You could sign up for fastmail and point your domains DNS records there. It's $5/mo and they make it easy to import your existing emails from gmail. I switched to them when Google stopped offering free workspace accounts. It's been great so far.
I also switched to fastmail with my own domain and also have had a great experience with it. It was super simple to import my data over from google and it's all still there and searchable.
For me it wasn't really anything to do with the cost, just a token decision to opt out of the google hegemony over email to some degree. Been well over a year at this point and I don't miss gmail at all.
I use it frequently, and there has been a major bug since launch that seems present on multiple platforms (desktop, mobile, Android, Apple). Seemingly at random, though I have suspicions that it's related to ads, the currently playing podcast will skip to the next unplayed episode before the current one is finished. This happens anywhere from a few minutes in to a few hours in. I would never watch another podcast in the Spotify app if the podcast I want to watch was available elsewhere.
They launched a half-baked product that was missing some of the most basic features you could imagine. It has since improved to the point where it's almost usable, but it can't compete with anything else from a UX/quality perspective.
It's also missing the discussion/community aspect that you get with a platform like YouTube.
Another annoyance is that I've had a Premium family subscription for years, but I still get ads on podcasts.
Logitech is no longer the great company it used to be, so I have decided to no longer purchase their products. I purchased a G Pro X Wireless Headset less than 2 years ago, and I'm already on my second warrranty replacement (3 total headsets.) Multiple parts on it seem designed to fail, and all of mine have failed in the same way. They use laughably small screws to connect the band to the arms that hold the earcups and they just snap after a few months. It's very sad to see so much e-waste created just to increase profits by a few cents per unit.
I've been using wired mechanical keyboards for about 15 years so I can't recommend a wireless model, but Ducky makes great, reliable, entry-level mechanical keyboards. I've mostly used Ducky and I've never had one of their keyboards fail in any way. Glorious also makes great keyboards, but based on my perception of the build quality, I have a feeling their cheaper keyboards might not last as long. I'm currently using a Glorious GMMK Pro and it feels very solid.
It feels weird to me, to judge a keyboard company by their headset. Those have always had fragile plastic hinges with the earcups falling off, that is not a new development. Their mice and keyboards are pretty good, and the G Pro Wireless is one of the best in the game right now.
They're mostly a computer peripheral company. They've always made a ton of products like keyboards, mice, webcams, speakers, headsets, microphones, game controllers, etc. I've only experienced issues with fragile plastic parts in sub $80 headsets. You definitely shouldn't be seeing such a critical design flaw on a $200 headset.
The quality of their products used to be pretty good, but it's becomming obvious that they're starting to cut too many corners to reduce costs. I have an old pair of logitech speakers that have lasted me well over 10 years.
The G Pro Wireless has some major issues as well. They build up static electricity during use and this causes a single click to register as multiple clicks, and causes a continuous click to stop registering when you're holding the button down. This is terrible for a gaming mouse. I switched to a Razer Viper Ultimate and haven't had any issues.
Are you sure the issue is static electricity? Despite being essentially some of the best mice on the market, the switches they use are a bit sub-standard. Over time, they tend to develop double-click issues. (Where a single click registers as two)
I had a G305 that did this, and given the low price of the mouse I gave up going through the work to desolder and replace the switches.
I'm not 100% positive, but it seems to be. Blowing into the front of the mouse would fix it for a few minutes. I saw a bunch of threads about it the last time I looked into it.
If I recall correctly, there were firmware updates that claimed to fix the same or similar issues, but those had no effect for me.
I've never seen a "gaming" headset that is any good.
You will always be better off buying headsets from companies that focus on headsets and headphones, rather than from companies that see headsets as a cheap filler item to sell to people who bought their mice and keyboards and want the blinky lights to sync up.
My SteelSeries Arctis 7 headset is awesome. Battery lasts all day, sound quality isnt terrible, no lights other than the microphone mute. USB interface, it presents a "game" and "voice" output to the system and you can control the volume for each with a wheel on the headset.
Same experience here for the last 4 years. Hardware mute with the on-boom LED has been extremely useful.
I will be very sad the day my Arctis 7 dies, as I've learn from friends that the newer iteration has a different wireless receiver which, anecdotally, seems to be far less powerful in terms of range.
