This month and last, I have been building several new machines for various friends as well as workplaces, and dealing with selective transfer of lots of files, across unreliable networks while the machines are powering on and off.

Every one of these is ad hoc and custom, there is no existing infrastructure to support this. So I am #ThursdayThankful for the #FreeSoftware rsync utility. https://rsync.samba.org/

Interruptions? Network lag? Restart part-way? Change the set of files? All handled.

A terminal multiplex, analogous to a movie cinema multiplex, has multiple interfaces within apparently one terminal window.

A terminal is usually the plain-text window with the shell prompt. A terminal multiplexer runs within that, presenting several virtual terminals, allowing you to switch between them using keyboard inputs.

I am #ThursdayThankful for GNU Screen https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/, though many will rightly say TMux is a great alternative. Both of them are useful way beyond multiplexing!

Everyone deserves privacy: from their government, from their ISP, from their employer, from arbitrary strangers, etc.

The general advice to use a trustworthy #VPN for personal use, has become only more urgent recently.

So I'm #ThursdayThankful for the #WireGuard project, @wireguardvpn, which has done the solid foundational #FreeSoftware work of a much easier and flexible VPN layer that many providers build upon.

https://www.wireguard.com/

Long ago, I would dread trying to connect #Bluetooth devices because of pain trying to get it working.

Over time, without me noticing any big changes, it has become so much smoother.

I am #ThursdayThankful for the tireless work of the #BlueZ project, for bringing convenient device connections to my computers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_stack#BlueZ

Long ago, I would dread trying to connect #Bluetooth devices because of pain trying to get it working.

Over time, without me noticing any big changes, it has become so much smoother.

I am #ThursdayThankful for the tireless work of the #BlueZ project, for bringing convenient device connections to my computers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_stack#BlueZ

Long ago, I would dread trying to connect #Bluetoooth devices because of pain trying to get it working.

Over time, without me noticing any big changes, it has become so much smoother.

I am #ThursdayThankful for the tireless work of the #BlueZ project, for bringing convenient device connections to my computers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_stack#BlueZ

Normal English text contains a great many characters that don't come on the ordinary keyboards I use.

And occasionally I want to write a name or phrase which doesn't use English orthography, right there in my English-language text.

That's why every operating system needs a good #FreeSoftware Input Method Engine, and a good stock of Input Methods to choose from so you can quickly switch to a different writing system and then back again.

I am #ThursdayThankful for #IBus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Input_Bus

Quite often I need to do a little simple processing on video files. I'm #ThursdayThankful for #Shotcut video editor https://www.shotcut.org/

Maybe my TV episode, downloaded from "distributed cloud storage", is in super-fat high resolution, way more than my HTPC can store. Easy: re-encode at a sane resolution, decimate the storage requirement.

Or maybe a video (download using #YoutubeDL) has a segment I want to snip out and show to people. Easy tools to snip and export.

Many more uses!

We should all be using (and all systems should support) unique, truly random, multi-word memorable passphrases.

When I need to generate a new passphrase, I am #ThursdayThankful for the simple 'xkcdpass' tool. So named because it is the "XKCD password generator" https://github.com/redacted/XKCD-password-generator/

which, in turn, is because of the cartoon [XKCD 936](http://xkcd.com/936/) that explains why these are more secure than last century's short passwords.

Whether it was the months-long lockdowns in recent years, or just an evening to relax and browse what media we've downloaded:

I am #ThursdayThankful for the #Kodi project. https://kodi.tv/ @Kodi

We can manage media as files in folders, or use the metadata to browse and queue. The interface is beautiful on a big screen, and everything is sensible with a remote control.

Enjoying media without #SurveillancePlatform or #DigitalRestrictionManagement cuffs.

I quickly learned that the “how do I configure #Emacs to do this?” questions tend to get answers of the form “it's easy, just add this chunk of executable lisp code in your startup file”. Extremely unsatisfactory, and *dangerous* for a beginner to naively run arbitrary code they don't understand.

So I am #ThursdayThankful to finally learn the use-package system, which brings a much more declarative approach to configuring all the various features and packages.

https://jwiegley.github.io/use-package/

I quickly learned that the “how do I configure #Emacs to do this?” questions tend to get answers of the form “it's easy, just add this chunk of executable lisp code in your starttup file”. Extremely unsatisfactory, and *dangerous* for a beginner to naively run arbitrary code they don't understand.

So I am #ThursdayThankful to have finally learned the use-package system, which brings a much more declarative approach to configuring all the various features and packages.

https://jwiegley.github.io/use-package/

As I continue finding more of the dozens of credentials required in my new job position, I am #ThursdayThankful for the #FreeSoftware passphrase manager, KeePassXC https://keepassxc.org/

It has a very helpful user interface, smoothly provides #TOTP (the standard for time-based MFA codes), and has *excellent* web browser integration to auto-detect and auto-fill credentials into a site's authentication forms.

Pre-dating Markdown and more general-purpose by design, the reStructuredText format is part of #Docutils; greatly expanded on by the #SphinxDoc project.

Both are #FreeSoftware and exemplars of practical, community design projects.

I'm #ThursdayThankful for #reST: a sensible, readable plain-text markup format with thoughtful design to make it unobtrusive and semantically powerful.

https://docutils.sourceforge.io/

Updating my separate cell phone for keeping work distinct from life, I am extremely #ThursdayThankful for the #LineageOS project: a decent free-as-it-can-be OS, to replace the awful proprietary crap on my mobile devices.

https://lineageos.org/

Setting up a site with user profiles, and wanting to give users control over their own avatar image.

Centralised platforms suck, especially for something as personal as identity and avatars.

Much better to give people the option to pick a #Federated provider. So I am #ThursdayThankful for Libravatar. My site doesn't force you into one avatar provider; you associate the email address you control, with an avatar image hosted anywhere you like.

https://www.libravatar.org/

#ThursdayThankful for Invidio.us, a way to view YouTube without the #surveillance and other interface crap.

And thanks so much to Omar Roth, who is making the considered decision to step back and shut down the primary instance, to avoid mental burden and burnout.

We need to find ways to fund #FreeSoftware online services, not merely software development.

https://omar.yt/posts/stepping-away-from-open-source

Vim will always be there for me. But Emacs is where I live now. I am #ThursdayThankful for both.

Like @JoshuaFolly my heart is large enough to love both of these #FreeSoftware power tools.

Multi-Factor Authentication makes me #ThursdayThankful the major players have not walled us into a proprietary crapware protocol. Instead, they have converged on the open standard TOTP protocol for generating one-time passcodes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_One-time_Password_algorithm

Of course, the major players will exclusively promote their binary-blob proprietary application without any mention you can choose a better TOTP client. So I'm #ThursdayThankful for the #FreeSoftware application, FreeOTP+ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.liberty.android.freeotpplus/

I've been making a bunch of #BoardGame DIY resources recently, which entails rearranging and stitching graphics around. #FreeSoftware lets me do all my powerful complex editing.

Interactive graphics editing tools get a lot of love. Less well known, the #CommandLine tools for manipulating these documents.

I am #ThursdayThankful for #GraphicsMagick to let me figure out any manipulation I want and then automatically do it to an entire folder full of image files.

http://www.graphicsmagick.org/