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OsmAnd is a free and open source(FOSS) maps and navigation app. It uses OpenStreetMap(OSM) for map data, several different routing engines are available ranging from fully offline to partially online and maps can use local data(offline) or online tiles. It’s best feature is that it can be used fully offline once map data has been downloaded.

Routing

The built in routing engine that works offline can be very slow depending on length of your route and your phones cpu. When used with older phones, it can take several minutes to calculate a 10-20 mile route. It is the default routing engine when you install the app.

Online routing engines were removed in one of the 3.x releases.

The OSRM routing engine works very fast, taking ~15 seconds to calculate a 10-20 mile route, but requires a data connection. It has to be enabled in the settings menu to work. This engine doesn’t seem to support announcing street names or avoiding tolls, use the default routing engine for the best experience.

Search

Search is not as good as commercial competitors. One drawback is that OSM’s data is missing many businesses and addresses compared to commercial competitors. The other is that the search function often requires exact substing matches to find things and is compounded by the fact OSM is crowdsourced data so there can be inconsistencies in tagging.

Map Updates

Map updates come monthly by default and include any updates that have been made to the OSM data.

OsmAnd live is a feature that allows downloads of new map data every hour if you want. This feature comes free with the F Droid version. This feature is great for OSM contributors. OsmAnd Live updates approx. every 15 minutes so you can make changes on OSM, wait 15 minutes and download your changes so you can immediately use your changes and know what’s already been mapped.

Updates

Since the app is FOSS, the app updates and map updates can be free if you download from F Droid . You can also get a free version from the Play store that comes with limits on the amount of offline maps you can download, but you can purchase an expanded version that takes aways those limits.

Battery and Data Usage

App uses very little data when using local data, even with online route calculation enabled. Map downloads are large, I highly recommend downloading over wifi only.

Battery usage seems to be much lower than commercial competitors, but a direct comparison has not been done.

Map Rendering

Map rendering will be slightly slower than commercial ones if using local map data. If you want the fastest experience, enable online map tiles in the configure map section.

##Long Term Update
Search is a pain and doesn’t become less frustrating over time. Rendering can be odd sometimes, showing the backgound as water instead of land at certain zoom levels. Routing is almost always good.

Verdict

The app is usable for day to day navigation, but will take some getting used to if coming from always online apps. The amount of options the app gives you is impressive. At any time, you can choose to go offline only to save data or online for a faster experience or something in between. OsmAnd Live is highly recommended if you are an OSM contributor.

If you want a free navigation app that doesn’t track you, this is a great choice.

Covers a lot of topics from a pagan/occult/magickal perspective, without the New Age woo that a lot of sites depend on. Dr Bones is an especially good writer for them. Good for people trying to experience spiritualism without abandoning rationality.

Se vi estas komencanto en Esperanto, kaj volas aŭdi normalan, facile aŭskulteblan Esperanton, kun gastoj el diversaj lingvofontoj, jen ĝi. kern.punkto estas la plej bona reprezentanto de Esperantujo, kiam temas pri podkastoj. La diverseco de gastoj (de malsamaj devenoj) estas granda, kaj tio pli bone reprezentas la sondiversecon de Esperanto ol aliaj podkastoj. Se vi ne plu estas komencanto, ne zorgu! kern.punkto taŭgas por ĉiuj, kiuj volas aŭskulti interesan diskutadon aŭ demandadon pri iu temo, sen esti ĝenita de muzikoj aŭ malseriozaj deflankiĝoj.

Ankaŭ la temoj estas tre diversaj. En la frua komenco, ili ĉefe temis pri aferoj konstruitaj, elektronikaj kaj komputilaj, sed nun estas tre granda diverseco, kaj tio estas tre bona por kompensi la malplenecon de podkastoj en Esperanto. Mi mem ŝatus pli da epizodoj pri biologio kaj sano, sed mi komprenas se la teamo ne sentas sin sperta pri tio aŭ ne povas facile trovi taŭgajn gastojn. Foje kelkaj temoj ne interesas min kaj mi duonaŭskultas, sed almenaŭ mi lernas kelkajn vortojn en Esperanto pri fakoj malofte priparolataj Esperante. Sed kiam la temo interesas min, mi ŝategas! La retejo de kern.punkto eĉ foje donas ligilojn, per kiuj oni povas pluesplori la temon, kiun oni malkovris/ŝatis.

Epizodoj kutime estas longaj je horo. Laŭ mi, tio estas nek tro longa, nek tro mallonga. La temoj estas serioze preparitaj, kaj la gravaj demandoj estas respondataj kun la bezonata, sen provi rapidigi aferojn pro artefaritaj tempolimoj. La epizodoj estas facile aŭskulteblaj ĉene per la apo Esperanto-radio Muzaiko, kaj AntennaPod, kiam oni estas ekzemple en veturilo al laborejo.

