Smart Phone, Dumb Terminal
charlieharrington.com
charlieharrington.com
To get there I think the GPU will have to be embedded in the monitors, and some interesting operating system hoops will have to be jumped through. Do cords have enough bandwidth now to support this? I honestly don't know the answer to this question. I feel like the answer is yes.
The other idea is just to mount the phone to a head mount display and go VR or AR. But I feel like that is going to require way more advancement in resolution on the phone screens to get right.
We can get there. We are super close. The iPad with an M1 chip probably already has the power to do it. Maybe one or two more years and this is not only feasible but purchasable. I'm a buyer.
If you have a single device for everything, you do not need syncing and backups are needed only for one device.
One of the great things about having various synced devices is that if one fails or is misplaced, stolen etc., the others are instantly available.
No single device solution can replicate this real world benefit.
And even having a spare doesn’t help if you don’t sync.
PC 40W
Monitor 27W
NAS box 2.5W
2x Hard drives 16WNot three monitors, but: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
Also I have the Wacom One LCD drawing tablet that I often connect to my Galaxy Tab S6 and draw on in in DeX mode with ClipStudio. It effectively turns this setup to a nice portable drawing studio, with the added flexibility of being able to work on your projects also on the go with just the Tab S6.
Scan your retina and have the screens broadcast your zero latency always on desktop running in the cloud that seamlessly updates, never has to stop or reboot and backs up every single interaction you have done in the past decade.
The screens turn off and disconnect as you walk away and reconnect to your phone (now merely a pocket-screen) with all applications adapting to whatever size of the screen.
Oh and of course your earbuds have been connected the whole time broadcasting any audio that might be playing in the desktop without interruption.
>cloud desktop
Please kill me. :)
Just needs to be an instant thing now.
[1] https://news.microsoft.com/2021/07/14/microsoft-unveils-wind...
I am not sure that there is a phone that can do that though. I can plug my Android into my USB-C dock and it can display a copy of the screen on the screen, but that is about it. Doesn't even seem to work with the USB keyboard I have plugged in.
Rumors say Apple is working on a monitor with an A13 chip embedded in it for something like this kind of usage.
Just give me the 5K iMac panel in a basic shell, that’s all I need.
There's no 2x?
This has been attempted multiple times. (Motorola's go at it and Windows Phone are two recent attempts that come to mind) Each time it has failed.
Reasons:
1. The upgrade cycle on phones is much shorter than on laptops/desktops.
2. Phone manufacturers want you to use their own proprietary docks, which means investing in their ecosystem, which is a non-starter for most people, especially since history shows such products will be discontinued after one, maybe two, generations. The investment just isn't worth it. (chicken and egg problem here).
3. Corporations already have fine grained infrastructure in place to manage Mac/PCs, and employees are pretty used to it. Of course your work laptop has restrictions on what you can do, and corporate VPN software, etc etc. People generally expect their phones to belong to them, they tolerate PIN policies and remote wiping, but that is about it. Newer android versions do support a dual work/personal mode, but that still isn't on the level of what exists in the Mac/PC management space.
4. Thermal limits are a thing.
5. Related to #4, pushing a phone at its limits all day long will shorten its usable lifespan. LiON batteries don't enjoy living next a hot CPU that's running at full load for hours on end.
As for cords, thunderbolt will take care of your bandwidth needs. Even USB 3.2 (I think that's the right version?) can handle dual screens, USB 4 can certainly handle it.
Is it doable with todays tech? Of course. Is it even more doable with some sort of cloud compute dumb terminal setup? Naturally, could have done that a decade+ ago.
A high definition display (perhaps a projector or OLED screen) embeds a streaming device of which there are already plenty on the market. A computer with integrated game controller and advanced graphics sits charging on a dock, ready to pair and cast it's intensively, locally rendered graphics to a screen of the user's choosing. A room off to the side contains 5 or more smartscreens, ready to accept display from a personalized repository of cloud containers.
A touch-tablet hangs from a swivel arm under the cabinets above the kitchen stove, a swipe away from picking up a webpage from a smartphone or another on-network device. A UV light is embedded under the cabinet to help sanitize the tablet after cooking.
