Downloading Shareware Games in the Early 90’s

I stumbled across a game I used to play in 1992 as a teenager called “Night Raid” the other day. You can find it on the Internet Archive and play it right in your browser!

Night Raid was a take on an old Apple II game called “Sabotage.” The premise of both games is that you’re a lone anti-aircraft gunner fighting off wave up after wave of paratroopers trying to take you out. You earn points with each aircraft and paratrooper hit and lose a point every time the gun is fired.

I hadn’t given the game much thought over the years (I even forgot its name) but the other day something about it popped in my head that sent me down a Google rabbit hole. A few minutes of searching brought me to the Internet Archive and I immediately was back in the 90’s playing a cool shareware game in my browser! I’ve since added it to the DosBox-X instance I run on my Macbook Air.

One of the fun parts about Night Raid was the heavy promotion of the Software Creations Bulletin Board System (BBS) that hosted its download files. During the Intermission scenes a little airplane flies overhead with the phone number for the BBS and the end screen of the game also encourages people to dial in and experience the board’s 50 lines and 6 gigabytes of storage space!

Software Creations was located in Massachusetts and was one of the larger BBS systems at the time. When a hot new shareware game came out you’d hear about it on FidoNet message boards on your local BBS but you’d have to dial out long distance to pick up the files at Software Creations. This was also where I picked up Doom in 1993 right when it was released to the public.

As you can imagine I racked up some major phone bills dialing into that BBS. Night Raid’s zip file came in at around half a megabyte which took roughly 33 minutes to download on the 2400 baud modem I used at the time.

When Doom came out the following year it was a whopping 2 megabytes and took over two hours to download. Unfortunately for me there wasn’t an active shareware gaming user base in my local calling area beyond my buddies and me so long distance was the only way to get at the latest goods.

When I finally had the cash to buy a 14,400 baud modem that same Doom download could be done in 20 minutes. With long distance rates running about 10-15 cents per minute that faster modem offered a huge return on investment!

BBS systems are still out there but are mostly available on the Internet these days via telnet. I did a video on the topic a few years ago if you’d like to get a feel for what it was like on one of those systems.

The whole scene died out pretty quickly once dialup Internet service became available in the mid 90’s. But it’s great to see so many people working to keep not only BBS’ing alive but also some of the networks that connected them together like FidoNet.

The Software Creations BBS was acquired by the “Total Entertainment Network” in 1995 right as BBS’ing gave way to web surfing. Apparently TEN cut their losses as the BBS’ing collapsed and shut the system down only a year or so after the acquisition according to Apogee Software’s Joe Siegler in a 2002 message board post:

It was even more of a surprise to us – as we had our files there. They essentially closed down overnight – we had no warning that it was going to happen.

It would be super cool if one of the Sysops (short for System Operator) had a backup of the BBS somewhere. How awesome would it be to have a time capsule like this accessible via Telnet to experience what the PC gaming scene was like back then.

The Perils of Centralized Platforms

A few months ago I started look at ways to follow Indieweb principles in how I produce and consume content. On the consumption side I spent some time freshening up my RSS reader with a blob of feeds that I have been tracking for almost twenty years now. As for creation I set up this blog and looked at ways to syndicate content from the blog out to other places.

In my latest video in this series we take a look at how it’s all working six months later. I also look at some ways to decentralize other parts of my work, including video using a federated platform called Peertube.

It’s been fun exploring how open source developers are engineering ways to replicate the experience and reach potential of centralized platforms but in a way that’s completely decentralized. Join a server if you want or spin up your own – either way you’re in control of your content and data. And the best part is that there’s no owner who can pull the plug on it.

The past few weeks have shown the perils of centralization with Twitter’s ongoing drama and the collapse of centralized crypto exchanges. In many ways centralizing things on the Internet runs counter to its design doesn’t it? With the proliferation of much faster upstream broadband there’s a lot of opportunity in the decentralized “fediverse.” I think this will likely be as much of a focus in the 2020s as centralized networks were in the 2010s.

