Notes for Podcast:
Julio rambles about some things he’s done this past week to be more productiveContact info:
Useful Links:
[00:00:08]
Julio From NY:
This is Julio's Corner, my corner of the Internet where I talk about whatever is on my mind. I'll mostly talk about stuff I've watched, read, or listened to. But sometimes, I may ramble on about the news or politics or in society at large. This episode is being recorded on Sunday, 11/30/2025. And welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Julio, from New York. So like the last episode, I'm gonna try to go script it again because I think I enjoy the results of episode 24. At the very least, it was, much easier to edit because of the script. So here it goes.
For anyone that knows me, I have a tendency to hyperfocus on things. I think the thing that I'm hyperfocusing on at the moment are things that I can control in my life. I think this past year is the reason for it. Because of how dire everything seemed since the election results last November, and then the fascistic actions of the current administration, making the world around me seem so dystopic. I was heavily into escapism. And in the eye of this dark storm, a glimmer of hope and light in the name of Zoran Mamdani appeared. And I started feeling a little bit more optimistic again.
I felt like I could crawl out of my safe space a bit and see what possibilities were available to me. I'm listening to the majority report again and finding myself smiling at times because it isn't all depressing news anymore. This has, in some ways, led me to look for other things I can do around me. First, it was letting my facial hair grow out. I've been clean shaven pretty much all my life except for maybe three months back in college. And I figured why not see how a full beard would look on me? It's been about two weeks so far, and I'm pretty pleased with the results so far with the speckles of gray whiskers about my face. Then the YouTube algorithm started showing me different videos on people who are switching to Linux because of all the Windows 11 hate, which has piqued my interest to learn about, using that OS again. I've attempted to install Linux two times in the past, and both times were failures that required assistance to reinstall Windows on my old PCs.
This time around, I'm thinking of taking the time to really learn about Linux some more so I have a basic foundation of terminal commands and things like that before I make another installation attempt. Anyways, watching several of these Linux related videos got me thinking about privacy again. I was seeing videos of people making their own remote servers to avoid the corporate eyes of Microsoft, Google, and Apple with Linux, NAS hardware, Nextcloud software, and other iterations. Now as awe inspiring as these videos were, I felt motivated to see what steps I can take with what I currently already know. I won't be leaving iCloud anytime soon since I'm currently neck deep in the Apple ecosystem, but there are other steps I can do right now.
First is to limit what Google services I'm still using. A few months ago, when I felt trapped in the dystopic cloud of despair, I was like, why the hell not let Google have it all? And I switched back to Gmail and was looking at what other Google services I can use outside of Apple, like contacts and calendars. Well, no more. Those days of being a product for Google services are once again over. I can take my email, contacts, and calendars back with a more privacy minded email service. And by privacy, I mean that the service I'm using doesn't make a habit of scanning my emails for their commercial purposes. I'm not going to bother with PGP or end to end encryption email services or things like that because frankly, I don't get personal emails. I only get newsletters and bills, so end to end encryption is pointless.
I use messaging apps with people instead for those situations. So I signed up with Fastmail and use integration to get all my emails from iCloud and Gmail sent over to my new account. I also set up my custom domain emails, contacts, and calendars with Fastmail. This doesn't sound like much, but I felt elated with my results. Another topic that popped up on my YouTube algorithm was web browser reviews for privacy. I've been a Firefox browser user for quite some time and only have Chrome installed on my Mac for the rare instances where a website will only work with Chrome. So, apparently, Firefox has changed some of their practices, and it isn't as privacy focused as I previously thought. After watching a few more videos, Brave seemed to be the best browser for my purposes.
The other benefit is that Brave uses Chromium as a foundation. To me, I believe this means those Chrome only websites will work fine on Brave. So with Brave installed on my Mac, I can get rid of both Firefox and Chrome. I found some videos that helped me tweak the settings of Brave to ensure my privacy, installed some of my favorite extensions, installed the mobile apps on my iPhone and iPad, and synced my bookmarks across all my devices. I thought I was all set with my main web browser. But then, I heard about the man behind the Brave browser. His past issues being a former CEO of Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, and his right wing slash libertarian leanings and other things.
