Thanks for the trip. Any recommendations for best value for money hardware?

The focus mode ui is another bugbear - how scattered the ui is for this.

I can alter it from the bottom middle of the notification shade once set, but I can’t enable it from there - why?

At least put a line with date and time at the bottom of the notification shade so I don’t have to roll it all the way down.

Also, I’ve set triple back tap to turn on the flash… well, it only works (inconsistently) when the phone is unlocked. Why?

I don’t mind Ubuntu server, though you’re right you need to clean it up a bit by uninstalling snap and killing the login ad of managed k8s, the LTS versions have been quite consistently easy to deal with and stable, but then again so has Debian.

In iOS how hard it is to glance the time and date while watching a full screen video.

I think a possibility is a series of open source anvil or nixos scripts that you can run on most hardware with minimal changes, in an extendable architecture of some kind to add or remove functionality and they perhaps get maintained by the community or some structure of the kind of Linux distributions.

This could enable people with minimal skills set up and maintain a reasonably useful but secure environment just by changing a few variables.

Can find great deals for 2yo second hand high tier phones

Perhaps this was written much earlier than v5.

The combination of clean UI with long promised updates seems like a winning combination. I don’t really play games on my phone. I just want it to go through the basic tasks quickly (photos, voice dictation, app switching etc, I currently have a OnePlus 7 Pro and it has kept up admirably - but being stuck in android 12 with some quirky behaviour is a bit annoying).

So I guess I’m not looking for a powerhouse - but I do want something that does the basic stuff right - however if it doesn’t bring table stakes (ie if modem or voice quality or other connectivity is subpar) then the rest is not important.

Thanks for the heads up, I hadn’t considered that as a criterion and was thinking of pulling the trigger. Do you have any recommendations?

You just summoned a demon

Maybe this is useful https://tunnelbroker.net/

Same. If a newbie can’t get stuck inside, is it even a text editor?

Sorry, probably not.

This is meant to run hosted (like a website), so it needs a server setup.

If it all sounds like gibberish then you don’t understand what a lamp stack or a docker container is it’s unlikely you’ll be able to install it on your own in a way that is useful or that you can maintain for security.

You could possibly hire someone to install it on your behalf - but given that it’s dealing with your finances I would be hesitant to do so.

If you are on Android try the Cashew app - has a paid tier but it’s unlikely you’ll need it and is minimally intrusive.

The Organic Maps app implementation is pretty neat.

All business models are aimed at company profitability. Customer satisfaction is an expensive early necessity which you can largely do away with as you become entrenched.

Unless you want a hosted solution I find pdf-arranger to be lighter and self contained.

“my fellow scholars”

I’m assuming it’s aimed at people trying to avoid tying the hosting IP to the publicly consumable service.

Not if you indicate you are sure in advance

For most commercial products they offer what they call Copilot with data protection.

I hate that they are shoving it down everyone’s throat but data leakage is a primary company concern that they have addressed.

Now, how much that is true on the backend is anyone’s guess, but they’re selling something that they could be held legally accountable for.