I think the intelligence gets decentralized behind APIs -- some hosted locally, some hosted through the internet. The user interfaces become more focused on context. You have various levels and kinds of input and edge intelligence based on the specific goal, all backed up by some handful of cloud applications. But a fleet like this becomes too hard to manage for an individual. So the specific deployments, allocations and budgeting is managed by an AI system that you set "moods" for through a smartphone app with some -- but limited -- advanced, specific settings available through a hamburger menu.
This rumour about Apple sticking one of their SoCs in a monitor [0] popped up the other day. Relevant here.
And their current Lightning->HDMI adapter uses an embedded chip that decodes a h264 stream of the "screen", potentially the exact same stream that would be sent via AirPlay to an AppleTV. CarPlay does something similar.
[0] https://9to5mac.com/2021/07/23/exclusive-apple-testing-new-e...
It's a magical size - exactly small enough to slip into a back pocket like a chunky phone, and exactly large enough that it's actually practical to use desktop software on it. It's ergonomically first-rate - I've done CAD work on it. And it's durable too - I've dropped it several times already and it's barely even scratched.
It's also unlocked a class of activity I didn't know was possible - long-form writing while out walking. I can get 50wpm with great tactile feedback on the tiny keyboard. It's all in on thumb typing, and having struggled with a Cosmo Communicator for a year I can absolutely say that that is the correct decision for a mobile device. The vast majority of the time there's no handy surface nearby.
Now that I essentially have a laptop on me at all times, phones hold no appeal for me anymore. None. This is the class of device I've always wanted. All it really needs in order to replace a phone completely is a cell modem which can wake it from suspend, and ideally the standard "mobile" sensors such as GPS, cameras, and gyros. And waterproofing, I guess.
First, the keyboard: The Cosmo keyboard is not designed for thumb typing. You can do it, but it's a bit awkward. The phone is not comfortable to hold in this configuration - it's thin, wide, top heavy, and the hinge has sharp edges. The generous key travel also works against you when thumb typing. It seems that you are basically always meant to put the phone on a flat surface and touch-type - but it's not very good at that either. It has no feet on the (slightly curved!) bottom surface, and while the rear hinge is meant to act as a kind of kickstand, the design means that force of typing transfers to the screen, causing it to wobble with every keystroke. The keys themselves are as nice as is possible in that size, but touch-typing at a table while on the go is a very narrow use case. The device feels delicate and fragile. Also - while this isn't a completely fair comparison as I've only had the GPD for two months - after a year the keyboard began missing keystrokes (and this was a replacement keyboard, since the one it came with did that from day 1).
Next the screen - a super-high aspect ratio smartphone screen turned landscape is actually really annoying. You have almost no vertical real estate, whereas most phone apps assume that the vertical axis is where all the real estate is and consequently put menu bars at the top and the bottom, eroding it further. There's very little gap between the touchscreen and the keyboard, so accidental touches are common. Switching between touchscreen and keyboard interaction is even more annoying that switching between mouse and keyboard on a desktop, either because you have to transfer the weight of the device to one hand if you're holding it, or if it's on a table because you must gently prod at the screen without tipping the thing over, or brace the screen from behind. Also the screen only opens to one very wide angle (cheerfully described by Planet as "the optimum angle"). There's volume buttons, but they're awkwardly on the back of the screen, which would make sense if they worked when the device is closed, which they DON'T.
Now, the GPD Micro PC: no touchscreen, which is actually great because all interactions that change the state of the device require definite action and make a physical "click" - you don't have to worry about accidentally brushing it the wrong way. This actually takes a lot of cognitive load off. It's comfortable to hold in two hands for thumb typing (but also has rubber feet so you can set it down). The touchpad is accessible with a fractional movement of the thumb, so switching time is minimized. There's dedicated and easily accessible volume buttons. The screen has a comfortable aspect ratio and can be set to any angle, where it remains stiffly. And most importantly, it runs desktop software. With these controls, it's more ergonomic to use desktop software in miniature than it is to poke about at a touchscreen.
I struggled to find honest reviews of the device so much appreciated.
