The Pragmatist and The PC
I have always tried to be pragmatic. Not that I get it right all the time but I try to look to the past, look to the future and then make a decision when it comes to the technology that I work with. I’m a tech guy and I love to tinker, anyone who knows me knows that. I have PCs that I use which run old MS-DOS software from 35 years ago and I have others with software that is the latest and most up to date. Each have their purposes and each have things that they do well and each have their limitations. As we move forward however the one thing that I feel we have been doing is handing over our control of what we do and how we use our tech to algorithms and AI. I wrote a post about that on Facebook recently – you can check it out here I’m not going to rehash it all again.
There are some things that I have been doing over the last few years not to be invisible on the internet - if someone wants to find me you can bet they will. Rather I want to be mindful of how I use hardware, the platforms I’m on and whether I’m driving my tech experience or if the tech is driving me. It has always been a balance between the two but in the past few years as I look around I feel that the vast majority are driven by their tech, algorithms and whatever screwy AI bot shoves in their face. We have to be cautious in an era of machines that we don’t loose sight of what it means to be human. We need to be in charge of ourselves and our experience - not some guy with a perm (Sorry Mark Zuckerburg get a hair cut) and some army of bots telling us what masculinity looks like.
So what can we do about it? We cannot get away from it completely but you can start by looking at your hardware. I have been a Windows guy since Windows 3.0 with my favorite Microsoft OS being either Windows XP or Windows 7. However in recent times I feel that there are things being integrated into Windows which I don’t want or need. You’ll hear complaints about a Microsoft account being required to set it up, its true in general – there are workarounds but it’s hard if you aren’t a tech person. There are other things, features taken away and then added back later as if it is something new, updates that you get but have no control to block them and then of course there is Microsoft Copilot which has been added to Windows and all of the Office products. Nice features for some but frustrating in my experience because for me it gets in the way. The other thing that annoys me is the fact that some of my relatively recent hardware is not compatible with Windows 11 – again not impossible to work around but frustrating. That combined with system menus that I don’t feel are intuitive anymore really left me with a sour taste over the direction of desktop computing when it comes to Windows.
Let me be clear, Windows itself is a fine operating system, it is well supported and it has more software available than any other platform. In some cases you might NOT be able to get away from Windows because of your needs – maybe some software for work for example, then you will have to just live with some things. But when I buy a computer, I feel it as well as the data stored on it are mine and I want the machine to do what I ask. Nothing more, nothing less. If you are feeling techie you could move to Linux, I have with the majority of my computing outside of work. If you are just starting down that route I would recommend Ubuntu, Linux Mint or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. All three are stable and easy to navigate. I lean more to OpenSUSE personally but your mileage will very. Also be aware that even though there is a lot of software that runs on Linux not everything does so set your expectations accordingly. On the plus side they are open source and allow more fine grain control over the system itself. There are other Linux distros (hundred of others in fact) but I find them to not have as good of documentation and the support forums of these smaller distros love to use the phrase “Read the F-ing Manual” in tirades that end up doing the people with the questions no good. So if you move to Linux be ready for that on the support forums – ignore it.
The other option is to have different machines used for different purposes – they don’t all need to be online either. I for instance I love to write. When I do, I often times am on an old XP machine that I don’t have connected to the internet. For me it’s more efficient, I like the interface and I don’t get the distractions of one hooked to the web. You could also have a system for work and another for personal which I would highly recommend. Used off lease business computers are my go to – they are usually in pretty good shape, do what I need done and don’t break the bank.
There are other options you can go with as well. I have backed away from Google and Google Docs in favor of a self hosted service called NextCloud. It works well enough, I host it on my equipment here at home but is a real pain to get set up in my experience. It can be done but it took a lot of patience. Is it as smooth as Google? In my experience no. Does it do the job for me? Yes. The cloud is mine, the docs on it are mine but the trade off is technical support. If you go the way I did and host it as an individual and you aren’t paying for support you’re on your own. Forums are out there for help but the actual fixing it is on you. So is it great? Eh, no, but it’s good enough for my purposes.
The other thing that I do is self-host my email server. Would I recommend anyone do this? Absolutely not. It was tedious to set up, you have to make sure your IP address is static, that certain ports aren’t blocked by your internet service provider. Along with that you have to make sure that your IP isn’t on a blacklist somewhere – if it is all of the big email providers will block you and no one will get any messages you send. There are settings you have to change in your DNS records that if they are off in any way your messages won’t be delivered. On top of that you need to keep the server up to date and try to make sure you have a filtering bridge of some sort in place to protect that server both from attacks from the outside and keep it isolated from the rest of your network in case something goes wrong or gets hacked. If the server goes out remember you won’t get emails. In general is email a secure form of communication anyway? Not really. So do I have one? Yes. Should you? In general no but if you’re geeky like me, then sure but know the risks. You can dump Google yes but you pick up all of their responsibilities and any headaches that go along with it. If you do decide to go down that route I have found Axigen Free Mail Server my software of choice for that.
I could keep going and the same could be said with phones. Different manufacturers, carriers exc. and you could do that as well. But when it comes down to it for me it requires self control, deleting apps and making it harder to use mindlessly. Am I going to say have multiple phones? Probably not but know yourself. If you are one who will mindlessly scroll then make it harder to use it mindlessly. The biggest piece of advice that works for me is to have certain devices dedicated to certain functions.
Stepping out a little further what have I done with respect to search engines? There are a number of different ones I have tried but the one I like the best (so far) is Qwant. It’s a search engine based in France that I find to be quite effective and works how I wish Google did. Because they are European based there are better safeguards in place for privacy which in turn gives me a search that I would expect instead of a slew of advertisements that I didn’t ask for or an AI bot synopsis that I didn’t ask for anyway. AI in search has its place but usually it’s just getting in the way more and more. Are there others? Sure but I like this one – it stays out of my way.
To some things up here’s what I do and why:
Use Linux where possible (I prefer European distros) – it stays out of my way better.
Use self hosted web services where possible they might not be as good as Google Docs but for the most part they’re good enough.
I don’t use a lot of phone apps and I don’t log in to Facebook on a phone. Only a PC
Switch to European based search engines, in my case Qwant, it does what I ask and nothing more.
Accept the fact that you will not be invisible on the internet but try to make your experience self-directed where possible. Be in charge of how you direct your experience, it can be done with a little effort.
Ask yourself who’s using who? Is the device or platform using you or are you using it? There’s a difference - always be mindful of that difference.
Peace Always,
Lester