Hodiaŭ, kern.punkto estas tre granda. Ĝi eble estas la plej prestiĝa podkasto en Esperanto. (Ofte ĉeesti kongresojn helpas). Se vi ne konas la podkaston, estas grave ke vi konu ĝin, almenaŭ pro ĉio kion ĝi faris por Esperantujo. Aldone al ĉio, ili estas malfermitaj al la reagoj de aŭskultantoj. Oni povas facile kontakti ilin per ilia telegrama grupo, kaj oni foje povas rekte fari demandojn al gastoj kadre de rektaj elsendoj!

Se ankaŭ vi ŝatas kern.punkto, vi verŝajne ŝatos movada-vid.punkto, kiu havas tre similan stilon, sed prias Esperantajn aĵojn kaj agojn.

I really wouldn’t have Home Automation up and running in my Home if it wasn’t for Openhab. I’ve tried other mainstream home automation developers and found them to be too tied in to how they feel home automation should be and obviously flaunt their own and only their own products.

What I mean by this is that Openhab is vendor neutral, open source software. Lets break this down, it’s vendor neutral which means that it will work with a multitude of products from different companies so you can setup your own home with technology the way you like it and the list of products is ever expanding, they already support hundreds of products already . Open source means it open for any one to look through the code and develop it to create enhancements, better security or simply to check that no little nasty bugs or malicious code is part of it . Usually this means that should someone create an enhancement or security feature they give this back to the developer of the original source and thus a community is created where every one benefits from everyone’s input .

Now Openhab isn’t for everyone as it does require a certain amount of technical knowledge to begin with , however if your willing to learn new things and are interested in home automation, that is continually being developed by a community of people who are passionate about home automation, then Openhab is definitely for you.

I started off with Openhab with only a relatively small knowledge about home automation, software , hardware and computers in general. Now I consider myself someone who is reasonably good and I can achieve most of the what I want to create in Home automation. Should I find myself needing help with a project, Documentation is no shortfall with Openhab. But the largest benefit is the support provided on the Forum without which I wouldn’t have managed to develop anything.

Openhab is the complete package it supports a large number of products from different companies , it’s getting more user friendly by each passing day and the support for people needing help is exceptional.

Honestly I don’t really need to review this, as word of mouth seems to be spreading this with out help, but here is my assistance to the cause so to speak .

Ok so in the modern age of Cloud storage, security and privacy of ones personal information, having a cloud storage that you control and only you can access seems to be impossible. Its either firmly in the hands of the tech Giants or pretty hard to create and maintain for the average person with very little if any technical know how.

Nextcloud is a brilliant solution for people seeking a personal cloud storage that they own and control and that’s not controlled and stored by a tech giant your forced to trust with your data. The solution is to self host your own cloud , but its not so easy to get going if your not so tech savvy…

Step in NextcloudPi.

NextcloudPi was developed as a solution for the non technically minded people to create a personal self hosted cloud storage and it be secure and as user friendly as possible. A full set of instruction found here on how to self host using nothing more than a Raspberry Pi or other Single board computers ( Link here for what this is here ), are available on the site. This of course is still a work in progress and will become even more user friendly and easier to implement as time goes by.

So far NextcloudPi has helped thousands of people self host a secure and easy to use cloud service and is something I personally use myself with great success I might add.

I would like to give enormous credit to the developer whose alias is Nacho Parker and would recommend that you donate should you find that with the Help of NextcloudPi you created a personal cloud storage solution .

Mi partoprenis PEKO-n 2018 de ĵaŭdo ĝis dimanĉo (mi nur maltrafis la unuan nokton) en Tilff ĉe Lieĝo en Belgujo. Surprize granda estis la ĉeestantaro, se oni konsideras, ke la retpaĝo kaj aliĝilo aperis unu monaton antaŭe.
Same kiel en aliaj jaroj la ĉeestantoj estis la Verdaj Skoltoj, do adoleskuloj, la samaj maljunuloj kiel ĉiam en belgaj renkontiĝoj, kaj kelkaj hazardaj homoj inter tio.

La bazaj kondiĉoj estis prizorgitaj. Ĉiuj dormis en etaĝaj litoj, la manĝo estis baza sed bone farita, kaj la trinkejo preskaŭ ĉiam funkciis kun volontula homforto de la Skoltoj. La programo estis iom malriĉa. Okazis kelkaj ekskursoj, sed mi ne eltenis atendi malrapidan francan klarigan, sekvitan de malrapida esperanta traduko kun malrapida promenado. Plej amuze estis la neantaŭplanitaj arbaraj ekskursoj kun la Skoltoj, kun speciala danko al Cédric.