Zapier to Mastodon Solution

I mentioned the other day that I spun up a small docker container to pass an RSS feed from my link blog to my Mastodon account.

I’ve now been able to retire it thanks to a helpful post I found at lukas.io that walks through setting up a Zapier webhooks action for posting to a Mastodon instance.

This makes use of a premium Zapier feature so you’ll need to have a paid subscription in order for this to work. Zapier is something that saves me a ton of time so I’m happy to pay for it but other solutions might work better for those with a little more coding prowess.

If you’re interested in how this stuff works check out my video called “owning your content” that shows how I have adopted Indieweb principles for my written content.

The Week Ahead

It’s crazy how fast the end of the year is approaching! I’ll be taking a little time off just after Christmas to recharge ahead of CES but will hopefully get a bunch of stuff queued up! I lost a day and a half this week due to a minor bout of what was likely COVID (my second or third go-around) but I’m feeling much better today. Definitely not as bad as my experience with it last year! 

I’m focusing a lot these days on adopting “indieweb” principles for my content. I’ve talked a little bit about this before but I’ve added some new things to the mix that I’ll likely talk about later this week or early next.

Additionally I’m going to do a short piece providing some context on the Twitter controversy surrounding aircraft ADS-B data and how it all works. I figure if people are going to argue about Twitter bans they should at least know what the argument is about :). This won’t be another hot-take about Twitter (there’s plenty of those) but rather just looking at the basis of the dispute, how private aircraft data is collected, and how anyone can do it for about 30 bucks, no radar system required. 

I covered a lot this week, including my top tech products of the year, a tutorial on off-site Synology backups, a nice game controller for smartphones and an awesome powerbank with an AC outlet! Take a look below! 

Gamevice Flex Review for Android and iPhone

The Gamevice Flex controller for Android and iPhone (compensated affiliate links) is the subject of my latest video review. If this looks like the Razer Kishi that I reviewed a year or two ago it’s because Gamevice manufactured that device for Razer. Razer went in a different direction for their version 2 controller.

The biggest challenge any of these slide-in controllers have is finding a way to make things fit properly given how every phone is a different size. Phone cases complicate this problem further. Gamevice attempts to solve this problem by including dozens of slide in adapters to ensure a snug fit. They also have a compatibility guide on their website to provide further peace of mind.

I tried a couple of phones, some with cases, some without. I was able to get all of them to fit snugly, unlike the Kishi that always felt a little loose. It’s not all that difficult to slide out the spacers and put new ones in. But you’ll definitely want to hang onto the original packaging so you don’t lose them. Gamevice says they can fit up to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra but it’s not big enough to accomodate larger devices like tablets. So the iPad Mini is a no-go here.

Gamevice accounts for nearly every variation in phone size

On the Android side you’ll need a phone that has a USB-C port that supports OTG data devices (most meet that requirement these days). The iPhone version uses a lightning connector and it will fit everything from a small iPhone 6s all the way up to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Both versions offer a passthrough charging port, with the Android version supporting USB-C and the the iPhone version using a lighting connector. You’ll also get an actual 3.5mm headphone jack on the left-hand side of the controller!

The controller interfaces with its USB or lightning connector to the phone, meaning it’s not using bluetooth. It therefore doesn’t need to be charged and it shouldn’t draw all that much power from the host device. This will reduce input lag a bit but the performance will vary based on the phone and the USB controller in use. I have found even some of the best phones are not great when it comes to input latency, however.

From a gameplay perspective the Flex solves a lot of the problems I had with the Kishi. Gone are the analog deadzones and oversized thumbsticks. Controls are very sensitive and begin responding with just a slight movement on the stick. The d-pad is better too but still not perfect. I found that it would sometimes register errant diagonals when playing 8-bit NES games.

