You can also set up a Jellyfin or Plex server and have your own streaming service :)
dan
joined 3 years ago
For Soulseek you should use a VPN that support port forwarding. AirVPN is the one that's usually recommended.
Revanced works for Google Music too.
It doesn't help that payday loans have been rebranded as "pay advances" or "cash advances" (trying to distance themselves from negative connotations) and have flashy mobile apps that can give you the money instantly. They're not banks, so they don't get regulated the same way that banks do.
It's hard in nice/desirable areas because the rich people make all-cash offers, and sellers prefer that over people that will get a mortgage.
I absolutely hate when networking equipment forces you to use an app to set it up, and the app doesn't do anything that a website couldn't do.
I encountered this with some solar equipment from Enphase (IQ Gateway, which all the inverters connect to). The installer had to set it up using wifi and an "installer app" before I could connect it via Ethernet cable or access the (local!) web UI.
On the flip side, I have to give Enphase a shout out for having a fully-featured local web API running on the device itself. I've had Home Assistant polling it every second for years (to pull data about solar generation per panel, total power consumption, grid import/export, etc) and haven't had issues. With so much stuff being cloud-reliant, it was a good surprise.
Someone who's still using POP instead of IMAP4 probably hasn't updated their setup in 20 years.
This is a good reminder to use the secure ports for IMAP (993) and SMTP (465). Don't use ports that use opportunistic TLS (STARTTLS), which are 143 for IMAP and 587 for SMTP. These start unencrypted and switch to using encryption once the server says it supports it. An attacker can just modify the response and say the server doesn't support encryption, in which case the connection will remain unencrypted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunistic_TLS#Weaknesses_and_mitigations
You can force encryption on the client side... but then you may as well just use the port that's always encrypted.
(yes, I know that the TLS handshake isn't encrypted either)
They don't need to drop prices though - they sell plenty of them at the current prices.
Also, all consumer electronics are going up in price due to the component (RAM, GPU, SSD) shortages, which are happening because the majority of new stock is being sold to AI companies.
It's the Apple approach: Implement consumer-friendly policies only in regions that require it by law. Apple mostly do it with software though, for example only allowing third-party app stores in EU and Japan.
Plenty of US companies do something similar with subscriptions too. California mandates that any subscription you create online must also be cancellable online, and so some companies (like New York Times, SiriusXM, gyms) only show their simple online cancelation flow to Californians. Everyone else must jump through hoops like use live chat, call them, cancel in person, etc.
I'd make sure there's an officially supported integration, or one that's 100% local (no cloud needed).
It'd be frustrating to spend money and get everything set up only for Bryant/Carrier to decide that they don't like Home Assistant any more and block an unofficial integration.
Maybe someone else has better advice for your particular setup.
For my house, it had central heating so I ended up replacing that with a central heat pump HVAC system that uses a regular thermostat (Gree Flexx with an Ecobee). I didn't want to deal with anything proprietary. The Ecobee supports local control via HomeKit, which Home Assistant supports natively (no Apple device needed).
I love the libraries in my area because they're well-funded and pretty much always accept requests for new content (books, movies, etc). If there's a new book and they don't have it, I can ask them to order it and it'll usually be available within a week.