for internal services done right
- “Meet the âsplit-horizon DNSâ configuration. For public DNS resolvers our grafana.tuxnet.dev domain resolves to a public IP and for clients connected to the VPN this domain resolves to an internal IP.”
- “The good part is that since it resolves to a public IP we can use some public CA like Letâs Encrypt or ZeroSSL. The ugly part is that we still need some WAF rejecting traffic that does not originate from the VPN.”
- How-To Geek: 4 E-Ink projects you can build this weekend with a Raspberry Pi and $30 (or less)
- Laundry status display that shows washer/dryer runtime from smart plugs or sensors: “Start by hooking up your E-Ink display to your Pi and getting it to show a Home Assistant dashboard. This is a project in and of itself, but it’s not all that difficult. Then, head to the laundry room with the smart plug and vibration sensor.”
- 3D printer status display: “This is another project that you can easily achieve with Home Assistant, so long as you’re willing to put your 3D printers into LAN-only mode. Home Assistant offers plugins for most 3D printer brands through either official device add-ons or HACS.”
- Plex or Jellyfin ânow playingâ display: “Just like the 3D printing project, this is all done with dashboards. Simply take and build a custom dashboard that pulls the now playing artwork from Plex or Jellyfin and displays it. Then, open that dashboard on your Pi to show on the E-Ink panel. It’s really as simple as that.”
- Todayâs agenda display that pulls from calendar plus tasks: “If you want to easily see your day’s agenda at a glance, then moving away from Home Assistant is actually best. Instead, there’s a project on GitHub called InkyPi that’s perfect for it.”
- How-To Geek: I set up a VLAN for my smart home and you should too
- “Thatâs why VLANs, or virtual local area networks, are so important in a smart home (or any home, really). With a VLAN, youâre able to separate network traffic into its own lanes. Think of it like a highway thatâs either one lane or many lanes, but with walls between them.”
- How-To Geek: 5 ESP32 sensor projects to prepare your home for the unexpected (Jul 10 - 12)
- Flame and fire detection system: ESP32 I/O: ESP32 - Flame Sensor
- Carbon Monoxide sensor: ESPHome Devices: MQ-7 Carbon Monoxide Sensor
- Smoke and gas detector: Cytron: MQ2 Smoke LPG CO Sensor Module
- Air quality and hazard monitor: 21CNCStudio: Project Aura
- Sleep, fall, and life detection: DF Robot: C1001 60GHz mmWave Indoor Fall Detection Sensor for Arduino / ESP32 / micro:bit (11 Meters)
- Make Use Of: I installed Beszel on my homelab, and I havenât opened a terminal to check stats since
- Beszel: “Simple, lightweight server monitoring. With Docker stats, historical data, and alerts.”
đ„ïžđ IT Security \ đïžâđšïž Privacy
- Rayfish: “Own your network. Rayfish connects your computers, servers and phones by cryptographic identity, not IP addresses. One peer creates a network, shares a short code, and everyone lands on the same encrypted LAN. No port forwarding, no relay to trust.”
- Rayfish: Introducing Rayfish
- Lifehacker: The Best Private Messaging App Isnât WhatsApp or Signal, Itâs Delta Chat: “Delta Chat is decentralized (so there’s no one point of failure or control), open-source, end-to-end encrypted, and anonymousâyou don’t need to supply a phone number to get started. You can even message people who don’t have the app. Here’s what you need to know, and why you might want to make use of it.”
- Web Site: Delta Chat:
- Delta Chat is a decentralized and secure messenger app
- đŹ Reliable instant messaging with multi-profile and multi-device support
- âĄïž Sign up to secure and interoperable chatmail relays
- đ„ł Interactive web apps in chats for gaming and collaboration
- đ Audited end-to-end encryption safe against network and server attacks
- đ FOSS software, built on Internet Standards, avoiding xkcd927 :)
- Web Site: Delta Chat:
- The Hacker News: 16-Year-Old Linux KVM Flaw Lets Guest VMs Escape to Host on Intel and AMD x86 Systems
- National Vulnerability Database: CVE-2026-53359 Detail
- GitHub: V4bel / Januscape: “Guest-to-Host Escape in KVM/x86”
- Help Net Security: 20 open-source cybersecurity tools to keep your team ready for anything
- AIMap: GitHub: BishopFox / aimap: “Discover Exposed AI Services. Internet-scale discovery and security testing platform for exposed AI agent infrastructure.”
