New Phone Bigme Hibreak Pro Color

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So I know it’s been quite some time since I posted. What can I say? As you can see on the sidebar/below the post (if you’re on mobile), I’ve been playing quite a number of video games (finally beating Zelda Tears of the Kingdom) as well as reading a few books now ‘n again.

Speaking of reading new books, I’ve reread and finished a couple using new tech. I bought a BIgme HIbreak Pro Color phone back in November and it was delivered on Tuesday December 2nd. Its biggest claim to fame is the color e-ink screen.

My Pixel 4a battery was starting to die, and the phone was definitely showing its age. I’d looked at a bunch of phones, and was leaning towards a lower mid-range Motorola phone, but then I realized that the time I’m spending on my phone is kind of worthless. I doomscroll through instagram and facebook videos a lot, and it’s a waste of my time and brain. That put me out to look at something like the minimal phone or a flip phone jitterbug, but I still needed the apps and RCS messaging.

I have wanted to get an e-ink device with a backlight for quite some time now, as neither my Kindle DX or Entourage Edge devices had backlights. I knew reading on e-ink was a lot nicer, and I figured if I got a phone that did that, then it would double as an ereader. That brought me to looking at Bigme’s offerings. They’ve got a few different options for e-ink phones, but they all didn’t quite meet what I wanted, and then they released the pro version of the Hibreak with a color e-ink screen. I was sold.

I also knew that there would be a good deal of jankiness to the phone. My wife has a Boox e-reader, and the tech troubleshooting I have to do on that is not too bad, but it’s more than most would want to put up with. So, I knew with an eink menu that looked similar to the boox, that it would be janky.

I also knew that the device support would pretty much disappear once I bought it…Reddit has reported as much; but since I’m used to rooting devices and trying different roms on my phones, I wasn’t too worried. So I preordered it.

And it fulfilled my expectations both for the enjoyment of using the screen to read and for the amount of troubleshooting necessary (the notifications was the biggest hiccup). Once that all got settled, it operates like a solid Android phone (nothing fancy there), supports RCS messaging, was easy to set up a Mint sim card on it, and while it can play videos decently, it isn’t something I want to keep open to doom scroll.

It’s a pretty good phone, and if you’re tech-savvy and have patience for dealing with glitches, then I highly recommend it. It isn’t ready for mass use, yet, due to those hiccups…but I’m enjoying it. I’m also getting back into reading…I’ve got about 500 epubs from the last decade or so of buying bundles to get through!

VIrtual Boy Emulation on the 3DS

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So about two years or so ago, when Nintendo was running rampant shutting down all the 3DS services including the 3DS store, I started looking into rooting my 3DS. It wasn’t that I necessarily wanted to play a bunch of NES/SNES games that I own on the system (though that was part of it), it was that I heard about a Virtual Boy emulator.

For those of you not in the know, the Virtual Boy is the biggest failure that Nintendo has had, it was a 3D unit that was all in red/black, and you’d put your face into. It was all sorts of ridiculous that failed about 2 months after it launched.

I remember because it was on an Orchestra trip down to the cities that I picked one up for $25 and a couple games (WarioLand and Panic Bomber). It’s been fun on occasion taking it out of storage to play it, but about 6 years ago, the ribbon cable was no longer connected as well as it needed to be. The system became unplayable, sadly.

But then I heard about the 3DS port (and, you’ll be happy to know, I did get the emulator that will play the Virtual Boy in my HTC Vive Pro, which is totally sweet and awesome too), and so I rooted my 3DSXL, and found out shortly that it didn’t have the oomph necessary to run it. I needed the New 3DS XL, and luckily was able to get my brother’s system.

Well, today the Red VIper 3DS emulator came out in version 1.0, and it is swawesome (that’s sweet plus awesome). It utilizes the 3DS 3-D settings perfectly, and I had a bit of a memory lane jaunt on break today playing some Panic Bomber.

It’s fun. The system was largely trash, but the games were really fun. Warioland was a full on game, like 10-15 hours long if I remember correctly. So, it’s good times!

Big Cell Phone Won This Round

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I hate to say it, but I need to go back to a stock ROM for my cell phone. I had rooted it last August to put LineageOS on it, because then I was able to get access to Android 15 and all the whiz-bang security updates.

Y’see, Google stopped updating my Pixel 4a in September of 2023. The phone is still good, though, unlike my wife’s Pixel 4a which they effectively killed with the battery issues (which started this whole NAS situation). Mine was still good, and last summer I tried a couple custom OS’s, one was GrapheneOS and the other was LineageOS.

GrapheneOS was ok, but it was REALLY locked down, so much so that few of my apps were working, and it tended to be a pain. So I switched to LineageOS, and I loved it. Weekly security patches, Android 15, pretty much similar to the new Android devices.

The problem, however, was that the boot loader needed to be unlocked. Not a big deal, says I, as only one app wouldn’t install and that was Coinbase. Oh well, that’s what they make the browser for, amirite? So, for the last year it’s been great.

Until.