I was never brave enough to tinker with GNU/Linux on the Cosmo while it was my daily driver. I'm pretty sure that using the device that way comes with some pretty sever compromises.
On the Micro PC, I run Void Linux with KDE Plasma. I didn't do anything special, everything's mainline, so I'm sure at a technical level Ubuntu MATE would work perfectly well. The only interface tweaks I've made are to set the task manager to "icons only" to save space and added thermal/RAM/CPU monitors in the taskbar.
As for "toy gadget" vs "useful tool", I'd say that if you're the kind of person who likes to take your laptop everywhere, it's definitely for you.
That looks like something I could buy. I've really wanted a tiny console PC with RS232 and ethernet for a long time now. I thought about building one into a custom keyboard using something like a raspberry pi but I haven't had the time to follow through. This thing looks like it could make my diy project unnecessary.
I also haven't found phones particularly appealing.. mine gets 5-6 days on a charge because it's mostly just an alarm clock. Any time I try to do anything with it, I get frustrated by how clumsy it is compared to an actual computer. I do like being able to look at maps or make a call in an emergency, and it's handy having a camera always in the pocket, but that's pretty much where the appeal ends.
Battery replacement is a matter of unscrewing the case. It's glued to the interior, but I've seen teardown videos of people just peeling it off so it's not a big deal. In lieu of hot-swapping batteries, I sometimes carry a USB-C PD power bank - although the Micro PC is low power enough that it will actually charge off a regular phone charger.
It seems pretty under powered to me. What exactly do you do on it?
Quad core and 8gb of RAM is underpowered? It's not the best gaming machine to be sure, and I have to be a little more careful with my browser tabs than on my 64GB workstation... but there's not really anything glaring it outright can't do.
Hard to answer what I do on it, since the answer is "everything". I run Plasma 5 on mine. Right now I have a lot of firefox windows open, Quassel (IRC), Qalculate, some file managers, some terminals, and some text editors. For heavy duty I sometimes remote into my workstation (graphically) which is fast enough on a LAN to use CAD and all the rest of it. I've even done ANSYS simulations this way.
A (pocket-sized) bluetooth keyboard sounds fine in theory, but it's a hassle to keep it charged and to carry around a bulky extra device you'll only use occasionally. So it'll get left at home, not there when you need it, and nearly worthless.
It's only now, with every US carrier switching to VoLTE-only that I'll soon have to retire the old Android sliders and find a new option. Everything seems an unfortunate compromise. The keyboard on the Blackberry Keyone/Key2 isn't great, missing critically important keys like arrows and OK, and without being rootable, you can't remap them to make it usable. The form factor is... awkward as well.
The Gemini PDA is likely to be my next stop. Unfortunately the form factor is kind of anti-phone, making it a poor choice to quickly look at your screen to check some info, or make phone calls, and only good when you really need to do a lot of typing.
The Slide looks more like a usable phone indeed. I never tried Linux on the previous one (which was my plan); with Linux I guess the 5g doesn't work? Anyone knows if wifi works with Linux on the Gemini or what works and what doesn't? For me to have a usable device, it would need to run Linux for somme things; I'm fine with Android for all phone user, but Linux with Wifi would be needed to do anything useful besides that.
If there would are (closed source) drivers for the 5g chip for Linux then this would be the 3rd new Linux phone on the market?
How can it be that there are 100s of smartphone models out every year yet every single one has the same form factor? You cannot even get a phone smaller than the phablets of 6 or 7 years ago, let alone a phone with physical keys...
For years now, I have used the Android "Hacker's Keyboard" on lots of ssh sessions.
Though I guess I would take a slider if it had a full (5 row) set of keys.
That's what the Sym button is for. Pop-up a menu on screen showing other, less-frequently used keys. Several apps included similar workarounds.
The LG F3Q did a good job with their keyboard, only omitting tab and pipe, but it was possible to remap keys to get those.
But then again, I'm from the dumb terminal days... I'm used to systems which are missing common keys, and using combos (e.g. Ctrl+i for tab) instead. Doing that on a physical keyboard was infinitely more productive than an on-screen keyboard, even Hacker Keyboard.
