Johan Bové

Looking for a new phone, but you're holding back because of the environmental impact? There is a solution with Fairphone.

I've had my FP3 for over three years now and it still works great.

I was even able to upgrade  the cameras in the phone myself by ordering the parts (yes, FairPhone made better camera modules available after the phone was released!) and opening up the phone and installing everything back in place with a couple (about 13) of screws.

Comes with easily replaceable battery, screen, speaker and other modules. Just look at that beautiful 10/10 Ifixit rating!

The phone seems a bit more pricey at first glance, but if you consider that you can probably use the same phone for double the time you would with a cheap, non-sustainable alternative, it is worth the investment.

PLUS Fairphone will make sure to provide your phone with software updates much longer than any other phone manufacturer. And if you don't like Google's default Android install there are options to install an alternative, privacy focused, operating system with minimal effort.

PLUS Fairphone makes sure to resource as many raw materials from responsible sources as possible and is also making sure that the people building the phones and working in the factories get decent wages and can enjoy better work-life balances.

By getting a FairPhone you're joining a growing movement of people who actually give a F*** on what tech does to our World.

Sounds good, right? I thought so too.

You can get yours with a €50 discount by following this link:

http://fairphone.refr.cc/johanbove

Yes, this is a referral program post. (I get €25 off my next purchase if somebody goes through the whole thing - not really why I am posting this) But I am honestly really happy with mine and just wanted to promote Fairphone and their work more. And if you can get started with a nice discount, then why not?

What is Fairphone about? See below in this great introduction video:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SoeXLVvfpVQ

Why do I believe Gemini is great for personal Internet presences? First of all, it's a real grass-roots initiative which I am very excited about.

If you're reading this, chances are high you are already using Gemini. But for history reasons and to share my opinions of Gemini I would like to offer you here some views of mine.

Collecting some of the strong-points of Gemini from my perspective of having some experience with Gopher and running personal websites.

Fast and lightweight

• It's very easy on the system resources. So the protocol works really well on slower hardware without any problems. Hosting on a Raspberry Pi3 is easy-peasy.
• Since there are no fancy design in Gemini capsules, it is really optimized for low bandwidth.
• It should work really fine on a feature-phone, like for KaiOS. I don't believe there is a client yet for KaiOs at this time.
• It's fairly easy to build clients and servers for the protocol.

Simple yet complete

• The specifications provide enough functionality to do basically what you would expect to be able to do online.
• Much lower learning curve compared to Gopher and HTML. You can start publishing Gemini pages within minutes.
• Even-though the syntax is limited, it still gives enough playroom for creative expression.
• Use of TLS certificates promises security and privacy.
• It is more international than US-centric Gopher.
• The procol supports the UTF-8 character set so any language can be used to publish sites in.
• This should help make the protocol more popular in non-ascii wielding regions in the World.

Easy to publish

• Content will be probably first of all stored in static text files which are future-proof and easy to maintain.
• Many servers already available that require minimal technical skills.
• Yes, you still need a server, but there are many collectives which you can join to facilitate this.

Focus

• No popups, animations, videos, sound effects.
• Focus on actual content instead of fluff and effects.
• No advertisemens and commercial tracking.
• No Facebook, Google or Twitter.

Accessible

• Power of formatting goes into the clients or readers. Like in the good old days of the early Web, people are expected to style the content to their own liking.
• It's pure text, has simple navigation rules, so should be great for people with disabilities.
• No JavaScript so you really see what you get.

And on top of this, the young Gemini community is driven to make this a success!

I'm sold.

ps. I published this first in plain text on my Gemini capsule and now that I copy paste this into a HTML document I can really tell just how easy it is to publish on Gemini.

Thank you E-mail for delivering me the important things I need to know about. Enjoying the fact that you let me sip through you on my own pace and time and allowing me to see everything in a time organized manner. Thank you for not engulfing me with unnecessary images and self-starting video advertisements. Thank you for giving me a way to reply and sort my messages. Thank you also for allowing me to filter my messages based upon my own criteria. Also a big thank you (with imap and SMTP) for allowing me to get to my messages on different devices and having them all synchronize the folders. Thank you also for allowing to sign and send secure email with Pretty Good Privacy. I forgive you for the occasional unexpected message from a far - away land as I can simply toss these in the junk folder. Thank you for keeping track of you over many years and after changing many different devices and even accounts. I hope we can enjoy many years together more.

Yours sincerely,

A happy Thunderbird E-mail user.