Home Assistant is free and open-source software for home automation, designed to be an Internet of things (IoT) ecosystem-independent integration platform and central control system for smart home devices, with a focus on local control and privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Assistant

If a smart device requires an internet connection, then it isn't smart. It's dumb with the smarts off-loaded.

Home Assistant has integrations with MANY IOT devices. It enables you to have a smart, connected home while begin offline and local.

Recently, I purchased a smart thermostat (Venstar T7850 for those interested) with a local API feature and it works great – so long as you install it correctly…

This seems contradictory.

What I'm describing here is being able to access your personal cloud from the internet without exposing your applications or devices directly to the internet.

The way I do this is with a VPN, of course. Specifically, I use Wireguard, but I'm sure something like ZeroTier would work just as well. My phone, laptop, and even Linode VPS's, all have an always-on VPN connection back into my home network so I can always access my any of my services no matter where I am.

Matrix is an open standard for interoperable, decentralised, real-time communication over IP. It can be used to power Instant Messaging, VoIP/WebRTC signalling, Internet of Things communication - or anywhere you need a standard HTTP API for publishing and subscribing to data whilst tracking the conversation history.

https://matrix.org/docs/older/faq/

But Matrix isn't just another chat platform, it's an open and hackable platform! It supports many bridges to other chat platforms, too, mainly developed by Beeper.

I bridge my personal Matrix server to Telegram so my Telegram friends can't even tell.

Clients are still a little rough around the edges though, but the protocol is really promising so far.

You can setup your own server to not federate with other servers so that you can only chat with your friends and family, if you want. I plan on doing this for my family once the clients are in better shape.

Okay fine.. it's still Android. But the main alternative here is to Google's Android.

Ironically, they only support Pixel devices.

And GrapheneOS isn't just another rom, trust me, I've tried a lot of alternative Android ROMs over the years. GrapheneOS is really polished. They focus on on security mostly, but privacy kinda goes hand-in-hand with security.

My favorite feature is being able to run Google Play Services as a user application and out-of-the-box has no permissions. You have you specifically enable each permission you want to give it.

Alternatively, you can move Google Play Services to just the work profile. In this configuration, you can install the apps that need Google Play Services into your work profile and just turn them on when you need them. Think of the battery life!

Use a password manager! If you're here, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that though.

Note taking systems are probably the most subjective tool out there. They're how you organize your brain, life, tasks…everything. You gotta find the tool the fits the shape of your brain.

Anyone who knows me knows I love Emacs. I couldn't go an entire presentation without mentioning it, of course.

So I use org-mode, but I won't go into too much detail about that here since I talked about it in my last talk.

But what you are looking at is Emacs and org-mode. I brain-dumped this notes and then just turned them into a presentation.

For me, the best tool is the one you're going to use. And since I find Emacs fun, making my notes fun by using org-mode has been very effective.

So try to find a tool that's fun!

There's also tools like Obsidian and Joplin, both of which store your notes in an open an accessible format so you can sync them yourself. They also offer a paid service to manage the syncing for you if you want. Self-hosting is about choice.

2024-04-27 * Some internet company
    Liabilities:CreditCard           $-20.00
    Expenses:Bill:Internet            $20.00

Ledger falls in a category of software called Plaintext Accounting. It is a double-entry accounting system entirely in, you guessed it, plain text!

Using ledger is such a breath of fresh air for managing money. If you make a mistake.. you just.. change the text. No complicated software that may-or-may-not work when you need it.

Every time you run ledger, it "renders" your ledger file. So there's no previous state between runs you have to balance and fight with.

It's a essentially just an extremely flexible markup format. It can be as complicated or as simple as you need it. If you just want to track the credits and debits of a single account, sure do that.

But if you want to track your 401k or stock trades, or whatever other fancy-schmancy finance words (not me), it can do that with an incredible amount of power.

Example

There's also hledger, which provides alternative interfaces, like a CLI and web interface, but uses more-or-less the same compatible syntax as ledger. I've been using hledger myself.

Most of the services wouldn't be that useful if you weren't able to synchronize the state of them between devices.

And I'm sure many of you have heard, or actively use, Syncthing.

It's a way to synchronize a directory between multiple devices. I use it for my notes, ledger, agenda, random files, and even game save files for emulators.