All in I found the Flex to be very competitive with my favorite mobile controller, the Backbone One for iPhone. The d-pad is better on the Backbone but the Backbone won’t work with phones in a case. The Flex appears to be a nice improvement over the original Razer Kishi design.

It’s Time Connecticut Ratepayers Got A Seat At The Regulatory Table

This is an op-ed I wrote for CTNewsjunkie.com about my longstanding issues with my utility companies here in Connecticut. The following idea came as a direct result of my most recent experience after a telephone pole caught fire at the end of my road. I’m hoping our legislature makes this change in their coming session:

I’ve long been a critic of my local utility monopolies because they’ve put their profits ahead of serving customers and taxpayers. Over the last couple of decades as regulations eased, utilities reduced staff and deferred maintenance resulting in several week-long outages and reliability issues across Connecticut.

Meanwhile, electricity monopoly Eversource enjoys billion-dollar net profit margins, money that comes from consumers who have little choice but to pay whatever rates they decide to charge irrespective of the quality of service being offered. Their corporate culture was on full display at a 2020 hearing when former Eversource CEO Jim Judge ranked shareholders as his top priority above customers and ratepayers.

Progress is being made, however. Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which allowed these reductions in service quality for many years, is finally starting to turn the page and hold utilities accountable. Additionally the recently enacted “Take Back our Grid Act” is another set of accountability measures that can begin to roll back decades of customer neglect.

But PURA’s staffing levels haven’t increased despite these new tools, making it difficult for the authority to document examples of local deficiencies that could lead to enforcement action. But there is an existing mechanism that can help provide PURA those “eyes and ears” on the ground: local Cable Television Advisory Councils.

Decades ago when legislators grew tired of dealing with constituent complaints about cable television service, they created this local council structure that meets regularly with cable television company officials to work out problems before issues rise to regulatory action. Members are appointed by local municipalities and boards of education.

The councils still exist today but their regulatory authority is limited only to cable television and not any of the other utilities that benefit and profit from poles and wiring conduits running on public and private right-of-ways.

It’s time to modernize this advisory council structure and extend its advisory authority to any utility that makes use of poles and conduits in a community. Irrespective of whether the service is regulated, the use of public rights of way to deliver services is a regulated activity.

Extending this oversight authority will cost the state nothing beyond what it’s already doing to support these councils and will help PURA exercise the new regulatory powers granted to them in recent legislation. But, more importantly, this will provide an opportunity for utilities to build productive relationships with local customers and hopefully prevent regulatory action from taking place at all.

While utilities could choose not to attend these local council meetings it would most certainly be in their interest to be there and listen to customers and officials about local concerns. And if a resolution is not possible locally, the council could, through PURA, initiate regulatory dockets for enforcement such as they have with the cable companies for decades.

I have no doubt the utilities will oppose any additional oversight of their businesses. But they no longer have the trust of the public and it’s time to create a process to re-establish relationships and refocus their efforts on those who matter: us.

Anker Powerhouse 90 / 100 Review

My latest video is a review of the Anker Powerhouse 90 – this is a portable powerbank that has an AC outlet! You can see my full review here.

If you’re shopping for one of these you’re going to find another one called the “Powerhouse 100.” I think the “90” is the new version of this product with a slightly smaller battery. This may have been required so it can be under the minimum for airline carry-ons, or they were looking so shave some cost. The difference between the two is about 10 watt hours.

The Powerhouse 90 advertises about 87 watt hours – meaning if you had a 1 watt draw it could run (theoretically) for 87 hours. The real-world longevity you’ll get out of the battery will vary but I think if you had a full load of 87 watts through the AC outlet you’ll likely see far less than an hour due to overhead of the inverter, etc.

The powerbank can deliver a maximum of about 160 watts simultaneously budgeted as follows: 12 watts for the USB-A ports, 45 watts for the USB-C port, and 100 watts for the AC outlet. In the video we plugged in a large studio LED light that draws 36 watts via the AC outlet, had a Steam Deck drawing about 33 watts out of the USB-C, and plugged in two smart phones to the USB-A ports. It was able to provide consistent power to each device.

