Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 9

Firefox Sync works across all Firefox-based browsers I’ve tried so far, not just Firefox itself. OK, all except IceCat, which I think actually removes the code that connects to it.

Even the security-conscious LibreWolf and IronFox recommend using it, despite Mozilla’s AI shenanigans, because it’s encrypted end-to-end and it’s possible to host your own server. (I have not tried this.)

One nice consequence is that I can mix and match browsers, especially since there are some that are only built for the desktop and others that are only built for mobile. I can send a page from IronFox on my phone to Zen on my desktop. (I can also sync history between different browsers that I’m trying out.)

Downsides: It doesn’t work with Chromium-based or other browsers (at least not directly), and doesn’t have an online web view. That’s why I turn off bookmarks in the Firefox Sync settings and use Floccus for those. Plus if you use several different browsers with it, settings from one can leak over to another if you don’t turn that option off.

That said, I do know of at least one command-line client (amusingly named ffsclient), which has been used to create a bookmarks sync plugin for Dillo. Yes, Dillo!

Lighter than most Le Guin I’ve read, Changing Planes is a Gulliver’s Travels for the present era, the social satire made possible through interdimensional travel. (When you’re stuck in a dismal airport between planes, well, you’re already between planes, right?)

Some chapters are told first person as the narrator explores a new reality (sometimes sticking to the tourist spots, sometimes going off the beaten path). Others read more like magazine articles or encyclopedia entries. Still others mix first- and second-hand accounts with the narrator’s reactions to them.

There’s a world that imported genetic engineering tech without first figuring out evolution and genetics, and proceeded to run amok with it. A world where people stop talking in adolescence, and tourists tend to project whatever they imagine onto the adults’ inner lives. Another where the language is too complex for outsiders to learn or for the auto-translator to process. Worlds where war and battle are everyday things, but aren’t used for domination. One where everyone is royalty, except for a couple of families of commoners (whom the royals are obsessed with). Another that was colonized and turned into a string of theme parks. Worlds where people migrate like birds, or fly, but the non-flyers consider the winged ones to be disabled.

There’s a lot of whimsy, humor and sarcasm. It’s not particularly deep (especially compared to her major works), but it does give you a lot to think about.

For someone new to Mastodon, or on a medium-to-big-server (but not following a lot of people), it’s a good place to start.

The signup flow is a compromise: Mastodon.social or pick from a list with filters showing sites that allow open registration. It’s both the Fediverse’s biggest strength that you can choose a server and its biggest barrier to adoption that you have to. I’d prefer a few more options on the entry screen, but I’ve seen enough “I couldn’t decide on an instance!” posts to know why there’s only one.

I had no trouble logging into my backup account at Wandering Shop. Or, for that matter, into my GoToSocial account. Any server software implementing the Mastodon API should work with it, and I’m glad to see that the app doesn’t restrict you to only using Mastodon servers.

It works smoothly, it’s mostly intuitive, and it can even switch smoothly between multiple accounts. If you’re logged into more than one, it will ask you which you want to use when sharing from another app.

It’s missing advanced features like the federated timeline or scheduled posts, and lists are only reachable through the menu. One of the reasons I’ve stuck with Tusky is that I can put lists on the toolbar and switch between “conversations” and “art” with a single tap.

I can see this being a “good enough” app for a lot of people depending on use case, so it’s either 3 stars or 4. But advanced users are probably better off using another app with more features like Tusky or Phanpy), or installing their server’s web interface to their phone as a web app.

Phanpy is described as “A minimalistic opinionated Mastodon web client.” Minimalistic in the sense that it’s not cluttered, opinionated in the sense that it has a strong design philosophy, and web client in the sense that you load the app at the website and then log into your server from there. (It runs entirely in your browser, so the Phanpy server never gets access to your account.) It’s optimized for mobile and runs well on desktops too.

Design

It’s a single-column view like the regular Mastodon web view, but it’s easier on the eyes and more comfortable to use.

Interaction buttons are hidden in the timeline to encourage you to actually think about what you’re doing before you boost, like, or reply. This can sometimes be annoying, especially when I’m trying to get the like button for a particular post in a thread.

Plus it has some nice features like “Catch-up,” which shows you a sortable list of posts within the last hour (adjustable up to 12 hours) and doesn’t scroll infinitely, so you can feel like you’re done.

The “boost carousel” pulls boosts out of the main timeline and puts them in a horizontally-scrolling list. It’s a way to keep posts from people who boost a lot from filling up your timeline, and emphasize the posts from people you follow directly. It messes with my sense of where I left off a bit, but it works well on my phone where I can swipe through posts quickly. On a desktop, where I’m using a mouse, it’s still frustrating, and after a month or so I finally just turned it off. (At least it doesn’t auto-rotate.)

Compatibility

I’ve found it to be reliable with both Mastodon and GoToSocial accounts, and I’d expect it to work with any other Fediverse servers that support the Mastodon API. It displays formatted posts, but doesn’t try to interpret or compose Markdown itself like Elk does. This makes Phanpy more reliable than Elk with GoToSocial if you’ve enabled Markdown for your posts, since you don’t have two Markdown parsers fighting each other!

The latest version of the app is always at phanpy.social, but you can also run your own copy of it. It works well on desktops, mobile, and installed as a mobile web app, though I still prefer Tusky on Android.

For a long time I’ve thought that if I wanted to get a smart watch, it would be a Pebble, because they actually understand that a smart watch needs to work as a watch. So when they announced their Kickstarter for the revamped Pebble 2 and Pebble Time lines this summer, I decided it was time to try out wearable computing. My Pebble 2 arrived in late October, just in time for LA Comic Con, and I’ve been figuring out how best to use it over the past month and a half. I feel like I haven’t really found the watch’s full potential yet.