- Smart Watch for Voice/Text
- small Tablet with keyboard cover and LTE in your pocket for everything else
These days I have a different situation where I prefer not to have anything if I’m away from computer and I just use the Watch. I have the Apple Watch / AirPods which works quite well, but I know not everybody wants to commit to the Apple ecosystem. When I was doing the tablet-in-pocket thing, I was a bit more cross platform and it still worked great with Google Voice as the central hub for everything.
90's computer hacker ? I don't know, this sounds nearly as consumer as it gets.
The incredible growth in on-device capabilities from my iPad + a keyboard went a long way towards making that unnecessary; adding a remote desktop client (for access to the back-end Windows server things I might want) closes the loop.
Unless I'm dead sure I'll NEED a full computer on a trip, I don't take one now. The default has become "nope." Even -- especially! -- as a photo management platform, because my iPad has ample storage and I'm a Creative Cloud user. I used to have to carry the laptop to dump and process photos during the trip (to avoid dealing with 2,000 all at once when we got home). Now I can go day by day, sync to Adobe, cull and do some processing, and just take the final pass once I'm home.
That's great.
(Ironically, this same era has seen me become increasingly deep into Orgmode, which is annoying, because as great as it is on a desktop there's still no truly great way to work with it from mobile short of setting up sync to a Linux box and using mosh/ssh.)
I ask because I also like the vague idea of not taking a laptop, but I’m not going to do any serious typing on a screen keyboard and adding an external keyboard makes the iPad less portable than a laptop (plus you probably need a stand and mouse as well to reach the physical usability of a laptop).
"plus you probably need a stand and mouse as well to reach the physical usability of a laptop"
Apple was first, but there are now SEVERAL keyboard cases that function more or less like Apple's fancy & expensive "Magic Keyboard." Like Apple's, they usually include a touchpad.
My iPad Pro in my Magic Keyboard folio is not much bigger than the iPad itself, but opens up into a very very usable and stable configuration. The hinge holds the iPad above the keyboard, so it's at a more comfortable heigh. I can easily use it on my lap, for example, which is typically a use case that tablet-keyboard combinations fail at.
(The only downside of this style of keyboard case is that you can't fold it all the way around; to work with the iPad in portrait mode, you take it off the keyboard -- which is also simple, since it's just magnets.)
IOW, the "physical usability of the laptop" threshold is absolutely reachable with a single accessory.
Also, even though I have a fancy iPad and fancy keyboard case, my iPad solution is materially less expensive than my laptop, so taking it places represents less of a risk. And obviously it almost never needs to be plugged in. (This gap is narrowed for M1 hardware, but I'm still on Intel.)
Can you do this with keyboard shortcuts or do you find yourself switching between keyboard and touch screen for some interactions?
I find this idea of using a keyboard super appealing but don’t like the idea of switching between keyboard and screen all the time. At least a virtual keyboard is on the screen!
There isn’t enough room to have more than one thing open usually, so lots of CMD-TAB action.
Normally I’m doing one or the other - typing or annotating/drawing with the pencil. If I need touch-interaction when typing I can use the trackpad.
I can’t say it’s a perfect experience, or even a practical one, but I still enjoy it. Maybe it’s just the novelty of the setup. It weighs more (with the keyboard-case) than my MacBook Air, but it does have a nicer screen and it is waterproof. It lends itself more to portability for sure. I tend to just chuck it in my bag more often than I did with my laptop.
For example, tons of apps—including Apple apps—don’t highlight text fields by default as they would on a computer, so you have to tap (or click) the field before you can type. You can very rarely tab to switch focus between different buttons and menus. You can’t type to jump to an item in a list, etc.
MacOS has so many little productivity enhancers, especially in regards to keyboard shortcuts and keyboard control, and the people designing iOS/iPadOS have just never made it a priority so even with an external keyboard, I find myself having to use touch or the mouse so much more often.
I don’t ask to refute your experience; I’m honestly curious since I like the idea of just using the iPad, but the ergonomics just seem inherently inferior regardless of software concerns.
I sometimes sit my HHKB on top of the magic keyboard, but not often. If I’m going out I just use the magic kb and trackpad.