For wireless, Bluetooth Headset profile (for bidirectional audio, so mic) only supports mono audio, and at pretty low bitrate too. For me that makes it completely unusable in gaming, where I want both mic, and stereo (positional) audio.
For wired headsets I would probably stay away from "gaming" products indeed, but it was surprisingly difficult to find a good wireless one.
At the risk of turning this into a product recommendation thread, I am very happy with my Astro A50. Hits all the right notes for a wireless headset to wear all day at home - from video chats over coding and gaming to laundry. Doesn't even have blinky lights.
It's a hit or miss. They have the fantastic MX Master line of mouse products, for example, or some very good webcams, but not everything is so great, like your headsets. I prefer to check the product more than the company.
JBL bluetooth headphones have "firmware feature" which lowers volume of left earpiece slowly over time.
Happened on multiple different products, bought by schoolmates of mine and also on 3 different units of one product for me.
Pioneer SE-M531, M521 .... have similar problem with screws as you state.
logitech - i absolutely LOVE MX series of products they are innovative and provide absolutelly best functionality, keys look nice not really my style but they look nice as a unit.
so i am sad to see they jumped on mechanical keyboard bandwagon, i hate mechanical keyboards with all my life. always clicking, long travel, slow typing....
long travel, slow? this keyboard looks low profile. probably don't have to press the keys as far. and the amount of force required to activate the key is less than non mechanical iirc. they usually tell you how many grams of force are needed
Very weird, I've had the opposite experience. I used to think their hardware products were complete crap, but now I own a G Pro mouse, keyboard, and headset from them (they've definitely stepped it up in the design game at the very least.)
Changed my headset to the G Pro X Wireless after having broken 2 SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless headsets, which for some reason decided to use a single plastic piece for the hinge to hold the earcups on (on a $350 headset!).
I have a love/hate relationship with the G Pro X Wireless. I've bought 6 of them so far, 3 of which have died in some way (in all cases, the right or left click has stopped functioning). They're fantastic in every other way - I love the feel, the response time is great, the weight is great. I'll continue buying them for those reasons, at least until a competitor has all of the above plus my following wishlist:
Better build quality (a mouse should last more than 1-2 years, which is the average life I get out of them).
USB-C receiver. I hate having to use a dongle just for the USB-A receiver.
The G Pro X Wireless felt awesome and first and seemed like a great headset, but my mind changed when I ran into issues and saw how many others had issues as well. If they made it a bit more durable I would say it would be almost perfect.
I had an SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless as well before the Logitech one, and I ran into the same issue! Huge disappointment after having loved the SteelSeries Siberia wired headset
It doesn't surprise me. Spectrum is currently the only non-dsl provider in my area, so I'm basically forced to use their service since I moved here. The first time I paid with one of my cards, the bank flagged it as suspicious and denied the transaction. Spectrum then charged me a $25 fee and initially refused to refund it until I was very persistent and annoying.
They also constantly send me spam regarding Spectrum mobile with subjects like "Your response is required". I even used their cost estimator to compare it to my current provider, Mint Mobile. When I entered my current plan into their calculator, it told me that I made a mistake (because it was so much cheaper.)
I agree with the idea, but disagree with the approach. This seems like a lot of extra work for not much, or maybe even less, benefit.
The process I've set up for my team allows us to get the best of both worlds, in my opinion, with almost no extra effort:
1. Create a branch and open a pull request. Nothing gets pushed directly to master.
2. After the pull request has been tested and reviewed, we Squash and Merge into master on GitHub with a single button click.
This way we end up with a single commit in master for each feature, bugfix, etc. There's also a link to the PR in the commit message where you can view the individual commits that were squashed as well as links to any related Jira issues.
I think I'd go the other way around. Instead of squash/rebase, you should instead use `merge --no-ff`. The allows your main branch to have a clean history with the `--first-parent` option (e.g. `git log --first-parent`), while still maintaining the history on the branches. If you squash the commits, the original is no longer part of the commit history. Yes, there is a link in the commit message, but being able to manually click through to the commits on an external web page is a huge usability drop as compared to getting the information straight from `git bisect`.
Squash/rebase also plays horrendously with my local branches. If I make a PR, I should be able to use `git branch -d branch_name` to safely verify that the branch has been merged into main and can be deleted. If you squash/rebase instead, then I need to use the unconditional `git branch -D branch_name`. git can no longer verify that I'm performing a safe operation, because the history needed to determine whether it is safe has been rewritten.
