Author: Mark

macOS – Native, amazing, owt else like a dog

macOS – Native, amazing, owt else like a dog

Just a random Sunday morning post, Ive been using my Windows machine for a bit and thought Id switch back to my Mac Mini (stats above, it also has 10gig built in, take that M1!) and I’ve been using Safari really for everything web based. I installed Firefox, which wasnt too bad, but has never really matched the snappyness of Safari and I thought ‘Okay, well its third party so maybe it’s not as optimised’, but just installed Google Chrome this morning and man, it runs like a total dog.

It’s so heavy! The lag while resizing browser windows is HORRIBLE. I know Chrome is a giant beast of a browser, but it makes me wonder how much of the lag is macOS doing it on purpose to promote Apple’s own brower. Yes, Im a cynical sod, but it’s night and day difference even between Firefox and Safari, but Chrome is a terrible experience IMO.

Again, this isnt anything new, it’s just a real surprise that we’ve come so far and the differences between first party and everything else is so skewed it makes me wonder whether its Google’s fault, or Apple’s.

The Twitter Mob

The Twitter Mob

I have twitter but I rarely check it, it’s more of a ‘something I do sitting on the toilet’ social event to see what’s going on in the world while I have a few minutes to myself with nothing else to do. COVID still doesnt seem to want to leave me alone so, when bored, I hop on and have a look.

My email provider, Protonmail, has had a downtime this morning – on a Monday morning, ffs – and I expressed my exasperation at not being able to receive important emails (due to the above health issue). Now credit where credit is due, they fixed the issue within a couple of hours and all seems fine, but the mob mentality of those jumping to respond was just something I guess Im not used to.

I know everyone is entitled to their own opinions and that’s fine, I accept it. Say what you want, Im thick skinned! I guess it was just the rapid influx of messages saying that ‘you’re wrong’, then the replies to those defending the end-user, and the replies to those on the other side of the argument – mental!

I think I’ll just go back to being an occasional viewer on the toilet 🙂

The COVID Experience

The COVID Experience

Not too long after the last post I came down with a cold and COVID. It was awful. Now after almost two weeks of being isolated I can legally go out and exercise to see whether or not my lungs would explode or hold up to the task of walking around in fresh air.

Thankfully all was fine. Just a short walk around the neighbourhood and then home. I’ve been off work (obvs) and I feel strong enough now to return next week should all remain well.

I cant lie, it’s been super depressing during lockdown anyway but then to be hit with COVID out of nowhere was just too much to bear. I live with older relatives who unfortunately contracted it from me but we are all doing much better now. I really hope I never catch it again, but its one of those things (like the common cold) that it seems will be here to stay from now on. We can only hope that the vaccines, whenever they manifest for our age groups, will lessen the spread of the illness. Hopefully…

Xmas has come and gone…

Xmas has come and gone…

So Xmas was a thing and now it’s gone. I’ve been knackered. Absolutely effing tired but now have a week off and I am doing a little gaming here and there but basically sleeping as much as possible. Hopefully after the new year I might feel somewhere near approaching the edge of human again. Hopefully…

Santa was quite generous, I was going to throw all of his pennies against the old CC bills but since I’ve moved my last gaming update build into my Unraid server, I’m still gaming on my old 4770k system. As such, I’ve bought some updated gear for my gaming build:

  • Ryzen 3600
  • Aorus X570 Pro
  • 32GB DDR4 RAM
  • Sabrent 1TB PCIe 4 NVMe

The build that is now my Unraid server was very similar but it’s using the Asus X570 TUF plus Wifi board, which was great to game on and was head and shoulders better than my 4770k system. The 4770k bits I’ve replaced will be officially retired and stored in a box forever (probably), the case, power supply etc were updated for my gaming build at the start of the year so I’ll keep them for this build. I also have a 500gb NVMe drive for the OS. I really think that 1TB of data for the storage drive for games will be fine, I picked up a 2060 Super through the year, also a new monitor (1080p) which is also fine. I couldnt really give a tits about 4k gaming.

I think the final nail in the coffin for spending money was that Amazon would deliver tomorrow, cant really beat it!

Will see how the build goes…

Linode Tutorials

Linode Tutorials

I’ve been looking at the video tutorials on Linode and they’re really good now, a raft of new tutorials over the last month or so has really picked up my knowledge on hosting and toughening security.

This was so easy but makes a lot of sense, so long as I now never lose my SSH key my site should be a lot more secure.

This is great – I use a 1GB Nanode for my NC instance but this means I now have 250GB storage and 1TB of transfer just by hosting the files on Object Storage instead. Awesome! It’s more space and transfer than I will ever need but I suppose that’s the best part – I also wont ever be going over my allowances and that’s good peace of mind.

Linode is awesome 🙂

Ghost CMS is awful… for me

Ghost CMS is awful… for me

So I use WordPress here, and WordPress gets a lot of flack for being bloated with plugins, speed being crap, security being rubbish etc. I’ve been playing with Ghost CMS on the side and it is so incredibly limited. The admin backend has very few options, the expectation is that you’re going to have a lot of background in modern coding to get it running with some kind of third party coding software to tweak till you’re happy.

Thats great, if you want to do that. I don’t.

This really is a site that looks great, to me, works great, for me, has a lot of customisation features that I enjoy and it ‘just works’.

It’s old and bloated, but so am I. I keep the plugins to a minimum and the site is always up to date from a backend standpoint. Linode’s hosting is great and they keep the VM up to date, I just don’t see what the problem is. Ghost is really quick, uses modern json which I’m sure if I spent a few months going through tutorials and online classes I could get the hang of. But that really seems like soooo much work that I don’t need to do with WordPress.

So, if you want to use Ghost or anything else and you love it, great, if you want to use WordPress and love it, great. Just don’t be such a fucking cunt about it, k?

🙂

Xmas is coming…

Xmas is coming…

I really just felt compelled to write something because this is a website that costs money and I havent added anything in ages.

Covid, urgh, work, urgh, family, urgh, relationships, urgh, etc… its just all urgh. This year has been a complete dumpster fire but on the other hand I know Im lucky to still have everyone around me who matters, to be employed and still have my physical health even though my mental health is shot.

My life is basically 50% work, 25% sleep and 25% either being so tired I wish I was back to sleep or just drinking to either forget or remember. Its not good. The hope is that next year will be better once the vaccine comes out and hopefully doesnt turn us all into horrible zombie mutants or give us chronic illnesses later in life.

Nothing much is going on, its really just the grind until Xmas and getting that over with, then kicking off the new year and hope it’s better than this one.

If anyone actually visits and reads this, stay safe.

Also, I really like this picture, its really nerdy.

Kraken Rum. I approve.

Kraken Rum. I approve.

I should have taken a picture of the Old J that I had last weekend, but I approve very much of the Kraken. Its a much different feeling experience than bourbon. It seems to be a much quicker advancement in the change of perception and the ability to spell things correctly while typing… The taste isnt as sweet, its a bit liquorice~y but the bitter component, and nothing else. Yeah. Will continue to explore as I make my way through the bottle. Which is quite pretty.

Theme: Overlay by Kaira