DM 46:

 

TTT 46:

 

FFW 31:

 

Degoogling Special: Your Chromebook

 

Web Special: How-To’s and Some News

 

Weekend Edition 25:

 

Freedom Saturday Special: Desktop Environments 2

Switching to Linux is an undertaking, and should not be taken lightly. There is much to learn about the new OS that you should probably do via a secondary computer before you undertake the process on your daily driver computer. I can only show you so much in the Freedom Consultation, and if you are accustomed to certain keyboard shortcuts for things, you may need to set that up for yourself, once I show you how. Another thing that you may need to consider before making the switch is how and whether you use a desktop email client like Outlook, depending on the ways you use it, there may not be a great FOSS alternative for you. Fear not. I will work with you to find whatever there is, and to get it set up for you as best we can. What else is there? Other miscellaneous programs, such as PDF editors, photo editors, games, and the other things you are accustomed to on your computer. The same thing holds true, I will help you troubleshoot and find something that will work for you, as long as you let me know up front what you use and need to have, as well as nice-to-haves, in terms of software.

How to set keyboard shortcuts varies on the desktop environment. Each one has different customization capabilities, and some are far less configurable than others. Some can be overwhelming when you look at the settings options, where others look positively spartan in terms of user-configurability. Generally you will find whatever customizability options there are in any given desktop environment in the settings app, under Mouse & Keyboard > Shortcuts, or under Workspaces > Shortcuts. From there you should be able to set global shortcuts as well as ones for individual apps.  Some apps also have configurable keyboard shortcuts, but not all do.

What tools are you using on a regular basis right now? MS Office? Adobe Suite? Some other PDF editor? Which browser do you use? (Even Edge has a Linux port, though I don’t know why you’d want to use that spy-browser on a clean Linux install). What other apps do you need to have in order to do life the way you want to? These are major things to consider when planning to make the switch. 

I had a client that was totally immersed in MS Office, with muscle memory for shortcuts from Office 95 or earlier. She is still adjusting to using her secondary computer with entirely FOSS alternatives for that suite. It is hard though, because while there is compatibility, there is no such thing as 1:1 correspondence, owing to Microsoft’s patents on Office. There is constant development happening, though, so who knows, either LibreOffice or Only Office may just satisfy your needs. If not, it is possible to run MS Office in a virtual machine on your Linux computer. That is very involved, though. 

As for other apps, I had a different client who needed to edit PDFs in order to run his business. The FOSS PDF viewers are fine, but there are very few FOSS PDF editors. Those that do exist are sketchy at best, unfortunately. He had to pay for software to fulfill his needs, but in all likelihood, you’ll find that ocular or one of the other PDF viewers will suit you just fine for most things.

Other than that, we will work through things on a case by case basis with you.

Here are the last week’s memesplanations and devotion. I hope you are blessed by them.

Devotion from 1/29:

Memesplanation 1/30:

Memesplanation 1/31:

Memesplanation 2/1:

Memesplanation 2/2:

 

Memesplanation 2/3:

 

Memesplanation 2/4:

 

 

 

Yahoo Account Data Migration and Deletion

Yahoo email data can only be backed up via something like connecting it to Thunderbird and going the POP method.

From there, you should be able to make a zip archive of those emails… if you have been a heavy user for a long time, you may have several GB worth of emails and attachments, so the transfer and archival processes will likel take a fair amount of time, expecially if you have a slow internet connection.

Deleting your Yahoo! Account and data:

1. Visit Yahoo!’s Terminating your Yahoo! Account page.

2. Log in with your Yahoo! Account.

3. Type in your password to confirm your identity.

4. Type in the CAPTCHA code to confirm your humanity.

5. Click YES to delete your Yahoo! account. You’ll see a confirmation page if you successfully deleted your account.

How to set up Thunderbird for your Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail accounts

1) Use the Automatic Setup Wizard

1. Select the Service Provider (Yahoo, Hotmail, Google)

2. Enter your credentials (address/username and password, and it should automatically connect and begin to download your emails.