* It doesn't care if my IP changes. For example, I can start a session at home connected to Wi-Fi, switch to tethering to my phone as I take a bus, switch to office Wi-Fi when I get to work, and the connection never drops.
* It stays connected forever. Switch to a Blink tab with a connection I haven't used for a week, and I'm instantly looking at a live shell prompt.
It's magical. I use MOSH everywhere I possibly can now.
It seems to me the CPU/GPU can burst pretty well (maybe approaching ultrabook-style laptops) but sustained performance is just not there yet.
1) This would be tolerable with some PinePhone successor, but proprietary solutions like Samsung DEX are conducive to lock-in, more difficult for developers to target, and tend to go unsupported after a few years.
2) Phones have to become more durable. I expect my primary computing device to last half a decade. My phone's USB-C port is flaky after just over 2 years of charging it and carrying it around. How is it going to last if I'm plugging and unplugging it to/from some desktop rig?
3) They have to become more repairable too. "If it's broken, throw it away and buy new" just isn't tenable for a primary PC.
4) Getting everybody on board with "live in the pod, eat the bugs, use the cloud-connected thin client" is not going to happen.
Concerning 3) I think things are moving in the other direction. With immutable base OS and data seamlessy backed up (encrypted, of course) switching to a new device should be fairly frustration free.
For 4) I think we will see more and more of a mixture. For instance better integration of cloud storage, things like game streaming, more video streaming etc. . So not thin client, but not fully featured offline either.
To be able to dock it you need a screen and keyboard (or a laptop-style "shell"). That means you need a device that takes just as much space as an independent device but can't be used unless you plug your phone to it. The only benefit is a slight lower cost - but then you need to make sure your phone is powerful enough so a cheap Android is out of the picture.
You've been saying this for ages, and manufacturers have been trying it for ages (Motorola Atrix, Samsung Dex...) but it doesn't catch on. So maybe you should reconsider your prediction!
Maybe its the other way around?
Maybe we need to wait until the old way of doing things is so forgotten we can accept the phone-way as a valid way. As long has people have their x86 applications, they'll want to use them. Once people stop caring - well then there is an app for that.
Any company with enough resources could do the same if they felt so inclined.
And if Apple wanted to, Apple could make Rosetta 2 run on iOS devices. For now they want to keep them mostly separate, and are more about running iPad apps on macOS than the other way around. But there is nothing stopping Apple from running desktop software, whether compiled for x86_64 or for ARM, on iOS devices if they wanted to. And if convergence turns out to be the future then I think we may see them do that eventually. But I am not convinced that it will.
From what I understand, M1 Macs have specialised hardware that allows them to emulate x64 with good performance. It's not just software.
Flip side: it’s a device that just works, doesn’t need to be kept patched and updated and where syncing is never an issue. It’s an external monitor for your phone plus a keyboard.
The prediction has fallen on its face due to the mobile component not being central enough. If half my life is on my laptop and half on my phone, a desktop makes sense. (Though I go for external monitors to my laptop.) But if all my stuff is on my phone, losing the syncing tax becomes more meaningful.
Not only that, but having a single source of truth for your files, OS and things like that.
These days I no longer think that'll happen largely because the kinds of things people want a desktop computer for are really much better served by an actual computer, while mobile users have adapted to not even wanting a desk.
[0] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0531/2285/9174/products/im...
People that do need a computer-like device probably won't have enough with a phone, and will need something more powerful than browser-based applications. Not to mention that a lot applications would be far more expensive if moved to the cloud (imagine a video editor where you not only pay for the software but also for the storage + computing power to the provider).
Hard doubt. And anyways, why 5G? I don't see any figures where 5G outperforms fiber in latency.
Pretty decent and stable setup… And free as I have just gathered some old hardware pieces…
It's interesting that people often handwave latency like this as if it was a solved problem. As instructed, I have seen cloud gaming: it's an unmitigated disaster, held back by mere trifles such the limits of information travel speed imposed by our physical universe.