I was already a little hesitant about Brave because of how it is interlaced with crypto and web three point o, but I thought I could let that go once I toggled all those features off. But add to that with the man behind the browser, and I had to sigh and look again. At the very least, I'll use Brave in place of Chrome, but I need a new main browser. The next on my list was Waterfox, which is a variant of Firefox. So I thought of giving that a shot. However, it doesn't exist on iOS, and it's having some issues with my password manager. So I'm gonna stick with, DuckDuckGo and Safari on my iPad and iPhone for now, and I'm still on a search for another main browser.
That leads me to podcasting. Buzzsprout has been perfect in every way but price. I decided to review Pod Home again and what they offer. I do like their transcript feature, their unlimited uploads, and it's cheaper than Buzzsprout. My one gripe with them was their bad looking website and lack of contact options for listeners. I decided to let that go for now. At the very least, I have an email people can reach me if they want. When I went to their site, I also saw that they had a Black Friday offer that gives you six months of free service. Well, this was the perfect time to try it out again. I signed up, imported my feed, and set up my web page. And what do you know? I also figured out how to create a contact page on Pod Home. It's not pretty, but it's functional. This past week has been very productive, and I thought I checked all my initial boxes until I discovered something Friday night while at work.
KeePassXC and KeePassium now support passkeys. Now for those of you that don't know what those are, they are free open source password managers. I'm heavily into cybersecurity as much as a non certified cybersecurity expert can be. So naturally, I've been using password managers for as long as I knew of their existence, sometime in the early to mid two thousands. My current password manager is 1Password, and I've been using them for some time. At one point, they sold software licenses, and you could use, that license application for as long as that version of their product was functional and supported. Around 2016, 1Password started a subscription model alongside their licensed versions that you could own. By 2022, with the release of 1Password eight, they became a subscription only model. It was at that time that I decided to dabble with KeePass XC. It was just as effective as 1Password, albeit not as aesthetically pleasing, but with the advantage of being able to keep my passwords offline if I was feeling extra paranoid about my security. You could also share your database across your devices, with your cloud service of choice, like Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, etcetera.
Using KeePassXC as my daily driver made me think about switching completely over and canceling one password, but then something happened. One password announced that they were going to support passkeys in 2023. Passwords, as you know, can be a pain to remember, which is why password managers are the way they go. However, most people, not me mind you, decide to either use the same password for all their online accounts or use a very easy one to guess, which makes them very vulnerable to hacking. Passkeys are supposed to be the final solution to that. The way it works is that you use one password or some other device of software that has passkey support and register that to your online account, thereby removing passwords from the whole login process. I, of course, was an early adapter of passkeys and used my one password account to save them. KeePassXC did not have passkey support, so I decided to just stay with one password. But now, three years later, they do have support, and this gives me the chance to switch back to KeePassXC once again and have complete control of my security instead of trusting one password to to keeping that information safe on their servers.
Also, with the trend of subscription services upping their prices periodically, I don't wanna fall victim to another price hike on something that I would be forced to pay for my security. Better I just switch to the free open source option and call it a day. So to sum up, I made my emails more private. I found more privacy minded and secure web browsers. I switched to another podcast host that will better suit my needs, and I will start the transition of switching password managers. All that's left on my checklist is learning how to use Linux and installing it on a PC laptop I have hanging around that needs an upgraded system now that Windows 10 is no longer supported. I wonder what will come next after Linux. And that wraps up the show.
If you are watching this on YouTube, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. If you have any questions, comments, or any thoughts you'd like to share, you can reach me by clicking on the contact me link in the show notes. If you're feeling extra generous, you can click on the donate link in the show notes and send money my way. This show is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution four point zero international license. This means you can share this episode, remix it, do whatever you want, just say where you got it from. And as always, thank you for listening.