End of June. Mint Mobile starts ramping up to get RCS on all devices (RCS was working on my device)…but to get RCS working, they need to work with the great Google. Well, the great Google doesn’t like devices that they can’t control…and since I don’t have a boot locker on my device, well it flagged…and google messaging just auto-kills RCS messages for devices like mine. They do this update a couple times a year, from what I understand, just to kill this option.

You must understand: they’re doing it for us because so many spammers are using unlocked devices. And spammers are bad, see, because they’re not paying google the advertising fee that good spammers are paying…spammers like facebook or amazon or other advertisers. They’re good, because google gets money. They’re not bad like people like me, who didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars to update a perfectly good phone.

I was ok with losing some access to apps, but I was starting to not get messages from my wife, from mom and family, from other important entities that I needed to communicate with. That won’t fly, and dagnabbit, I’m not dropping hundreds of dollars for a new phone when this one is working just fine…and I’ll just deal with the security hassles.

This is what planned obsolescence looks like folks. It’s not your fridge stopping two months before the warranty is out. It’s the massive amount of control these companies have over our technology and data…and the way they can manipulate us away from making our own choices. Choices that work for us and make our lives better, but may cut out some sliver of profits.

I used to support capitalism. Capitalism used to be about making money. But I really think American Capitalism is starting to be more about control…control over everything.

So I’m back on my pixel 4a running android 13. I’ll look into updating security measures as I go, but if I’m careful, then I should be relatively safe. I hope. Who knows though.

EDITED ABOUT AN HOUR LATER: Some of you may think it wasn’t Google that was blocking RCS messages, even though they’ve been doing it since 2021 according to some sources. Honestly I don’t care if you believe me…my proof came in via RCS chats on Google Messages as soon as I signed into the reinstalled stock version of my Pixel 4a. Every message since about June 13th that they’ve blocked.

PDF Convolutions and TrueNAS Scale

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If you’ve dealt with either the government, businesses, or obnoxious forms online, you’ve probably ran across a PDF that isn’t really set up for editing…or if you applied for a job that required letters of ref/transcripts/resume/CV but only allowed one file upload, you’ve probably ran into problems with trying to get the PDFs to work well.

Which is EXACTLY what Adobe wants. They want you to be in pain so that you pay them to allow adjustments to files you already own and have created. And they require a subscription, which as I’ve already stated, I find really obnoxious and stupid.

Well, I ran into some merge difficulties tonight because I had to upload like 6 files, but they only allowed four files to be uploaded. Because, y’know, storage? Bad coding? Outright jerkishness? Any and/or all of the above really. And yeah, there are sites that will merge files for you for free on the internet…but I don’t like sharing personal data with rando sites.

So, with the NAS, I decided why not? Let’s look for a PDF editor. And right away, in the TrueNAS community apps section, was Stirling PDF. It is now self-hosted and running in a docker container…and it was free, does everything I need it to, and is only available on my network.

Highly recommend, really easy to use.

Love me some BattleTech

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We’ve had a lot of time from work recently due to circumstances which I’ll share at some point (not bad, pretty good actually), so there’s been more time to read and play video games. And you’ll notice from the ol’ “Read list” on the right side of the blog, I’ve been working through the 131 BattleTech books that I got last year from a Humble Bundle.

I love eBooks because they don’t take up more space on my shelves (after moving several times in the last decade, I’m only moving books that I love and want the physical copy of (sorry collected works of Mark Twain(I know the guy loved cats, but his books are available for free online))). I can read them on my Chuwi Minibook X 2 in 1, and I’m looking into serving them from the NAS server.

I, unfortunately, haven’t been playing as many video games because it’s tougher to do so. Rather, I’ve been playing the ever living bejeebus out of Terraforming Mars (which I got on Steam with ANOTHER Humble Bundle last year. So, when and if anyone plays Terraforming Mars with me, well I hope to put up a challenge at least.

That’s just to say this morning I tried loading up some BattleTech on the ol’ Minobook X. It’s an older game, but I enjoy it quite a lot and figured I’d give it a go and see if it works. I was not hopeful…this thing is using an N100 intel chip with the integrated graphics that it puts out. Sure it’s got 12 gb of RAM, and I replaced the SSD with a 1tb one…but it’s not made for games, let’s be honest.

I’ll also be honest: I was pleasantly surprised with the fact that the game worked. I turned all GFX settings down to the lowest, of course, but hey…it played smoothly, there was no delay in the action (I mean, it’s a turn based game, so there shouldn’t be), and it worked and played like it does on the desktop. I was just as pleasantly surprised when this laptop played Skyrim, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age games (except Veilguard, that one is too new…and too crappy to try to get it to work on this system).

Also, it made the laptop heat up significantly less than Terraforming Mars, which is really strange…considering one is a Turn Based action game with explosions, and one should be a pretty static board game. THAT I was really pleasantly surprised by.

Good times.

Some more NAS server stuff

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So it’s been a few weeks, largely because of other non-techy stuff that is going on in our lives. However, I thought I’d update on the old TrueNAS Scale server going on.