- AgentGG: “AgentGG runs agentic SAST scans. It has found real bugs in a growing list of open source projects. Reasoning that regex can’t do, and findings that one-shot LLM review won’t catch.”
- Agent Beacon: GitHub: Asymptote-Labs / agent-beacon: “Agent Beacon is the world’s first open-source telemetry layer for AI agents wherever they run: locally, in CI, or in the cloud.”
- Agent Threat Rules: GitHub: Agent-Threat-Rule / agent-threat-rules: “Open detection standard – like Sigma, but for AI agents. 425 rules, shipped in Microsoft AGT, Cisco AI Defense, MISP, OWASP A-S-R-H. 97.1% recall on NVIDIA garak. NIST OSCAL Path 1.”
- CVE Lite CLI: “Most security tools are built around pipelines, not developers. CVE Lite CLI scans your lockfile locally in seconds, explains the dependency path, and tells you what to update before you push.”
- DockSec: GitHub: OWASP / DockSec: “AI-powered Docker security scanner that explains vulnerabilities in plain English. An OWASP Lab Project.”
- Lyrie: GitHub: OTT-Cybersecurity-LLC / lyrie-ai: “Lyrie.ai â The world’s first autonomous AI cybersecurity agent. Built by OTT Cybersecurity LLC.”
- DarkMoon: GitHub: SCIT31 / Dark-Moon: “Autonomous AI pentesting engine performing continuous offensive security across web, cloud, AD and Kubernetes. Uses agentic reasoning, real exploit execution and attack path analysis to deliver proof-based vulnerabilities.”
- Microsoft AntiSSRF: GitHub: microsoft / AntiSSRF: “The Microsoft AntiSSRF library is a security-developed, exhaustively-tested secure code library that provides robust URL validation to mitigate the risk of Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerabilities. It is an easy-to-use drop-in library with minimal adoption effort for developers, available for both .NET and Node.js applications.”
- Microsoft’s Clarity: This might be it? GitHub: microsoft / clarity: “A behavioral analytics library that uses dom mutations and user interactions to generate aggregated insights.”
- Microsoft’s RAMPART: GitHub: microsoft / RAMPART: “A pytest-native safety and security testing framework for agentic AI applications”
- Nika: PhonePe / nika: “A source code analysis tool that combines cross-file taint analysis and rule-based detection to identify vulnerability patterns, with optional AI-assisted false positive reduction.”
- OpenHack: GitHub: hadriansecurity / openhack: “Lightweight, file-based workspace for source-guided whitebox security review.”
- Kiji Privacy Proxy: GitHub: dataiku / kiji-proxy: “Privacy proxy for your OpenAI requests”
- OWASP Agent Memory Guard: GitHub: OWASP / www-project-agent-memory-guard: “OWASP Foundation web repository”
- Pipelock: GitHub: luckyPipewrench / pipelock: “Open-source AI agent firewall for MCP security and agent egress. Scans mediated HTTP, MCP, A2A, and WebSocket traffic for exfiltration, SSRF, and prompt injection, and emits mediator-signed action receipts: verifiable audit evidence from outside the agent”
- Praxen: GitHub: open-agent-ai-security / praxen
- Rustinel: GitHub: Karib0u / rustinel: “Open-source cross-platform endpoint detection engine for Windows, macOS, and Linux using ETW, ESF, eBPF, Sigma, YARA, IOCs, and ECS NDJSON alerts.”
- Sandyaa: GitHub: securelayer7 / sandyaa: “Autonomous code auditor that keeps digging until it finds and proves real bugs.”
- Vigolium: GitHub: vigolium / vigolium: “Vigolium - High-fidelity vulnerability scanner fusing agentic AI with native speed, modularity, and precision”
- Engadget: Is Microsoft Teams really going to start tracking employee locations?: “Microsoft’s new Workplace Check-in feature for Teams has officially rolled out, making it possible to automatically update an employee’s work location using Wi-Fi or desk peripheral connections. It may be off by default, requiring admin enablement and employee consent, but “voluntary” opt-in isn’t as free a choice as it sounds in the workplace.”