The power bank charges via the USB-C port at a rate of 45 watts. A full charge from empty will take about 3 hours via a 45 watt USB-C power adapter.

So what’s the use case here? For me it’s about charging the devices I have in my production bag that can’t charge over USB. For example my Canon and Sony camcorders I use for remote productions need to be charged using their AC adapters. This pack will allow me to keep things topped off (or even fully powered) as we walk from one location to another when shooting a dispatch video.

Twitter Bans Mastodon Links

This morning I was posting a link back to my Mastodon account on Twitter and got this message: “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

It looks as though this new ban applies to most if not all of the major Mastodon instances that are out there. This means that any link to a Mastodon account or a post on those instances are not even allowed to be posted on Twitter.

This comes in the wake of Elon Musk banning the “Elon Jet” account that was keeping track of the whereabouts of his private jet using publicly available ADS-B data. ADS-B data comes from a transponder required to be installed on most aircraft that transmits the airplane’s tail number, position, altitude, etc. These transmissions can be picked up on the ground with cheap hardware and free software as I demonstrated in this video (tune in at at the 8:53 mark).

Musk says that realtime doxxing (publicly posting private information about a person’s whereabouts) is not allowed and that any account doing it will be removed. He also extended the ban to accounts that link to that information elsewhere. Twitter took this action after Musk says a car carrying his young child was followed home from the airport and potentially blocked by a stalker. Musk posted a video of the alleged stalker along with the alleged stalker’s license plate but did not file a police report as of the time of this writing.

The question to be asked here is whether or not those owning and traveling in private jets have a reasonable expectation of privacy – especially as the position of those aircraft are broadcast unencrypted to other aircraft and stations on the ground.

This move runs counter to the “free speech” direction Musk says he wants Twitter to take. Additionally it appears to be counter to the free market principles that Musk purports to believe in. They could have blocked individual Mastodon links to the Elon Jet account as opposed to restricting any links to the entire fediverse – a competing network that is attracting many Twitter users.

Learn more about Mastodon here:

Synology Backup Options

My latest video is the third in a sponsored series exploring how to use a Synology NAS device as a backup solution. This new video focuses on how to back the NAS up offsite once you have data on it through their Hyper Backup solution and via Snapshot Replication. You can see the video here.

Hyper Backup is something we’ve covered in the past. It takes data stored on the NAS and backs it up to external media or cloud destinations. It can be configured to store multiple versions of files so if somebody messes something up it’s relatively easy to “roll back” to a prior version if it was included in the back up job.

I’ve been using Hyper Backup for quite awhile now and have multiple jobs running on my personal NAS. One job maintains a full backup to a USB hard drive at night, while another sends my important work offsite to Amazon S3. The NAS settings gets included in that as well so it’s pretty easy to do a full restore should one be needed on existing or new hardware. The data is encrypted before it gets sent to the cloud provider for added security.

Snapshot replication works in a different way. It will keep everything on one Synology NAS mirrored on another every time a snapshot job fires off. Should there be a hardware failure a relatively quick switchover can occur without the need to run a full restoration process first. You can even switch back to the original hardware once everything gets resolved. And because it works on an incremental basis you can get the initial data load done on your local network and then relocate the destination NAS offsite for smaller incremental updates.

It’s really crazy how many features Synology’s developers have packed into these boxes. I could devote an entire channel to this topic and never run out of things to cover. This series was great because I learned some new tricks that I didn’t know my NAS could do.

You can see my growing collection of Synology videos on this playlist. I want to thank them for their ongoing support of the channel!

Top Tech of 2022!

Each year I take a look back at all of the products I reviewed and pick a few that I think stand above the rest. Some of these are not terribly exciting but are now a useful part of my workflow! Check out the video here!

