# Feb 16th, Monday.

Hey. Probably all of my entries will start with "Hey.". It's just to get the blank page out of the way. For a serious piece of writing, I'd rethink it. But this isn't that.

I've been changing up the apps I use lately. A bit. My launcher says I have 49 apps installed, Android adds in other system stuff for it to total to 101.

The largest change was switching back to GMail from Proton. I liked ProtonMail and stuck to it for ~3 years, but a few ISP's here have blocked it. Yeah, sure, I could use a VPN if I really wanted to. But I don't think the services are mature enough for me to go through those hurdles to access them, rather than just using Google. Drive's really sluggish for me, and Proton emails get blocked some places. I really don't use mail and cloud storage much, only for signing up to stuff and the occasional .zip of files I want to access on another device.

If I relied on them more, I'd probably pay for a good VPN and Proton Unlimited or something. But they're barely used, and when I do need to open them I don't want to have to toggle a VPN or worry about my email not being valid or something. They should just work.

The Emmet (LEGO Movie character) alarm clock I've had (and the LEGO Batman one before that) have forgotten to ring too many times for me to be comfortable with using them. I thought I'd had turned it off in my sleep or something, but I placed them on the OTHER SIDE OF MY ROOM and they would just decide not to buzz some days? Most noises wake me up pretty easy, so I'm assuming they're a bit faulty now.

I now use the SuperAlarm app. It's not perfect, and there's probably something FOSS or not riddled with ads, but the app works for me and I don't see a need to replace it. You can add "missions" to an alarm (like math problems) so you're mentally awake by the time it stops beeping. I have the "memory" mission on mine, where a few squares on a 5x5 grid glow yellow for a bit, then fade, and then you have to click those tiles. It works, so far.

Studying math renders the Pixel calculator useless. I use the GeoGebra one now; no dark mode is unfortunately the price to pay for permutations and combinations. The couple other apps I tried either didn't have a function I wanted, or were too cluttered (because it had all the functions I wanted).

Also trying out DokuWiki. Obsidian, Notion etc. can do everything I require (notes, links between notes, easy data export/access). I just like the how DokuWiki feels. Everything in text files, Wikipedia-ish, simple UI. I don't have a desktop/laptop I can reliably access, so Apache's run through AWebServer (Play Store). KSWeb ate much more battery than it, for some reason.

I've noticed eye strain from prolonged device use, so I wanted a tool that could remind me to take breaks every 20 minutes. Remindio (Play Store) on Android and Tea Timer (itch) on Windows.

Also, for the second time, trying out audiobooks. From Libby. Started "The Woman in the Purple Skirt". I have no idea what it's about and am still confused thus far. I'm interested, though.