w33k in g33k: March 13, 2026, 2026

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:00:00 -0400

Apple

Lifehacker: 10 Hacks Every iPad User Should Know
1. Use this hidden gesture to drag and drop multiple items at once: “When you tap and hold to select one item, drag your fingers out from the file to “pick” it up, but don’t let go just yet. With another finger, tap to pick up as many more files, photos, or links as you wish. They’ll all get collected under the finger you’re holding on to. Then, use your free hand to go to the Home Screen and open the app you want to drop everything off (like Notes or Mail). Once you let go, all the files will follow suit. This works within the Files app as well, which makes it a great way to move multiple files together. If you’re using the latest iPadOS version, you’ll also see a progress bar for transferring files at the top of the screen.” a. iPad User Guide: Learn advanced gestures to interact with iPad
2. Use “Windowed Apps” to turn your iPad into a computer: “You can do this from Settings > Multitasking & Gestures, but there’s a faster way from wherever you are in iPadOS. Open Control Center, tap the new Multitasking toggle and switch to Windowed Apps mode.” a. Lifehacker: The iPad Has Never Been More Like a Mac, but Can It Replace One?
3. Use this gesture for quick side-by-side app views: “One of the best new gestures added in iPadOS 26 is the flick gesture. Pick up a window when you’re in Windowed Apps mode, and just flick it to the right or the left of the screen. The window will then automatically resize itself to fit to half of the screen. When two apps are docked like this, you’ll see a new handlebar appear. You can drag it to resize the window split (going to a 70/30 split is a great ratio for multitasking, as one app essentially goes down to iPhone size). There are more gestures to know about, too. Using four or five fingers, swipe left or right on the screen to switch between apps, or app pairs. Swipe up and hold to enter app switcher mode (and to see a preview of all open apps). And of course you can swipe up with four fingers to go home. You can also swipe down from the top of the screen to reveal the Menu bar at any time.”
4. Change this setting to make the Files app more like Finder on Mac: “From the top toolbar you can now switch from the default Icons view to either a List view or a Column view. Column view is like Finder, where you can drill down into a folder structure while still maintaining easy access to top folders in columns to the left. On the other hand, if you manage a lot of files, and you like to see all file information, along with sort options, you should try List view. You can sort based on name, date created, date modified, size, or tags. And you can add or remove columns to customize exactly what shows up.”
5. Use “Sidecar” to turn your iPad into a second screen: “To enable Handoff, go to Settings > General > Airplay & Handoff > Handoff. Make sure the iPad is unlocked and nearby. Then, go to Control Center > Screen Mirroring and pick the iPad from your list. To use it as an external monitor, choose the Use As Separate Display option. If you want to use the iPad as a drawing surface for a Mac app, with Apple Pencil support, choose the Mirror Display option instead. You can now move freely between the iPad screen and the Mac. To arrange the layout for the screens, go to System Settings > Displays. For more tips, take a look at our detailed guide on using Sidecar.”
6. Use your iPad’s hidden “iPhone” keyboard to type with one hand: “Just pinch in with two fingers in the middle of the keyboard to switch to a floating mini-keyboard. You can drag it anywhere you please. (Alternatively, long-press the keyboard icon in the bottom right, then choose “Floating.”)”
7. Use Slide Over to pin a window to the top of the screen: “You can pin an app to the top of the screen using Slide Over if you want to refer to something else for a task (without shifting gears into the multitasking mode). First, you need to be in either Stage Manager or Windowed Mode. Then, open an app, long-press on the Stop Lights control in the top left, then tap “Enter Slide Over.” The app will shift to the side, and will always remain there, even when switching between apps. You can even resize the Slide Over window to make it as big or small as you want. You can hide the current Slide Over window by swiping the window to the edge of the screen. A small arrow button will appear in its place, which you can use to bring the window back. If you have a keyboard attached, use the keyboard shortcut Globe + Option + Right Arrow to send an app to Slide Over mode.”
8. Edit your handwritten text with Apple Pencil gestures: “To remove an error, just scratch or scribble over a word or sentence to delete it. To rearrange handwritten text, you can draw a circle around a word to pick it up. Then, you can move the word around and place it where you’d like it to go. If two words are too close to each other, you can draw a vertical slice between them to insert some space. Similarly, just press and hold the Pencil in between two words to insert text in the middle.”
9. Change default apps for your frequently used file types: “Open the Files app, then find a file type that you want to change (for example, always opening PNG files in Pixelmator instead of the Preview app). Tap and hold on the file, then tap “Get Info.” Here, choose “Always Open With,” and switch to a different app from the list. Apple will bring up a confirmation box. Here, select “Always Open.” The next time you tap on the file with the particular file extension, it will open in the app of your choice.”
10. Add folders to the Dock to access your files anywhere: “When multitasking on your iPad, you might routinely need to drag and drop files from Downloads or your work folder. You can add that folder directly to the Dock to quickly access the files within, without even opening the Files app. From the Files app, press and hold any folder that you want to add to the Dock, and tap “Add to Dock.” Or, you can simply drag and drop a folder to the Dock itself. Now, when you tap the folder icon in the Dock, you’ll see recently added files, or folders within it. You can then drag and drop any file you see here onto any app, or you can open the folder using the Open Folder option at the top of the file’s preview.”

