JohnTHaller

Joined 16 years ago

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Member since
Oct 19
I'm the founder of PortableApps.com. I love building things and creating. And working/talking with like-minded folks. You can reach me via my personal site: JohnHaller.com
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Recent submissions

Comment · 9 days ago
The 'know how to code' part is a difference between classic Drupal and modern Drupal.

Drupal 7 was useful enough on its own and with regularly supported modules that most folks who used it never wrote code. Most smaller folks who used it just dropped the files on a shared web host via FTP or similar and ran with it.

Modern Drupal is more geared towards coders rather than smaller folks. And the modules suffer from slower updates with the smaller community around Drupal than there used to be. So you'll likely have to use your own custom coded modules or have to code the updates for the existing ones when you upgrade Drupal over time.

Comment · 10 days ago
I'm aware that the modern Drupal supports in-place upgrades for the most part, though white screen of death reports are still pretty common. My point was that there was a split from classic Drupal to modern 'you have to use the command line and should know how to code' Drupal in terms of upgrades from the 7 to 8 split-off.

From all my reading in the Drupal subreddit, modern Drupal isn't especially useful for real world scenarios without a bunch of contributed modules and stuff... hence Drupal CMS. Additionally, folks were recommending not using Drupal 11 until it had been out for well more than a year due to the sad state of contributed module upgrades. I'd wager this is due to the much smaller Drupal community than the version 7 highs.

Comment · 11 days ago
> Drupal CMS is working to solve some of this

We've been hearing this for years. On the Drupal site, it says it's a trial and makes you register to download it. Last time I downloaded the Windows package, it gave a Drupal white screen of death. I'm not planning on registering again to try it again. Nor do I want to use AI to install and manage my CMS.

Comment · 11 days ago
Drupal is now a very different animal than it was in the Drupal 7 heyday. It's confusing for folks used to WordPress and similar as you're not gonna be uploading it to a regular old shared hosting provider. There's no way you're using modern Drupal without SSH access and using command line to install and update. And thoroughly learning how the Drupal bits all work together.

Drupal CMS is what a lot of people suggest for new folks, but it isn't explained what it is on the Drupal website. It's apparently a set of pre-configured extensions, templates, AI, and settings. Drupal has a version on their site to download but it says it's a "trial" and requires registration to get it, further increasing friction: https://new.drupal.org/drupal-cms/trial#:~:text=start%20your...

Once you do get it, it may or may not work. When I last tried the Windows version, it didn't work and just gave the old Drupal white screen of death in the browser.

When I've seen discussions in the Drupal sub-reddit, most of the recommendations on how to do something seem to be some version of 'have Claude do it for you'. And the Drupal homepage is very AI forward and mentions AI 9 times.

Drupal's largest install base was back in the Drupal 7 days, which was the last major version that supported upgrading in place from the previous versions. Major compatibility changes started with 8 and continued. About 1/2 the sites that used to run Drupal 7 migrated to WordPress rather than upgrade. Today, there are about the same number of sites running Drupal 7 as the current Drupal 11, which speaks volumes.

As someone that still uses a paid, extended-support version of Drupal 7 and is likely switching my big legacy site to Backdrop CMS (actively maintained Drupal 7 fork) and my other two sites to another CMS, it doesn't seem like there's a place for folks like me in the current world of Drupal.

Comment · 15 days ago
I stopped using Twitter after they made it so the only way to avoid all of that was to individually block every single account. I spent a couple weeks clicking that I wasn't interested before it was obvious that you'd see Musk's rantings until you blocked him.
Comment · 17 days ago
"I wrote the prompt for Claude to generate this"

You didn't create it. Claude generated it based on ingesting source code of various licenses without adhering to said licenses.

Comment · 18 days ago
iOS does not allow third party browser engines. Every browser you download from the iOS App Store is using 'Safari Lite' under the hood. It's ostensibly for security, but it's more about control.
Comment · 22 days ago
The Tor statement doesn't mention the actual donation or party. Daniel Berntsson the co-owner of Mullvad, donated approximately US$500,000 to the far-right Örebro Party in Sweden. It's an ethno-nationalist party that is pushing for "remigration". From Wikipedia: "Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry."
Comment · 24 days ago
The folks acting like this on Twitter are likely Omarchy man-o-sphere folks
Comment · 28 days ago
Kidney transplantation is major surgery with decent risks. Donation carries a certain level of risk as well but less than being a recipient. When I donated, the chance of dying was about 1 in 4,000.

Since I donated, my remaining kidney has grown larger and taken over a chunk of the function of my missing kidney. If possible, getting it back would only give me a relatively small benefit compared to the risk of the surgery. First, I'd have a spare again for major injuries meaning I'd be 'allowed' to do things like contact sports and such. It's recommended you don't do things that could result in an impact to your kidney when you don't have a spare. I did violate this once by going skydiving, though.

Second, I'd be able to take anti-inflammatory meds without restrictions. That is an annoying one as when I injured my rotator cuff years ago, the normal recommendation was a month of high-dose anti-inflammatory meds. Since I couldn't do that, I had to do physical therapy and injected steroids which was much more involved and more expensive.

Note that a transplanted kidney can be re-transplanted depending on the health of the recipient when they die. It's not as common but it has been more in recent years. It's often referred to as "regifting".

Comment · 28 days ago
I donated a kidney to my Dad in 2000. It gave him an extra 23 years with us. He was on very low doses of his anti-rejection meds, partially due to us being a 4 out of 6 HLA type match, so the doctors were hopeful it would last him the rest of his life. It would have lasted far longer if ALS hadn't shown up.
Comment · 1 month ago
For context: iOS devices typically receive about 6.5 years of updates. macOS devices typically receive 6 to 8 years of updates.
Comment · 1 month ago
Copilot+ 365 XL Max Media Center Edition, of course
Comment · 1 month ago
The fact that you and the industry try to call it "gaming" is still such a scummy thing. It's gambling. Call it what it is.
Comment · 1 month ago

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