From a tech perspective this was the year for handheld devices. The FPGA-based Analogue Pocket and Valve’s Steam Deck are the most innovative devices I looked at this year and are now a regular fixture in my gaming world.

While not as revolutionary, Apple’s M2 Macbook Air was easily my favorite laptop of the year. It checks all of the major boxes reviewers and consumers look for in a laptop: excellent performance, seemingly limitless battery life, and in a thin and light weight package that comes in under 3 pounds. While the performance gains are marginal vs. the M1 Air, the hardware improvements make it a great upgrade from the prior model.

There are a few other items of note in the video including some neat smart home devices, a great screen cleaner, and more.

You can see reviews of all of my top products in this playlist.

What will next year bring?

YouTubers Rich Rebuilds and Hoovie’s Garage Reveal EV Charging Infrastructure Still Not Ready..

Let me start by saying I’m a huge proponent of electric vehicles (EV’s). I’ve been driving electric for the last twelve years, starting with a Chevy Volt and now in a Tesla.

Range anxiety is still a big issue for electric vehicles. Despite massive developments EV’s charge relatively slowly vs. a gas powered vehicle fill-up and charging stations for non-Tesla vehicles are few and far between. A bulk of the publicly available EV chargers are mostly “feel good” installations that charge quite slowly. My local grocery store’s charger for example will get me maybe 5 or 6 miles back in the tank after 30 minutes in the store.

For the last decade most EVs have been cars or crossover SUVs built on car platforms. Over the last year manufacturers have introduced electric pickup trucks and SUVs to the market, with Ford, Rivian and GM shipping their vehicles right now and Tesla’s Cybertruck right around the corner. These vehicles are much larger and heavier than the typical electric car, which means they need larger batteries to get the same range as a comparable electric car would. And those big batteries take longer to charge – if you can find a charger at all.

This is something Rich Rebuilds encountered on his recent purchase of a Rivian pickup truck. He took road trip from his home in Massachusetts down to South Carolina to call out a dealer falsely marketing a Rivian on their lot, but I think the trip was really about visiting his brother :).

The buried lede in Rich’s video was how hard it was for him to actually get down there. Check out his adventure here, like all of Rich’s videos it was very entertaining:

Because Rivian doesn’t have its own charging network, Rich had to rely on publicly available chargers. Some were very slow. Others were not where they said they would be. At one point he had to ask the owner of a bed and breakfast if he could plug in for a little while to get to his next destination. And when he did find a faster charger the cost to use it was often the equivalent to a tank of gas in a traditional vehicle.

Tyler Hoover from Hoovie’s Garage didn’t fare much better with his purchase of a Ford F-150 Lightning EV pickup. Tyler is actually the prime candidate for an electric pickup – the type of driving he does is typically not far from his home. But he found even short trips back and forth to his mechanic towing a vehicle left him pretty close to empty.

His range anxiety was exacerbated by the cold weather in his home state of Kansas that reduced range even further. It was so bad that Hoover and a friend who co-owned the vehicle decided to sell it and try something else.

They ended up choosing an electric Hummer that Hoover says addresses many of the range issues by using a much larger battery pack with twice the capacity of the Ford. We’ll have to see how it fares after Hoover has had more time in the Hummer.

These range and charging issues indicate that just building and marketing an EV is not enough. Without a charging network that makes the vehicles practical it’s really just half a car.

Tesla addressed this issue a decade ago when they started building out their super charger network. After 8+ years of Tesla ownership I’ve never come close to running out of juice, mainly because there’s always a supercharging station nearby wherever I may be.

Tesla Superchargers

Tesla has experienced growing pains with the network (especially in areas like Silicon Valley where there’s a lot of Tesla ownership) but in my experience I’ve always been able to get charge when I needed one here in the Northeast US. Charging is still a bit slower than filling up a gas tank but much faster than even some of the fastest chargers available for other vehicles.

