Saw this Robin sitting on a nearby branch while I was out with the camera earlier, so tried to get a photo. It was just dark enough that I couldn't quite tell if it was in focus, and I was using a manual focus lens. I thought I'd got it right, but the flash scared the bird away :(

We've all had one of those moments where we saw something that would make a great photo, but either didn't have a camera, or couldn't get the shot in time, so what's yours? Which missed opportunity sticks in your mind?

I've got two, and they're both quite recent. The first was a cat in my garden. I was sitting in my chair watching TV, and I noticed something in the corner of my eye in the garden. I looked up, and there was a black and white cat strolling along an animal trail towards the house, with a mouse almost perfectly centred in its mouth. The cat was perfectly framed along the path, with trees and greenery in the background that I know from experience blur nicely with my zoom lens. Unfortunately, my zoom lens was attached to my camera in another room, where I'd been taking the photos from the previous day off.

The second was a huge bird, a Cormorant I believe. It was sitting on a large pole in a nearby lake, sunning itself and preening. I took a load of photos over about half an hour or so, but couldn't get one that I was happy with. They were decent, but the bird was just sitting there, so nothing particularly interesting. I swapped hands with the camera for a while as my arm was aching, and the little bastard stood up, squirted a massive stream of shit into the water, and settled back down. The whole thing only lasted a second or so, and I couldn't get the camera back up in time. It barely moved again before I had to leave 15 minutes later >.<

I manage a handful of small websites and have recently switched from Windows to Mint. I was using PortableApps to keep the sites separated, and for the moment want to do the same. I've set up VirtualBox with a cut down Windows 10 installation, and added the root folder of the websites as a shared folder, so Websites/Site1, Websites/Site2 etc. The root folder is still on an NTFS drive.

So far, everything works, except I can't run the PortableApps suite from the shared folder in VirtualBox. PortableApps runs and updates, but the apps don't work properly. Thunderbird is ok but has random glitches, Firefox launches but sites don't load, and Chrome instantly closes. If I copy the folder for the individual site into the virtual machine though, it works perfectly.

I'm assuming that it's a permissions problem, as the NTFS drive is owned by me but is in the root group, but copying the files to the virtual machine copies them to the vboxuser group, which I'm a member of. The fstab entry for the drive is:

UUID=BAB4BFE2B4BF9EF7 /mnt/Storage ntfs defaults,uid=tippon 0 2

but from what I can gather, it should have my UID and GID instead. The examples and questions I've found online have some extra details at the end with no explanation though, like dmask=022, fmask=133, and I don't want to risk editing my fstab without understanding them.

So, to finally get to the question, if I replace uid=tippon with uid=1000,gid=1000 (my user and group), would that let me access the files from within VirtualBox, as well as whichever other programs I might want to use, and would it break anything?

Hi all :)

I've got a media server set up running Navidrome, Calibre-Web, and Immich along with some other services, and want to get access to them from outside the house now. I've read that Caddy is good for securing things by making it easier to set up encryption, but I'm not sure I understand that side of things.

I've set up a Cloudflare tunnel for a Minecraft server, and I've got Tailscale installed but not set up with an exit server yet, but understand that Caddy would be better. I ideally want to set up apps on my wife's phone so that she can access the libraries too.

Is it just a case of installing Caddy and setting up the services I want to share through it? That seems too easy, like I've missed something.

If it makes any difference, I've got a standard UK ISP router with a few ports forwarded, and I'm going to add an access point and then a LevelOne GEP-5070 managed switch to learn about things like VLANs. The link to the switch is here:

https://mayflex.com/shop/product/GEP-5070

I feel like I'm missing something, but can't think what, so I'd be grateful for any help :)

Hi all :)

I need to replace my Xiaomi Mi 10t Lite 5g, so my wife has agreed to buy me a replacement for Christmas. I'm clueless when it comes to phone chipsets though, so I need some help.

I posted a similar request last year for my wife, and we're in pretty much the same boat now, so I've quoted the relevant part of that post below. The main differences are, she went for a Motorola Moto G85, but I can't stand the wraparound screen, and if possible, I'd like to get a phone with usb 3 that can potentially act as a desktop replacement and connect to AR glasses, but the last part isn't important.

