Listen. I hate google or any trade-based good/service. When you want something in return for what you offer, is not good... I have created a manjaro spin - see tromjaro.com/ - and I've used Linux for many years now. I also curate through thousands of Linux apps to find trade-free ones. I wrote books, made videos, documentaries, etc. about how much I hate these trade-based services like Google. But ....

So. We have this situation: MOM has hundreds of thousands of photos and videos. They are not organized. She wants them on her phone and laptop. Synced. Magically. She wants to share them on Facepalm or whatever networks. She wants to be able to do some simple editing too (rotate, crop, luminosity). She needs a simple interface and a simple solution overall. She does not understand much about computers. She thinks Facebook is the Internet, and a Fire Fox does not exist despite her using it daily.

My parents :)

They both use TROMjaro Linux as their daily distros for many years now.

So I want to help MOM deal with her photos. She basically take photos and videos with her phone, a lot of them, and wants an easy access to them. I tried many Linux apps and sync methods, and all are not sufficient. Most gallery apps do not allow you to set it up to keep an eye on a particular folder for new additions, and the ones who do are either broken or work but lack other features.

What I managed to do:

Install Syncthing on the Phone and Laptop. Sync her phone's camera folder with a local folder on her laptop. Then use FreeFileSync to one-way sync this local folder to one on her external HDD where all of the photos are (I had to involve cron jobs for this to work...). I do this so that she has a copy of them on her machine, since she can't store so much on her phone. This way, if she deletes the photos from her phone, they wont be deleted from her external HDD. So now we have an external HDD with all of her photos and videos. I then use Shotwell as the photo gallery app and set it up to keep an eye on that entire drive.

Great! Great? ...

This is how it looks like:

Not bad. Except for a few very annoying things.

• If she wants to see the photos from 2010 she can't just click 2010. She needs to also click the month, and the day....
  

  

  
  This is really annoying. You can't see all of your photos from a particular year....
• She can't edit them. Well....Shotwell has a super basic editor that is kinda ancient, but the issue is that whatever changes she does, Shotwell does not change them for the photo itself, but for Shotwell...nondestructive photo editing. I have no clue what is this useful for. Basically you edit the photo but is only inside Shotwell...forever. The second option I set up for her is to right click a photo and edit with an external editor like GThumb. GThumb is great for simple editing. But to use 2 apps for such simple things....

Not to mention Shotwell is super slow...

So yeah we have to do gymnastics. At times the Syncthing app on her phone does not work and needs a restart, at times her external HDD disconnects (because she moves the laptop), so I am always on call to help her out.

Online alternatives?

I looked and looked at online alternatives...but can't find anything that works well or is cheaper than google photos. If I am to setup a NextCloud for her it would cost me twice as much + a lot of work. Plus, what about backups ha!? Currently she syncs the HDD to another one on my computer....local backups...with Syncthing... If NextCloud would be cheaper and had a decent photos apps I would consider trying.

I am tired.

I really tried to find a trade-free solution for this. With local drives, with open source software....but for so many photos and her needs, that are (let's be honest) similar to what most people need, then I honestly will go for a 10 Euros a month google photos subscription for her... She will have 2TB of storage, an app that integrates perfectly fine with her Android phone, a webapp for the laptop. A really good photo viewer, editor, and manager. It is super simple to use and works well. She will have the photos everywhere....backups are not an issue, google takes care of that...

I hate to do this but after years of trying I am tired and I cannot find a decent solution. If anyone knows a better way to do this, let me know....

I remember in 2013 when I started to work with TVP and we released TVP Magazine. It felt like "we are doing it". That's it. People are paying attention. I got enough financial support to work for a few years and I was on fire. I produced lots of content and was so engaged. Then TVP died for me, and many others. That's because the closer I got to them, the more I realized it had no substance. Unfortunately. The ideas of Fresco were and are still quite important and inspirational. But they are just that, inspirational. And the organization was ran like a company plus they didn't do much anyway.

But well, I feel nostalgic at times because of that feeling of thinking that this is big. Important. Something will happen.

Since I moved away from TVP in 2016 I tried to bring that feeling back to TROM. But not artificially. It just so happened that I discovered that the entire structure of our society is based on trade, and this simple explanation provides us with a fantastic tool to try and change the society. Trade-Free.org was born. A few people got very excited. We met in 2019. We had plans. It died.

But not for me and a handful few. Unlike in the case of TVP, who was a cloud and the closer you got the more you realized it had no shape, our new approach was like a drop of water. From distance you may not see it, but the closer you got to it the more you realized that it had a shape, a structure, a form. TROM has substance and I dare anyone to challenge it :).

My excitement got even higher, but in different ways. I realized the race is long. And it takes time to get the idea behind TROM. TVP looked a lot more attractive but it was deceiving. TROM is the opposite in all regards.

I still love the idea of TVP/Jacque. But as inspirational. And I still feel sad that I do not see excitement in anyone really....but the TROM II documentary has some potential to bring some of that back. And as long as I am alive and have some money/support, I can keep on pushing things. After TROM II will be released I have a lot of plans, I will focus a lot on more content, videos, books, discussions and debates.

It is a long journey folks. And this society is not our friend, quite the opposite. I am trying to keep myself calm and sane. We have a lot to do. And I don't care if I am to do this alone. I probably will, one way or another. But likely there will be others too, pushing this further.

TROM II. Can't wait to release it. Whenever that will be.... #tromlive

PeerTube does it very well when it comes to the Federation-Moderation. Listen!

PeerTube allows you, the admin, to keep your instance clean. Nice rhyme! :)

You can follow any instance, channel, user that you want. Restrict the search to only these. And so when people use your PeerTube they see your curated content only, even when they search for something. While at the same time any user on your PeerTube can still subscribe, watch, and interact with ANYONE on any other PeerTube instances. That's how it should be.

A balance between having tremendous control over your own instance, but at the same time do not break the fediverse by cutting ties with other instances. Yes, PeerTube also gives admins the option to ban entire instances or users, but the fact that they give these positive reinforcers like mentioned above, makes an instance admin not want to use these "nuking" options.

This is because I and others have insisted that they provide us with these tools. We suggested to them what to implement and it works! My instance was full of crap, even after I started to manage it in terms of what users can upload on our PeerTube. But after they introduced custom homepages, the ability to follow channels, instances, users and limit the trending, discover, the search and the like, to only these, since then my instance is a fuck ton cleaner. So it works.

Why in the name of the fediverse I, the admin, may want to block any other instance when I have so much control over my own!?

Oh, and PeerTube also allows any user to quickly block any user and even delete all at once all of their comments from their videos. So imagine if someone trolls you on PeerTube, with 1 click you ban them from ever posting and also delete ALL of their comments on ALL of your videos.

Give users the power to protect themselves and make it very easy to do so. And give admins the power to keep their instances clean without the need of cutting ties with any other instances, something that will affect all users and have a slippery slope effect.

Don't break the fediverse :D #tromlive