I want to know what kind of apps/programs y’all recommend to people or just use personally. This is just in general, could be anything from a game to a media codec. I personally use Linux but stuff for other operating systems is welcome too.
Do you mean on phones? Windows? Macs? Watches?
I like Merlin on iOS cos it identifies birds by their calls.
Android users can use ‘BirdNET’ it’s FOSS and works most of the time.
Merlin is also on Android too for anybody looking for it
I like the Arduino framework. GrapheneOS and Portal 2.
A couple of years ago I made a table when switching from OSX to Linux, the table is still quite up to date: https://jeena.net/why-i-switchedfrom-osx-to-linux
Nice site. Congratulations on your wedding . I wish you and your family all the best ❤️🙏
Thanks a lot :D
I for one would like to recommend Bitwig - I like that better than Ardour.
I like Bitwig also better, the only problem is the price, I just can’t justify it for how little I’d use it nowadays.
Snagit, it’s like Windows snipping tool on steroids. I was introduced to it at work and loved it so much I bought a license for my personal computer.
I’m also a huge fan of Dashlane for managing my passwords. It’s one of the pricier options, but it works so much better than everything else I’ve tried (and has a nicer UI, too)
Mullvad, Ente Auth, VS Codium, Librewolf, VLC, Steam
Any more of a clue? What is your focus right now?
There isn’t a specific thing I’m looking for, that the point of the post.
(not sure what’s going on with Lemmy. I’m getting message/comment notification well after reasonable times. Yours has taken 21 days to appear.)
Fair enough.
Having enjoyed the open source Logseq to make a proper archive of the bits of knowledge I accumulate, I reluctantly moved on to Obsidian, which is proprietary.
Obsidian is much the better product, Logseq feels lacking and in need of a guiding hand and significant funding.
That said I used Logseq for over a year and enjoyed my time.
Both products work on Markdown files which are plain text and are useful in a standard editor and therefore will outlive Logseq and Obsidian.
foobar2000 is an awesome music player
Wish it was on Linux
It’s one of the few apps I use wine for
i settled with Quod Libet after switch to linux and searching for foobar replacement.
For drawing, definitely Paint Tool SAI! When I began drawing digitally, a friend gifted me two programs for me to use, Illustrator and Paint Tool SAI. I ended up settling on the latter. It is a very old program that got released in 2008, but it is lightweight, fast, stable, and has really good blending and pen stabilization options!
The latest version is from 2016 and Paint Tool Sai 2 had its most recent update in August, no? I agree, it’s a good program, I’m just worried that “it got released in 2008” might paint the wrong picture :)
Oh I know about Paint Tool SAI 2, the version I’m using is 1.1.0 of SAI 1, which is pretty ancient haha.
Will put a disclaimer here that it’s not going to be for everyone but I use emacs for pretty much everything.
It’s a competent code editor with a lot of plugins similar to vscode. It has email, web browsing and IRC built-in out of the box. One of the best of the bundled packages is org-mode which is a fully featured note taking application that can export to HTML and latex. Then there are a wide ecosystem of packages like music players (emms) and visual git interfaces (magit) you can install too. It can even work as a WM!
Before we get into a text editor holy war I still use vim for quick edits.
Krita (without any kind of unnecessary unsupported and unofficial AI plugins btw). It’s one of the few free programs that I like so much I paid for them.
I’ve also been getting a lot of mileage out of Tiny Media Manager.
Would you say that Krita is suitable for a beginner, especially with a little knowledge of traditional drawing?
I wouldn’t recommend learning to draw from scratch digitally no matter what software, but if you’re not a complete beginner and you’re willing to experiment with its functions, I don’t see why not. There’s a large helpful community and lots of tutorials too.
Voidtools Everything is a gamechanger on Windows. It can search my entire PC instantly opposed to Windows Explorer taking minutes. You can also configure it to work with 3rd party file managers like Freecommander and eliminate Explorer from your workflow entirely.
Don’t really have that problem on my Linux distro but that would’ve helped so much when I was on windows. Idk how many times I searched for something and just left the room to wait.
