Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

The latest changes to hit the #Librem5 staging repo have dramatically increased my quality of life. First, Chatty now can use the haptic motor so I get vibration notifications w/ messages. Second, the top menu bar now features quick access to more settings.

Apparently when you move a registered Google Fi SIM to a new phone w/o re-registering it w/ the Fi app, incoming SMS have 16 random chars appended to the end. I assume registration causes local apps to hide the text. I wonder what Google is using those strings for?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectFi/comments/5k3h9t/texts_ending_with_tilde_and_random_letters/

Something I was proud that we did at Linux Journal was support customer privacy to the point we rejected the giant ecosystem of ad trackers dominating the industry.

It is hard (and costly) to do and I'm pleased to see The Markup take a similar stand:

https://themarkup.org/2020/02/25/president-letter-nabiha-syed

@leimon I used a converted Weber Kettle that's a lot like a Weber Smokey Mountain. I'm not a big fan of the pellet smokers because they require you to buy special proprietary fuel.

Having brisket for dinner yesterday meant waking up at 2am to put the meat in the smoker by 3. After a 13 hour smoke and an hour rest, it was perfect. I think I've finally figured out my technique. #bbq #brisketlogistics

@zachir That extra few hundred is going directly into paying full-time developers to develop PureOS for the Librem 5. To my understanding pinephone is relying on existing community projects for mobile OS builds and I'm not aware of a community effort to port PureOS (but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist).

Going with the theme of things that can be intimidating, are tough to get into, have a point, take a lot of time and dedication to finish, yet are so worth it, I present a whole beef brisket in a New Yorker tote bag. #BBQ

A powerful thing about the #Librem5 running PureOS instead of a mobile-specific OS is that existing desktop apps run w/o porting to a new platform, some just need UI tweaks to fit on the screen. GNUcash works out of the box in landscape mode both without the toolbar at default scaling and with the toolbar scaled 1.5x.

"Rankin warned that tech giants were now "redefining the word "privacy" in their own marketing." While they may claim to protect it, what they really want is to protect privacy from their competitors, he added. "They add security measures to their software and services so only they can capture, view and sell all of your data and others can't.""

https://www.dw.com/en/smartphone-startups-take-on-google-apple-and-put-privacy-first/a-52369255

When you have a busy full-time job and active family life, yet also want to write a new book, it means waking up a few hours early every day. #writing #coffee

Related to the above, check out my latest Librem 5 app development post where I develop a simple app to scale the screen to different sizes. https://puri.sm/posts/easy-librem-5-app-development-scale-the-screen/

Wireshark works great on my #Librem5 out of the box when the screen is scaled from 2x down to 1.25x the physical resolution. This could be an option for apps that need more time for developers to adapt to a phone form factor.

Today's antique store find: a first edition of 1984. Back then they thought a universal surveillance state would be imposed by an authoritarian govt using fear. Now we know we will submit willingly in exchange for some free web services.

Staying in the vein of Valentine's Day, I #3dprinted my son a heart. He was pumped to get it.

I was interviewed for a DW News article on how @purism is taking on tech giants with the #Librem5 #privacy-focused smartphone.

https://m.dw.com/en/smartphone-startups-take-on-google-apple-and-put-privacy-first/a-52369255

It's been fun to track the steady and rapid progress with #Librem5 development. Each week that goes by moves this phone closer to replacing my other phone entirely. Most recently, a simple one line change to a file dramatically improved cellular modem performance.

@rik It depends on whether there is a swap partition or not. If you have one, you just have to switch it to be unencrypted (or encrypted with a constant key). If you don't have a swap partition you will need to reinstall and create one.