This is Julio's Corner, my corner of the Internet where I talk about whatever is on my mind. I'll mostly talk about stuff I've watched, read, or listened to. But sometimes, I may ramble on about the news or politics or in society at large. This episode is being recorded on Sunday, 11/30/2025. And welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Julio, from New York. So like the last episode, I'm gonna try to go script it again because I think I enjoy the results of episode 24. At the very least, it was, much easier to edit because of the script. So here it goes.
For anyone that knows me, I have a tendency to hyperfocus on things. I think the thing that I'm hyperfocusing on at the moment are things that I can control in my life. I think this past year is the reason for it. Because of how dire everything seemed since the election results last November, and then the fascistic actions of the current administration, making the world around me seem so dystopic. I was heavily into escapism. And in the eye of this dark storm, a glimmer of hope and light in the name of Zoran Mamdani appeared. And I started feeling a little bit more optimistic again.
I felt like I could crawl out of my safe space a bit and see what possibilities were available to me. I'm listening to the majority report again and finding myself smiling at times because it isn't all depressing news anymore. This has, in some ways, led me to look for other things I can do around me. First, it was letting my facial hair grow out. I've been clean shaven pretty much all my life except for maybe three months back in college. And I figured why not see how a full beard would look on me? It's been about two weeks so far, and I'm pretty pleased with the results so far with the speckles of gray whiskers about my face. Then the YouTube algorithm started showing me different videos on people who are switching to Linux because of all the Windows 11 hate, which has piqued my interest to learn about, using that OS again. I've attempted to install Linux two times in the past, and both times were failures that required assistance to reinstall Windows on my old PCs.
This time around, I'm thinking of taking the time to really learn about Linux some more so I have a basic foundation of terminal commands and things like that before I make another installation attempt. Anyways, watching several of these Linux related videos got me thinking about privacy again. I was seeing videos of people making their own remote servers to avoid the corporate eyes of Microsoft, Google, and Apple with Linux, NAS hardware, Nextcloud software, and other iterations. Now as awe inspiring as these videos were, I felt motivated to see what steps I can take with what I currently already know. I won't be leaving iCloud anytime soon since I'm currently neck deep in the Apple ecosystem, but there are other steps I can do right now.
First is to limit what Google services I'm still using. A few months ago, when I felt trapped in the dystopic cloud of despair, I was like, why the hell not let Google have it all? And I switched back to Gmail and was looking at what other Google services I can use outside of Apple, like contacts and calendars. Well, no more. Those days of being a product for Google services are once again over. I can take my email, contacts, and calendars back with a more privacy minded email service. And by privacy, I mean that the service I'm using doesn't make a habit of scanning my emails for their commercial purposes. I'm not going to bother with PGP or end to end encryption email services or things like that because frankly, I don't get personal emails. I only get newsletters and bills, so end to end encryption is pointless.
I use messaging apps with people instead for those situations. So I signed up with Fastmail and use integration to get all my emails from iCloud and Gmail sent over to my new account. I also set up my custom domain emails, contacts, and calendars with Fastmail. This doesn't sound like much, but I felt elated with my results. Another topic that popped up on my YouTube algorithm was web browser reviews for privacy. I've been a Firefox browser user for quite some time and only have Chrome installed on my Mac for the rare instances where a website will only work with Chrome. So, apparently, Firefox has changed some of their practices, and it isn't as privacy focused as I previously thought. After watching a few more videos, Brave seemed to be the best browser for my purposes.
The other benefit is that Brave uses Chromium as a foundation. To me, I believe this means those Chrome only websites will work fine on Brave. So with Brave installed on my Mac, I can get rid of both Firefox and Chrome. I found some videos that helped me tweak the settings of Brave to ensure my privacy, installed some of my favorite extensions, installed the mobile apps on my iPhone and iPad, and synced my bookmarks across all my devices. I thought I was all set with my main web browser. But then, I heard about the man behind the Brave browser. His past issues being a former CEO of Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, and his right wing slash libertarian leanings and other things.