Estas mirinde, ke la organizanto Valer sukcesis preskaŭ sole ĉion organizi, sed venontjare mi tamen esperas je pli granda teamo, por havi pli frue retpaĝon kaj pli multe da programo.

This program is very easy to use for anyone, even those who don’t understand much about virtualization, which is honestly great. Other virtualization apps can look complex and daunting to beginners, so it’s very good that GNOME Boxes exists.

For simple use cases, there are no reasons I can think of to not use it. Works out of the box, as intended.

NeoGeo, a name that conjures up many memories for me. I played many of them in the arcades in the 90’s, including titles such as Samurai Shodown, King of Fighters, Fatal Fury and many other hits. I never really got to play the Last Blade, however. It was only until recently that I really could experience the joy that is the Last Blade. Coming in at $7.99 USD on the Switch eshop, it’s just at the right price to dive right in! I’ll go over the presentation, the controls, the difficulty, the sound and music and finally an overview of the whole thing.

When you first start the Last Blade, you’re asked to select from one of several modes. You can choose Japanese, American, Caravan or High Score mode. I won’t go into the latter modes, Caravan and High Score, because I didn’t find those interesting. Once you pick Japanese or American, you’re given a choice of which user to select to play the game with. After that, the intro starts up and you’re asked to “insert coins” as you would in a real arcade. To do so, you press the L button to insert coins and the R button to start(as player one). You’re then presented with a choice of combatants, each with their own unique special moves as per the usual fighting game rules. After picking one, you can choose either Power or Speed mode. I haven’t played the game long enough to understand the real differences between them. Regardless of your choice, you’re whisked away to the first fight! The presentation for all the above is completely flawless and one of SNK’s best, with I feel the only games rivalling it’s presentation are the sequel, Garou: Mark of the Wolves and King of Fighters.

Now for the controls. The controls are very tight and it’s very easy to pull off combos, even despite the age of the game. Certainly, you do need practice, and that’s one of the downsides of the game I’ll get into later. Anyways, the controls are very responsive and usually only need a little push to really pull off anything. I’d say it’s also one of the game’s best features. Also I would recommend the use of the Pro Controller or an arcade stick, by say, Hori, for the best experience with the controls.

As for the difficulty, it’s rather hard, especially if you’re not good at fighting games. I’ve had years of experience in fighting games, but I am by no means a master at them. The last boss also exhibits what some would call “SNK Boss Syndrome,” which means that they are really are cheap and unfair. I found this to be true a little, and it took me at least 10 tries to beat the boss. There are options to lower the difficulty, but what is really glaring is the fact that you can’t switch the game to what is called “AES” mode. NeoGeo, the console, was no different from the arcade version, but there was the fact that many games, when you used them in a NeoGeo console, would often have a menu of options that you could select from, and that usually included a training mode. This port lacks the option to switch to console mode, sadly. In any case, because of the difficulty, I would recommend that you mostly play this with your friends to have the best time.

The music and sound are amazing, and just a joy to listen to no matter what. Sometimes the music is purely ambient, however, but other times it’s got such a Japanese feel you can’t help but be surprised out of what they could do with the NeoGeo’s hardware. You’ll want to find the soundtrack online after listening to the music in the game! As for the sounds, they’re all hard hitting, and the sound effects do the game real justice. There’s no tinny or otherwise out of tune sounds here.

Overall, I’d say the game is definitely worth it, especially if you have a Pro Controller or 2, and a friend. It’s unfortunate about the lack of a AES mode, but maybe one day they’ll do us a service and patch it in. I’ll give this 4/5 stars due to the facts mentioned above. Great game, just needs some adjustments in this port.

This collection of Anki decks for Japanese learners, spread over 10 parts, is an absolute must for beginners. It includes standalone expressions as well as phrases with said expressions. It also contains images and, most importantly, audio produced by native speakers. This is where it really shines and makes it all worthwhile.

Having said that, the lack of linear progression throughout the decks is pretty bad. You learn the common expression 素晴らしい (subarashii) only by the time you get to deck 7! This happens often and feels like a wasted opportunity to make progression more meaningful.

Also I take issue with the fact that there are so many lent expressions from English (the so-called garaigo). Those are often nearly identical to the English words and don’t really need to be memorized with flashcards since they are so easy.

All in all, it’s a fun deck to churn through and I can recommend it!

So, as this was a good series overall I feel like I deserve to give it an extra other comment/review.

I was “spoilt” on the ending but what can you expect watching a pretty major series nearly eight years after it was broadcasted ?

Okay, this is a 12am rambling under the influence so let’s stop it here.

All in all, I would defintely recommend this, the ending didn’t ruin the show one bit, in my honest opinion.