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Computers as I used to love them

tonsky.me

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Re: Computers as I used to love them

#241

Post by throw10920 »

chias wrote: post #238
throw10920 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a problem of trying to use a file syncing application on the internal state of an application on two different machines with two different states, and expecting the result to be a valid state. I think that we can narrow the problem down to the fact that git's internal state is represented in a way that is transparent to syncthing (a folder of files), that it will attempt to sync, but only partially succeed. If…

That is a much better way of phrasing it, thank you!

Thank you for identifying the problem in the first place! Now that I know about it, avoiding it is easy.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#242

Post by selfhoster11 »

prima-facie wrote: post #157

This is why I love open-source and put up with oddities in Linux / BSD / CLI tools / whatever. They're liberating to use. They don't try to sell you stuff. You're in control & it does what it says on the tin.

I feel like I've been sheltered for all these years. I never used Windows 10 for extended periods of time as an actually personal machine - it was either on corporate-deployed laptops for coding, or on a separate install dedicated purely to gaming. Having to set up my parents' new laptops was alienating, because I just don't use such hostile software.

I won't be moving to Windows 11 unless DRM forces my hand.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#243

Post by bakoo »

weystrom wrote: post #166
square_usual wrote: post #49

I love syncthing as much as the next guy on here, but this article feels very much like "why doesn't this square peg fit my round hole?!" Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce. I couldn't go to a less tech savvy friend and say, "Oh, you use Dropbox for backups? Here, use syncthing instead!" For one, most people don't have multiple computers they want to keep in sy…

I have a VPS in Digitalocean that's running syncthing ever since Untrusted Enrypted Storage[1] has been introduced last year. It's great, it's even better than cloud storage, since the VPS never has access to the encryption key. [1] https://docs.syncthing.net/branch/untrusted/html/users/untru...

I haven't kept up with what's new, so thanks for pointing this out!

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#244

Post by magicalhippo »

thom wrote: post #118
magicalhippo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about to drop Dropbox as well, due to how PITA it is to use. Have a picture in your Dropbox you want to send as a message on Android? Well, just click Share button of course! Wait, no, that just shares a link not the image itself... No, you gotta do "Open with...", find suitable image app (gallery or picture viewer), wait for it to download and open the image, and share from that app... Though I imagine Dropbox w…

On iOS you just tap the Dropbox icon and browse to the picture you want to send in the messages app. Surprised it's harder on a more open platform.

On my S8 it doesn't resize the images and instead just complains it's too large for MMS, so it's pretty useless like that. I know, who uses MMS these days...

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#245

Post by ValentineC »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #142
arepublicadoceu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is: you’re not the customer that Dropbox wants. Not offering reasonable storage for a reasonable price is a way to keep users that they don’t want away from their service. Just like 1Password. They are extremely non subtle in pushing users that want local vault away from their customer base.

I didn't know 1pass had changed. Glad I ditched them for Bitwarden a few years back. However I think bitwarden makes their backend complicated enough to scare off casual users of it like me who thought about hosting their own backend :) .

I'm looking forward to Bitwarden "client profiles" (connecting to multiple servers) to finally make the switch. :)

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#246

Post by jarbus »

josteink wrote: post #234
jarbus wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to switch over to SyncThing, but it would be next to useless on my iPad Pro, so I'm stuck using the incredibly buggy NextCloud filesync solution.

How so? There seems to be some third party client/implementation. Is there anything wrong or lacking with it? Asking as a Nextcloud (file only) user considering making a switch.

After reading this, I did some digging, and found Mobius[1]. It seems to work really well, I just got the pro version. I think the last time I looked, I saw that Syncthing only officially had an android client and stopped looking after that.

To be fair, I still would really like an official, open source iOS client, instead of some closed source thing I need to trust; I'm still a bit uneasy about using it.

[1] https://www.mobiussync.com/

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#247

Post by judge2020 »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #142
arepublicadoceu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is: you’re not the customer that Dropbox wants. Not offering reasonable storage for a reasonable price is a way to keep users that they don’t want away from their service. Just like 1Password. They are extremely non subtle in pushing users that want local vault away from their customer base.

I didn't know 1pass had changed. Glad I ditched them for Bitwarden a few years back. However I think bitwarden makes their backend complicated enough to scare off casual users of it like me who thought about hosting their own backend :) .

1password has effectively made 1password 7 the last version that will support local vaults on desktop, however, the mobile app has indefinite support for local vaults (since they don't want to segment their app users based on subscription / local).

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#248

Post by fuzzy2 »

smaudet wrote: post #161
fuzzy2 wrote: post #77

The part comparing the installation is a little disingenuous IMHO. You cannot seriously be complaining about Gatekeeper if you’re using a Mac. Dropbox has a web interface so it needs an account. 2FA enhances account security. Installing Homebrew also used sudo . In fact, you had to install it first. If you didn’t, you also wouldn’t have the Homebrew-services helper. And what’s wrong with an OOBE wizard? It’s software…

I don't think its disigenuous, though. I think these 'best practices' are really just the software equivalent of legalese speak. If you had to run an install wizard, use a key, and upload a photograph of yourself everytime you wanted to, say, put orange juice in the fridge, your average user would scream bloody murder and rightly call your product bloody garbage. What you might see is a caretaker sign documents for a…

Yeah I’m going to have to disagree completely here. Not only does your analogy not match the situation (setting it up is a one-time thing), you basically argue that… software was hard to write, it should be hard to use. I firmly believe the opposite should be the case: Most software should be accessible to everyone. This is absolutely imperative to advance mankind. Elitist thinking won’t help with that.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#249

Post by josefrichter »

bccdee wrote: post #225
josefrichter wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

External drives are a thing of history. Too much hassle, too much inconvenience, can't access anytime and anywhere I want, etc. What's the benefit of external drive compared to Dropbox really?

It's cheaper and faster. What's the hassle or inconvenience of a separate drive? If anything, Dropbox is less convenient because it requires installing an application to use it. The only drawback is that you have to carry it around anywhere you want to access it. A modern external drive is the size of a phone though, so that's hardly a dealbreaker even if you do want to carry it around. Although frankly, cloud storag…

I guess it’s just about everyone’s slightly different scenarios. My typical example: I have all my photos on Dropbox. Some of them a decade old. Don’t need them taking up SSD space. Don’t need to carry them around. But once in a blue moon I want to see a decade old photo from my phone while I’m on the other side of planet. Same for my ebooks, older work files, tax returns, etc, etc.
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