Getting to Know the Smartwatch

Pebble 2 does work great as a wristwatch. You only need to charge it once every 5-6 days, and the screen is always on, so you can see the time and date at a glance. I’ve already gotten back into the habit of glancing at my wrist for the time instead of reaching into my pocket and pulling out a bulky phone.

Third-party watch faces range from the aesthetic (mimic classic designs) to the informative (cram every bit of time, weather, and health tracking data you can onto the main view) to the whimsical (show time using a binary counter, or Pac-Man, or the dots on a pair of dominoes). My six-year-old loves picking new designs and seeing them show up on my watch, but I keep coming back to the basic one because it works for the key thing a watch needs to do: let me tell the time quickly.

Notifications and calendar events are a key use case for a smart watch, but you have to manage them. I always pare down my phone’s audio notifications in order to avoid getting distracted, and that goes double for something that buzzes on my wrist. Once I got it down to just texts, calls and calendar appointments, it helped me avoid missing texts…for a while. Eventually I started missing them anyway. I’m not sure whether they’re not reaching the watch or my brain has started tuning it out.

When I do catch them, though, it is nice to see a preview of the message so that I know whether I should pull my phone out right away or it can wait a few minutes.

Fitness tracking is most useful if you have an actual workout routine (which I don’t) or you wear the watch constantly. It checks your heart rate every 10 minutes, counts steps, and tracks sleep and deep sleep. The watch shows your current status, and the phone app tracks daily, weekly and monthly stats. It’s interesting, but I can’t wear the watch 24/7 because the wristband ends up irritating my skin. A nicer watchband might help, but it might not, since I need to wear it tightly to keep the heart rate sensor in place.

I haven’t explored the Pebble app ecosystem as much as I could (but who knows how long it’ll be around). A few things I’ve looked at:

• Music control is nice: you can pause and skip your phone’s music player using actual physical buttons.
• I don’t want to play games by tilting my wrist.
• Transit apps would be helpful if I rode the bus or train more often.
• There’s a to-do list app that syncs with Google Tasks, which seemed great at first…but it’s a lot easier to pull up the tasks on my phone and look at a dozen items at a time than to scroll through three items on a tiny screen.

And that brings me what I think is key for smartwatches:

What a Smartwatch Needs to Do

To really be useful, a smart watch needs to be better than a phone at certain tasks. Cases where it definitely works:

• Always-on at-a-glance info. Time/weather/step counts/etc. most of the time, with notifications and events as they occur.
• Health/activity sensors.
• Quick actions. Dismiss a reminder, or reply to a text message with a pre-canned “OK.” Menus are a pain, but I can imagine voice commands would help a lot.

If it takes longer to do something on the watch than to dig out your phone, unlock it, and do it there, the watch has failed at that task. If the watch makes it more convenient, then it’s succeeded.

October 2018

The company went under. Fitbit bought what was left and agreed to keep the cloud services up for a year or so, and they updated the firmware and phone app to reduce the watch’s dependency on those services when they finally shut them down.

I kept putting it on every morning for maybe eight months, using it for step and heart rate tracking, alerts, music control, and of course time. After a while, though, I got out of the habit of putting the watch on in the morning. I misplaced the Pebble, found it again, wore it for a few days, and forgot it again. Repeat.

Only a narrow range of the watch’s capabilities really appealed to me, and it turns out they weren’t enough to keep me using it.

Repurposed

Every once in a while, the kid would ask about the Pebble. I finally found it again and charged it, and decided to pair it with an old phone and give it to him instead of wearing it myself. He’s been wearing it 24/7 for a week now.

It’s basically a watch and fitness tracker only right now. Fitbit shut down the Pebble services over the summer, and I haven’t been able to get it working with Rebble (the volunteer group that’s put together a replacement server), so the marketplace with apps and watch faces aren’t available. And I only put limited apps on that phone, so there’s not much in the way of alerts. But he likes the step/heartrate tracking, and having a buzzing alarm that he can set.

Though he’s somehow learned to sleep through the tactile version of “Reveille” already! 🤦‍♂️

Update: I did eventually get it connected to Rebble. The first thing he wanted to do afterward: A round of random watch faces, for old time’s sake.

July 2019 (LOL)

I feel like it’s taunting me over not charging properly.

September 2020

The pebble still functions! I had to sideload the app, but Rebble has good directions and is still around with alternative services.

April 2023

Everything’s touchscreens now. Obviously a touch screen is the way to go for versatility, but key things you might want to do in a hurry without pausing to look closely and make sure your finger hits the right spot — like turning off your watch alarm when it goes off while you’re driving or biking — should really be tactile!

March 2025

Google has released the source code for PebbleOS, and the original founder of Pebble has put together a new company to make Pebble-like watches…in part because no one else has, and he wants a new watch that works like the ones his company made a decade ago.

They’ve announced two models, for pre-order only. The Core Duo 2 is an updated version of this model (with even longer battery life, among other improvements like sturdier buttons, a barometer, compass and speaker). And when I say it’s an update of this model, the form factor is identical. One of the original suppliers still had some unused frames left over.

The other model, the Core Time 2, is more of an update to the Pebble Time 2, with a slightly bigger, color screen. It’s got the same updates as the Duo, including the 30-day battery life. Plus simple touch-screen functionality, but it’s keeping the physical buttons. (whew!)

We’ve lost the original Pebble 2 again.

I want one of these, probably the higher-end model.

So does the kid, now a teenager.

They’re only producing a limited run, aiming for the Duo shipping in July and the Time shipping in December. (Assuming the US still has any sort of shipping infrastructure by then.)

Here goes…