The main things she needs are, decent battery life, an SD card, NFC, and more than 64GB of internal storage. If the OS can be changed in the future to get security updates, that would be a bonus. Given the direction that they seem to be going, with collecting data and locking down the bootloader, I'd prefer to move away from Xiaomi if possible.

The catch is though, we're on a small budget. Thanks to Christmas, we've only got around £200 to £250 to spend. If there's a significant upgrade, we can go to about £300, but that's a stretch.

I did look at the Poco M6 Pro, the Samsung A55, and the Tecno Spark 20 Pro, which seems to be ridiculously cheap, but don't know if they're still considered decent.

Thanks :)

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot this bit. Pixels are no good for me because of the lack of SD card support. I'm regularly in places with no internet connection, so keep my media on my SD card.

Before anyone says it, yes, I know it's shit, and that Microsoft are awful, but my wife needs Office, so I get a couple of accounts with 1TB of storage for free, so I may as well use it.

I've got my PC, my laptop, and a Synology DS216 (I think) NAS that I want to keep synced and backed up. I was using Onedrive on the PC to sync to their online storage, and using Syncthing to keep the laptop and Synology updated, but they just mirrored the PC. The PC was the only one that could write to the folder.

I want to keep the PC and laptop synced in both directions, and use the Synology and Onedrive as extra copies. I know it's not a proper backup, but it's better than nothing for the moment.

Would I be better off installing Onedrive, or Abraunegg's version, on the three systems and letting it sync, or putting Onedrive on the Synology and using Syncthing to keep the folders synced?

I'll have Onedrive on the Synology either way, and I'll be using Syncthing on all three to keep my music synced with my media server, so I'm mostly wondering whether people think it's better to let just the Synology sync to Onedrive, or to have a client on each device.

The three devices are pretty much always used in the same house, but very occasionally the laptop is taken out, almost always to somewhere with an internet connection.

Thanks :)

We all know that having a chronic illness can be difficult and depressing, so this is a thread about the silly things that have happened as a result of our illnesses and disabilities.

Please keep them silly or funny, there's enough depressing stuff on Lemmy these days 🙂

This is my particular piece of stupidity 😁

About 15 years ago I was seriously ill, several weeks in hospital including a coma and a lot of rehab. In the meantime, my wife had moved us in with my mother while work was being done on our house.

When I got home from the hospital, I was excited to get back online to catch up with my friends, so picked my computer up and ran up the stairs. I got about three steps up and literally got stuck, my legs just wouldn't move.

I had to get my wife to squeeze past me on the stairs and take my computer, while I got back down, took the computer back so that she could get down, then give it back to her to put down.

Slightly embarrassing, but always makes me laugh 😁

I squeezed in a few extra electrons, but I'm not sure if it's enough. Do you think it will last a full day?

I thought of this after seeing the post from @negativenull@lemmy.world yesterday :D

I've got a Mi 10t Lite 5g that's starting to show its age, and could do with a factory reset to clear some of the crap. Ideally I want to unlock the bootloader and try some custom ROMs too.

It's been years since I did a backup without moving to a new phone, so I don't know the best way to do it anymore. What's the best way these days?

Hi all :)

I bought the Fire HD 8 a few years ago, and I want to be able to use it for books from other stores. I like the format and layout, so I'm happy to keep it, but I want to make it more useful.

I've got KOReader set up on my phone, and Calibre on my PC, and from what I've read, setting up Calibre Web with KOReader seems to be the way to go. I want to make sure that I've got it right though. The main things I want to do are to sync my book progress between the Fire and my phone, ideally without having to download the books separately to each device, and to be able to read epubs from anywhere, not just specific stores.

Is it just a case of getting Calibre Web set up and telling KOReader to use it as a source, or do I need to do anything else? Thanks :)

Can anyone tell me how can I flatten a Minecraft heart please? I've put this together:

https://www.instructables.com/MineCraft-Heart-wood/

but I've noticed that it bows slightly. I've managed to get the ends to raise slightly when I've screwed it together. The top needs to be smoothed too, as there are some small differences between the pieces. Both sides are only off by a millimetre or two, but it's enough to be noticeable.

My thinking is to clamp it down at the centre, which seems to be mostly flat on both sides, then sand the top until it's level, then flip it over and clamp the edges to smooth the bottom.

Are there any likely problems with doing it this way, or is there a better way of doing it? Thanks in advance :)