Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options, says Dutch parliament “The motions were submitted and all passed yesterday during a discussion in the Netherlands' House of Representatives on concerns about government data being shipped overseas. While varied, they all center on the theme of calling on the government to replace software and hardware made by US tech companies, acquire new contracts with Dutch companies who offer similar services, and generally safeguard the country's digital sovereignty.” “With each IT service our government moves to American tech giants, we become dumber and weaker,” Dutch MP Barbara Kathmann, author of four of the motions, told The Register. The BRICS countries actually made this decision a few years ago, for the same reasons. Not all BRICS countries followed through on this, for example South Africa. But Russia, Brazil, China, and India had made quite a few strides towards even implementing their own desktop OS. But apart from digital sovereignty, the second issue is just as important regarding dumbing down of your own skills. This is something I have also blogged about with regard to outsourcing of services to any cloud provider. An organisation not only loses its ability to provide its own services, but finds it more difficult over time to even technically evaluate any IT offerings, as there are no longer any staff with real technical skills left. See

Time to ditch US tech services, says Dutch parliament

: Trump administration 'has made the call for tech sovereignty an urgent geopolitical issue'

#technology #outsourcing #cloudservices #digitalsovereignty

PeerTube 7.1 Expands Podcast 2.0 and Apple Podcast Support For those who don't know PeerTube, it is an open source decentralised alternative to YouTube with many of the same features. But importantly it also integrates with the Fediverse so anyone from Mastodon, Hubzilla, Friendica, etc can follow a channel on PeerTube and like and comment on the videos, all from the social network they call their home. “Recognizing that many people like to listen on the go, PeerTube has improved its support for Podcast 2.0 standards, ensuring creators can distribute and manage their shows more efficiently. Even better, these upgrades now enable channels to be submitted directly to Apple Podcasts, provided the channel owner has added the required banner, avatar, and description.” See

Linuxiac

PeerTube 7.1 Expands Podcast 2.0 and Apple Podcast Support

PeerTube 7.1 open-source decentralized video platform released with improved podcast support, better playback stability, and more.

#technology #opensource #decentralised #PeerTube

RCS Universal Profile 3.0 will fully encrypt texts between iPhone and Android “RCS messaging has been a hot topic of debate over the past couple of years, with Google leaving no chance of mocking Apple for refusing to adopt it — until it finally did with iOS 18 last year. However, Apple’s version of RCS came with a major catch: it lacked end-to-end encryption (E2EE), unlike what you’ve used on Android through Google Messages. That’s about to change, and it’s great news for your chats with iPhone users and mixed group chats.” What is quite obvious is that Google has rushed this implementation a bit. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have had this in place a year or two back, but the sad part (in my opinion) is that Google does not seem to have thought this out properly with regard to decentralisation and interoperability. It needed to have E2EE (in this day and age) and it could not just be Google managing the world's messaging, so it needed to allow for functionality across more than just a centralised service. Give the state of the USA and the UK around “backdoors” there will also be global concerns around how secure the service will be if the servers are hosted inside the USA or under the control of a US owned organisation. Also, will the service continue to be available if a trade, or other, war breaks out. Yes, I know everything is better than SMS, but still the design process is the chance to get all this right. But despite this, I'm happy to see RCS moving forward, and I'm hoping it fully replaces SMS at some point in the future for business notifications, and can be a common standard (versus all the different messenger services we see today, of which everyone is not on all the services). See

Android Police

RCS chats between Android and iPhone will be fully encrypted soon

Chatting with your friends with iPhones is going to get secure with strong encryption

#technology #RCS #messaging

It's Already Worth Downloading the Mobile Epic Games Store “Google makes a bunch of its money through in-app purchases and virtual microcurrencies. Pay-to-win mechanics may be atrocious, but it's good for Google's bottom line. The more intrusive a game's monetization is, the more money Google stands to make. The Epic Games Store mobile app may be available for both Android and iOS (the latter only in the EU), but Android needs it more.” Apart from some free games, it is an interesting point made that Epic has more interest in providing quality games and not from profiting from ads in low quality games. More options for users is also a good thing. See

How-To Geek

It's Already Worth Downloading the Mobile Epic Games Store

Even though it's far from epic.

#technology #gaming

Bitfocus Companion buttons can show status info from OS commands or OPNsense firewall on Stream Deck This video will help if you need to execute various OS commands from a Stream Deck and you want to have your buttons show what the status is of what was executed. I demonstrate how a button that toggles the mute status of a microphone, or the speakers, can change the button between green and red colours to indicate the status. The only proviso is that there should be an OS command that can query the status of whatever you want to monitor. A further example shown uses a curl command to fetch information via the API from OPNsense to display the OPNsense firewall temperature and disk space used on the Stream Deck. This could be expanded to use any of the other available API functions too. So whilst having some connectors provided by Bitfocus and the community, there is no need to be limited to only having those to use on Bitfocus Companion. Using script files and curl commands, can open up a whole new world of possibilities. If any other Stream Deck app (or any app) can execute OS commands and do something with the feedback, this video may also be of use for that type of scenario too. This video follows on from my first video I did about Bitfocus Companion. It is worth watching the first video if you want to get a better overview of Companion and how it works with some existing connectors to VLC, Home Assistant, opening apps, etc. Watch #technology #bitfocuscompanion #streamdeck