Yea, I don’t have to do anything special on Linux. Although if I used it more I’d probably be looking for some kind of file manager app.
I mostly use this on my desktop running win10, but GridPlayer for playing shows off an external hard drive.
At one point had it on my laptop running a Debian based OS, but I must have uninstalled/removed it somehow because I couldn’t find it a few days ago when I needed it. Thankfully I found an appimage as I couldn’t find it in the repos. And as I am writing this comment, I checked to see if it was available through flatpak and it is.
Love it because I can have my shows take up the full program area and stay that way when I change program resolution. I try that with other programs and it either doesn’t fit the whole program area or doesn’t take up the area when I change program size.
Only thing I wouldn’t really recommend it for is shows with subtitles since I have yet to figure out if it even supports subtitle files. Couldn’t watch the latest season of a show on it and had to switch to VLC because of that.
I love Godot for making video games.
Simple enough for a hobbyist, powerful enough for a developer. Free and open source
So, what are you working on at the moment?
BTW Godot is really nice, maybe lacking a bit in the documentation but nothing showstopping.
Sadly, I’ve had to take a break from gamedev for a while to develop some more employable skills. That’s not to say you can’t get a job in gamedev, but if I don’t do the indie thing then I’m sure I’ll lose my passion for games.
I try to get away from the grind for a bit with a game jam here and there though. Those end up on my Itch page (link in my bio if you’re curious)
My most recent foray was a deck builder where you play as a witch running a potion shop. Your cards controlled what ingredients you had and did things to your cauldrons or customers. The scope got out of control and we missed the deadline for the jam with no end in sight. A tale as old as time 😅
Lately I’ve been thinking that something I’d like to do is a Vampire Survivors-esque cooking game. Roguelike, monsters, and snacks, what’s not to like?
Personal life first of course!
Working in game dev is rewarding but exhausting and usually not very well paid but you learn a lot ( like keeping deadlines 😉).
I separate hard any game I’m brewing at home and just follows the flow, if it becomes something then I’ll maybe finish it, which means nonpressure and you can make any game you want (IMO).
I’d love testing a roguelike vampire snacking game 😁!
Couldn’t find your bio, care to share that itch page?
Oh yeah, sure thing!
If you have a local transit agency that it works with, the Transit app is great. I wouldn’t feel nearly as comfortable taking the bus/subway without it; my city’s website is not great to try to navigate while changing plans on the fly. Transit will give you multiple options and show you on a map how to get there from where you are.
It also lets you gamify taking the bus by giving people a rank in exchange for providing location data while on the bus. I’m top 40 on my local line. 😎 And you can send other people a little generic thank you that makes hearts fly up on their screen if they’re providing location data for a bus on a line you’re viewing.
Overall 10/10, great balance of fun and utility.
What do you think of Transit vs. Citymapper?
I haven’t extensively tried or used Citymapper (I just downloaded it to compare now), so this is going to just be initial impressions:
I’d say I prefer Transit just because it shows how far the bus is down the line from you, while that info doesn’t seem to be shown on Citymapper. I also don’t like that Citymapper doesn’t make the subway line names reflect the local transit line colors (ex: A line is blue, B line is red, etc) the way Transit will.
I do like that Citymapper has the subway map built in, but my city also has a bus map available that they didn’t include.
That said this is probably completely regional, go for whichever one works best for you.
I just gotta say Transit provided free permanent upgrades to people who rely on it and can’t afford the subscription. This was before transit agencies started providing them to users.
Edit. As they had shifted to a premium service for some features.
My city has fully integrated the Transit app into our bus system, so you can also buy and scan your tickets within the app, including monthly passes and 10-use “punch cards”. Just activate the QR code as you’re boarding. It’s awesome.
That’s cool! My city doesn’t use Transit for ticketing sadly, but they do work with Apple/Google Wallet at least.
rethink is quite good firewall for phone, it lets you actually control programs internet connections and see where they try to connect. doesnt need root.
