Aside – Julian Foad

Welcome, dear reader, and myself, to my new blog.

From Mac to Freedom Laptop 2: Software 2021-10-13

Leaving Apple’s Nursing Home This series is about replacing a MacBook Air with an equally beautiful Freedom Software laptop. It is also about setting up a Freedom Software laptop for the kind of user who wants it to Just Work with the least possible involvement and no interest in how it works. Part 1 of […]

Julian Foad

Switching from a MacBook Air to a Freedom Software Laptop 2021-10-08

Leaving Apple’s Nursing Home This article tells how we replaced a MacBook Air with a freedom-software laptop, aiming to keep it delightful to use and to carry about, while standing up in support of the principles of freedom of the users, freedom from the control and lock-in that Apple wields over its users, its subjects. […]

Julian Foad

Green Tariffs — Beware Greenwash, Choose Well 2021-10-05

Many of us want to support green energy. We keep hearing we can play our part by switching to a “green tariff”, and we can. Sadly there is a big trap that we need to learn to recognise: the “green tariffs” advertised by many suppliers are a deceptive marketing ploy known as “greenwash”. Look for […]

Julian Foad

Running an OpenWrt Router 2021-09-23

I am running an OpenWrt open-source router, at last. Dave kindly donated me the hardware three years ago, when I spent many happy and frustrating hours installing OpenWrt for the first time, bricking it, recovering by connecting a serial port inside it, and eventually finding the OpenWrt configuration interfaces at that time were just too […]

Julian Foad

Seedvault Backup: Why not add a launcher icon? 2021-09-07

Hooray for Seedvault Backup! At last there is an open-source backup solution that can be built in to de-Googled Android-based phones such as those running LineageOS or CalxyOS. I should write more about why this is a fantastic development, but not right now. This article is about something else: the importance of keeping a very […]

Julian Foad