Reviews by Whimsicality

The switch has a nice metal casing. (Credit: Zyxel. Fair use.)

I can’t say anything about how it performs with the OEM firmware since I installed OpenWRT as soon as I got it. Zyxel has made some complications to the installation process but it’s still quite doable. OpenWRT wiki has instructions. Once the firmware has been replaced, only sky it the limit of what (networking) you can do with it.

In deed, the fact that OpenWRT supports this switch (and it’s bigger cousins as well) is the biggest strength of GS1900-8. This is a good low-end switch for OpenWRT users.

Comixology is the leading service for selling digital comics. The selection of comics is vast and prices are ok. It has an online site and mobile apps. The applications contain decent readers. Nothing customizable like YACReader or Perfect Viewer but they work. I should note that there is a quite handy feature for reading comics by frame by frame on mobile devices.

Most of the comics are spoiled with DRM but the platform itself doesn’t force this. Some comics are offered without DRM too. They can be identified with a small download icon next to the age restriction box in the respective store page.

So far everything is pretty good. The one huge flaw in Comixology is that the service is ridiculously slow. It’s not uncommon to have to wait a full minute before a page loads. This is just absurd given that Comixology is owned by Amazon, one of the world’s leading cloud service providers.

A practical tip: Before buying a comic from Comixology, check what it cost in Amazon Kindle store. Oftentimes you can get it with a about dollar less from there (at least when conversion rates are applied). And if your accounts are linked, comics bought from Kindle will be transferred to Comixology too. Just note that the inverse isn’t true. Comics bought from Comixology won’t end up in your Kindle library.

All in all, Comixology gets it borderline done, which is just what to expect from a modern business. I’d love to see a real alternative. Sadly, they are few and small.

Disclaimer: I don’t drink coffee. I use this thermos with the tea filter. Oftentimes they can be bought together. Still, I would imagine that most of my review will apply to coffee too.

This is a fine travel thermos for brewing quality tea on the go. I’ve often left home with just a bunch of leaves with me, and then asked for a fill of hot water from a coffee shop etc. No need to suffer from Lipton teabags.

The other use case is to make the brew at home and just stop the infusion by pressing the filter down before I set off. This method works pretty well too. The thermos keeps the tea hot for the better part of a day. That said, the seal between the leaves at the bottom and the main body of tea is not quite 100%. Some infusing will continue to happen even after the filter has been pressed down. This is my only complaint with this flask. (I don’t know whether the same holds for the coffee filter)

What this travel press really deserves credit for, is the open top side structure. Drinking through the typical nozzle will absolutely kill any fine aromas of the tea, whereas the open structure allows the aromas to escape to your nose while drinking. This is a crucial property for anyone who counts themselves as a serious tea (or coffee) hobbyist.

The topside has 4-wide holes for drinking. This allows aromas to escape to your nose while taking a sip. (Own work. License: CC-BY-SA.)

I’ve used this thermos over 4 years now. It certainly has passed the test of time. With regular cleaning and an occasional deep clean, all the parts have remained operational. I’ve never had to replace seals etc.

All in all it’s a fine thermos, and one of the rare ones with a built in press too. As an enthusiastic tea drinker, I recommend this thermos.

Logo (Credit: AnonAddy. Fair use.)

AnonAddy is an open source service that allows you to create anonymous email aliases. Emails arriving into these aliases will be forwarded to a real email address of your choice. Of course you can do something like this with “plus email addresses” but it’s inferior in terms of security and usability both. You can also send emails from AnonAddy aliases.

The common use case is to create a new email alias every time you register to a site or start emailing with someone new. When using shared domains, the email addresses cannot be linked together. Furthermore, when some email alias starts to receive spam, you can just simply deactivate it.

There is a quite limited free plan, so basically you have to pay 1$/3$ per month. The one dollar lite plan should be enough for most. I would even say that the lite plan is actually what makes AnonAddy more attractive than it’s very similar competitor SimpleLogin. You can make the payments with crypto.

Of course you could just host the service yourself, but then you lose the anonymity provided by sharing domains with other users. I would recommend against it, but there are good looking instructions for this as well.

I have used AnonAddy for a while now and I’m really happy with it.

Gainomax is a Swedish sports nutrition company. Their products can be found at least throughout Scandinavia.

This protein bar tastes absolutely amazing. It would be hard to tell this apart from candy bars. Smooth toffee flavor with hints of vanilla. The chocolate is nicely quite dark.

One bar contains 18 grams of protein which keeps hunger at bay at least for a while.

Retail prices are around 2€ a bar, which is clearly inflated. This is the only thing keeping this from a 5-star rating.