In my previous post on using Windows virtual machines on Linux, I mentioned that I switched back to VirtualBox. Well, it turns out that VirtualBox would also completely hang my machine, just less frequently than VMWare.
However, I think finally found a great solution: GNOME Boxes! I was looking for how to import a VirtualBox Windows VM into QEMU/KVM, which is what Boxes uses under the hood. Not finding anything useful, I just installed Boxes and tried to open an existing VirtualBox VM on my machine. And it just worked!
So far I'm very impressed. Closing the VM and restoring it happens almost instantly. It did have high CPU utilization initially, but was spreading the load over seven of the eight cores on my machine. I barely even noticed it apart from a high fan noise and looking in top. Compare this to VirtualBox and VMWare, that somehow only uses one or two cores, and then still manages to bring down the whole machine.
Everything is exactly where you expect it to be in Boxes. Changing the properties is easy to find, and the minimalistic interface gets out of your way. I should have done this ages ago – if I just knew how easy it would be to transfer my VirtualBox VM to Boxes. This morning I installed the guest additions on the machine, and it improved the video driver on the fly without even having to reboot anything.
I guess if I spent hours on obscure VMWare or VirtualBox settings and config files, I would've eventually been able to make it work. But with Boxes everything just works – out of the box![1]
Yesterday I mentioned that I wanted to look into getting WebUSB working on Electron. Well, I've done some testing and the first show-stopper is that Electron doesn't have the WebUSB device chooser implemented that requests permission from a user to access a USB device.
This results in a DOMException: No device selected when calling navigator.usb.requestDevice(). Electron has implemented a chooser for WebBluetooth, so I just put in a feature request for a WebUSB chooser.
The reason this would be so valuable is that these are the chips for which you aren't guaranteed that the OS driver is even properly configured and so are perfect candidates for quality WebUSB support.
The only issue is that they're all written with node-usb instead of WebUSB, as I'm targeting Electron. Now, porting them shouldn't be too hard and it something I would really like to do. Today I discovered Niels Leenheer, creator of html5test.com, even has a $500 bounty out:
This would probably the single most useful thing for WebUSB for me personally. We need this. I’ll donate $500 towards the first project or developer that can get this working. https://t.co/h4sFxeXyw2
I found a GitHub comment saying it's possible to get WebUSB working in Electron, so maybe I should give that a try again. node-usb is barely maintained at the moment, so getting everything working on WebUSB instead would be great! Or if someone else decides to build WebUSB versions using my code, that will be great too.
When I started writing these posts I didn't think that I would be able to keep it going for 100 days straight, but here we are! Let's have a quick look at what I think worked this time, compared to previous times that I started a blog:
It doesn't matter how many words I write, as long as I write something every day.
No analytics. It doesn't matter if anybody reads it, I'm writing this for me.
I realised that older posts are useful to me if I need to look something up.
I realised that writing every day improves my written communication in other areas of my life.
Using a blogging platform like Ghost with a web-based editor reduces the friction – you just write and press Publish.
I can use my iPad to write if I'm not in front of the computer[1].
We finished watching The Staircase on Netflix last night. It's only 13 episodes, but took us a while to watch as we've been busy with moving house. This is the second Netflix series I've watched in which the judicial system is under scrutiny, the first being Making a Murderer.
Both cover periods of more than 10 years since a supposed murder, for which the main suspect is under investigation and goes to trial. In both series there is also evidence that the police and prosecutors have not played fairly and will do anything within their power to make sure the suspect goes to jail.
It does beg the question of how often this happens? Can we trust the judiciary system? What are the alternatives?
Now that we've moved into a new house, I need to find new routes to run. I want to run for 30 minutes, which at my current pace is just over 5 km. One webapp that I've found very useful is mapometer.com, where you can plot your route on the map, and will calculate the distance for you.
I've plotted a route through two parks and along the beach. Now if only the weather would play along so that I don't get wet on my run that would be great.