đ§ Linux
- Make Use Of: I revived a 15-year-old laptop with an OS that runs entirely in memory
- Make Use Of: What Is Puppy Linux? Everything You Need to Know
- Puppy Linux: “Puppy Linux is a collection of multiple Linux distributions, built on the same shared principles, built using the same set of tools, built on top of a unique set of puppy specific applications and configurations and to generally provide consistent behaviours and features”
- How-To Geek: My favorite Linux app didnât exist on Windowsâso I built a better one with Claude
- “The Linux app I couldnât find an equivalent for on Windows was Gwenviewâthe default image viewer on KDE Plasma-based Linux distributions.”
- KDE Applications: Gwenview: “Gwenview is a fast and easy to use image viewer by KDE, ideal for browsing and displaying a collection of images.”
- Nerds.XYZ: Declare independence from Windows and switch to Ultramarine Linux 44 this July 4
- Ultramarine: “Ultramarine Linux is a modern operating system that supports your workflow with the hardware and tools you already love, for work, school, and play. However you use your system, we have you covered with tweaks and tools to make things run more seamlessly out of the box.”
- How-To Geek: I tested the top 5 Linux distros on DistroWatchâhereâs how I rank them
- Pop!_OS: “Unleash your potential on a Linux operating system made to be productive and personal.”
- Debian
- CachyOS: " Performance-First Linux, Built on Arch. CachyOS ships every package optimized for your CPU - compiled with x86-64-v3/v4 and Zen4 instructions, LTO, and PGO - on top of a custom kernel with the tuned EEVDF scheduler. The result: a noticeably faster Arch Linux experience with the same rolling-release flexibility you expect.”
- MX Linux: “MX Linux is a cooperative venture between the antiX and MX Linux communities. It is a family of operating systems built by users from Debian Stable repositories that are designed to combine elegant and efficient desktops with high stability and solid performance. MXâs graphical tools provide an easy way to do a wide variety of tasks, while the Live USB and snapshot tools inherited from antiX add impressive portability and remastering capabilities. Extensive support is available through videos, documentation and a very friendly Forum.”
- Linux Mint: “Linux Mint is an operating system for desktop and laptop computers. It is designed to work ‘out of the box’ and comes fully equipped with the apps most people need.”
- CachyOS on Surface GO
- After failing to get my device to boot from the USB last week, i just installed Windows again, only to get the Recovery options to boot from USB… where i installed Lubuntu. Of course now i was reminded of CachyOS & since i’ve been wanting to try something based on Arch, i am going to try installing this on my Surface Go.
- Nerds.XYZ: Declare independence from Windows and switch to Ultramarine Linux 44 this July 4
- Ultramarine Linux: “Ultramarine Linux is a modern operating system that supports your workflow with the hardware and tools you already love, for work, school, and play. However you use your system, we have you covered with tweaks and tools to make things run more seamlessly out of the box.”
- I wanted to read about it because i haven’t heard of this distro before. At least for now I’ll probably be sticking with my usual Ubuntu-based OS while testing out CachyOS on my Surface Go, then will see how i feel about testing out something different, if this seems worth it after reading more into it.
- Make Use Of: Everyone forgot about these 6 Linux desktops, but they might be better than what you use now
- While looking at the list, i don’t think any of these are really “forgotten”…
- MATE: “The MATE Desktop Environment is the continuation of GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.” This is an option on Linux Mint…
- XFCE: “Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.” This is on Xubuntu.
- LXQt: " LXQt is a lightweight Qt desktop environment. It will not get in your way. It will not hang or slow down your system. It is focused on being a classic desktop with a modern look and feel.” This is on Lubuntu
- Openbox: “Openbox is a minimalistic, highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.”
- Budgie: “A luxurious home computing experience. A desktop environment should get out of your way, not demand your attention. Budgie Desktop is built on this principle; simple enough for anyone to use, flexible enough for anyone to make their own.”
- Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE): “deepin is an elegant, easy to use and reliable desktop operating system released by Deepin Technology Co., Ltd. Featured applications are preinstalled in deepin. It caters to a variety of recreational activities while also fulfilling your daily needs. With continually improved and perfected functions, we believe deepin will be loved and used by more and more users.”
