I use PocketCasts on iOS and web. If you both switch to a platform-agnostic option like that, then sharing should be easier.

Pocket Casts is great. Platform-independent listen progress sync alone is worth the few bucks it costs.

I'm surprised the author didn't mention vim's sessions feature. The ability to close the editor/IDE and pick up right where you left off can save a lot of time when working with multiple large projects. It's easy enough to use on its own, but I have a small wrapper plugin that adds a few features for ease of use: https://github.com/bgrohman/vim-bg-sessions.

For which Tim Pope's Obsession plugin [0] is fantastic. It solved a whole bunch of weird conflicts that I had with plugins.

[0]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-obsession

Cool, I haven't used that one. I'm sure it's great coming from Tim Pope. Mine's working fine for me at the moment, though.

"NERDTree satisfies this need of mine, replacing vim’s built-in netrw file navigator with a nicer-looking, less buggy, more fully featured alternative."

Wait, what's wrong with the built-in netrw? I actually started with NERDTree before I knew netrw existed. After discovering netrw, I switched to it instead. I think it looks just fine and prefer it to the more complex NERDTree.

I agree, it's better to work with the internal tools if possible. I did install Tim Pope's vinegar plugin [0] as it adds some nice tweaks to netrw.

But I've since switched to using FZF [1] and hardly use netrw anymore.

[0]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-vinegar [1]: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/blob/master/README.md#as-vim...

Cool, thanks for the recommendations. I've tried ctrlp for fuzzy finding, and it works ok. Might give FZF a try though.

I use a Samsung Chromebook 3 with Linux installed in a chroot via Crouton.

http://bryangrohman.com/ubuntu-i3wm-chromebook/

It's a bit underpowered, but it works just fine for my personal use which includes some light coding. It would be way underpowered to use for my day job in any capacity other than ssh-ing into other machines. Then again, it is one of the cheapest Chromebooks available at $169, so you get what you pay for :)

A Vim plugin for managing sessions https://github.com/bgrohman/vim-bg-sessions

A really simple backup system with bash and gnupg http://bryangrohman.com/simple-encrypted-backup-system/

A custom bookmark service for managing my bookmarks across multiple browsers with Node and LetsEncrypt. Planning to add end to end encryption at some point. I don’t have the code hosted anywhere yet.

Time for a DuckDuckBrowser?

I would much rather if DuckDuckGo and Firefox became a tight Google-fighting duo by focusing on search and browsing, respectively.

You wouldn't want Robin driving the bat-mobile now, would you?

Sounds good to me. (DuckDuckGo teaming up with Firefox, I mean.)

At the end of 2014, both Apple and then Mozilla added DuckDuckGo to their browser's list of search engines bundled by default.

This was the very first time any meta search engine (search engine that combines results from multiple search engines) was added to any of the most popular browsers.

They've also added it to Firefox Focus (at least at the time when it was released on Android).

So, it's fair to say that they have some sort of collaboration between them. Wouldn't count on it getting more serious than that, but I would still love to see it happen.

On the subject of privacy, I'm interested in migrating away from Google services, but I have years' worth of data tied up there (email, photos, music, movies, etc). I know Google offers ways to download your data, so it's technically possible to migrate, but it would be tedious and time consuming, to say the least.

Does anyone have suggestions for making that process easier?

I use a Chromebook with Crouton as my main personal laptop now, and it has worked well for me. I'm using i3wm instead of a traditional desktop environment.

http://bryangrohman.com/ubuntu-i3wm-chromebook/

What about the chroot/Crouton route?

Crouton leaves ChromeOS in place and running, so I assumed it was out of place for this discussion. I don't know how much the chroot does to mitigate that. I assume, for example, it's still Google's kernel in place?

Yes, it's still using the same kernel.

Interesting that the article offers no alternatives to Google Photos. I know there are options, but they all seem to be far behind in terms of features. Plus, migrating all of my photos out of Google Photos would be pain.

Well, all the neat features of Google Photo rely on ML and swath of data to work.

Photo seems to be part of takeout : https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

I have not tried it for photo but it seems like you can download all your albums.

One thing that Google is exemplary at in my experience is in providing an easy way to export all your data if you want to.

> migrating all of my photos out of Google Photos would be pain

You can export them (incl. meta data) through the regular Google Takeout. From there you just have to upload them again to your new, preferred cloud provider.

I've tried Google Takeout, but I have several hundred gigs of photos, so uploading them elsewhere will be a pain. Plus, wherever I do upload them will be lacking many of the features from Google Photos.