Firstly, I installed Tailscale. Paul Bunyan’s servers don’t allow incoming server requests, but with TailScale installed, it routes everything through that system. It’s free, which is good, and really easy to use. I’m sure that eventually it will change from free to cost, in which case I’ll look for other options.

But as you can see from the picture above, I was able to watch my animaniacs show through tailscale over my cell phone data. It worked really flawlessly, really happy with it!

If you’re wondering which cell phone plan, I have Mint Mobile, and I pay for the $15 a month plan, which has 5 gb of data. It’s a solid system, works pretty well 95% of the time, and since I own the phone, it’s a good system to have.

I’ve also attempted installing some custom docker containers to help with task management, like TimeTagger (to track time on specific tasks) and Grocy (to track our pantry and our chore list). It was a bit of a challenge to get them installed, but once I figured out the bash situation (TrueNas Scale doesn’t seem to need the additional escape $ that docker environs usually require), they work flawlessly.

On my to-do list with the server is to figure out how to get some security cameras up in here running locally.

Google you’re chasing me into the arms of my NAS

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Google destroying workable options in their apps for zero reason like the music controls in maps is yet another reason I’m working on moving away from corporate resources.

Honestly, there’s no customer-based reason for them to have limited it only to a couple apps. It was working fine for Musicolet (which is what I use for my cell phone based music), but I suppose they’re not getting any cash or advertising from a free service instead of a subscription service. I guess it still works for Spotify. Back room deals anyone?

In the TrueNAS Scale department of divorcing myself from corporate overlords, I’ve been using some TailScale for away-from-home access to my storage (mainly for Immich, since my wife and I take a lot of pictures). I mean, accessing my home library of movies is great too, but MUCH less of a concern. The photo gallery is the big one. I’d set up proxy and protective services myself, but Paulbunyan.net uses CNAT addressing, and don’t allow incoming connections. So Tailscale it is, for the time being.

In the coming months (once I sell enough old comp equipment to afford the new hard drives), I’ll be also installing and working with Home Assistant instead of the Amazon Alexa ecosystem. I’ve loved using the Alexa for things like playing Pandora, asking about the weather forecast(hello middle age), controlling wifi plugs/lights, and mainly setting kitchen timers…but similar to Google, I’m getting leery of allowing corpoorate entities that much of a peek into my day-to-day.

And yes, yes, yes, I know I KNOW about the dangers of cell phones and apps constantly listening (*cough cough* FACEBOOK *cough*), and I’m running almost everything through Brave browser on the phone to try and cut that down. I still have to be part of the Googly Moogly system, though, due to work and access (though much of my private day-to-day email is still very much handled via Froyd.net servers). Heck, I use Duckduckgo for 99% of my internet searching now.

I just want to take back control of what I can, using open source programs created by like minded individuals as opposed to corprations who answer to stockholders. It’s the independent Norwegian in me…to do it all myself, I don’t need help. That and my disgust with things changing ALL THE TIME without even a notice or a how-do-you-do.

TrueNAS and Processor

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So I pulled the old GTX 1080 out of my computer that I’m using for the TrueNAS server. I was a little hesitant to do this because I had read a couple places that having a GPU would help with streaming videos.

My processor is an Intel Core i7-4770 Quad-Core Desktop Processor 3.4 GHZ LGA, and I’ve had zero issues streaming to the Roku tv in the house (I’m in the garage, hardwired in for my work computers and my server box). All videos have streamed with no problems, and the subtitles (that I used Subtitle Edit to do with their auto generation with a LLM database) work great.

So one doesn’t need a brand spanking new stuff to have a good workable TrueNAS setup, and it’s great.

Plex vs. Jellyfin

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So I started with Plex because Jellyfin was a bit more of a pain to set up. But I REALLY got tired of it constantly having me sign in and register different emails for different devices, and then not seeing that the account had access to the folder because it was on my home network and I didn’t appreciate it trying to shove things down my throat.

That being said, it handled the library pretty well (though its cache refresh was astoundingly slow for reordering movies after editing metadata and having it refresh the list after metadata had been put in). Roku had an app, which was good.

However, I got sick of the nonsense, to be honest. It was slick, sure, but it was also yet another corporation trying to sell me something.

So I also installed Jellyfin. I like it a lot more, to be honest. Similar style of movie/tv show display as Plex, but without the corporate spying overlord requiring you register with them off network in order to use the app.

The biggest problem was where to add the storage, and what network address was required. Once that was figured out, then it was great. Easily edited, almost immediately reordered, and easy to use. Plus, it ALSO had a Roku app…that we got before either the wife or I got used to the way the Plex app operated.

Now I’m just getting all our DVDs up on the server…of which I’ll have to upgrade my storage (right now the images are on the mirrored hard drives, while the videos are on a usb external drive not mirrored, which TrueNAS absolutely hates). I’m going to probably upgrade to two 8TB hard drives to set up in mirror mode.

I’ll get those once I sell a bunch of the old computer equipment I’ve got laying around here to pay for them.