- Arch Linux Wiki: pacman/Rosetta: “This page uses a table to display the correspondence of package management commands among some of the most popular Linux distributions. The original inspiration was given by openSUSE’s Software Management Command Line Comparison.”
- Now that I’m trying out CachyOS, i just wanted a little cheat sheet on
pacmanuse vs.apt.
- Now that I’m trying out CachyOS, i just wanted a little cheat sheet on
- How-To Geek: 7 Bash variables I use in almost every script
- Get the script path:
$0 - Determine the exit status of a process:
$? - Access arguments:
$1,$2, etc. - Get the user ID:
$UID&$EUID - Get common user paths: XDG Directory Specification:
export "${XDG_CACHE_HOME:=$HOME/.cache}" # Semi-temporary data.export "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:=$HOME/.config}" # Configuration files.export "${XDG_DATA_HOME:=$HOME/.local/share}" # Downloaded data, etc.
- Use variables to keep your scripts functional and portable
- Maybe item 4 ($UID
&$EUID`) was actually two, so i the list is now seven items.
- Get the script path:
- How-To Geek: 5 weird devices that can run Linux (even though they shouldn’t)
- Apple iPods: iPodLinux: “iPodLinux is an open source venture into porting Linux onto the iPod. So far, we have successfully ported a customized uClinux kernel to the iPod, and written a simple user interface for it dubbed podzilla. Additional applications and modules have been written, adding many capabilities not found in Apple’s firmware.”
- Nintendo DS: DSLinux: “The DSLinux project has ported the Linux operating system to the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite. Newer models such as DSi and 3DS might work in DS-compatibility mode. Apart from real hardware, DSLinux also runs on some NDS emulators, like desmume.”
- Original Xbox: LinuxVOx: Linux on the Original Xbox: A Comprehensive Guide
- PlayStation 3: ““Install Other OS” is a feature on early versions of the PlayStation 3 that allowed users to install alternative operating systems like Linux. However, this feature was removed by Sony in 2010 due to security concerns.”
- Nintendo Switch: Switchroot Wiki: Linux: “L4T Linux for the Nintendo Switch”
đ„đș Media
- How-To Geek: This open source TV box has zero tracking and everyone I show it to wants one
- OSMC: Vero V
đŁïž Social Networking
đ„ïžđȘ Windows
- Make Use Of: I used an open-source Windows clone for a week, and I’m equal parts impressed and confused
- ReactOS: “Imagine running your favorite Windows applications and drivers in an open-source environment you can trust. That’s the mission of ReactOS!”
â Miscellaneous
- GitHub: 514-labs / dnsglobe: “Global DNS propagation checker TUI â watch a DNS record propagate across 34 public resolvers worldwide, on a world map in your terminal”
- Flipper Blog: The Future of Flipper Zero Development
- “TL;DR: We’ve allocated resources to maintain Flipper Zero firmware and support community contributions. From now on, community requests and contributions will be reviewed under new rules: voting for feature requests in GitHub Discussions, clearer pull request guidelines, and mandatory integration testing.”
- Bleeping Computer: Flipper Zero firmware development continues with community help: “Flipper Devices says development of the Flipper Zero firmware will continue, albeit with a smaller internal team and greater reliance on community contributions.”
- How-To Geek: I install these 9 Python tools on every new machine
- Jupyter / IPython
- Jupyter: “Free software, open standards, and web services for interactive computing across all programming languages”
- IPython: “IPython provides a rich architecture for interactive computing with a powerful shell, Jupyter kernel support, and flexible tools for parallel and distributed computing.”
- Mamba: “Mamba is a fast, robust, and cross-platform package manager.”
- NumPy: “The fundamental package for scientific computing with Python”
- SciPy: “Fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python”
- SymPy: “SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics. It aims to become a full-featured computer algebra system (CAS) while keeping the code as simple as possible in order to be comprehensible and easily extensible. SymPy is written entirely in Python.”
- pandas: “pandas is a fast, powerful, flexible and easy to use open source data analysis and manipulation tool, built on top of the Python programming language.”
- seaborn: “Seaborn is a Python data visualization library based on matplotlib. It provides a high-level interface for drawing attractive and informative statistical graphics.”
- Pingouin: “Pingouin is an open-source statistical package written in Python 3 and based mostly on Pandas and NumPy. Some of its main features are listed below. For a full list of available functions, please refer to the API documentation.”
