Tag: Google

CHROME OS FLEX ON A 2008 IMAC

I bought my parents this iMac back in 2008. They’ve both passed, and now it’s mine. I was able to retrieve most of the old photos and such from it, but without the iCloud password I wasn’t able to update anything, or even allow some location service settings.

I tried to reinstall OS X Leopard, but even finding the right file was difficult. Then trying to set up a “bootable USB drive” became a nightmare. Formatting, terminal stuff, nothing worked out.

Then I got curious and started to look to see if I could install another OS, and well, turns out installing ChromeOS Flex on the iMac was super easy.

Setting up the boot disk was easy. Then rebooting the iMac to the thumb drive was a snap, installation was a breeze, and now I have a machine where I can update it and make it secure as needed – at least for a Google OS machine.

I’m mostly going to use it to display Weather Star 4000 while working. It’s just so soothing having that going in the background. I may also use it for notes and such for Zoom calls. Something that’s not tied directly to the machine that I use for my growing Zoom call meetings.

I just switched to the Brave browser, from Chrome, and I’m practically giddy about it.

Tonight I archived a bunch of old emails from my Fastmail account. Exported to Zip files, put ’em on external HD. Just like, 1000s of random sent emails, automated receipts and shit. Sure, I could have gone through and deleted a bunch, but nah.

This weekend I’ll be shutting down my Google Workspace account, and shuffling that email back to Fastmail. The less money I give to Google, the better.

LEAVING GOOGLE WORKSPACE

I’ve exported all my Google emails in .mbox format and threw them into my Apple Mail app, which I don’t ever use, but it’ll be there for safekeeping (and easy searching).

I’ve exported all my Google Drive docs as xls and doc files. Anything shared with clients and such, I told them to make a copy so they own it.

I’ve been changing a lot of emails I use for services away from this account, so if anything happens when I transfer my MX records, it won’t matter so much.

I think I’ll do that this weekend – copy all my existing MX records from my DNS host. Then update the new info from Fastmail, so all those emails go into my existing account. I don’t get a lot of emails at this “work” account, so it’ll be fine.

I have a Gmail account I can use if I need to view / share Google Docs or Sheets.

Email is taken care of.

Those are literally the two things I used Google Workspace for. Years ago I worked with some VAs, and they needed email accounts with my business, and that worked out well. But hey, Google Workspace is like $7/mo now, for something that I don’t really need. It’s going up to $8.40/mo for all this new AI bullshit that I really don’t need, so whatever.

The $100 I save per year can buy some groceries, which is lot more useful than the garbage AI that Google is pushing.

GOOGLE AI WEAPONS ARE THE RIGHT THING, APPARENTLY

Google changed it’s motto from “Don’t be evil” to “Do the right thing” in 2015. And now a decade later the “right thing” has taken quite a turn.

“Google on Tuesday updated its ethical guidelines around artificial intelligence, removing commitments not to apply the technology to weapons or surveillance.”

I’m so glad to be moving away from all Google Products this year.

(From the Washington Post, via Hacker News)