> Squash/rebase also plays horrendously with my local branches.
This is a very good point, and it has been slightly annoying at times with this approach. It hasn't been a major pain point for me, so I've just dealt with it. I've seen some scripts/aliases that claim to solve this, but I haven't spent much time looking into it.
My current workflow is to watch for a PR to be accepted on github, then use the delete branch button in the GUI. On my local repo, I'll then use `git remote prune origin`, and only call `git branch -D` on branches that were pruned. It's a workable solution, and it could be scripted around, but I don't want to. Reproducing the functionality that already exists in git feels like a waste of time, when the entire purpose would be to work around the existence of a rebase workflow. Better would be to just use a merge/no-ff workflow in the first place.
GitHub actually keeps these in the pull request indefinitely if you delete the branch. You can also restore the branch at any time if needed. We have the branches set to automatically delete when a PR is merged.
Exactly! Suppose feature A is implemented (commit 1). Then it is discovered that the original implementation breaks feature B, and that is resolved (commit 2). In merge workflows, you have a merge commit on main, while commit 1 and 2 are maintained. In rebase/squash workflows, you have a single commit on main, with both changes. If 6 months later I find that the commit broke some feature C, I really want to know if it was the main change or the compatibility fix that did it.
I lost my fiancée to cancer a few years ago, and this just reminded me that I suggested she create a GitHub account years ago. I didn't know she had used it, but this post prompted me to check, and it turns out she created some (good) issues on a few Minecraft/CraftBukkit projects.
It's great to see companies dedicating resources to putting these policies in place. It can make a huge difference while someone is going through the most difficult time in their life.
+1 for Paper, also works well with GeyserMC [0] so your Bedrock friends can join. BTW, the GeyserMC community is really great, top notch support via Discord with a fancy integrated bot and automated builds that you can just drop into you plugins folder.
One thing to note is that paper breaks technical redstone builds. For redstone parity, Fabric [0] is what we use, along with Phosphor + Lithium + Carpet.
I set up a Paper server for my kids. The modding ability is pretty cool, and easy to get into. I made a mod for them which rings a bell and announces the server time on the hour. They're less likely to lose track of time now. WorldGuard is cool because you can define regions and only allow certain players or groups of players permission to use that space. I can also prevent mobs from spawning in "town". Neat stuff.
I know that I said that I set it up for my kids, but I really did it for me as well!
I had no idea he wrote that, very interesting! I need to look into other film scores he's written.
My first introduction to Philip Glass was his Book of Longing collaboration with Leonard Cohen. If anyone hasn't heard this, I'd recommend you check it out on Spotify.
> Don’t be that person. It might not be about you but it is everyone’s problem. Don’t be careless in the hopes you get sick when you can “avoid the rush.” There is zero benefit to individuals or the population to getting sick early in the pandemic. You would be putting the lives of others at risk. It is not just that people are dying, but how they are dying. To say nothing of the physical trauma, emotionally speaking this is the opposite of a “good death”. People are dying alone, quarantined from those they love.
> Early reports are that people who recover develop antibodies that provide immunity if they are infected with the same strain again. However, this is great news for vaccine development, so flatten the curve and wait it out.
> This can get very serious; one person described the pain as feeling like her lungs were being put through a pasta maker. 10% of cases require ICU care and mechanical ventilation. Even if autopsy reports from China have been misrepresented or overstated, there is a possibility of long term or permanent lung damage if you do get sick and recover. There are lot of gaps in the information about lung damage, mostly because everyone qualified to let the public know exactly what is going on is already very busy saving lives and putting their own at risk.
This drives me crazy, especially on Spotify. I've been uploading some of my collection to Google Play Music to get around this, but I'm probably switching to Plex in the near future.
For an extreme example of this, check out Blind Guardian on Spotify and compare some of the songs to the versions on YouTube. Some of them don't even sound like the same song.
If anyone is looking for a decent self streaming system, Ampache[1] is a great option. Stream all of your music for free, and has the option for a Subsonic backend making it compatible with lots of clients.
Google Play Music is awesome, but beware that they'll do weird merging and drop/replace albums associated with the music you upload, especially if the title is fairly generic, or is semi-niche.
I just redesigned it last month. I don't have much on there right now, but that should change soon.