- statsmodels: “statsmodels is a Python module that provides classes and functions for the estimation of many different statistical models, as well as for conducting statistical tests, and statistical data exploration. An extensive list of result statistics are available for each estimator. The results are tested against existing statistical packages to ensure that they are correct. The package is released under the open source Modified BSD (3-clause) license. The online documentation is hosted at statsmodels.org.”
- Jupyter / IPython
- How-To Geek: This open-source clipboard manager slowly became my most important productivity tool
- Ditto - Clipboard Manager: “Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats.”
- How-To Geek: 5 genius ESP32 projects that don’t require any soldering
- A Bluetooth proxy: ESPHome: Bluetooth Proxy: “Home Assistant can expand its Bluetooth reach by communicating through the Bluetooth proxy component in ESPHome. The individual device integrations in Home Assistant (such as BTHome) will receive the data from the Bluetooth Integration in Home Assistant which automatically aggregates all ESPHome Bluetooth proxies with any USB Bluetooth Adapters you might have. This exceptional feature offers fault tolerant connection between the Bluetooth devices and Home Assistant.”
- Build a tiny local voice assistant: M5Stack: ATOM Voice Smart Speaker Development Kit
- A mailbox delivery sensor
- An ESP32-powered device tracker
- Build your own bed sensor
- How-To Geek: I installed KOReader on a jailbroken Kindle and it reads formats Amazon will never officially support
- KOReader: “KOReader is a document viewer for E Ink devices. Supported fileformats include EPUB, PDF, DjVu, XPS, CBT, CBZ, FB2, PDB, TXT, HTML, RTF, CHM, DOC, MOBI and ZIP files. Itâs available for Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook, Android and desktop Linux.”
- Android Police: Sick of Amazon? This new Kindle jailbreak frees your device and is easier than ever
- Good EReader: There is a new Kindle Jailbreak called Sanctuary: “There has been no shortage of jailbreak solutions for the Amazon Kindle; some last only a few months before being rendered inert by a software update. A new jailbreak called Sanctuary has just been released, and it works on any Kindle model running firmware 5.16.4 to 5.18.3.”
- Sanctuary already does this, but i still wanted to note: Kindle Modding Wiki: Installing KUAL and MRPI
- Make Use Of: 4 jobs I never do manually anymore, thanks to one automation tool and a tiny script
- AutoHotkey: “The ultimate automation scripting language for Windows.”
- My one-keypress work setup
- Downloads that sort themselves
- Temporary files that clean themselves up
- Instant search from any highlighted text
- GitHub: MaximeRivest / Riddle: “The diary of Tom Riddle for the reMarkable Paper Pro â write with your pen, the page drinks your ink and answers in a flowing hand”
- I don’t have a reMarkable Paper Pro, but it looked like a fun project.
- taiganet.com: WS4000 Simulator: “Modern weather software. Classic 4000 look.”
- Super Productivity: “A productivity system that adapts to how you actually work. Tasks · Time tracking · Focus tools in one open-source app, offline, private, and yours to shape.”
- I keep seeing this mentioned & while i’ve tried it once, maybe I’ll look at it again & see if it’s useful for me.
- Android Police: I moved my second brain to Obsidian to escape cloud lock-in
- Mentioning the redesigned Obsidian Android app.
- Hack A Day: The ESP8266 Gets An OS, And Itâs Familiar
- “A couple weeks back we brought you news of KernelUNO, a command line shell and very simple operating system for the Arduino Uno. Itâs a neat idea, so itâs hardly surprising to see someone port it to another microcontroller and add more features.”
- “Hereâs [hery-torrado], with KernelESP for the ESP8266, which takes the original idea and adds a web console, scheduled jobs, sensor rules, scripting, NTP, and a JSON API. The networking using the ESPâs built-in WiFi takes the original and makes it significantly more useful.”
- GitHub: hery-torrado / KernelESP
- Original Coverage: Hack A Day: KernelUNO, An OS For The Arduino Uno
- Make Use Of: I stopped trusting CCleaner years ago, and this open-source tool finally replaced it
- FluentCleaner: “The open-source app that removes junk files, browser cache and temp data on Windows 11 â in seconds. No ads, no subscription, no registry tricks. Built with WinUI 3, MIT licensed, by builtbybel.”