Tesla typically charges drivers market rate for the electricity but they occasionally use the supercharger network as an incentive to clear out vehicle inventory. When I purchased my car, a prior model-year leftover, they gave me “free gas for life” in an effort to get me to sign on the dotted line. Not a bad deal!

At this point I don’t believe the national goal of EV’s representing 50% of vehicle sales by 2030 to be realistic unless some major efforts are made to improve both charging speed and availability – especially for those who do not have the convenience of being able to plug in at home.

Samsung 28″ G70A 4k Gaming Monitor Review

I have been looking for an affordable 4k gaming monitor that could go north of 60hz while also support Nvidia G-Sync. The 28″ Samsung G70A fits the bill for me and you can see more about it in my most recent review here.

You can find one at the best price here (affiliate link).

It can run at up to 144hz and supports both Nvidia Gsync and AMD freesync. In the video we tested it with both a gaming PC with an Nvidia graphics card and an Xbox Series S in its variable frame rate mode. Since the display supports HDMI 2.1 the PS5 should also work but I do not own a PS5 to test.

I was impressed with its raw performance, both in its ability to deliver high frame rate 4k video and its very fast 1ms response rate. Even 8 bit NES games ran with barely a hint of image blur with the lowest input lag I’ve tested so far on a display.

But it’s otherwise a barebones display – something I would expect for the price point. It’s not color accurate for content creation, meeting only 90% of the DCI gamut. At 400 nits it’s not incredibly bright either, but fine for late night gaming sessions. The display does support HDR10 but because its maximum brightness is only 400 nits it gets super dim when HDR modes are enabled. So I’m not going to recommend this for 4k media consumption either.

It does not have speakers on board but does have an audio output for connecting speakers. That’s how I have it configured on my gaming PC right now. But it does have RGB lights where speakers would otherwise be located if that’s your sort of thing.

One thing I learned the hard way during a livestream the other day is that cable choice is super important when pushing 4k video beyond 60hz. So for HDMI connections an HDMI 2.1 rated cable is a necessity while DisplayPort users should look for a 1.4 cable. You may get an image initially out of lesser rated cables but once a game gets booted up you’ll likely see the video drop.

Making Progress on Deficient Connecticut Utility Poles

As the saga of deficient utility poles in my town continues I’m pleased to say that some progress has been made!

First the roped together pole at the end of my road was fixed – it likely would not have been had I not raised a stink. I learned that the only thing the power company does to coordinate with the other companies is put the pole in a database. No phone calls, no other coordination.

I’ve since been passing information about other deficient poles over to our state regulator. A few of the worst offenders have already been addressed but they still have a lot of work to do.

So far Frontier the phone company dealt with this tri-pole monstrosity that was blighting my beautiful small town for years:

Frontier also addressed a very dangerous looking strapped together pole that was looming over main street. This one had been like this for the better part of two or three years. They recently put new fiber on the pole even though it was about to fall into the road!

What is clear throughout this mess is that the utilities are not coordinating with each other on pole replacements. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get everyone on site and do it at once? Sure, but only if customers mattered to these monopolies.

The utility companies of course cry poverty complaining they can’t possibly fix all of these problems and meet their minimum guaranteed profits. But if they addressed these issues when they happen vs. letting them rot for years they wouldn’t have the deferred maintenance. This issue also exposes how utility companies have gutted their workforce and rely mostly on contractors to do the bare minimum maintenance required.

I’m working on an op-ed with some solutions that I think will light a fire under utilities to refocus their attention on customers. Stay tuned!

Using ChatGPT to summarize YouTube Transcripts

Like everyone else I’ve been playing with ChatGPT – a natural language chatbot that can do some pretty amazing things when it comes to summarizing text and even writing computer code.

I thought it might be fun to see if it could make summaries of my YouTube videos. ChatGPT can’t yet transcribe directly from a video but you can give it the transcript that YouTube generates automatically.

