On a mission to reduce my dependency on the tech giants, including Apple and Microsoft of course. One of the big problems here is that I’m a Macbook user and, controversially, a Surface Book 2 user (I got one a few months ago, attracted to the touchscreen, drawing, tablet options, it really is quite a bit of tech IMHO a better device than the macbook with a substandard OS). What then am I going to do about a new laptop? Continue reading...

The Turris Omnia is an open source router running its own flavour of openWRT (Turris Omnia OS), it has two user interfaces (Foris and Luci) as well as ssh. I’ve mentioned why I want to connect to the internet through VPN and this post is about how to set up the router to direct all outgoing traffic through the VPN using openVPN. Within the Foris UI of the Turris Omnia there are options under “updates” to automatically keep certain packages up to date. Continue reading...

Having set up the router to use encrypted dns 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 from Cloud Flare I also wanted to route traffic through a VPN to further protect my privacy from my ISP and anything else tracking me via my IP (Google, Amazon, Facebook etc). This is all part of my effort to remove my footprints and identity from tracking and my dependency on the tech giants - their power is incredible. Continue reading...

As part of my effort to reduce the dependency I have on just a few tech giants and protect my privacy more (avoiding the free services that actually cost a lot in access to your personal data) I need to find a new email provider. I was going to title this “switching email providers” but I thought I’d be more specific as I’m only really using gmail, and I’m a heavy user too. Continue reading...

I have a second hand intuos4 tablet, it’s the large version. It has 8 buttons each with an OLED screen to display what the button does. There’s a 9th button in the centre and a dial too along with 2 buttons on the pen. I believe the medium version has the same controls. On Linux (currently Ubuntu 18.10 running Plasma KDE - Kubuntu) the driver for pressure work great out of the box, there are a few buttons that work too - right click, scroll etc. Continue reading...

I am very much a consumer of digital products from only a handful of service providers. These tech giants offer me all the digital tools I need and I have become dependent on them for most aspects of my life. Many of these products are free to use and they’re extremely accessible and convenient. In some cases I have paid for licences though they are few and far between. Worst still, in some cases (e. Continue reading...

I’m on a search for what I’m calling my Hot Chocolate Sweet Spot: a melting pot of personal values, real world problems and desirable solutions which benefit us as humans rather than purely financial or political gain. The idea is to seek out the intersection where human centric values meets with real world needs to address social justice and inequality, and where the solutions/products/services are so attractive they are readily adopted by society and the people they are meant to serve. Continue reading...

My Site I write about things and want to gather them together on my site. Whoe is this site for and how will they use it or why would they be here? Me to have a creative outlet to remember who I was, what I did, how I did it etc to work on projects and keep a log of where I am with them so that a part of me might live on longer than my biological self Daughter to be encouraged to be creative to remember me Randoms to see how I’ve managed to solve a problem they are also faced with People who are dealing with similar mental health problems I’ve dealt with learners of counselling skills who might be on a similar learning journey I am on people who might be interested in following a particular series because it interests them Publishers There may be books that emerge from this and they might want to see them in action Employers To see who I am and what I have done Sections Technology Creativity Mental Health Adventure Food Series Co-Creatives Big Wave Thinkpad Podx User Guides for Me Adventure Labs Counselling Skills The Porregg Book Bread Where On Hearth Are We? Continue reading...