Horizon Innovations

Ideas are easy, implementation is hard

james

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Escaping From Google

In the wake of Facebook data fiasco and Googles collection for their own end, I thought it would be an interesting project to see if it’s possible to go Google free on Android, and Google free completely for my business. A lot of people use Google for a lot of things ranging from email to maps, drive (storage) to music and of course search.

In the wake of the passing of the AA bill through the Australian parliament, i have updated, amended and added to, to take this into account.

What are the replacements for the most common apps used and how does it effect the work flow?

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is th idea that nearly all of Googles apps are integrated, they are connected to each other, and on Android, many apps use the Play Store (Google) notification system. Some apps have reduced functionality without the Google connection.

The Apps

Google Android PC/Mac/Linux
Search Duckduckgo/Smartpage  
Maps OSMAnd~ Openmaps
Gmail Protonmail/Tutanota  
Calendar Etar Lightning/Nextcloud
Drive Nextcloud/Mega.nz  
Chrome Waterfox/Via/Orfox (requires Tor) Brave  
Music Blackplayer/VLC VLC
Keep Markor Atom
Launcher Nova/ Lawnchair  
Message (SMS) Signal  
Photo Nextcloud/ Smugmug  
Doc’s Nextcloud/polaris office/Andropen office LibreOffice/ Openoffice
Password Keepass2android KeepassXC

 

And for Android itself: LineageOS is probably the most well known and has the most available supported devices. Mokee (needs some modding) or Resurrection Remix OS (more found on xda-developers.com) are also good and generally kept up to date. There are more specialised android remakes that are far more secure.
Replacing the Android system is the only way to take Google off your device. It is a lot easier to do now than before and some manufactures are friendlier than others with this.

As I’ve put a non standard (manufactures) Android on all my phones, for this review I use my Sony Xperia Z. It’s not a new phone but still works well and the community support is outstanding.

The biggest part of Google is their free online apps that can sync across devices. It was revealed a while ago that they use AI bots to search through your email, docs etc for keywords so they can present you with more relevant advertising. I’m not keen on this. What to do about it? Well, most businesses these days have a website, which means they have a server. On my server I’ve installed an app called Nextcloud. Nextcloud can, with the aid of plugin and third party software do almost everything Google does, except look at your stuff, there is also an encryption plugin. Your calendars, photos, file storage, music and video streaming, encrypt it all, sync to all your devices and it’s open source software (and it’s free!).

Keepass is a password encryption storage system. Cross platform. Here will give you what is available https://keepass.info/download.html

Update:

As the new AA Bill is so invasive with it’s powers (I’m not going to get political here) what can be done to protect yourself from spying eyes and keep your privacy?

I researched most of this a while back. Besides the above, if you have a server for your website, move it to a safe country like Switzerland. Then for your finance and communication, I’d suggest using an operating system from a USB stick. There are a number around, one that is most recommended is Tails (https://tails.boum.org/) as it comes with almost everything you need to stay safe. On their website they even have an installer to take the hassle away. I’ve used Tails and can recommend them. Along with ProtonVPN, you’d be good to go. This is a bit of a hurriedly finished post, so I’ll be updating it over the next few weeks just to make sure I’ve covered everything.

Any questions or suggestions that I’ve missed are most welcome.

Stay safe 🙂

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Eating Well

zuzyusa / Pixabay

A friend of mine was having trouble loosing weight, yep the same old story. Count the calories, reduce the plate size, do more exercise and still nothing really happening.

So we looked at how it was done in the olden days. And that was very different. It basically boiled down to reducing certain food types, namely sugar, bread, biscuits, cake, chocolate etc. We saw the connection, sugar and carbohydrates. My friend hunted out some books from the library, on of which was the Real Food Revolution by Prof Tim Noakes, which is based on the finding of Dr Banting.

She starting on this lifestyle choice and lost 20kg in 9 months without extra exercise or plate size reduction!

I will be going into more detail in another post and referencing some science to back this up.

If you want to feed you body the propper stuff for healthy living, my suggestion is to go onto the Banting diet, do your research and enjoy life. The minimum you could do is to cut out all the processed food that’s on the market and reduce/stop your sugar intake.

More later – eat well 🙂

 

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Linux for the Macbook?

           I have a Macbook Pro, which I enjoy using. Credit where credit is due, it is a good machine. I’m in two minds as to whether I’d get another, but this one ain’t broke so I don’t have to answer the question just yet! I also like OSX, mostly. There are some things I’m not keen on, but like my windows machine before, there are some things I cannot do on Linux, such as Logos Bible software.