I had a four-day weekend where the only device I had was my Android phone. I needed to work on a release of our software, so I had to fix a few bugs, write a press release, get content ready for the website. On the way out, I grabbed the laptop bag, but forgot the laptop. On some of the higher-end android devices, if you plug them into a monitor you get desktop mode. So down to the hotel "business center" I went with my LG Wing and plugged in a monitor, keyboard and mouse using the usb-c dongle I usually use as a hub for my laptop. A lot of the apps played nice, so email (Fairemail is a fantastic piece of software), word processing (Google Docs App), editing screenshots (PicSayPro) and SSH(Connectbot) were all fantastic. Could Android desktop mode use a little polish? Sure. For any serious development, I'd prefer to edit and test on localhost... but honestly, the experience wasn't bad, and from time to time I'll go phone-only to the office if I know I'm not going to be coding all day.
Some people may be happy with this future, much like people who create and process lightweight office documents on iPads. But there will always be demand for singular PCs or laptops.
[0] https://www.jellycomb.com/products/b046-bluetooth-keyboard?v...
They have compact keyboards, keyboards with easy bluetooth switching, and keyboards with a builtin stand, but no one keyboard that has all three.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MUTWLW4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
Huh, they don't list that on the keyboard page! Here it is filtered to models with a phone stand: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards?filters=3964
That one is only listed in the "iPad Keyboards" section for whatever mysterious reason.
In my opinion, today it is one and only one thing - the battery. I'm presently typing this comment on a desktop, because my phone is on the charger.
Edit: if anything the real issue is thermals. I also have a high end phone with a Snapdragon 888. This thing has a faster CPU & GPU than my Intel desktop. However, it's only fast for seconds, until it gets thermally throttled.
Most psions are 300 bucks, i can't justify that though i love the idea. And the 15 buck zaurus organizers either only have a 30 character 'memo' function or are so old they only run DOS and have to sync via serial cable.
Anyone have any suggestions on a palmtopish machine with qwerty keyboard that can write txt or rtf files to an sd card and can be had for 100 or less on ebay?
I'm currently resisting trying to hack a Smart Response XE and instead trying to put a pi zero w and a 1.3" inch screen and battery into the front margin of a Unicomp Model M and just viming my way to victory whilst syncthing makes the file magically appear on my pc whenever the device is on home wifi, but an integrated device would be more pocketable. the model m word processor is more for taking over long writing sessions where i currently lug an actual wheelwriter around. this small device would be even more portable, sitting at the beach, in the car etc.
But I have a Gemini PDA which is basically the same thing but more integrated and I never use it.
But as a phone running Android it's not quite there. Features like the LED controller app are half-baked vanity apps, and I'd rather they'd spent the time getting the lower level stuff right. Low quality phone call audio, random glitches, and software updates were mostly forgotten about. If I did want it as my primary phone I would also want a camera. The only camera was front-facing and low quality, which ruled it out. So it became a novel supplementary device rather than a daily driver.
To whit, the hinge mechanism isn't well designed. In theory the spine rotates back to form a stand, but it's incredibly wobbly. So it's not much use for typing on a table. And it can't be held in the hand, as there's no stiffness.
Why do I think PinePhone will be any different? The prototypes I've seen look like the hinge is stiffer. I'm not a kernel-compiling Linux enthusiast, so I don't expect to use a PinePhone as a real phone. But I do hope an SSH terminal to be simple enough to just work. So that puts it into the realm of mostly offline with sync. And org-mode is both simple and exciting, in a weird kind of a way.
And that appeals to nostaliga for Psions, Palm PDAs and Newtons.
[0] https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-linux-for-the-gemini-pda/ [1] https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php?title=Debian_Notes
It works for more than I would have thought but I still really miss things like alt-tab, or in general the ability to navigate the UI with a keyboard. I mean why would the win/super key not open the multitasking overview? Currently it does nothing... Also, in Termius backspace works, but not delete, and page-up/down produces a ~. Little annoyances like that are everywhere.
I also bought an MX Anywhere 3 to go with it, but it didn't switch device with the MX Master switches, a missed opportunity imho. Moreover, at the time I was still on Android and for example in MineCraft the mouse pointer would still behave as a finger that drags stuff. (I eventually returned it because I also found it too flat for a mouse.)