Here’s what it came up with for my recent video on Mastodon:

Pretty good right? And this is with all of the errors that YouTube automatic subtitles introduce into the text. While not perfect it’s definitely a good start and certainly better than a writing prompt.

I was also curious how it would do with a product review. Here’s what it came up with for the Kindle Scribe:

Here it missed some of my complaints that largely centered on the software-side of the experience mainly how its handwritten notes in books can’t be written on the pages of the book itself, and some of the shortfalls with note synchronization across platforms. But again, pretty good start with nothing but a YouTube transcript to work with.

The explosion of these consumer-facing AI apps we’ve seen over the last few months is stunning.

All About Mastodon

My latest video is an overview of what I’ve experienced so far on the Mastodon social media “federation.” I say “federation” and not “network” here because Mastodon is designed to work in a decentralized manner that no one directly controls. You can find me on Mastodon at @lonseidman@indieweb.social.

Mastodon’s federation consists of a growing number of servers located throughout the world that host users and their content. Servers share that content with each other, allowing a user on one server to follow content created by a user on another.

The result is an experience that feels similar to Twitter but does not have a single decision maker or management team moderating content. Each Mastodon server is run by volunteers or a single owner, and those server administrators have total control over who does what on their servers. In other words you could get kicked off a server on a whim, or your server owner could decide to shut everything down one day when they’re sick of paying for it.

Another issue involves the federated network itself. If a group of server owners decides they don’t like the content coming out of a particular instance on the federated network they can choose not to carry content from that server. So while you can still have a presence, the reach of that presence could be significantly restricted. This is something Anil Dash discovered on the instance he chose to plant his flag on :

So choosing the right server to start on is an important decision point. While it’s possible to export your content to another one it’s definitely a pain point for the fledgling network.

I decided to start on indieweb.social which is managed by some followers of the Indie Web movement. I picked this server because I’m passionate about independently produced and hosted content and this community is all about that. So on my server I can converse with people I may not know but share my passion for independent content while also having a broader experience with the rest of the “fediverse.” You can see how that works in the video.

Some users are opting to choose to run their own servers, but the cost is certainly much higher (and more complex) than running a simple WordPress instance. And of course this is a heck of a lot more complicated than signing up for a Twitter account.

I see a lot of potential with Mastodon especially as it seems to be attracting many new users lately. I think they’ve added more in the last couple of months than they added in the last several years. Can it scale to the size of a Twitter or Facebook? That remains to be seen – especially given the burden of cost that will be put on the server operators to support the users and content.

Over time we may also see multiple federations that are completely walled off from each other for various reasons. Mastodon’s code is open source so there’s nothing preventing this from happening.

Mastodon’s decentralization is a fascinating approach to social media and it’ll be interesting to see how this federation of independent servers operates and scales. I expect a lot of bumps in the road ahead and it’s questionable if the non-techie public will adopt a platform that is more complex than a centrally controlled corporate platform.

Amazon Kindle Scribe Review – Large Format Kindle with a Pen

Amazon added a pen to their popular Kindle reader with the new Kindle Scribe (compensated affiliate link). It is a great note taker but there’s definitely some room for improvement on the software side. See my full review here.

The pen works really nicely on this device. The screen is not too slippery and feels very close to a pen on paper. The Kindle’s e-ink display adds some additional realism to the note taking experience. It of course also functions like the other Kindle e-readers and its large 10.2″ screen that works much better for large text vs. the smaller Kindles.

There are two pen choices available. For my review I went with the version with the “Premium Pen” that has an eraser on the back and a button on the side that can switch to a different virtual pen type when its pressed in. The standard pen lacks those features. Both pens do not require batteries or charging and will magnetically attach to the side of the Scribe.

My big issue with the Scribe is all on the software side. If you’re reading a book you can only place handwritten notes in a small box that embeds in a highlight on the page. The handwritten notes do not sync back to other devices but typed out notes do.

