I modify my installation ISO to remove the most egregious matters and use an autounattend.xml to make sure the installation is as I wish it to be. I have sysprep images that are appropriate for things I deal with professionally and my generic installation ISO works well enough to handle one-off installs that I can use the same single file for at least anything up to a Ryzen HX370/Zen5 or 15th-gen Intel.

Schneegan's AutoUnattend generator is extremely helpful in this regard. I've recently found Winhance, which is useful for maintaining a steady configuration on Windows system AND for customizing Windows ISOs. Something else that is very helpful is knowing that it's very easy to make Windows Home SKUs install and run the Group Policy editor, which makes keeping any Windows system in order much less complicated.

How long did that take? I'm not sure. I've been doing it since Windows 2000, so either 40 minutes or 26 years.

Have you even looked in Settings? There's a "Leave Bixby" button on my S25. I've never accidentally invoked either Bixby or Google Assistant on mine but you can probably remap things like the long press on home or the double click on the side button that often tell your devices to open whichever assistant you have.

I have Bixby turned off completely, my double click side button is set to open Google Wallet and I have circle to search turned off under Settings > Display > Navigation Bar. These settings seem to be sticky between devices; I've never seen Bixby on my Tab S9+ or my last few Samsung phones.

Apple's ecosystem seems to be focused on preventing users from doing what they want with the powerful general purpose hardware they sell. Android users can at least take steps to mitigate how much access advertising systems have on their devices, even to the point that they can use their devices entirely without a Google account. There's no way to get a fully functional third party browser on iOS and iOS users who refuse to sign in to Apple have no way of obtaining any software for their devices.

Tell me again who has half an ecosystem.

Agreed, really.

I do make use of the SoC on my costly S-series Samsung; it makes an excellent video recorder and monitor while I primarily shoot photos on my Canon mirrorless camera. But Apple brings nothing but restrictions to the table, even to the point that their devices can't be used for arbitrary file storage and don't allow third party web browsers. There's nothing they're doing that's worth dealing with the lock-in from having one.

Not sure what you're on about there. Samsung has offered seven years of updates on its mobile devices since 2022 and Google Pixels have had a similarly long support window for the last couple years as well.

I find iOS unacceptable. I'd stop using mobile devices entirely if it were the only available option.

Windows 365 Subs were just raised at the beginning of the year, from $99 MSRP for a family plan, up to $139. It's still possible to buy the $99 plan but you have to very carefully navigate to find the option that doesn't include Copilot AI bullshit.

Cool Story, Bro time:

My domestic partner is very pretty and the dbag who runs the nearest Tesla dealership was trying really, really hard to get with her. He let her borrow his dealership's loaner Model S Plaid for a week as part of his "That Guy" package.

We thought we'd have some fun since it's supposed to be this super cool sports car. It turned out to have a governor on it that limited acceleration and top speed to something any Honda Odyssey owner would find comfortable.

I'm not sure whether it was that guy's doing or is that's something directly from Tesla itself but we both thought it was hilarious.

Samsung makes three tablet lines: the A, which is a value product that isn't bad for around $200; The S6 Lite, which is a specific mid-tier offering that is updated less than annually and has its own model specs per release. There's also the full-fat Tab S line, which are premium tablets.

I have an S6 Lite from 2020, a Tab S8 and an S9+. The S8 has a fairly normal 10" screen and is actually my favorite of the bunch; I find the 12" screen on the S9+ too big since I mostly want a reading device rather than a watching or playing device. I use the S9+ as a portable monitor and video capture device for my camera when I'm shooting photos with models. It's big and bright enough to see even in outdoors in broad daylight. All three of them have reasonable Qualcomm SoCs and big-boy amounts of RAM. All three of them have an SD card slot for big-boy storage. Newer Tab S series tablets are also water resistant, if you're someone who might use such a device in the bath or near a pool.

Not everybody wants to buy a premium Android tablet and I'll admit I don't pay full price for them either, but they're superb hardware, and I have no problem recommending the S6 Lite or the comparable Lenovo M11 for general use. Those aren't waterproof and they don't have high end SoCs, but they have nice screens, work well in their intended ecosystem and they aren't saddled with a sub-par mobile OS like Apple or Amazon hardware.

Yes, I know it's possible to add the Play Framework to a FireOS device. The problem is that you have to fight to keep it that way since Amazon updates will eventually reset your settings. As far as I know, there's no cure for the limitations of iOS, which is why I'd never bother with an iPad.

I found Sonder because I was desperate to book a weeklong stay in Manhattan that didn't cost $2k and wasn't in some bedbug infested nightmare in Times Square. I was essentially checking every short term rental on Google Maps when I ran across it.

Once I got in their system, I found rentals everyplace I wanted to go. Getting a very cheap flight and a Sonder apartment has been my recipe for an interesting long weekend every few months ever since.

Sonder doesn't really have staff as such. The locations have maybe one cleaner, who doesn't enter your rental during your stay, and MAYBE one person in the lobby, if your location even has a lobby.

Your rental is an apartment, and like any apartment, you're responsible for cleaning your room and doing your own dishes while you're there. That's not to say that the lobby person couldn't stick a note under a door, but I understand that minimal staffing is one of the reasons Sonder rentals are so affordable.

The busiest Sonder I've ever visited had at most two employees in the building. Most of them, you'll never see an employee at all. I've only seen staff in downtown Chicago and in Manhattan and I've stayed at 14 different locations.

If you were looking for a live person to ask, you probably wouldn't find one.
On the other hand, they do get back to you instantly if you message them about something.

Or the people who made the web site were contractors and there's no one doing maintenance.
I have active (future) reservations and I still haven't gotten any direct notification that there's any operational status from the company yet, even though I've been seeing news about this for the last three days.

I've had a bunch of great stays in Sonder apartments. They're beautifully decorated and extremely affordable. I use them as locations for photo shoots as much as anything else, but getting a 3 bedroom apartment that's a block off Canal Street in New Orleans for $120/night, or a $900/week 2 bedroom apartment rental that's literally next door to the Brooklyn Bridge/City hall subway hub is about as nice as I could ever hope to find.

I've been at the point where Sonder has been my first choice for accommodations about the last three years. I'm actually impacted by this news since I had reservations to stay at Sonder locations in December and again in February.

When I got my newest Thinkpad, I immediately took it apart and swapped out the 16GB RAM and 250GB drive it shipped with and replaced them with 96GB RAM and a pair of 4TB drives, which cost me a total of around $600 over the ~$1700 I spent on the laptop. Apple wants US$7200 to get a laptop with 128GB RAM and 8TB of internal storage.

I'll take Lenovo's construction, input devices and global support every day of the week over what Apple offers. I've certainly never had to argue with Lenovo over how I'd prefer to have my notebooks serviced, whereas Apple support seems to think that "Just bring it to the closest Apple Store for a six-hour repair window" is a great answer for everything.

It's not uncommon to find white-box motherboards with a PS/2 port. I've seem them on contemporary AM5 boards from Gigabyte, Asrock and Asus; the Northgate Omnikey I'm typing on is still plugged in to a PS/2 port.