But Is Smart Launcher a good alternative to Nova Launcher? Nova Launcher is one of the most popular launchers on Android with over 100 million downloads since 2011. I started using Nova Launcher sometime in 2012 on my Galaxy Nexus, brining my configuration over to newer Android devices I’ve owned ever since. Nova Launcher was sold to Branch Metrics in 2022. This seemed far from ideal for a launcher that will always be running on your device, given Branch’s business model revolves around “analytics, attribution and user engagement measurement”. Nova however ended up pretty much abandoned under Branches ownership. As of 2026 Nova has been sold yet again to Instabridge, gaining even more trackers bundled with the launcher. When scanned with εxodus, a privacy audit platform for Android applications the trackers included with Nova Launcher include: Some are legitimate from a development point of view, such as Google CrashLytics and Google Firebase Analytics. However for me personally I felt it was time to move on to a new launcher as I don’t feel something running all the time on my phone should have all these trackers embedded. Enter Smart Launcher, which only has trackers for Google CrashLytics and Firebase, which…

The CWWK Q670 is certainly an interesting motherboard, especially if your goal is to build a low powered home NAS with up to 8x SATA hard drives. In summery I can get my CWWK Q670 NAS build to idle at 18w, that is with 4x hard drives spun down and various Docker containers running an NVMe drive. That is with some tweaking however, so do read on if you are interested in why I chose the CWWK Q670, the hardware I used and the tweaks I did to get down to 18w at idle running UnRaid. Firstly why the CWWK Q670? The CWWK Q670 supports 8x SATA hard drives natively via the Alder Lake-S PCH SATA Controller on the Intel 600 Series Chipset. In short this is ideal as this SATA controller supports ASPM, meaning we should be able to significantly reduce power usage when our NAS is idle and the hard drives are spun down. In addition we also do not need to use a PCI-E SATA controller to use all 8x drive bays, which would increase power consumption. Other cheaper Intel 11th or 12th Gen “NAS Motherboards” from Topton, BKHD and CWWK seem to use the JMB585 SATA…

Upgrading to pfSense 23.05.1-RELEASE on our Netgate SG-4860 caused the device to encounter an interrupt loop, leading to higher than usual CPU usage. This is actually mentioned in the release notes for pfSense 23.01: Devices based on “ADI” or “RCC” hardware, such as the 4860, 8860, and potentially other similar models, may have issues with the ichsmb0 and/or ehci0 devices encountering an interrupt loop, leading to higher than usual CPU usage (NG 8916). Despite that I never actually had any issues with pfSense 23.01, however upgrading to 23.05.1 caused this issue. Everything otherwise worked fine, so this was on my to look in to list due to having other projects ongoing. Anyway about two weeks later it would appear /var/log/system.log is now 17gb and our SG-4860 has run out of storage, meaning no configuration settings can be saved. I also could not access the console over a serial connection as I was simply spammed with “ichsmb0: interrupt loop, status=0x60” and unable to type anything, so not an ideal situation to be in. However the web-ui still functioned so I could access Diagnostics > Command Prompt du -Pshx /* allowed me to figure out something in /var was using all the…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog post, two and a half years it appears (or 938 days if we’re been exact!)

My last blog post was back in 2018 on EU Domains To Be Revoked From UK Citizens, Faith In .EU Domains Lost, this was rather concerning as I had no real desire to move away from my .eu domain name, it was short and summed up where in the world I was blogging from.

Needless to say this is one of the reasons that put me off blogging, what was the point if one day I’d loose that domain and not even be able to redirect any traffic to a newer domain? In addition I had various online accounts associated with this domain, so knowing I could loose the rights to it due to a political event, such as the UK leaving the EU was very concerning.

Exchange access to your Outlook.com or Hotmail.com inbox is now possible if you apply to join the new Outlook.com preview program. As mentioned above joining the Outlook.com preview program gets your email account converted in to an Exchange Inbox, meaning you can fully take advantage of Microsoft Outlook on the desktop. Changes you make to your inbox, calendar and contacts will sync in real time just like your Exchange inbox you might have at School or Work, as will the mail rules you create and so on. If you happen to be using Mac OS you can finally use your Outlook.com or Hotmail.com email account in the OSX Mail app or even Outlook for OSX without having to resort to using IMAP, meaning everything will sync and not just your email. If you have always wished your Outlook.com / Hotmail.com was a Microsoft exchange inbox then follow this link Outlook.com Preview Program Request Signup and get yourself on the list today. If you want to learn more about the new Outlook.com powered by Office 365 have a read of the New ways to get more done in Outlook.com blog by the Office 365 time.