Entertainment

Gizmodo: People Are Convinced Nathan Fillion Is Reviving ‘Firefly’ Via… Instagram Posts?
- I would love for Firefly to make a comeback… but i’m not going to get my hopes up only to be disappointed.
Waze Blog: Drive with “Star Trek” on Waze.
- I stopped using Google Maps because of the whole “gulf of america” garbage (Wired: Here’s How All Online Maps Are Handling the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ Name Change), i think Apple Maps now does it too, but Organic Maps i believe is safe… All that said, since Google owns Wze, I’m assuming they will have “gulf of america” too. I didn’t plan on using Waze long-term, i just wanted to play around with the new Star Trek additions.

Games

Windows Central: My top 5 Decky Loader plugins every SteamOS and Bazzite handheld gaming PC should use
- GitHub: shingonati0n / xivomega-decky: “Decky Plugin to mitigate latency on Final Fantasy XIV Online”
- GitHub: xXJSONDeruloXx / Decky-Lookup: “Per Game Web searches: PC Gaming Wiki, Google, Walkthroughs Etc”
- GitHub: rossimo / decky-pip: “Watch your favorite stream while you game!”
- GitHub: SteamGridDB / decky-steamgriddb: “Plugin for Decky Loader to apply and manage custom art assets from within gaming mode.”
- GitHub: itsOwen / playcount-decky: “A Steam Deck plugin that shows current player counts for your steam games.”
- GitHub: moraroy / NonSteamLaunchersDecky: “NonSteamLaunchers Decky Loader Version”
- GitHub: mubaraknumann / unifideck: “A Decky Loader plugin that brings together games from Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG and Amazon into a single, unified library experience on your Steam Deck.”
- GitHub: xXJSONDeruloXx / decky-lsfg-vk: “Decky plugin to streamline installation and usage of lsfg-vk; the Lossless Scaling compatibility layer for linux”
Engadget: The Playdate Catalog’s 3-year anniversary sale is here
- I haven’t used my Playdate in a bit, so this is a reminder to look at it again.
Hackaday: Running Ocarina Of Time On The Apple Watch
- YouTube: I Made OCARINA OF TIME Run on the Apple Watch!: Invidious is currently down, so i can’t post that link instead of direct to YouTube: “2026-03-11: Video playback is not working due to recent changes Youtube did. As always, just wait until a fix is released!”
- Just for fun… of course i would want to run Ocarina of Time on anything i possibly could.

Media

Plappa: “Audiobook player for Jellyfin and AudioBookShelf, written in Swift/SwiftUI”

Privacy

HackRead: Best DeleteMe Alternatives (2026): Competitors and Comparisons: “Best DeleteMe alternatives for 2026 compared, including Incogni, Optery, Aura, Kanary, and Privacy Bee for data broker removal and privacy protection.”
- DeleteMe
- Incogni
- Optery
- Aura
- Kanary
- Privacy Bee
IT’s FOSS: Age Verification Laws Are Multiplying Like a Virus, and Your Linux Computer Might be Next
- From the sound of it, time to get off Ubuntu?
Lifehacker: How the Government Uses Advertising Data to Track People (and What You Can Do to Limit It)
- Eh, who needs privacy. Right?

Security

Miscellaneous

Baby Buddy: iOS Shortcuts #300: I wanted to make note of these to get added to my account.
Help Net Security: OpenWrt 25.12.0 ships with new package manager, built-in upgrade tool, support for 2200+ devices
- It will take a little getting used to (although i really was using bash scripts for using opkg to get & upgrade packages.
HACKADAY: Experiment With The Pi Camera The Modular Way
- HACKADAY: Modular Pi Cam: “This started out as just me wanting to try round displays and the 5D directional pad… but as I worked on the project I realized the body could be modular eg. swap the camera module/front plate or back plate.”
Nerds.xyz: CachyOS quietly adds a way to run Windows inside Linux
- CachyOS: “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.”

selh.st: Self-Host Weekly (13 March 2026), by Ethan Sholly.

Google Play Store: IT Pro Tools – Cannoli Shell: “Cannoli Shell: Built for the IT Trenches.”
- I still use my Pixel Tablet a bit, so this might be useful.
/r/SelfHosted: PSA: Think hard before you deploy BookLore
Proxylity: WireGuard Is Two Things
GitHub: owenlejeune / ArrMatey: “A modern, all-in-one mobile client for managing your *arr stack. Built using KMP with native Jetpack Compose UI for Android and SwiftUI for iOS.”
- I think i saved this last week or the week before, but haven’t looked at or tried it yet.
GitHub: autobrr / autobrr: “Modern, easy to use download automation for torrents and usenet.”
- autobrr: Introduction
- “autobrr redefines download automation for torrents and Usenet, drawing inspiration from tools like trackarr, autodl-irssi, and flexget. We’ve combined the best of these worlds into one versatile tool that can do it all, and then some.” -GitHub: cshum / imagor-studio: “Self-hosted image gallery with built-in editing and template workflows”
- I probably would just use GiMP or Pixelmator for image editing, but web-based might be convenient across different systems or platforms where i don’t have those options.
GitHub: binwiederhier / ntfy: v2.18.0

This is the biggest release I’ve ever done on the server. It’s 14,997 added lines of code, and 10,202 lines removed, all from one pull request that adds PostgreSQL support.

SteamDeck on v3ritas.TECH

w33k in g33k: March 13, 2026, 2026

Apple

Entertainment

Games

Media

Privacy

Security

Miscellaneous

selh.st: Self-Host Weekly (13 March 2026), by Ethan Sholly.