- Lifehacker: These 10 Apps Let You Watch YouTube Without Ads
- YouTube Premium and Premium Lite
- DuckDuckGo: YouTube Ad Blocking in DuckDuckGo Browsers
- NewPipe: “NewPipe has been created with the purpose of getting the original YouTube experience on your smartphone without annoying ads and questionable permissions.”
- SkyTube: GitHub: SkyTubeTeam / SkyTube: “Copylefted libre / open source YouTube player for Android”
- LibreTube: “An alternative frontend for YouTube, for Android.”
- Firefox Browser with uBlock Origin
- Brave Browser: " The browser that puts you first. Block ads. Save data. And get way faster webpages. Just by switching your browser."
- AdGuard for iPhone: “The best iOS ad blocker for iPhone and iPad. AdGuard eliminates all kinds of ads in Safari, protects your privacy, and speeds up page loading. AdGuard for iOS ad-blocking technology ensures the highest quality filtering and allows you to use multiple filters at the same time”
- SmartTube for Smart TVs: “Browse media content with your own rules on Android TV”
- SponsorBlock: “SponsorBlock is an open-source crowdsourced browser extension and open API for skipping sponsor segments in YouTube videos. Users submit when a sponsor happens from the extension, and the extension automatically skips sponsors it knows about using a privacy preserving query system. It also supports skipping other categories, such as intros, outros and reminders to subscribe, and skipping to the point with highlight.”
selh.st: Self-Host Weekly (10 July 2026), by Ethan Sholly.
- GitHub: PlummersSoftwareLLC / retropad: “A Petzold-style Win32 Notepad clone written in mostly plain C. It keeps the classic menus, accelerators, word wrap toggle, status bar, find/replace, font picker, time/date insertion, and BOM-aware load/save. Printing is intentionally omitted.”
- FUTO Notes: “Fast, private, local-first notes. Native on iOS and Android, with a real desktop app for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Plain markdown you own â no vendor lock-in.”
- Home Assistant: Companion app: Changing support for Apple platforms: “Starting with version 2026.8.0 of the Companion app, we will no longer support iOS 15, watchOS 8, or macOS 11. The last supported version for these platforms will be 2026.7.1.”
- “After version 2026.7.1, the minimum supported versions for the Companion app will be iOS 16.4, watchOS 9, and macOS 12.”
- Okay, so it’s not like they’re dropping compatibility with supported hardware \ software versions; just not continuing with some legacy ones.
- https://www.hmans.dev/blog/chatto-is-open-source
- GitHub: caronc / apprise: “Apprise - Push Notifications that work with just about every platform!”
- Release v1.12.0: It doesn’t look like any new services that i use were added, but love to see that it’s still getting additions.
- GitHub: Jellify-Music / App: “A cross-platform, free and open source music player for Jellyfin, powered by React Native”
- 1.2.3
- The entire media player experience has been completely overhauled with a slicker, gesture-enabled design. This makes navigating through different songs or albums feel seamless and intuitive.
- Keep an eye on how delightfully responsive scrolling isâthe new vertical pager view gives you a polished, modern feel when browsing content. It’s like our app got a whole lot sleeker!
- Under the hood, we updated a ton of dependencies to make sure Jellify runs faster than ever and keeps up with the latest mobile OS magic. While you won’t notice it, this makes your music streaming experience super stable and snappy.
- 1.2.3
- GitHub: navidrome / navidrome: “đ§ Your Personal Streaming Service”
- Web Site: Navidrome: “Your Personal Streaming Service”
- I set this up a few weeks ago (because, why not?©), but haven’t really used it much. Details about an update helps me to get back to looking at this I’ve stood up, then never touched again đ
- v0.63.0
- “Navidrome 0.63 brings a long-awaited upgrade to lyrics: full support for synced sidecar lyrics in multiple formats (TTML, ELRC, SRT, YAML and LRC), including word-by-word karaoke timing and multi-voice (agent) layers, exposed to clients through the new OpenSubsonic v2 lyrics extensions. A huge shoutout to @ranokay, who not only contributed the code for these lyrics enhancements, but also helped shape the OpenSubsonic extension specification behind them. Search also gets noticeably smarter: exact matches now rank above prefix matches (searching for “MĂ” brings MĂ to the top instead of burying it), and artists with short or non-ASCII names that were previously unfindable now show up correctly.”
