
Developing Computer Self-Reliance - sT370ma2
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/computer-self-reliance.html
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dividedbyzero
I've noticed a sort-of orthogonal trend: To ditch the computer entirely and
use mobile devices exclusively. I've seen a combo of an iPhone and a low-end
iPad do everything many not-so-technical people ever do on their computers,
while being a lot more secure, relatively inexpensive, and very easy to use,
or rather, it tends to be very hard to actually break things inadvertently on
those systems, and being able to transfer muscle memory from one's phone
helps.

iPads can still feed video to a TV, you can use a cheap bluetooth keyboard for
writing letters (and, recently on iPadOS, even mice), lots of USB devices with
an adapter, and they're highly mobile, have great accessibility features
(increasingly popular with age), the higher-end iPad displays are actually
kinda nice for reading, even. New-ish printers seemingly tend to just work
over wifi (at least with iOS – so I'm told; I still have a hard time believing
it.)

I think that's actually another way of attaining more self-reliance. It's a
way to avoid having to learn most of the things mentioned in TFA and still be
able to not depend on others so much, without things getting crazy expensive
or insecure. Software failure modes tend to be a lot easier to fix, and for
hardware – same as with phones, even most knowledgeable people can't fix those
themselves, but there are straightforward options to have it done (e.g. take
it to an Apple Store), and even as a non-technical person, you can set up a
new device without help with very basic skills.

Maybe that kind of self-reliance isn't the most helpful kind in a pandemic or
SHTF scenario, or the very cheapest way to solve one's computing needs, but
it's viable and way easier than what TFA outlines.

~~~
massysett
Newer printers absolutely Just Work over wifi, at least with iOS and macOS
devices. iOS automatically detects the printer on the network, no installation
needed. MacOS is also about as seamless.

On the other hand I recently acquired a Windows 10 PC due to work-from-home
and it was trouble-ridden. The auto-detect failed and I had a hard time
installing drivers when it did fail. I have an easier time printing from my
old Thinkpad running an out-of-date Debian. Hard to believe that Windows is
still this primitive. It’s disappointing.

~~~
gridlockd
> Newer printers absolutely Just Work over wifi, at least with iOS and macOS
> devices.

Not my experience at all.

~~~
mattius
Same here. I have a year old Cannon laser printer. While I've never had issues
getting it to connect to WiFi, it's useless if multicast isn't enabled on the
network. This lowers my speeds significantly. Without it the printer refuses
to cooperate, even if I manually enter the IP address into a client. My
network equipment is Ubiquiti which serves a mixture of Mac and Windows
clients. Disabling multicast with an exception for the printers MAC address
doesn't work either.

------
bullen
I'm making my final
computer:[http://talk.binarytask.com/task?id=8015986770003767235](http://talk.binarytask.com/task?id=8015986770003767235)

~~~
hawski
I don't understand what you're trying to describe there. A raspberry-pi as
your computer? It's too vague and pictures seem to not correlate with this
short text.

~~~
bullen
Basically, the rasperry 4 has 2 GFlops/watt and that's as good as it will get.
So I'm transitioning to raspberry that powers it's own screen for a 15W
computer that can run 40 hours with a 50Ah lead-acid battery.

