grantpalin

> The duopoly of having Apple and Google control the entire mobile universe is gut wrenching. This developer is now unable to develop for millions of phones based on an algorithm deciding they were a bad actor and Google likely won't be compelled to care, a drop in the vast ocean of their concerns.

Not surprising. A duopoly is little better than a monopoly. This is why we needed other viable platforms - which we had in Blackberry and Windows Phone - but didn't support them enough so we lost them. And here we are, caught between Apple and Google.

I have an SP3, getting close to five years now. Battery life still decent, no bulge (knocks wood), and it still works well. I rarely use the pen, and only occasionally use tablet mode for reading. The lack of repairability in the Surface line, combined with my rare use of the tablet mode, have me looking more at light laptops when the time comes, possibly even the Surface Laptop (good to see that's improved repairability a bit). I get that getting a slim package requires tradeoffs, but complete lack of repairability is a step too much for my liking.

Good to know about the lens roadmap and battery life. I have a second battery for my D50 for much the same reason, though life is pretty good and seldom runs out on me mid-usage.

The Z50 with the two kit lenses looks like it could replace my D50 + 18-70mm + 70-300mm; the new 50-250mm lens has a shorter reach but shouldn't be a big issue on a crop sensor, and would be lighter than the 70-300mm. Using the adaptor to allow use of the wide and micro lens may tide me over until Z equivalents are available. Reading reviews and watching for a good sale is where I'm at now.

I do know about the adapter and am aware it's not a perfect solution due to compatibility. I could always sell my current lenses (a wide, a micro, a telephoto, a fisheye, and a normal) to fund the purchase of new Z lenses, but there doesn't seem to be 1-to-1 replacements available yet. Have no idea whether they are in the pipeline or not, but then again the adapter may help bridge the gap. Decisions, decisions.

How is the battery life for the Z50? I've read that is a common issue with new mirrorless rigs.

Did you switch from another camera? I use the Nikon D50, an older camera but still functional with a number of lenses, and have been eyeing a switch to mirrorless, particularly to the Z50.

This is a factor in me holding off from switching to mirrorless. Currently using the Nikon D50 which is dated now, and a handful of lenses which I am loath to give up on.

I recently started running some WP sites (and some non-WP as well) via Docker containers on a Digital Ocean droplet. Building a docker-compose file for each site and defining volumes allows the container to be updated or replaced while keeping data & content intact (if passed in via volumes). Orchestrated using Traefik for reverse proxying and SSL certs. Wouldn't want to go back to setting up sites manually.

I've been liking Flickr less and less with Yahoo's decline and the tie-in to Yahoo accounts. The only reason I have a Yahoo account is because it was required for Flickr.

For my own uses, been thinking of self-hosting something like Zenphoto on a subdomain.

* a local unRaid machine as, among other things, a backup destination

* a local Synology DS216+II as secondary backup of the essential data

* run backups for both above using Bvckup

* essentials are also backed up to Crashplan

* OneDrive for non-private things that I'd like to have easy access to

Some benefits for the cost:

* downloadable videos for offline viewing * working code samples * a Slack community to ask & answer questions * high-quality content

Location: Victoria BC Canada

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: HTML, CSS, Sass, some JavaScript, JSON, PHP, some Python, C#, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web API, MySQL, SQL Server

LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/grantpalin

Email: grant at grantpalin dot com

Summary: greatly interested in programming work for the web, mobile, database / data analysis. I have worked on numerous projects using different toolsets, and am driven to continue learning and improving.