TTT 40 – Plasma 5.26.5, Open Alternative to Digital Assistants, and More

Latest Plasma Release
Memesplanation
Home Assistant Coming Soon
Free Your Internet
10 FOSS Tools to Check Out This Year

#TTT #KDE #homeassistant #voicesoon #fosstools #listicle #Linux #TechFreedom

TTT 40.1 – Last KDE 5.26 Update, More Bugs Squashed

55 changes made, some high profile bugs squashed

Kwin crash when attaching laptop to dock (fixed)
ARM device secondary monitor fails (fixed)
Can now select text in GTK apps with middle-click paste disabled
KDE Plasma now no longer displays critical notifications in the Overview, Present Windows, and Desktop Grid effects
Improved Blend Changes Effect
In Workspaces, Panels now have floating margins to prevent weird overflows
Plasma NetworkManager (plasma-nm) applet now connects to WPA3-personal networks
Plasma Mobile improves the App Drawer
Plus 47 other changes to make KDE better and stronger, all in all good stuff. Thank you for your hard work, KDE team.

https://9to5linux.com/kde-plasma-5-26-5-released-with-more-plasma-wayland-session-fixes

#TTT #KDE #FOSS #ui #ux #Linux #goodstuff #TechFreedom

Here is a quote about theosis from one of the Cappadocian Fathers,
Gregory of Nazianzen, who was brother (literally) to St Basil the Great,
and friends with Gregory of Nyssa. But enough on that... Union with
God is the only place we can find mercy. Let that sink in.
Because God is Good, the only font of genuine mercy
(all other mercies are tributary and lesser than His), and endless
loving bounty, the only place we can find the fullness of these
things is in Him. Sure, there are facsimiles here, but no human
can be perfectly merciful toward oneself or any other, without
first receiving it from God. What is this theosis I speak of?
Theosis is full union with God, where we have become so
like Him that He cannot help but take us into Himself fully,
that is what heaven is about, not standing around with harps
and singing hallelujah for eternity (boring!), but becoming one
with God. We can experience this in part here in this life, but it
takes dedication and a will to empty oneself. I will find other
quotes about this in the future, as I think this is something
woefully lacking in the Western Church.

#TTT #cappadocianfathers #quotes #patristics #theosis #kenosis #memesplanation #TechFreedom

TTT 40.2 – What’s New with Home Assistant?

What is Home Assistant? An open-source smart home platform that focuses on providing local control and privacy to its users. It can run off a Raspberry Pi or even a local server. What does that mean? This is one alternative to the Big tech dominated options that are currently out there, as most of them are tied into Google, Apple, or Amazon, even if they are not directly made by them, such as the Phillips systems.

For instance, did you know that your Amazon Echo or your Google Home system is always listening to you? Even when perhaps you are making love to your significant other? It knows if you are straight, and can hear the differences between when you use protection and when you don’t, and will feed you ads for baby-related items when it senses that you aren’t practicing “safe” sex. Tell me that isn’t creepy, all... Tell me that isn’t invasive and wrong. This system, when it is ready, and the voice functionality is being hammered out this year, will provide an completely in-house voice control for your smart appliances, stereos, window coverings, lights, etc, then eventually provide search capabilities as well, just like the Big Tech creepers do. Only, privately, without phoning home with your preferences to serve you targeted ads or worse. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me. Anyone who wants to “smartify” their home needs to look into this if they value their privacy at all.
https://news.itsfoss.com/open-source-assistant/

#TTT #smarthome #homeassistant #foss #selfhosted #private #coolstuff #TechFreedom

Free Your Internet

http://techfreedom.pro/internet-freedom/

One-stop shop for getting you and your business transitioned off of Big Tech online platforms and tools, so that you have control of your data once again. I will also help you to find better alternatives.

#TTT #techtips #TechFreedom #internetfreedom #nogoogle #nometa #noyahoo #nomicrosoft

TTT 40.3 – 10 FOSS Tools You Need to Check Out

1) SimpleLogin – protects your inbox from spam by providing a way to spoof a different email address for each service you sign up for, unless you actually want a flood of notifications or something like that. This is included with the paid tiers of ProtonMail now.
2) OnionShare – Private file sharing via the TOR network. You download the app, then send a file to someone using the TOR browser... They don’t know where it came from unless you notify them that it is coming.
3) Tabby – Cross-platform terminal emulator, I covered this a few months ago, in fact, here’s a link to the TTT episode: https://rumble.com/v1v9z7y-tech-tips-tuesday-34-kde-updates-a-new-cross-platform-terminal-editor-and-d.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y. It is pretty cool, but can be a bit of a resource hog if you have an older or lower specced machine.
4) ShareX – a Windows only sharing tool that can basically do it all, from screenshots to screencasts to sharing files or URLs. Sounds like something we could really use here in Linux, tbh.
5) Easy Effects – PulseEffects, only for PipeWire. I’ve tinkered with it, but find that for my situation, if I want to add effects to what I’m doing, I’d rather use something else. Check it out if you want to add some particular effect to everythign you listen to, or to your mic, to try to clean it up for video calls.
6) Cryptomator – an encryption tool to use on any file you plan to upload to the cloud, that way, at least in theory, even if you are using Google, they can’t scrape your files for data. Sounds like a useful tool.
7) Bitwarden – Self-hostable password manager that is cross-platform, and has a pretty cool premium option that is affordable.
8) Thunderbird – If you like to keep your emails stored locally, such as using Outlook or something along those lines, keep your eye on Thunderbird, because it is about to be visually overhauled so that it won’t be so ugly and outdated anymore. The functionality is all there, just give it a try, and tweak as necessary.
9) NetNewsWire – an Apple ecosystem exclusive RSS reader app. I do not espouse Apple, other than to say that it does indeed “just work”, until it doesn’t. If you’ve been around for a while, you have heard me wax eloquent on my feelings about Apple, if not, look back at this post: https://t.me/tech_freedom/86 Yes, I’ve been on about it since the beginning...
10) Standard Notes – an E2EE note-taking app that is cross-platform, both through traditional apps and a web app, so you could simply do things that way and be even more private, in theory, than using a native app. The one thing that I wish were available with this ecosystem is the ability to self-host it. That would be the ultimate in privacy, but with all that they offer, I get it.

https://news.itsfoss.com/open-source-apps-try-2023/

#TTT #foss #tools #Linux #coolstuff #TechFreedom

10 Things My Wife Thinks You Should Know about Tech Freedom.

https://rumble.com/v19elx6-10-things-about-tech-freedom.html?mref=2jfr3&mc=anr3y
#TechFreedom #wifeysauce #getfree #explainer