So there is still much be made better but the basis is there. I guess the demand is still very low. But I bet it is also a chicken/egg story waiting to be resolved. I mean, iMovie on the iPhone is super powerful but on this screen and with touch... ugh.
Now just get me a monitor that also switches with my MX Master Keys switch keys to a larger view of my Phone and we've got ourselves a (partial because I love Linux, and yeah I was so looking forward to that Ubuntu Phone Convergence thing) laptop killer.
For someone wanting an easy, at home VPN for setups just like in the blog - is anything on the market competitive with Tailscale's UX? Ideally there would be no proxy, no VPN hosted on DigitalOcean that i fear being a weak point.. Instead, i'd like:
1. A redirect hosted on DigitalOcean, acting as a self hosted DynIP. No security issue here i'd think?
2. After hitting my real IP, connect to a VPN on a predetermined port.
3. Get access to bells and whistles now on the priveledged network. Bonus points if i could assign DNS entries like `ssh me@workmachine.fake` or `http(s?)://videostreaming.fake`
Tailscale makes me a bit nervous, as cool as they are i'd prefer entirely self hosted. Though i may give them a try just to experience this UX.
edit: https://blog.tonari.no/introducing-innernet innernet might be what i'm looking for
I haven't poked around in the guts of their vpn setup. But it's generally password protected and I would assume in the clear. So I replace accounts frequently and only leave it running if I am out of town and have some project I may need access to.
Basically you vpn to yourname.dyndnsprovider.com and you are done.
The rest is DNS Setup which.is sort of up to you but you can easily configure to something like machinename.home.mydomain.net
https://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year...
Update: If you click to the "Tablet Keyboards" section instead of the regular "Keyboards" section, there's the K480 which is a compact model with phone stand: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/mobile/keyboards Why that's not listed in the regular keyboard section remains a mystery...
Do mouse cursors work on iPhones yet or just iPad OS? Because there's other models that have a trackpad on the side, which could be neat. Ah, there's an accessibility setting to enable it, but it's not the same as the iPad OS mouse support.
Good, cheap x86 laptops are like $80 right now. That's about how much you'd pay for one of those fancy Logitech keyboards, but it comes with an entire computer, too.
There is alse a Logitech keyboard (Multidevice K380, under $50 apparently) with a built-in notch in which to place a phone or tablet.[1]
[1] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k480-multi...
I would love to travel with a 15" ultraportble which is good for mail/browsing but will crawls while trying to play Flight Simulator. When I reach home, it seamlessly uses power of 599$ XBox compute centre to run it on 60FPS. When I reach office it compiles millions line of code using power of a 500 core office server.
Central server can be shared across devices so all devices of all members of family run at same speed/capability.
I've been writing with obsidian, coding via ssh. Jupyter notebooks and other browser-based environments are also good, though much smoother with a tablet-sized screen.
Although I’m not sure if the screen refresh and cpu are fast enough for comfortable typing. I already get frustrated using the onscreen keyboard for typing a 10 character notebook name.
The problem with the device is that, entirely unsuprisingly, it turns out I can type way faster than I can write with a stylus after years of typing. But I really like my Remarkable2, I just haven't figured out how to fit it into my life - I've spent so long wanting a device like that, that I've got all these other things in place that I don't seem to need it. I journal using google docs, and the Remarkable2 doesn't have any integration there. I use it for quick notes, drawing diagrams and also learning to draw still life.
I'm very happy with my purchase, but it is very much a niche product. I didn't buy one to get an eink terminal, so I haven't tried it out as such, and can't report on how well it does as one, but I don't think it would do well at scrolling pages like you would a terminal. (But I'm a fan of Alacritty on OS X, so my demands on a terminal are also niche.)
However, what does that have to do with 2 handed use? Thumbs typing is also 2 hands. Or you mean typing with 1 thumb? I see people, especially Chinese, writing on their phones with 1 thumb and holding it with the same hand (so 1 hand use); you have that too with swipe keyboards though for western languages. This us definitely not faster (or, for me, nicer) than just typing with 1 thumb and 1 finger.
Curious what other people do... I am on a tetras on a busy street now and wasting what (very) young people do: I see them all typing with 2 hands, two thumbs.