On to the question of Linux for the Macbook. Which flavour to go for and why? I cut my teeth on Red Hat 7.1 (which I still have!) and moved to Debian via SimplyMepis. I have tried many others including Ubuntu. For those who are not sure about what I’m talking about there are some websites that go into more detail than I care to here, like Distrowatch.com. Fedora was first on the list so I tried that. It worked well and Fedora 20 is a great improvement over previous versions as this time it felt spritely and the update and package manger were also improved (compared with Fedora 17). But then came “systemd”. This is the new init (basically boot up) system developed by some Red Hat developers to replace the existing aging init system. The problem with systemd is its mission creep. Its slowly becoming the “start” system for everything, and there are some things becoming dependant on it which (in my opinion) shouldn’t be. The Unix philosophy is for lots of small bits to do things exceptionally well, so if one bit falls over or fails it doesn’t take everything else with it. If any part of systemd falls over, it’ll take the whole OS with it. Not good for mission critical systems.

          Unfortunately most of the Linux distros are moving this way, which is a real shame. So if not fedora then what? Of the main Linux flavours it would appear that Debian and Ubuntu offer long term support versions which don’t have systemd, so I’ve gone for Xubuntu LTS (14.04). This will use upstart init system for its lifetime and hopefully by then the mess of systemd will be sorted and Ubuntu might see sense and open source upstart! Even with this I noticed there were “systemd” patches installed to allow apps dependant on systemd to work with upstart. Sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

          Ubuntu and therefore Xubuntu installs easily along side OSX. The only thing to remember is OSX likes to have space between partitions and without these OSX wont upgrade, but it appears the Xubuntu install takes this into account – a nice touch. Once installed it just remains to reconfigure “refit” so Xubuntu can boot. Proprietary drivers are required for the Broadcom wireless connection and Nvidia for the graphics which Xubuntu has you covered – just install and go! Easy.

         And as far as the work I do on the Macbook is concerned, I use mainly Linux and then only OSX when I have too. Its good to have it around. I would love to go fully open source but some of the stuff just isn’t ready yet. I don’t think its too far away now.
Next: to configure Xubuntu for developing Android roms for the Asus TF201.

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Freeing The Asus Transformer Prime

asus_prime-1-cropI have had the Asus Transformer Prime for a while now and considering its hardware specifications I am a little disappointed with its performance. Taking into account it had a quad core + one processor its multi-tasking abilities leave a little to be desired, in fact, my HTC DesireHD gives it a good run for its money and it has a single core processor (and far less memory). So, what is the problem and how to fix it? After some investigation it would appear that the stock kernel (the heart of the operating system) is at fault. And to fix? Free the TF201 by unlocking the bootloader and installing a “ROM” (modified operating system) that can take advantage of the hardware. This is how I did it.

Usual disclaimer etc

Running Jellybean

First to unlock the bootloader. This can only be done by Asus and fortunately they have provided a way. Asus say their unlocker will only work for the ICS bootloader, many (including me) have reported that it works with the Jelly Bean bootloader. Use this link Asus Boot Unlocker
Then install a custom recovery, I use TWRP – Clockwork recovery isn’t compatable.
Then to free the root – this is done with the installation of TWRP
And finally to install a new ROM!

I have tried out a few different ROMs to see what the’re like and how they perform.
First was Androwook, this is based on the Asus original but with a different kernel and the option to remove (install without) the Asus apps (bloat to some people). It is a speedy and stable ROM with no real complaints. And it is based on the original the Asus android version is 4.1.1
Next was Teakbean. This is a combination of Teambake and personal scripts by the developer of the ROM. This worked really well. Only complaint is its not being developed anymore. On a personal note, if I had the time I would jump at picking this up and developing it further but alas time and knowledge is in short supply. Based on 4.1.1
Blackbean: A good ROM based on Teambake again. In steady development. It is stable and quick (so far – it is all relative) and has a few quirks which hopefully will be ironed out.

After trying out several more I have decided to stay with the Energize ROM by NRGZ (developers “tag”). This is also based on the original ROM by Asus and has the option of installing with or without the Asus apps. Earlier this year NRGZ ported over the TF300 ROM to the TF201 which bring a smoother experience with the 4.2 added extras from Google. The Energize ROM also has a dark(ish) and blue theme with many HTC icons, leaving a pleasant overall look.

Update: I have now migrated to BB8 (BakedBean8) by Team Baked, with a custom kernel and over clocking. Now runs smooth with minimal lag.

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Fedora 15 beta – Looking promising!

