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In my previous post I noted that I was getting back into Ham Radio. For those not familiar, Ham offers a ton of opportunities for experimentation, learning, and exploring new ideas and concepts. Part of what brought me back to radio was messing around with Meshtastic, a technology that allows for unlicensed communication between devices. It is commonly used for IoT type scenarios, but can also be used for messages ala SMS. Unlike SMS, though, Meshtastic and similar “LoRa” technologies don’t rely on an intact infrastructure. That means that it can be used for areas that don’t have cellular access and for those times when the cellular network may be down. ...

Way back in 2017 I obtained my Ham Radio License. I spent a bunch of money on all the ’toys’ that go along with that hobby and actually spent a good bit of time working some of the digital modes over the HF frequencies. I routinely hit South Africa as well as a bunch of places in Europe. Then we moved. After we moved I had so many irons in the fire that I didn’t set up my ham gear again. In fact, I actually sold my HF rig because, to be honest, I didn’t feel like I was getting enough out of the hobby to continue it. Not to mention that it is expensive. ...

My wife and I decided to take our Grand-daughter to the “Christkindle” German Christmas Market in Lawrenceville, GA this past weekend. Now, as a general rule I’m not terribly fond of these kinds of events because of the crowds and the prices. Still, it was something different and it seemed like a good way to get our granddaughter out of the house and engaged in the world around her. The trip down there took about an hour and traffic wasn’t bad (which was a surprise because traffic in the Atlanta area is always bad!). Parking, too, was very easy, though we ended up parking a fair distance away because we didn’t know the area and didn’t know that there was parking much more convenient. Well, actually we followed the instructions from the website that suggested this was the best place to park. ...

It’s hard to believe, but in a few days, I will celebrate sixty-seven trips around the sun. I have now lived longer than both of my parents and several of my uncles. Given a family history of deaths at younger ages for the men, I’m just a tad surprised that I’m still kicking. And kicking well! It’s odd, though. I don’t feel 67. I feel more like 25 or 30. Well, except for the bad knee and tweaky shoulder. In fact, I actually feel better today than I did, say, twenty years ago. ...

Over the last few days I’ve been playing with a number of new options for the internet. I’ve written about micro.blog and an increasing interest in the “indieweb” and I am continuing to explore the opportunities available there. The one thing that has surprised me is that I’ve become interested in the Fediverse. If you’re not familiar with that term, well, which rock have you been under? Seriously, the “Fediverse” is decentralized network of individual servers that interconnect so that you can experience the whole network even though you’re only signed into the one server. With a few exceptions each server is designed around specific community interests, whether that’s technical interests, social interests, and so on. There is likely a Fediverse community for pretty much any interest you may have. And, unlike X or Facebook and other corporate entities, the Fediverse is distributed: No one owns it, no one entity controls it, and no one entity can shut it down. Oh, and it’s free to join and use. ...

In Rolf Potts’ Vagabond’s Way one of the many lessons he shares is that traveling allows one to be “someone else”. Reading that reminded me of something I’ve often thought of through the years: Who would I be if I was not who I am? Growing up we develop into the person that we think others want us to be. What I mean by that is that who we become is strongly influenced by our parents, our peers, and our community. We want to fit in, we want other’s approval and acceptance, so we follow a path that we perceive is expected of us. How we dress, how we perceive the body, how we pursue a career, a marriage, a life, is all mediated by the expectations we perceive from others. ...

Every once in while I get the itch to change things up. Recently, as I noted in my previous note on Micro.blog I ran across the idea of the indieweb and micro blogging and thought I’d give it a try. Along the way, though, I ran into a whole host of other options that are available and, frankly, I’m a bit overwhelmed. I want to try then ALL! As I noted in that post, though, the sailing has not been smooth. I did finally get to the point of getting a couple of posts from this blog posted to the saulsnet.org website though only the summaries are there. And there’s currently no link back to the original post. There’s a fix for that, I think, but I just haven’t started working on that one yet. ...

I ran across an interesting site a few days ago and have spent the last couple of days testing it out. It’s called micro.blog. What intrigued me about it was that it allows both long-form writing as well as short, Twitter-like messages. One of the frustrations I have had with my current blog is that it isn’t really amenable to sharing short, quick thoughts and observations of life I often have. This appeared to be a reasonable alternative. ...

This is part 4 of an ongoing series on moving away from Windows and onto Linux. In this post we’ll take a look at what I consider the best Linux operating system for the average user. You’ve made the decision to move to Linux. Now comes the most challenging part: Which distribution should you use? There is a bewildering number of options and it is not at all clear what the differences are so you’re left adrift in that sea of options, unable to clearly see what direction to take. ...

This is part 3 of an ongoing series on moving away from Windows and onto Linux. In this post we’ll explore several more alternatives for the most common programs that the average user is likely to use, along with a few of their pros and cons. To be honest, the average user most likely does little more on their computer than write a few documents, surf the web, and check email. Given this, the software I covered in my previous post are more than sufficient to meet those needs. ...