ExpressVPN Finally Gives Linux Users Split Tunnelling and a GUI “The ExpressVPN on Linux GUI, now available in beta, will enjoy a general release with the v4 update later this year. It's essentially a 1:1 port of the ExpressVPN GUI that Windows and macOS users have enjoyed for some time. It's got the same interface, it offers dark mode support, and it works in 17 languages.” Very nice, and this would put ExpressVPN ahead of Proton VPN on Linux. Proton's VPN client is a GUI client, but it lacks some of the Windows client's features, such as the split tunnelling. Linux users can add manual routing to their GUI Network Manager to achieve this, but I'm sure novice users will be unsure how to do this. So, well done ExpressVPN! See

How-To Geek

ExpressVPN Finally Gives Linux Users Split Tunneling and a GUI

Thankfully, new ExpressVPN for Linux functionality also extends to the CLI.

#technology #VPN #Linux

4 reasons I choose Firefox over Brave for maximum security “Brave and Firefox are two of the most secure browsers out there. Brave has made privacy its key selling point, integrating features that block ads, prevent tracking, and stop fingerprinting. Firefox, on the other hand, is the OG secure browser, challenging Chrome’s dominance for as long as we can remember. Both Firefox and Brave offer strong security, but if you’re looking for the most secure option, Firefox takes the lead.” Ironically enough, I did not move from Brave to Firefox for the security considerations. In my case, there was an annoying UI issue creeping in, supposedly inherited from Chromium. But regardless, I did check out the Firefox privacy and security considerations and was happy with them. One feature I really like is the master password for the Firefox profile that locks and unlocks the whole browser. The other thing I like is that Firefox still runs a fully functional uBlock Origin extension, along with its own built-in protections. See

XDA

4 reasons I choose Firefox over Brave for maximum security

Both Firefox and Brave offer strong security, but if you’re looking for the most secure option, Firefox takes the lead

#technology #security #privacy #browsers

How Noise-Cancelling Headphones Work—and Why You’ll Never Go Back “Have you ever wondered about the magic behind noise-canceling headphones? It's an amazing feature to have for headphones, shutting you out from outside noise that can be distracting. The truth is, I can't ever go back to regular ones anymore.” So very true. I forgot my noise-cancelling earbuds at home a week or two back, and I was amazed at the constant barrage of music, announcements, and noise at my local shopping mall. Once you've used noise-cancelling headphones/earbuds, it is very difficult to go back. The same goes for a vacuum cleaner operating nearby. What I also like is that without that background noise, it is also possible to listen to quieter music like classical music. It may be that the sound quality is slightly affected, but certainly not that I've ever noticed. For me, the absence of background noise is far more important. See

How-To Geek

How Noise-Canceling Headphones Work—and Why You’ll Never Go Back

How do noise-canceling headphones know what to block? The secret is inside.

#technology #audio

Poynting Antennas is an internationally recognised manufacturer of antennas based in South Africa “Poynting Antennas founder and CEO Andre Fourie is not only an entrepreneur and former Wits University professor; he and his team are arguably the top antenna engineers in the world. Poynting has over 50 patents and registered trademarks, including 12 registered patent families consisting of 26 registered patents, and 41 registered designs.” Many of us have likely seen the brand around, but probably don't realise this was some really solid engineering design and building that came out of South Africa. They have been around for many years and their products have stood the test of time. I remember having one of their outdoor fixed wireless LTE antennas when I used fixed wireless for my Internet connection at one time. I sold that antenna about 2+ years later, and it was still like new. See https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wireless/584196-the-south-african-who-revolutionised-antenna-design.html #technology #southafrica #antennas #radio

What is a Home lab, and why tech enthusiasts should build one “With the ever-changing tech landscape, having hands-on experience is more valuable than ever. While textbooks, YouTube videos, and online courses provide a solid foundation, nothing beats the practical knowledge gained from working with real systems. That’s where the power of the home lab comes into play. It’s a dedicated space where you experiment with various software and hardware, including desktops, networking gear, and Chromebooks.” A home tech lab is not something that just appears overnight. It grows over quite a time. There is also no set way to do it, but the core of it is usually some form of self-hosting some services, whether on a humble Raspberry Pi, a mini-PC as a server, or a NAS. You start out with one thing, and you keep adding to it, and then upgrading parts as your lab grows. Apart from skills development, saving money by hosting at home, you also end up with lots of flexibility with what you do. Bear in mind though if you grant access to the outside world, you do introduce some risks if you have not got your firewall, reverse proxy, and other basic security set up properly (but that is part of the learning too). I just recently moved all my devices onto their own grouped VLANs. This improves their security as well as reducing lots of broadcasts across my network, but this was quite a bit more complex to do. If you think that any form of home lab is just unnecessary, think for a moment that if you are adding no-name Wi-Fi cameras, Wi-Fi switches, audio speakers, etc to your home network, that you do want to really separate those types of devices from your actual computers and phones and the network. See

Android Police

What is a Home lab, and why tech enthusiasts should build one

The secret weapon for tech careers

as well as this one about VLANs at

XDA

3 reasons you should you be using VLANs on your home network

Virtual LANs are excellent for creating the perfect network.

#technology #selfhosting #homelabs