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I HATE How Commercial WordPress Is Becoming & Bye, Bye, Jetpack

By Technology, The Web, ThinkingNo Comments

I HATE how commercial WordPress is becoming! What went wrong? It started out as a community-based blogging platform. Now everything is about business and money and it stinks!

A good example of this is Jetpack. Jetpack is a plugin that recorded statical data about visitors and views. It used to be free and did these lovely annual reports.

Now the services provided by Jetpack, including their Stats has in the latest update become a paid model. Not just a paid model, but a subscription service – like money is no object. Sure it’s fine if you have a business and are making money.

But for a small author and blogger like me, let’s be clear: This website costs me more than it has ever earned me. But I keep it running, at a personal cost to me for my enjoyment. It’s a leisure activity.

So today, it was Bye, Bye Jetpack. I’ve removed and deleted the plugin. I encourage other bloggers to do the same. Let’s not give in to their financial demands and instead opt with our fingers and delete plugins and themes demanding money with their Dashboard banners.

It’s not just Jetpack. EVERY theme and plugin now expects you to pay, usually a subscription service, for regular updates.

Honestly if there were an alternative community-based platform, similar to WordPress’ past, that focused on development to improve user experience, rather than making developers rich, I’d switch. But there isn’t right now, meaning that at least for now I’m stuck with WordPress.

Blog – Yes blog, writing for pleasure, not to make money, soon,

Antony

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Thursday 11 April 2024

Tech Reviews: Upgrading My External Hard Drives to SSD

By Amazon, Reviews, Shopping, TechnologyNo Comments

I tend to keep my files (documents, photos, music & video) on WD external hard drives. I don’t use cloud storage, as I dislike subscription services and their ever increasing prices. Plus, I have a lot of files, so it gets expensive and relies too much on the internet. One of the pluses of external hard drives are that they are portable, so I can physically share larger files with family/friend easily.

But there are minuses with my current system. First transfers for larger files can be slow, second that there’s always a chance of hard drive failure – particularly with external hard drives that have moving parts, like the ones I’m currently using. So I decided that it was time to upgrade to SSD (solid state drives), which boast faster transfer speeds and no moving parts. Think of them as large capacity pen drives.

I opted for two different branded 4TB models, one a Samsung T7 Shield (4TB) and the other SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (4TB). The reason I opted for the Samsung drive is trust in the brand. The reason I opted for SanDisk was because of the colour.

It may sound odd, but different colours enable me to identify my drives more easily. I did try to get a Samsung T7 Shield in blue (in desperation I even considered beige) but both blue and beige 4TB models were out of stock everywhere.

Here’s my first impression of each model:

Samsung T7 Shield (4TB) first impressions:

  • It’s tiny. It literally fits in the palm of my hand, see image above.
  • It has this soft, ridged feel which makes it really nice to hold.
  • It feels like a quality product.
  • It comes with x2 USB cables. One is USB C to C and the other is USB C to B.
  • It gets warm, but nowhere near as hot as the Scan Disk.
  • It was easy to set up and use. It’s literally plug and play.
  • Its copy speed really varied. I can’t be sure if this is the new drive or due to my old one.
  • Had a cool blue blinking light to indicate that the drive is in use.
  • Good for multitasking.
  • I have complete confidence in the Samsung brand.
  • There are a range of cases you can purchase to keep it in.

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (4TB) first impressions:

  • It’s tiny. It literally fits in the palm of my hand, see image above.
  • Its firmware was up-to-date. This was a nightmare to check, SanDisk’s website is easy enough to find to check. But seeing the tiny serial number on the back of the device I found difficult.
  • It feels nice in the hand and has a hole for attaching to backpacks, not that I’ll ever use this feature.
  • It was easy to set up.
  • It gets very hot during use.
  • It is much faster than my previous hard drive.
  • I am concerned about failure or data loss as I found this video online when looking for reviews of the product, after I bought the product and was waiting delivery. I probably wouldn’t have bought this product had I have known this information prior to purchase:

Click here to display content from YouTube.
Learn more in YouTube’s privacy policy.

Open “Storaxa Kickstarter NAS August Update – Case Revealed, Testing, SD Card Issues Continue, Sample Unit” directly
  • I decided based on this video to use this drive up as a back up one, rather than a main drive as originally intended.
  • It is USB C but comes with a USB B adapter for those that might require it.
  • Practically silent operation.
  • Very good when multitasking.
  • There are a range of cases you purchase to keep the device in.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Saturday 6 April 2024

Transfering Hosting from IONOS to Fasthosts

By Creativity, Technology, The WebNo Comments

I recently departed company with IONOS, after being a loyal customer for years. Here is why I left this hosting provider:

  • Their SPAM blocking features in email were rubbish. They blocked people that I regularly email, yet didn’t block clearly SPAM and potentially harmful emails.
  • Their WordPress websites were slow and full of bloatware.
  • They started adding things (at a considerable cost) to my contract, without my permission or at least a discussion. For example, they added PHP Extended Support.
  • They kept changing billing amounts and billing dates. This was making it impossible to keep track of my money and led to a couple occasions where they were paid late.
  • Their prices had increased significantly without any explanation.
  • The IONOS account was constantly trying to sell me products, often ones that I wasn’t interested in or weren’t relevant to me.
  • The customer support agents didn’t always call back when they said they would.

Here’s why I choose fasthosts:

  • They’re UK-based (although the Customer Support isn’t always).
  • They offered a money back guarantee.
  • They offered a reduced price initially, which is perfect when trying something new.
  • They offered WordPress specific hosting.
  • They focus on high performance, quick loading websites.
  • They gave all the standard features I needed: email, access and the ability to upload my own files to the server, SSL certificates, daily back up/restore, etc.
  • Their security and protection of my account is second to none.

I can’t lie, the transfer over wasn’t easy. After having a blog and a domain name for such a long time, challenges were to be expected, but at times it felt maddening and frustrating.

Fasthosts backend could be a little bit easier to use, for example I signed up to two additional contracts for email, before sussing out with the help of Customer Support that I already had email as part of my WordPress Hosting Package. It just wasn’t where I would have expected it to be (i.e. under email).

Fasthosts Customer Support have been brilliant at helping me with my teething problems transferring over. But they could enhance their offer to potential customers by offering a managed WordPress transfer.

Only time will tell is fasthosts turns out to be as good as I hope it is. But I’m more than happy at this moment with their service and products.

If you want to sign up to fasthosts use this link. In the interest of full disclosure I get credit on my account for everyone that signs up using this link, through a referral programme.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Sunday 4 June 2023

Tech Review: MSI Modern 15 Laptop

By Amazon, Reviews, Shopping, TechnologyNo Comments
Image Copyright © Argos (2023)
Image Copyright © Argos (2023)

MSI are traditionally known for making high performing gaming desktop and laptop computers. But it seems that they have now branched out into middle of the range productivity laptops, like the Modern 15, which is available to buy on Amazon.

The Modern 15 laptop was recommended to me by a friend as it has a pretty decent specification for the price, including: 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It also has a Backlit Keyboard keyboard and 15 inch screen, both which are must haves for me.

I’ve been using this laptop for a couple of months now and there’s just a few disappointments. The first major disappointment is the sound – the laptop is so quiet, even on maximum volume. This makes watching things or listening to music on the laptop practically impossible. The other disappointment is a minor irratation and that is the plastic of the body is very prone to showing up finger marks.

Overall it is a good laptop, but it could have been a great laptop if MSI had have sorted out the quietness of the internal speakers. I probably wouldn’t buy it again, purely because of this.

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 3 June 2023
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