SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, SearXNG can be used over Tor for online anonymity.

My video covers how to pronounce SearXNG, what does it do exactly, some demo searches, user preferences, setting it as a browser default search, and some self-hosting answers to problems I faced with the Docker installation.

Intro 00:00

SearXNG Homepage: https://docs.searxng.org/

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #search #privacy #selfhosted #opensource

DaVinci Resolve for Linux free edition does not import or export any H.264 or H.265 codec files (whether in a MP4, HKV, or MOV container) nor does it work with AAC at all (The $299 Studio version only handles the H.264 and H.265 video codecs but not the AAC audio codec). This is said to be a Linux licensing issue, so will not be receiving support on the free version of DaVinci Resolve.

I explain in this video how two batch files will help convert any MP4 from cameras or other sources into ready to import straight into DaVinci Resolve on Linux. The second batch files transcodes the massive Quicktime file that DaVinci Resolve renders, into a smaller, universally compatible, and easier to MP4 file to share or upload to YouTube.

The video ends off by explaining how to otherwise import the DaVinci Resolve woking project into a Windows version of DaVinci Resolve, to render it using the free Windows edition which will render to H.264 or H.265.

Intro 00:00

DaVinci Resolve https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #davinciresolve #tutorial #linux

This is a great solution for scanning or uploading any documents, images, e-mails, etc into your own self-hosted solution for home or business use. Nothing is shared out to other services, and being self-hosted, it's not going to get hacked in someone's cloud either.

All documents are OCR'd for full text searching, and separately saved into PDF/A format.

It's a great way to organise all your family, or business, receipts, contracts, images, equipment manuals, e-mails, etc so that anyone with the permissions in the family or team can find them later.

If being organised is not your thing, I also do a quick demo at the end of a good full-text desktop indexer/searcher, as an alternative, that will find your documents scattered across your drive.

Intro 00:00

Paperless-ngx Website https://docs.paperless-ngx.com

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #opensource #documentmanagement #paperlessngx #selfhosting

StreamController is an elegant Linux application designed for the Elgato Stream Deck, offering advanced features like plug-ins and automatic page switching to enhance your streaming and productivity setup. It can support multiple Stream Decks together. A very useful feature is automatic page switching, which means you do not always need an available button on the deck's main page to switch to other pages, as those pages can be activated automatically when the app becomes active.

I'm using StreamController to view and manage my Home Assistant application, Kdenlive video editor, spreadsheet, Snowrunner and OpenBVE games, OBS Studio, and more. I demo this in the video and also show how buttons can be configured and used.

If you are a Windows user you may still find some of the use cases interesting to try out on the Elgato Windows software, and even if you don't yet own a Stream Deck, the video may help motivate why you could find one very useful. For Linux users, this also inspires the confidence to buy an Elgato Stream Deck, as you can see the level and type of support available right now for Linux users.

Intro 00:00

Website https://core447.com/

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #opensource #streamdeck #homeassistant #streamcontroller

War Thunder is a highly realistic battle game where players can choose from a number of armoured vehicles, tanks, ships, helicopters and planes represented for different countries. The player chooses a country and vehicle type, and works their way up from tier 1, progressing to higher tier vehicles as they gain battle experience. The vehicles are incredibly detailed and have characteristics that are closely resemble their real-world counterparts. An exception is often the premium vehicles that can be bought as they can have some enhanced features e.g. slightly faster turret rotation speed than the real-world vehicle. But each online battle tries to match players and similar vehicle tiers to ensure good game play.

I mentioned briefly in the video about World of Tanks which is another very popular tank battle game. Whilst World of Tanks focuses more on a faster-paced arcade type game with numerous points needed before knocking out an enemy vehicle, War Thunder can eliminate an enemy tank with just a single shot if it is very well placed. War Thunder has larger maps, more vehicle types, and plays at a slightly slower pace.

What to me is very interesting is it is the only online game I'm aware of that has a variety of South African military vehicles in it including the Eland, Ratel, Rooikat, Olifant tank, and even the Rooivalk attack helicoptor. The Ratel, for example, is considered to be the very first true wheeled ICV (Infantry Combat Vehicle) top enter military service anywhere in the world, and for its time was one of the best ICVs anywhere. It is regarded by most military analysts as the grandfather of all subsequent ICV designs. The Ratel became the backbone of the then SADF (now SANDF) mechanised battalions and served with distinction during 12 of the 26 years of the South African Border War.