If you have a PDF that you brought over via the “send to Kindle” mechanism, you can write directly on the page. Like the books the handwritten annotations will not sync back to your Kindle library but you can click the share button and email the PDF back to yourself with notes embedded.

The Scribe also has a notebook/sketchbook feature. This has a number of templates that include lined paper, graphic paper, etc. In this mode the notes sync in their entirety back to your Kindle account and you can view those notes on any platform. But you can only edit them on the Scribe.

This definitely feels like a first generation product. But its limitations feel mostly software-based as opposed to the hardware.

August Wi-Fi Smart Lock Review

August has put together a nice “bolt on” smart lock for existing deadbolts locks. Through their app you can create revokable virtual keys for guests, house cleaners, etc that can allow access on a certain schedule. You can see my full review here and find one here at the best price (affiliate link). These go on sale from time to time and I’ve seen it sold as low as $179.

I reviewed the prior model in this product line and this new one definitely feels more refined. It’s more compact, has better battery longevity, and integrates Wi-Fi in addition to Bluetooth for connectivity. It supports the “big three” (Apple Homekit, Google Home and Amazon Alexa) but the Wi-Fi connectivity doesn’t work with Apple Homekit. So you’ll need an Apple device like an Apple TV or an old iPad within Bluetooth range to access the lock remotely.

What I like the most about the August products are the virtual keys you can assign to users. These keys are revokable, meaning you can delete them without having to call a locksmith, and you can set them to be valid only during certain days or times of the week. Guests accessing the home will need a smartphone (iPhone or Android) running the August app, however.

The lock also comes with a sensor that will detect when your door is ajar or open.

While most of the door locks I’ve reviewed run on AA batteries this one runs with an odd size – it requires two CR123 lithium batteries. Battery life will depend on whether or not you’re using the Wi-Fi and how often the lock is triggered to open and close.

It runs on CR123 lithium batteries

I did have to use the included trim piece (the black circle you can see behind the silver lock) because the lock was so small that it didn’t fully cover the hole cut for my deadbolt lock.

If you’re looking to make an existing dumb deadbolt smart this is a good solution. You can keep your physical keys for yourself and share virtual keys for those you want to grant access to your home.

RSS to Mastodon Solution

I spun up this small Docker container called Feediverse on my Synology NAS that grabs an RSS feed of my YouTube channels and link blog and posts to Mastodon each time a new item gets added. I have the Bazqux reader aggregate the four feeds into a single one.

All of the options are set in the environment criteria so you don’t need to map anything storage-wise. Just be sure to adjust the date variable each time you start the container up so it doesn’t post too much at once!

What the heck is RSS and what am I talking about? See my video on RSS here and get a list of all of my current feeds here.

Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook Review

We don’t often associate Chromebooks with gaming but Lenovo thinks there’s some opportunity with the rise of game streaming services to bring a gaming focused Chromebook to market with their new Gaming Chromebook (affiliate link). You can see my full review here.

What makes this Chromebook better for game streaming? Its display. It has a nice 16″ display running at 2560 x 1600 (a 16:10 aspect ratio) that runs at 120hz. Right now only one streaming service supports that frame rate (GeForce Now), but the faster refresh rate does provide a zippier overall experience even when not playing games.

And of course no gaming laptop would be complete without a RGB backlit keyboard. This might be the first Chromebook with one although the controls are limited to a few colors and there doesn’t seem to be a way to customize colors to a specific range of keys.

What struck me in reviewing this device is that it’s probably one of the better Chromebooks on the market overall even for non-gaming. Beyond the nice display it has a great 1080p webcam, a number pad for spreadsheet power users, and great performance in both Chromebook functions including running Android and Linux apps.

One shortfall though is that its Intel processor will have some compatibility issues with popular Android games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile. Both of these popular games crash constantly on the device similar to how they perform on other Intel based Chromebooks.

It’s pretty reasonably priced at $599 for the i5 version. A lower cost i3 version was loaned to the channel for review although it does not appear to be available at the time of publication.