See also: Ungoogled Chromium, Vivaldi, and Chromium in general. Firefox woes Firefox has dramatically disintegrated under the so-called leadership of Mitchell Baker, enriching herself to the tune of millions while the market share (and revenue) of Firefox plummeted and 250 employees were laid off. This alone is reason enough to avoid such a toxic software ... Read more
Updated 07-Mar-2026 Email, for so long was a client and server issue. Then it became cloud-based. Now we can't trust and cloud email providers, or at least damned few. As well, having your email locked in someone else's server with cloud access seems quite short-sighted. And so we now return back to the days of ... Read more
Updated 06-Mar-2026 Vocaloid (ボーカロイド, Bōkaroido) is a singing voice synthesizer software product. Wikipedia OpenUtau - open source vocaloid software OpenUtau is the main Linux software. Popular Vocaloids
Updated 07-Mar-2026 For XMPP clients, see XMPP Clients: Conversations, Dino. See also the Prosody IM chatroom itself. Preamble Note that after a year of using Snikket, I've installed Prosody (on which it is based) and find it to be more flexible, and more-or-less straightforward. Prosody is also super-easy to integrate with coturn for audio and ... Read more
The month of February 2026 Caption: Lovely Tom Yam rice noodle soup with pork. Note: This pace of monthly notes fits better, as there is generally chaos in the individual weeks but a month view can be more liberating. Technology Updated the Go article to include Go-based apps of note (there are many) Updated the ... Read more
While there is something to be said for actual self-hosting a server (at home or mobile), having a low-cost spot on the Internet is good for not having to worry about one's own personal connectivity at any given time, for services to work. By services, this could include: Web server (Caddy) Email server (Mox) File ... Read more
Updated 26-Feb-2026 The month of January 2026 Caption: Tree height Note: turning these weekly into monthly notes, as I simply don't get to them. Tasks (open) Many administrative tasks Revision of several products Increase mobility Maintain GenAI learnings, write up articles Tech stuff Moved over to Flatpak for browsers (Ungoogled Chromium, Vivaldi) even though these ... Read more
Updated 03-Apr-2026 Ungoogled Chromium for Debian This is meant to help with selecting and installing a chrome-based browser, with minimal tracking and other cruft. I've given up on Firefox as being too corrupt, and technically inferior. Yes, Chromium is a Google project, but the open source nature has produced two viable browser options for all ... Read more
I've avoided Flatpaks and Snaps for a long time, but now see three uses for Flatpaks (though none yet for Snaps). The main issues have to do with the size of files, security stuff, and simply being not as convenient as using apt repositories. But when some folks can't keep those things stable (or offer ... Read more
Updated 02-Mar-2026 For XMPP server, see Prosody, which works lovely and is super-easy to integrate with coturn for audio and video calls. Note that Movim and Jitsi Meet are two additional items that can be integrated as well. Preamble I've used Signal for the past number of years as a chat / videocall app, having ... Read more
Caption: New swimming pool I think this is the first week of 2026 or perhaps the last week of 2025? In any case, I've not done weekly notes for a few months now. Time to start again? I get the feeling that 2026 will end with many more question marks per paragraph? Software stuff Overall ... Read more
Android hardware At this point, I feel that Chromebooks are non-starters. Either Android or Linux (Debian) are the proper OSes of choice, and decent hardware that can support these platforms. We have moved to Samsung devices from Xiaomi, which has much more intrusive application spam, advertising, and tracking. We still use Mi Band and Mi ... Read more
Updated 11-Dec-2025 Reaper is the DAW I've decided on based on a combination of functionality and affordability. Reaper is not open source, but it does have a reasonable and affordable license. I'm fine with supporting them, up until enshittification (which isn't 100% guaranteed in any case). See also Generative AI in Music The main thing ... Read more
Updated 04-Mar-2026 I have several different thoughts on AI music. Note: Over the past 4 months November 2025 - February 2026) I have created over 6 hours of songs in a variety of genres, and this music has and is enjoyed by my friends and family. Overall a positive experience. Copyright and infringement Generative A.I. ... Read more
Turns out there are a large number of games that can be played on Linux, without crap like WINE (though some still use it). 0ad A great open-source game that has had continued ongoing development. Downloadable via apt: sudo apt install 0ad -t trixie-backports Roblox Roblox can be installed via flatpak (sadly) using a tool ... Read more
Roblox is the only reason my children run Windows on their computers. What an annoying operating system, which regularly tries to sneakily install and configure more bloatware and suveillance. Well, the wait is over to axe these operating systems and install Linux (namely, Debian Trixie 13). Roblox can be installed and used by emulating Android ... Read more
This is about the Kobo Clara BW 6". Some Issues Some settings are hard to reach (or very hard to reach) without some customization (using Nickelmenu). For example: Dark mode requires: More > Settings > Reading Settings > Dark Mode (compare with Kindle which is Swipe Down > Dark Mode Restarting the device reuqires holding ... Read more
Updated 26-Oct-2025 W39/2025: Monday 22 September - Sunday 28 September 2025 Caption: Bacon on Egg on Toast Tasks (open) Deploy more anti-bot measures on the website Enable caching on Gcore Install and configure Ejabbard server for domain: mcneill.info Migrate users from chat.mcneill.im to mcneill.info XMPP For Slack / Discord replacements, see: Zulip, Mattermost, Rocket Chat, ... Read more
W38/2025: Monday 15 September - Sunday 21 September 2025 Caption: Stop promoting substack Tech Fantastic article on Chinese AI pioneer Tasks (open) Consider Sypht or Roundcube for self-hosting email (and with web interface). A problem with my current email provider is not getting resolved (13 days so far). Deploy more anti-bot measures Enable caching on ... Read more