Note though what War Thunder shows as the G6/Eland, is actually the G6 Rhino Self-Propelled Howitzer-Vehicle with 155mm artillery gun. The real Eland is a 4-wheel drive armoured car with a 60mm or 90mm quick-firing gun.

As a matter of interest, I'm playing War Thunder in Steam Games on Manjaro KDE Linux.

Intro about War Thunder 00:00

War Thunder website https://warthunder.com/en

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #gaming #warthunder #southafrica

This video explores what the Android app looks like, how to use the main screens, and what various settings and menu options it has. It gives a good feel of how you'd use Meshtastic radio communications from the app to control the radio settings and to communicate. I did a previous video that dealt with a non-technical intro to what Meshtastic radio is, and this is well worth just watching first if Meshtastic is completely new to you.

Meshtastic is license-free, so anyone can use it, and has really started picking up in popularity in the last year, so much so, that stock has often not been available for a month or two at a time. It's a really fun way to also connect to neighbours nearby, or keep in contact in the wilderness when out hiking.

Intro 00:00

Meshtastic website https://meshtastic.org/

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #meshtastic #radio

v7.1 has already fixed the focus issue within Memories for comments, a day after I posted this video

Memories is a fast, modern and advanced photo management suite, that installs quickly and easily inside Nextcloud. My video contrasts it with the Photos app that comes with Nextcloud, and highlights some reasons why you may want to use it instead of Photos. This app has face, object, landmark, place, and human action recognition capability through the Recognise app. It's not that obvious, but albums can be shared, and photos commented on, with other Nextcloud registered users using the underlying Nextcloud file commenting system.

Memories is a great way to collaborate and share photos privately with friends and family, and even to share public links to some of your albums. It can even work on a Raspberry Pi hosted in the home.

It also has apps for iOS and Android, which can optionally auto-upload photos into Memories.

By saving/reading titles and descriptions into the photo's EXIF headers means that importing or exporting out of Memories is a lot less of a chore with migrating between photo services.

Intro 00:00

Memories website https://memories.gallery/

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #photos #opensource #selfhosted #photography

CORRECTIONS:

This is an open source solution that works with inexpensive LoRa radios, and your mobile phone or laptop, to be able to pass messages directly, or in shared channels, between the various nodes with no Internet or mobile phone coverage required.

The intention of this video is to give a non-technical overview of what it could be used for, how it works, and what you can expect from it. This is not a "how-to configure it" or a field demo video. Hopefully the video helps motivate some new users to set up these nodes in their own cities, and thereby help this form of mesh off-grid communication be more effective across entire cities.

See also my overview of the Meshtastic Mobile App at https://youtu.be/GAGOkXUlbaY

Intro 00:00

Meshtastic website: https://meshtastic.org/

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #Meshatastic #offgrid #opensource

Unlike commercial service that store your photos in the cloud and scan/index them to train their machine learning models and collect ad targeting data on you, LibrePhotos keeps all your photos and metadata on your local machine. Your data is never sent to or stored on a 3rd party server. Get the same power as those commercial services without giving up your personal data and privacy.

In this video I contrast this service with Immich and Piwigo, looking at some of the features as well as potential shortcomings, before touring through the interface and the available menu settings.

Intro 00:00

Github at https://github.com/LibrePhotos/librephotos

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #librephotos #opensource #selfhosting #privacy

Immich is a really modern looking and responsive self-hosted solution for your photos and videos. It has a number of similarities to Google Photos and is often promoted as being the closest alternative right now to Google Photos. I've installed Immich on my VPS, connected it to my 13,000+ Piwigo photos, and been testing it out for the last week.

My review shows what is working well, and what I see as some potential shortfalls (as at Dec 2023) compared to Piwigo and other solutions. Immich is under very active development, so I'm sure some of these issues will be addressed in the coming year.

But if you are considering Immich, and are wondering how it compares to something like Piwigo, this video may be of help to you. Likewise, if you're trying to get Immich to connect to external libraries.

Intro 00:00

GitHub site https://github.com/immich-app

My daily tech blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/blog

#technology #Immich #selfhosting #opensource #GooglePhotos