The biggest issue I have with BookLore is it doesn't have an Android app that syncs automatically where you last left when reading on desktop. (And KOReader - at least from the app stores - can't be used on Android 15, is an incredibly ugly UI/UX, and the latest version doesn't seem to even work with BookLore.) Without that, I don't see the reason to switch from calibre.
Edit: An Android app without an account. There appears to be Kobo integration but Kobo requires an account.
Someone didn't do proper QA on their home page: their Google Play/Android icon (under Get the app) doesn't even go to their app; instead it goes to https://play.google.com/store/games?hl=en&gl=US.
tl/dr: "The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) went into effect January 1... The new law applies to U.S. corporations, limited liability companies and any other entities created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office in the U.S... An estimated 30 million U.S. businesses will now have to file. The filed disclosures do not become public but may be used for law enforcement and national security."
Because it couldn't possibly be more complex and attributable to other causes like, oh I don't know, kicking fathers out of their children's lives (with statistics from the US Census openly stating most all custodial parents are mothers and proportions are statistically unchanged over the years)?
"In the spring of 2002, an estimated 13.4 million parents had custody of 21.5 million children under 21 years of age whose other parent lived somewhere else. About 5 of every 6 custodial parents were mothers (84.4 percent) and 1 in 6 were fathers (15.6 percent), proportions statistically unchanged since 1994 (Table A)." [1]
"Custodial parents have become more likely to be fathers over the past 24 years, increasing from 16.0 percent in 1994 to 20.1 percent in 2018...
The number of custodial parents has varied somewhat over the past 24 years, including the proportion of fathers who are custodial parents. In 1994, about 1 of every 6 custodial parents were fathers (16.0 percent). By 2018, that proportion reached 1 in 5 (20.1 percent) (Appendix Table 2)." [2]
> "This has the effect of turning technical discussions into debates over the character and achievements of Elon Musk— just the way he likes it."
> "But their founder is who he is, and what he has publicly shared is not so much a blueprint as an inspirational poster."
While I valued many of the thoughts in this post, it made me think of the meme "I choked on a carrot this afternoon and all I could think was 'I bet a donut wouldn't have done this to me.'" Putting aside the argument of whether or not scientific research, especially in space, is a proper role of government/politics, it is disappointing to see what I believe is an intellectual defect to undermine inspiration for human achievement with ad hominems in the context of a collapsing culture lacking meaningful debate on significant government war funding power delusions and destruction. Conquering technical achievements in any form (e.g., "port-a-potty chemistry," getting "to watch someone remotely operate a soil scoop from Mars instead of Pasadena") vs. conquering people is, IMO, a more appropriate intellectual debate. I'll turn my computer speakers up to 100% for inspiration by Elon any day to drown out the human destructive philosophies of the politicians this author appears to support. [1]
I think Ayn Rand said it well [2]: "The most inspiring aspect of Apollo 11's flight was that it made such abstractions as rationality, knowledge, science perceivable in direct, immediate experience. That it involved a landing on another celestial body was like a dramatist's emphasis on the dimensions of reason's power: it is not of enormous importance to most people that man lands on the moon, but that man can do it, is."
For many years, DO was my only explorer. It was perfect in every way.
Then XYplorer [1] offered a pro license freebee (looks like back in 2019 [2]) and I gave it a try. I'm still using that same version (15.90) from so many years ago. Never looked back.
I'm also more familiar with the excellent XYplorer.
I could not find any in depth comparison with Directory Opus. These two have accumulated so much features over the years, it became a kind of expertise to know them in detail.
The chance of a dual-expert willing to clearly expand on his experience is small. I wish more tech journalism was on this level. Instead, the verge had (at least) 4 articles in 2022 on windows explorer getting... tabs.
Disclaimer: Last I checked was over 10 years ago, so it’s very possible this information is wrong by now.
It doesn’t support dual tree + dual pane (so two explorer trees location synced to their respective pane), by far my favorite DO view.
