Over the past year and a half I have been encouraged (or forced) to become more mobile and less static with my data for a number of reasons that I will write about below. None of this is meant to be a guide or even casual advice, as it is all very much tailored to my life circumstances, this is more of a semi-structured rant :)
Privacy and 'going analog': This is a well covered topic, everyone knows that pretty much all modern software and hardware is 'spying' on them, and almost always in an attempt to sell you some shit or 'improve' some generative LLM/'AI' with a weird name. "If something is 'free', the real price is your data", "The exchange of privacy and data for convenience stopped being so convenient and beneficial over time" (ads everywhere, TOS updates every five seconds, prices increase, what's on offer decreases, + more, you get the idea). After learning more about the scope of all this, I decided to take stuff off the internet/social media/cloud storage that I realised I didn't have 'full control' over. I had some very frustrating and enlightening (derogatory) experiences while doing this, shit like finding out my notes app shares data with third parties, and some popular online calendar services have no way to instantly wipe all data (requiring manual calendar entry deletion). After trying out some privacy respecting FOSS apps for notes and calendar, I decided to just go 'analog' with physical notebooks and a calendar on my fridge. This is not a solution for everyone, especially if you are prone to losing stuff or have an unsafe/insecure home environment.
For me it works, basically every idea for every page and post on this site starts as a note in a cheap notebook (im not sharing photos coz my handwriting is dogshit XD I'd like to blame being a nurse in the past but its always been quick/sloppy). Subjectively, after trying this for over a year I feel that my memory recollection has improved a bit, might be that I'm not being as blasted by distracting 'content' all the time, but the calendar has been a bit hit/miss. I often forgot to switch months for like days/weeks and wasn't always checking it, but it's nice to have a cute calendar on display (got an animal crossing one for 2025, might look for a sanrio one this year). I still find the phone notifications from a calendar app to be necessary, I ended up sticking with the 'fossify' calendar as it's very simple and straightforward. I also have fossify notes, but rarely use it other than when I need to write something down when out of the house (don't want to take a physical notebook with me and risk losing it), but it is also very simple and easy to customize. This sort of covers that kind of external data that I was leaving in the hands of megacorps (derogatory), but I was also pushed to be more mobile with the data I have at home.
'Temporary' installs and PC issues: copilot bad, windows less good now, apple costs too much (you get the idea). I have had all computers in the house on Linux for over a year now, nary an NTFS in sight (thats a lie I havent converted every old external HDD, and I have an xbox series s (derogatory)). When I first switched to Linux on my custom built PC with an AMD graphics card (literally perfect circumstances) I was like "wow this is so good and free, why do people not like this", then I used it for longer and put it on more computers and was like "ohhhhhhhhh right". It is still the right choice for me, but I am not a 'power user', I don't have a job that requires specific software, and it's free. One caveat that does come with a lot of Linux distros though is the 'temporary' nature of their install. This has improved even in the time I have been a user, many distros like Mint now offer a simple 'upgrade' path without reinstalling and losing all your files/configurations. But not every distro does this, and while they might have long term support of five years or so, they may still need a fresh install at some point. And if you get into trying out multiple different distros, your 'test' is a temporary install, until you commit. This all kinda of got me into the habit of not 'settling' with data on most of my devices at home for a long time.
Then my main PC stopped working, the one place where I reeeeaaalllyyy had settled in data and something of a 'workflow' with this site and other projects (as much as an unproductive person can have). That was a very frustrating period, which I didn't resolve for about two months due to life stuff and taking time looking into potential causes/solutions. I worked out it was the motherboard that was busted, and that exact model is more expensive now than it was five years ago, then I found almost every other drop in replacement probably wouldn't work with the RAM I have, which then enlightened me to peak of the RAM price crisis. In the end I took it to a local repair shop that fixed the short in like 15 minutes, lmao. Luckily Linux is pretty accepting of most hardware you put it in, so I ripped the hard drives from my PC and put them into my optiplex, and everything worked as before apart from stuff that required a dedicated GPU (games).
This kinda reframed in my mind that a 'computer' is what you interact with, which is mostly the hard drive and OS, the home directory, and the apps, not the nice looking decorated case and other stuff inside. That kinda encouraged me to use any computer for any purpose from that point, especially since most of what I do doesn't require a heavier newer PC with a GPU (except some games). I ended up ripping my home directory onto an small external SSD, so it could just be plugged into anything. The only thing it can't work with is the setup I'm typing this on; my toshiba satellite C660, on a standing desk plugged into a spare monitor via VGA, as it doesn't have USB 3.0 and won't power the drive. The cooked solution for this cooked setup is just a cheap small USB 2.0 thumbdrive which I pull draft posts out of this laptop and onto a different computer to upload. I would probably just use my (now) main laptop but it's wifi is weak and it won't connect from 5m away like this 2012 laptop can (also this satellite has a much better keyboard anyway).
Backing up: I have also been getting more into backing stuff up properly, this isn't super related but it does involve juggling around/doubling up data between external drives for longer term storage. It recently came to my attention (can't remember where, sorry no source) that HDDs are apparently better for long term storage and 'cold' or untouched data storage. SSDs require powering on semi-regularly as their data is stored in an electric charge (from what I remember reading?), so if they are left untouched for over a year they can suffer data loss :O. Probably a good thing I coincidentally had a handful of external HDDs gathered over many years for this, and also good that I bought a bunch of SSDs last year for various devices I fixed up (and will regularly be used) because now SSDs are going the way of RAM $$$ (again so that 'AI' data centres can generate more useless slop more efficiently).
All of this has changed how I interact with tech in general, and how I use the physical hardware I have around my home. It's been fun to not be so entrenched in one computer all the time, and actually get to use this other hardware that would be sitting dormant otherwise. It has also got me regularly using other distros and software that I wouldn't have encountered normally, like typing this in Geany which has way better layouts and RSI reducing html tag automation than Mousepad or Mint's text editor, and the Fossify apps/F-droid itself.
Anyway, thanks for reading!