3. If that doesn’t work for some reason…

2) Use the Manual Setup Tool

1. Gather the following information from your provider (each provider is a little different, in terms of where you find this info)

   1. incoming mail server and port (for example, “pop.example.com” and port 110 or “imap.example.com” and port 143)

   2. outgoing mail server and port (for example, “smtp.example.com” and port 25)

   3. security setting for the connection with the server (for example, “STARTTLS” or “SSL/TLS” and whether or not to use secure authentication)

2. Input your credentials

3. Click OK, and if you put everything in correctly, the process of downloading your emails should begin.

Here are my news videos from this last week, conveniently compiled for you.

 

January 30:

January 31:

 

February 1:

Weekend Edition 22:

 

Download Account Data from Facebook, then Disable or Delete your account

Download:

Log into Facebook, click the down-triangle icon at top right, and choose Settings.

1. On the General Settings page, click the last item, the link to download a copy of your data.

2. Facebook warns that collecting data may take a while. Click Start My Archive.

3. On the next page, click Start My Archive again, and wait for a notification that it’s done.

4. Download your Facebook archive.

Delete Data while keeping the account

1. Sign in

2. Go to your profile

3. click the 3 dots on the top right, next to Edit Profile

4. Click Activity Log

   1. Posts

      1. Select as many as you wish to delete

      2. Click Trash

   2. Photos & Videos

      1. Go to your Profile ,

      2. Click Photos

      3. Albums

      4. Hover over each album you want to delete

      5. Click the 3 dots

      6. Delete Album for every Album you want to delete from your account

Keep Facebook from gathering more data on you

1. Similar to downloading your data, you’ll tap the triangle, then Settings > Your Facebook Information > Off-Facebook Activity > Manage Information

2. If you are ready to disconnect any sites or games that you have “signed on with Facebook” with, you can simply clear history. This will disconnect from those accounts, and delete the data mined through that.

3. Click Manage Future Activity > Toggle Off

Viola, you have just cleaned your data off of Facebook after downloading it to your computer. Would it really be a loss to permanently disable or delete your account altogether? Think about it.

Steps to finish the process by Permanently Disabling or Deleting your account:

1. From your main profile, click  in the top right of Facebook.

2. Select Settings & Privacy, then click Settings.

3. Click Your Facebook Information in the left column. If you have Facebook access to a page in the new Pages experience: Click Privacy, then click Your Facebook Information.

4. Click Deactivation and Deletion.

5. Choose Delete Account, then click Continue to Account Deletion.

6. Click Delete Account, enter your password and then click Continue.

How to archive your personal data from iCloud and then delete it from their servers

1) Sign in to appleid.apple.com on any device

1. Click Data & Privacy > Manage your Data and Privacy > Get a Copy of Your Data > Get Started
2. Click Select All at the bottom of the page
3. Verify your ID with Apple, then they will sort and compile it all for you, once it is done, they will let you know, and you’ll have access for 2 weeks to download that archive.

2) After you are able to download that data, do the following to delete everything else from your account, then disable, and/or delete the account, once you are totally Free from Apple otherwise.

1. Similarly to getting a copy of your data, the simplest way to delete it all (after you get the copy downloaded) is to Click Data & Privacy > Manage your Data and Privacy > Delete Your Account > Get Started
2. Review the information regarding the deletion of your account.
   1. Apple will verify any deletion requests and says the process could take up to seven days to complete.
3. Follow Apple’s recommended steps (back up your data, sign out of devices, etc.) before you delete your account.
4. Choose a reason for deleting your account using the pull-down menu.
5. Click Continue.
6. Review the information regarding the deletion of your account (again).
7. Click Continue.
8. Review the Deletion Terms & Conditions and check the box to confirm you’ve read and agree with the conditions.
9. Click Continue.
10. Choose a contact method that will be used to get account status updates.
11. Click Continue.
12. Write down or print out your unique access code.
    1. This will be used to verify your identity if you need to contact Apple Support.
    2. This code can also be used to cancel the account deletion process.
13. Enter the access code to confirm you’ve actually written it down.
14. Click Continue.
15. Click Delete account to delete your account and associated data.
16. Apple will start the verification process before deleting your account.
    1. Your account will remain active during this period.
    2. It could take up to seven days for the verification process to complete.