I have tried a number mindfulness apps in the past. The Apple Watch Breath app just gets annoying after while, and the only one that really stuck was Headspace. I like their friendly, non-wishy washy approach and well designed app. The guided meditations were easy to follow and I felt like I got something out of it – a brief sense of calmness before the activities of the day takes over again.
This morning my Vitality[1] app updated, and indicated that it would like access to my mindful minutes on Apple Health. That could only mean one thing: Vitality is finally offering the 30% discount on an annual Headspace subscription that they've been promising for a long time. This makes the app a little bit more affordable. Hey, and I get Vitality points for each meditation!
Going to Settings –> Battery on your iPhone and then selecting Last 7 Days gives you a reasonable indication of what apps you used most often. If you then tap on one of the apps or the clock icon, it will show you both how many hours that app was on screen and how much the app was running in the background.
On my phone I had Twitter open for 4.7 hours in the last 7 days. That's 40 minutes on average each day! Next up is the web browser, with 2.5 hours on screen in total. Tile, a Bluetooth tracker I use with my car keys and house keys, ran for 3.9 hours in the background. The Photos app somehow used 6% of my battery life while being open 5 minutes in total. Weird!
I had my podcast player, Overcast, running for about 1.5 hours in the background, usually while walking or going for a run. My VPN software, OpenVPN, which I use when I connect to WiFi away from home, also used around 4% of battery life. Spotify was running for 1.7 hours in the background, while Headspace was running for 1.2 hours in the background.
I use Pocket to bookmark things I want to read on the iPad later, Apple Notes to store random stuff and the standard Apple Mail app for e-mail. For instant messaging I rely on iMessage and WhatsApp. I also use TransferWise for foreign exchange and Parcel for tracking packages. All these apps used around 1-2% battery life and were on screen for five minutes or less each.
It doesn't look like any apps that use less than 1% of battery life are shown. These include:
banking apps
Kisi – used to unlock doors at the co-working space
1Password – password manager
1Blocker – ad blocker
Starbucks – for getting free coffees on Vitality
Three – to top-up airtime credit
Vitality – insurance rewards app
Streaks – for tracking habits
Pure Planet – logging electricity & gas usage
That's more than twenty five apps I use on regular basis! I wonder if all of them are available on Android, in case I want to switch away from the Apple ecosystem? And will there be reasonable replacements if I would switch to a real Linux phone like the Librem 5 in future? And which ones will I just have to go without?
I use an iPhone 6S with 16GB of memory. While that was plenty of storage when I bought it almost exactly three years ago (for £539), iOS now takes up more than half of that (8.65GB). My photo library uses around 3.5GB even with almost all high-res versions of the photos being stored in iCloud, with apps using the remaining quarter of storage. Getting a low storage warning every day is starting to get a bit tiring.
Spending £999 (at a minimum) on the iPhone X is ridiculous, and the iPhone 8 is also not cheap, starting at £699. Apple will probably be announcing a new phone at their special event in a week's time, but I don't expect those phones to be any cheaper. At any rate, now that I've switched to using a Linux laptop, there are fewer advantages to staying in Apple's ecosystem.
Maybe I should make a list of all the apps I use every day and whether they are available on a stripped-down non-Google version of Android? Or maybe there are even alternatives available on the new Librem 5 Linux phone that Purism is working and that will be available next year.
I have been using the Bullet Journal method since the beginning of the year to keep track of tasks and dates. The idea is that you use a physical notebook and follow a specific system to keep track of things.
It can be a bit time-consuming to set up everything for each new month, but it provides a good opportunity to review what I have on my calendar for the upcoming month. Apart from that, I'm not sure that I've found it much more helpful than digital tools that I've used in the past.
I've been using a Field Notes notebook, which is maybe a bit too small, but easier to carry around. Maybe I'll try a bigger notebook next time. Then again, if it hasn't been that useful, maybe I should just go back to tracking tasks using an app?
Over the holidays we tracked our todo list using a physical notepad on the fridge. I noticed it actually worked better than an app, so I decided to try out #bulletjournal for a bit. Got my Field Notes all set up. 📝 📓 pic.twitter.com/hkYftrJfQG
