I designed a back cover to show people mine is no ordinary phone, it's a Freedom Phone.
Share and re-use the design if you like. Replace my face and website with your own.
Fits a OnePlus-6 phone, when printed at 76 x 152 mm. (This phone model can run a wide range of freedom software.)
In our family we look after our own photos — we don't want Google or any other company deciding what we can and can't do with them.
In the past we used various desktop/laptop based open source viewer software, with storage on local disks. More recently we have been running the awesome open source PhotoPrism, with its smartphone-compatible web interface and photo library management features. Although PhotoPrism is impressive judged on its own merits, and has indeed allowed us to manage our photos ourselves, it's just not quite as usable as we'd wish.
Next up is Immich.
I recently learned something new about those tweety birds we hear in the tall trees all along our school run, cycling or walking past the golf course. Near the school end, lots of coal tits, a name with which I was barely familiar. Near our end, lots of wrens. I had an idea that wrens were rare and secretive and tiny, so it had not occurred to me they were responsible for that noisy cheerful chatter. Perhaps it's hard to spot one but they're loudly singing.
These I learnt last week helped by an app named “whoBIRD” which, as you may guess, listens for bird calls and displays the most likely matches. It's delightful to identify real birds, and surprisingly successful if they're not too far away.
Let's take charge of another part of our digital life! Must we be beholden to Google for delivering our push notifications? No! No longer! With apps that support UnifiedPush neither Google nor the app makers get to determine where our data goes and who gets to monitor it. We get the control, the freedom to choose.
To me this feels like a breath of fresh air!
You might find your way here while installing an app that uses UnifiedPush. Let's see how to make sure the notifications work properly.
This article is about one particular step of the procedure for “flashing” a new android-compatible operating system onto a Samsung device to create a Freedom-Respecting Smart Phone or Tablet.
This is about flashing a custom operating system ROM in a Samsung Android device using the tool named Heimdall.
We may encounter a failure mode in which heimdall detect succeeds but heimdall flash and heimdall print-pit both fail, printing this:
This is about buying a Samsung Android tablet and replacing the privacy-invading proprietary Google and Samsung software with privacy-respecting Freedom Software: “degoogling” for short.
Why? In “The Problem” section below, we take a look back at how much we're giving up when we accept Google's and Samsung's terms.
I would like ordinary people, with a little technical skill, to be able to do this. The process unfortunately is currently far too difficult, especially so on Samsung devices.
My goals:
As I wrote before, My smart watch is open source. Awesome!
Let's make this fun — for children in particular — and show how we can bend the device to our will because FOSS means it's truly ours, fully under our control.
As if I didn't have enough else to do with my evening, I spent it making this. Why?
Are you asking yourself,
“What's it to be: Android or iPhone?”
Actually, NO! There is another way.
Time I Learned: there are freedom-respecting phones.
I'll tell you which one you need.
What's so bad about choosing either Google or Apple?
It's about who controls our use of the device after we “bought” it. Do “they” remain in control of what we do, or are we in control?