Locked folders allowing changes. I have some frequently used folders as tabs, and set them to "locked, allow changes", which makes it, so they behave like normal tabs, but once I switch tabs, they revert to their base directory again.
One random guy's opinion (and a long-time K9 user):
Little UI design changes are NOT what you should be spending time/money on; they are a waste of effort given K9's already strong usability. I acknowledge it's your time/money but this does not make the app any more appealing. I know I sound like a broken record [1] but, at minimum, I believe Thunderbird could take quite a few users (who prefer privacy-focused apps) from both Google and Microsoft (not to mention 3rd-party apps [2] [3] [4]) by integrating functionality at the local level. This would be a considerable (IMO) differentiation in functionality. I will continue to use Outlook until there is a significant justification to switch to Thunderbird. And until "Thunderbird for Android" is significantly differentiated in functionality (i.e., ignoring UI), it will remain branded in my mind as K9.
- Signed: someone who still calls a tall building in Chicago as the Sears Tower
On the other hand, I can't imagine leaving an app for that reason.
As one who fairly loathes Material Design (especially on mobile), I was hoping cketti would fix what's wrong with Thunderbird, rather than Thunderbird ruining the best Android email client out there, which is now looking like an almost certainty.
I'm neither for or against Material Design, but when I used Android, but MD was generally a good sign that the app was well supported, and the devs cared about UX.
When I'd search for an app, the high quality apps were almost always MD. Maybe k9 was an exception, but I'm sure they lost potential users.
Design for me is one of main important on mobile platforms. If the design is bad, is basically a big no for me at least. I wouldn't be leaving because I wouldn't be installing in first place.
I was using Outlook on Android, but I was finding it pretty heavy/slow. Looked for other alternatives, like K9 and Spark, and choose Spark exactly because of the UI/UX.
I get the feeling of wanting a thing you're used to keeping the same looks, but k9 definitely does not have a good user experience. I don't know if the new look will be that, but definitely needs a face lift.
> That's good for mass appeal. Mass users don't want an app which looks antiquated.
That's pretty spot on. Another example is Eclipse. I swear by it, and it handles everything for me. But when I show it to someone the first question is when did it last updated, because it looks very old.
Eclipse releases a new version every three months.
As a short-time K9 user I disagree. You have to pick between the display name and email of senders. There is no way to show both. This is because of problems with the UI design that risks being misleading with malicious names.
The think there are also lots of UX improvements that would be great. Right now the threading UI is awkward. I'm really glad that swipe actions and swiping between messages have landed as well.
I like K9 but I can definitely see the benefit of better UX.
Learn how it works? It's a rotary phone! Just turn the disk the appropriate amount for the number you're dialing and loose. You could train a chimpanzee to do that.
You've rather missed my point, I think: an unfamiliar or aging look over what is a common interface is a huge problem for gaining new users.
Further, I have witnessed people not understand rotary phones. Plunk one down in front of 10 teenagers and I would wager few indeed would intuit it immediately.
Ah, I see. Well, if you were to ask me whether I think a group of teenagers is smarter than a chimpanzee...
Regardless, on the topic of drawing new users, if the users truly are "new", then any look will be unfamiliar to them, but yes, luring users over from competitors may be tricky.
I don't really know about the dated look, though. For example in computer UI design we had flat, then went shapely, then went flat again. It reminds me of architecture: there is always the disconnect between people who like an older style (like when Classical Mediterranean architecture came back in vogue and we saw a bunch of public buildings being built with all pillars and triangles) and people who want some kind of new experimental style (like when Jugendstil started appearing).
There is always a balance that can be found between finding a presentation that aligns with market trends and a presentation that stands out and draws attention. It's up to the people running the show where on the axis they decide to plant themselves.
"Well, if you were to ask me whether I think a group of teenagers is smarter than a chimpanzee"
Well, your example was training a chimpanzee to do it vs. can teenagers use it without training. And I think they can and maybe even think it is cool, but unless you want to harness that coolness retro factor it makes 0 sense to use a rotary phone for actual use. It is way slower and therefore less efficient. But of course it would beat a modern phone that just looks cool, but only randomly works.