I was already a little hesitant about Brave because of how it is interlaced with crypto and web three point o, but I thought I could let that go once I toggled all those features off. But add to that with the man behind the browser, and I had to sigh and look again. At the very least, I'll use Brave in place of Chrome, but I need a new main browser. The next on my list was Waterfox, which is a variant of Firefox. So I thought of giving that a shot. However, it doesn't exist on iOS, and it's having some issues with my password manager. So I'm gonna stick with, DuckDuckGo and Safari on my iPad and iPhone for now, and I'm still on a search for another main browser.
That leads me to podcasting. Buzzsprout has been perfect in every way but price. I decided to review Pod Home again and what they offer. I do like their transcript feature, their unlimited uploads, and it's cheaper than Buzzsprout. My one gripe with them was their bad looking website and lack of contact options for listeners. I decided to let that go for now. At the very least, I have an email people can reach me if they want. When I went to their site, I also saw that they had a Black Friday offer that gives you six months of free service. Well, this was the perfect time to try it out again. I signed up, imported my feed, and set up my web page. And what do you know? I also figured out how to create a contact page on Pod Home. It's not pretty, but it's functional. This past week has been very productive, and I thought I checked all my initial boxes until I discovered something Friday night while at work.
KeePassXC and KeePassium now support passkeys. Now for those of you that don't know what those are, they are free open source password managers. I'm heavily into cybersecurity as much as a non certified cybersecurity expert can be. So naturally, I've been using password managers for as long as I knew of their existence, sometime in the early to mid two thousands. My current password manager is 1Password, and I've been using them for some time. At one point, they sold software licenses, and you could use, that license application for as long as that version of their product was functional and supported. Around 2016, 1Password started a subscription model alongside their licensed versions that you could own. By 2022, with the release of 1Password eight, they became a subscription only model. It was at that time that I decided to dabble with KeePass XC. It was just as effective as 1Password, albeit not as aesthetically pleasing, but with the advantage of being able to keep my passwords offline if I was feeling extra paranoid about my security. You could also share your database across your devices, with your cloud service of choice, like Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, etcetera.
Using KeePassXC as my daily driver made me think about switching completely over and canceling one password, but then something happened. One password announced that they were going to support passkeys in 2023. Passwords, as you know, can be a pain to remember, which is why password managers are the way they go. However, most people, not me mind you, decide to either use the same password for all their online accounts or use a very easy one to guess, which makes them very vulnerable to hacking. Passkeys are supposed to be the final solution to that. The way it works is that you use one password or some other device of software that has passkey support and register that to your online account, thereby removing passwords from the whole login process. I, of course, was an early adapter of passkeys and used my one password account to save them. KeePassXC did not have passkey support, so I decided to just stay with one password. But now, three years later, they do have support, and this gives me the chance to switch back to KeePassXC once again and have complete control of my security instead of trusting one password to to keeping that information safe on their servers.
Also, with the trend of subscription services upping their prices periodically, I don't wanna fall victim to another price hike on something that I would be forced to pay for my security. Better I just switch to the free open source option and call it a day. So to sum up, I made my emails more private. I found more privacy minded and secure web browsers. I switched to another podcast host that will better suit my needs, and I will start the transition of switching password managers. All that's left on my checklist is learning how to use Linux and installing it on a PC laptop I have hanging around that needs an upgraded system now that Windows 10 is no longer supported. I wonder what will come next after Linux. And that wraps up the show.
If you are watching this on YouTube, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. If you have any questions, comments, or any thoughts you'd like to share, you can reach me by clicking on the contact me link in the show notes. If you're feeling extra generous, you can click on the donate link in the show notes and send money my way. This show is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution four point zero international license. This means you can share this episode, remix it, do whatever you want, just say where you got it from. And as always, thank you for listening.