I first found GNU/Linux on the front cover of a magazine way back in 2000 I think. It was a product called Red Hat 7.1. I proptly installed it onto my then one and only laptop, a Toshiba Satellite 3 with a P3 700MHz and 192M RAM. I wiped off Windows ME and took 3 days to get Red Hat up and running. This took all of 1.5G of a 10G disk!
Fedora 15 takes over 3G of disk and I doubt that it could run on a P3 with 192 M RAM. One of the main reasons I liked Linux and still do is its lightness compared to MS Windows, or even OSX. But it is increasingly getting bigger (more bloat) as hardware becomes more powerful. The problem I have is that like with windows before, if I wanted to upgrade my software, I had to upgrade my hardware first, and now this is becoming more so with Linux. There are not many distros that will run happily on a P3 and 192M RAM, which is a shame, not even the Ubuntu!
So, back to fedora 15 beta. The first one I tried was the live CD to see how it looked and performed. As I like light weight stuff I opted for the LXDE version.

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RedNotebook on OSX – how to

This is a short how-to for using RedNotebook on OSX Snow Leopard.
Firstly, some notes: I am not an expert on doing these things. Below is just a guide and following them is done at your own risk, just because it works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. For getting RedNotebook to run was a bit of trail and error and as I haven’t worked out all the reasons for doing this way and not streamlining it, it is a little long winded. And so onward…

What is RedNotebook and why use it? I have been using it for some time for my journal and notes for my blogs. It runs great on GNU/Linux and has a Windows installer, but I don’t use Windows very much and I do have an Apple machine. And to quote the RedNotebook home page “RedNotebook is a graphical diary and journal helping you keep track of notes and thoughts. It includes a calendar navigation, customizable templates, export functionality and word clouds. You can also format, tag and search your entries.”

I didn’t work out how to run it on OSX for my self completely, I used a few guides, tried each and it worked. In theory, you just be able to follow the instructions at Softpedia which is laid out (along with the other) below so all I did is in one place.

RedNotebookis needs python, gtk and PyYaml to run. It would also be useful to have the Developer Tools (XCode) 2.3 or newer; 2.5 or 3.x is recommended (availble from Apple (requires id) for free). So here is what I did.

Downloaded RedNotebook and unpacked it.
Downloaded PyYaml formhere and unpacked it.

I have MacPorts installed so I first installed what I thought was needed (in terminal):-

$: sudo port install python_select python26 py26-gtk py26-webkitgtk gnome-python26-extras py26-yaml

Then cd’d in rednotebook directory and did the same

$: sudo python setup.py install

Then:

$ rednotebook

To see if it would work or give me pointers as to what is missing.

As this didn’t work fully I did PyYAML directly.
Then cd’d in to PyYAML directory
the in terminal:

$: python setup.py build
$: sudo python setup.py install

Some of the packages are not recognised as being installed so next on to installing GTK and Py-GTK using jhbuild. The problem is that jhbuild will fail if macports or fink is on the system, so two choices exist, remove macports/fink or create another user with admin rights, log out and log into new account. I did the latter Then:
I downloaded and installed git (from here because I needed for GTK-OSX
Once git was installed I then
Downloaded gtk-osx-setup.sh to my home directory and ran it with

$ sh gtk-osx-build-setup.sh

This installs jhbuild in ~/.local/bin/jhbuild. It will also install ~/.jhbuildrc and ~/.jhbuildrc-custom and will copy the current gtk-osx modules into ~/Source/jhbuild/modulesets.
(If you’re running Tiger see here as some of Tiger’s software need upgrading)
As jhbiuld is installed in ~/.local/bin you must either add that path to your path, alias jhbuild, or call jhbuild with that path, eg.

$ ~/.local/bin/jhbuild shell

I chose to type in terminal:

$ echo ‘export PATH=~/.local/bin/jhbuild:$PATH’ >> ~/.profile

Closed terminal and then opened again.
Then

$ jhbuild bootstrap
$ jhbuild build meta-gtk-osx-bootstrap
$ jhbuild build meta-gtk-osx-core

The boostrap was successful but the other two weren’t. When a module fails you are presented with a menu. I always tried number 1 first and went down the list in order to see what each did. On most occasions the module was skipped and jhbuild moved on to the next until it could go no further. I did this for osx-bootstrap and osx-core. Once done I logged out and logged back into my original account and fired up the terminal.
I then cd’d into PyYAML and ran the command:

$: sudo python setup.py install

then

$ rednotebook

And it worked,

The pywebkit installed with macports is for some new features. It is available here which you can download and compile the usual way (read install notes that comes with the package)

I hope this helps someone to enjoy the very useful RedNotebook on OSX Snow Leopard.