Which would be my requirement for any tool. Functionality first, looks second.
Why does an open source project need to lure new users? Especially at the expense of limited dev time when there are actual security features in the issue tracker?
"Why does an open source project need to lure new users? "
To get some traction and momentum to actually become a serious alternative. New users can also mean new funds and not just more work(like it should be), like for example the blender foundation is proofing that this is possible. Make something that really works and once some actual buisnesses are using it, there will be ways for funding it.
It's slow and tedious to dial numbers with many high digits in them. And there's no quick dial function for commonly used numbers. Both of these things directly impact UX.
"Intuitiveness" is AKA "resembling the current norm" when it comes to UX. Updating an aging UI to fit current patterns makes it more cohesive with the operating system, attracts more new users, and avoids confusing those new users.
Attempting to paint "strong usability" through the lens of existing users only (the guy who already knows how to use a rotary phone) is a lopsided view of the goals for an app creator.
...and it must also be said that the selection of client software that supports it is somewhat limited. For this discussion, Thunderbird does not. I'd also add that some fairly major providers, e.g. anything based on MS Exchange, and Google's Android client, do their own thing (e.g. ActiveSync).
For myself I'm aware of a bunch of bugs in Thunderbird affecting my experience and I'd rather these were fixed first.
I use Outlook on my Windows PC and transfer all personal contacts, calendar entries, tasks, and notes locally. I would love to move to Thunderbird primarily because "Microsoft bad" but then I'd lose my local transfer functionality (not to mention Xobni - which still crashes every-so-often - but the functionality is worth it).
You can run your caldav/carddav service in your local network, if you are so inclined. You will get local sync, and the client authors do not have to build specific desktop-based tools.
I for one do not want to return 15 years back, to serial/irda/bluetooth sync, having to think about sync, and eventually forgetting. Running a local service is much preferable, with devices syncing themselves as they see fit.
If you have a link for running a small footprint of a caldav/carddav service on my Windows laptop, I'm all ears. I played around using WSL and setting up a NextCloud instance but why do I want to use 2GB+ just to sync?
At the end of the day, I want all my personal events, contacts, todos, and notes on my laptop and able to sync directly with my phone. I'm happy enough with my current bluetooth sync and wouldn't trade it for UI changes.
You might be interested in https://radicale.org/v3.html.
Runs on my odroid board with 26mb memory. The documentation is particularly good. I've used it as a replacement for the Synology CalDav and CardDav services.
It's very easy to install and does not require a DB. As a bonus, it stores everything as files which can be read and edited manually. It does require python.
I had played with it for 2 days before I gave up. I don't remember what specifically wasn't working properly but it didn't. Even if I had gotten it to work, syncing between a Windows PC and Android device should not require that level of effort.
Personally, I'm using a small Synology NAS and the Contact and Calendar servers that Synology provides. It solves the problem for being a host for multiple devices, with my laptop not having to be on, or even present, at all times. Also having dns entry helps.
But for running on your laptop? Yes, nextcloud is overkill, it is not contacts/calendar server in the first place. I would look for smaller, more focused tools instead, baikal for example. For another inspiration, you can have a look at what davx5 -- the caldav/carddav provider for android -- tests against (https://www.davx5.com/tested-with).
I've been using Baïkal for about a decade. I have it in a docker container on my home lan. Android and iOS transparently and gracefully tolerate the server being unreachable outside the house.
The main issue is that I only touch it every five years or so, and at that point, I've forgotten what it is called or where it is running!
(I use synology's HyperBackup to E2E encrypt + backup it and a bunch of other docker containers.)
To avoid syncing my calendar and contacts to the cloud, I'm using wireguard as a always on VPN on my phone, to connect to a locally running CalDav/CardDav server. Wireguard on Android can be setup to only affect specific apps, so my DavX app is the only one using the VPN.
Edit: An Android app without an account. There appears to be Kobo integration but Kobo requires an account.