Matisyahu's Blog

Microsoft’s Build conference is one big giant snoozefest of hearing them going on and on and on and on and on about AI – am I the only one who just doesn’t give a flying continental about AI? Dear Microsoft, your File Explorer can’t even handle long path names, Windows 11 is falling to pieces, Windows App SDK development is slower than me running up a hill and the adoption of it within Microsoft is woeful at best but hey, you keep telling me about how AI will promise to change the world. Google I/O was a little less depressing in that at least we saw Android 16 being announced, Android TV 16, Wear OS 6 not to mention that when AI was talked about it was within a larger context rather than it simply being AI for the sake of AI. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Android 16 TV given that there are improvements to the 64bit kernel which makes me wonder whether we’ll see a new streaming device and a transition to 64bit Android TV towards the end of the year with the announcement of the Pixel 10.

Regarding Apple, I would sooner they just get the basics done well before branching out in all manner of directions. I also have to admit to wanting to have a complaint about how Apple artificially limits features to certain hardware even though previous hardware have the capability – a good example of that is AV1 playback which is limited to the M3 and M4 even though the or M2 could easily decode it in software mode but alas you have to upgrade that get that ‘feature’. Sure, it isn’t something that is wide spread use but it is an example of artificially limiting something. Would I go back to using Windows? hell no, at least the core of macOS is stable so if anything it would be macOS for desktop and laptop, Android for phone and streaming device for the television with Google Workspace if I were to ever look at alternatives – I am reminded every day at work why I don’t use Windows.

The Ubiquiti UniFi Controller Cloud Key G2 Plus I ordered arrived today which allowed me to cancel the 30 day subscription to the UniFi cloud hosting in favour of having a controller at home without the price tag of $50 per month (for 100 devices). I’ve replaced the cabling with cat7 (there was no price difference between cat6 and cat7) because my UDM and Unifi AP AC HD will be given to my mum since it’ll give her better WiFi coverage and WiFi 5 is good enough for what mum does on her laptop and desktop (long term plan is to get a new computer for her as the one being used is over 10 years old and will be losing Windows 10 support in the next few months). I’ve also ordered some cables from PB Tech with the USB-C to USB-C required for the Ubiquiti UniFi Controller Cloud Key G2 Plus because the cable I picked up tonight the device is picky about (although funny enough the el-cheapo charger I got at the same time works perfectly fine with my Apple USB-C to USB-C cable) – I like to have an extra cable around while having one where I recharge my phone with on a regular basis.

What I hope is that by the end of this year I’ve replaced the Arlo security camera setup with UniFi security cameras which will use PoE for power and communications which avoids the whole process of having to recharge batteries plus it would work a whole lot more reliably and the storage of videos will all remain locally which avoids having the need to have an account with yet another provider I have to keep track of. On a side note, it is possible to create a bridge using Homebridge plugin or the Scrypted platform but the mobile app that is provided is good enough and on my desk I can log into the controller and view videos from there.

In 9 days I’ve got three days off (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) then the next week I’ve got Monday through to Thursday off, back on Friday and Saturday, then Sunday to Tuesday off then back to work on Wednesday. I’m one of two minds, I go to bed early on Tuesday night so I can wake up early and watch WWDC keynote live or I decide that doing that is work that it is worth and instead wake up at a normal time and watch it after Apple has uploaded it to YouTube.