Default apps 2024

Last updated: 2024-12-11 21:35

Wow, I didn't realise, but 6 months ago I hadn't heard of about 80% of these. Things moved fast. Definitely geeked out a bit this year. The big win was getting out of Windows. I feel like I'm taking back control, though there's more work to be done. The battle continues.

Hardware and Operating Systems

• Main Laptop: Dell Inspiron 15 3525

• Operating System: Linux - I tried it for the first time 6 months ago, and it's been a hell of a learning experience, but I'm comfortable in Linux alone now. I've removed Windows and my Microsoft 365 subscription expires in January which I won't be renewing.

• Distro: Debian 12 bookworm - Really fits me. It's slim but I'm managing to get all the software I need up and running.

• Desktop Environment: GNOME 43.9 - I just find this neat and tidy, and reminds me less of Windows like the other desktop environments I tried.
  
  

• Phone: Oppo Reno8 (Android v14)

• Work phone: iPhone 12 Pro (iOS 18.1.1)

Apps

• Email: Proton Mail for all my proper email correspondence with real humans. Outlook and Gmail for all the legacy junky crap.

• Notes: Helix (laptop), Obsidian (mobile)

• To-Do: nothing right now which is actually going ok. Nirvana HQ would still be my go-to as I bought the lifetime account for $10 when it existed and is super easy, though I've toyed with Taskwarrior too which is powerful.

• Photo Shooting: Oppo

• Photo Management: Aves (mobile gallery), Imagemagick (editing), Filen (storage), feh (viewing)

• Chat: Beeper (mobile), I hate it, but it combines FB Messenger and Whatsapp, which I also hate, with SMS messages (or is it Google Messages? I don't fkn know).

• Browser: Firefox (laptop), Brave (mobile)

• Bookmarks: Buku

• Search: duckduckgo, clew

• VPN: Surfshark

• Cloud File Storage: Filen - scored 200 GB lifetime storage in the Black Friday sales and transferred all my files out of OneDrive. You beaut.

• File Navigation: Material Files (mobile), Yazi (laptop)

• Syncing: Syncthing

• Office: LibreOffice

• Password Management: Bitwarden

• Shopping lists: Obsidian

• Podcasts: Snipd

• Music: Jellyfin (laptop media server), Finamp (mobile Jellyfin client), Spotube (mobile), soulseek, SomaFM (web radio), Chilltrax (web radio)

• Movies/TV: VLC

• Python Coding: Geany IDE, pipx environment management

• Sport: Garmin Connect, Strava (dropped down to free version. I'm not paying for their enshittification), Runalyze

• Maps: NZTopo50 (mobile, topo maps for NZ)

• Mastodon: Tut CLI, Phanpy web UI

• Gemini: Amfora (read), Buran (read, mobile) MyGemini.Space (write), Smol Pub (read/write). All new to me. Just tinkering as usual.

• RSS: FreshRSS, 32-Bit Cafe (FreshRSS hosting).

• Website: Helix (writing, templates), Zellij (terminal workspace management), bash scripts (loading templates, image preparation) Zola SSG (build), Neocities (host), Neocities CLI (command line interface), GitHub (version control/backup), lazygit (git command line interface). Sounds complicated, it is, and I like it.