- “The other big theme of this release is performance for large libraries and offline-first clients. Full-library synchronization via
search3(the way clients like Symfonium mirror the whole library) is now flat at every offset instead of degrading with depth, roughly 30-50x faster at deep offsets and about 20x faster for a complete sync on a ~1M-track library, and a related pagination-integrity fix eliminates the duplicate and short pages that could corrupt those syncs. Alongside it,getRandomSongsis about 13x faster on the same library size, and a batch of database improvements (annotation-index-friendly smart playlist filters, leaner list-count queries, and new composite indexes for album/artist song sorts) makes everyday operations anywhere from ~9x to ~160x faster. Finally, a heads-up on a behavior change: sharing is now enabled by default, and can be turned off withEnableSharing=false.”
- GitHub: dedicatedcode / reitti: “Reitti is a comprehensive personal location tracking and analysis application that helps you understand your movement patterns and significant places. The name “Reitti” comes from Finnish, meaning “route” or “path”.”
- I had this running for a little while, but since i really wasn’t on top of it, i decided to shut it down. Maybe i will revisit it though, because i do like the idea of having some of that historical data on where i have been, especially for journaling.
- reitti v5.0.0 â Custom Maps, Timeline Stitching, Tags, and License Evolution! đ: “This project has been a deeply personal journey for me, and v5.0.0 represents a monumental leap forward in how you can customize and enrich your location data. Iâve packed this release with highly-requested features like custom map styles, multi-device tracking under one user account, and personalized tags/notes to bring more context to your daily journeys.”
- GitHub: ajorfi / immich-exif: “A CLI tool that synchronizes metadata from an Immich photo server back into the original files.”
- GitHub: yoloyash / overtchat: “A simpler self-hosted alternative to Open WebUI. Bring your own API keys or local models. Native Android client in closed beta.”
- MAybe something to look at vs. Open WebUI.
- GitHub: [ksrikanthcnc]((https://github.com/ksrikanthcnc/) / steam-game-manager: “A local-first game library manager built with Next.js. Sync your Steam wishlist and owned games, organize with a flexible tag system, browse with rich media, and filter your collection with powerful sidebar controls.”
- GitHub: zcag / tela: “Open-source, self-hostable markdown team wiki with a built-in MCP server â so AI agents read, write, and search your docs as first-class teammates. Live multiplayer, semantic + full-text search. Go + PostgreSQL + React/Milkdown.”
- Web Site: tela: “Docs that write themselves. An AI that already knows your project. Point tela at your sources â a git repo, a Jira project â and Atlas writes a cited, coverage-checked wiki, then keeps it fresh as they change. Your agents search that wiki by meaning and read, write, and cite it from inside Claude and ChatGPT. Real-time editing for the humans; scoped access for the team, with SSO and an audit trail on Enterprise.”
- GitHub: Techdox / trove: “One pane of glass for everything running in your homelab. Small agents sit next to your workloads â Docker hosts, Kubernetes clusters, Proxmox nodes, plain Linux boxes”
- Web Site: Trove: “Trove is a read-only service catalog for the messy middle of a real homelab. Docker, Kubernetes, Proxmox, and Linux agents push snapshots to one server, so you get visibility without turning the dashboard into a control plane.”
- GitHub: bookorbit / bookorbit: “BookOrbit: Your Reading Space”
- Web Site: BookOrbit: " BookOrbit. Your reading space. A self-hosted library and reading platform for ebooks, audiobooks, and comics. Automate metadata at scale, sync with Kobo, track reading analytics, and support multiple users. "
- A friend mentioned this one to me & I currently have it running alongside Grimmory, but i’ll have to see which one i want to stick with.
- GitHub: ZenNotes / zennotes: “Keyboard-first local Markdown notes with Vim motions, diagrams, and MCP integration.”
- Web Site: ZenNotes: “ZenNotes keeps every note as a local .md file you own â with real Vim motions, live math & diagrams, an MCP server for your assistant, and a bundled zen CLI. Native on Mac, Windows, and Linux, or self-host in any browser.”
