Oh I just feel like venting. I'm thoroughly pissed that they're going to discontinue desktop. Like many, I've used it for years and years to map hikes, explore old maps, find stuff, map out old trails and all the usual stuff. I've tried Earth web, My Maps, and the iOS/Android apps, and simply nothing beats the desktop version. Here's a screenshot of a thing I'm messing with at the moment. Desktop is just so damn nice.

(Is it just me, or does it feel like Google doesn't have a blind clue what they're trying to do with all the different apps? Each of them behaves differently and has its own quirks in how it displays/handles stuff).

Some specific gripes that I've written down:

1. Image overlays. In Desktop, I frequently slap in an image of a map as an "image overlay" and adjust it to align with the basemap. I mostly get these as screenshots from the NLS website (The National Library of Scotland has a fantastic georeferenced maps viewer for the whole UK with historic maps, Lidar, and a bunch of stuff - https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/). This feature is vital. While you can view overlays on the web or My Maps, you can't add or edit them.
2. GE web doesn't allow GPX import!! But My Maps does. Huh?!?
3. Inconsistent handling of widths, fill/border colours. GE Desktop lets you specify path widths exactly to 1 decimal place. GE web will initially display the widths of any imported paths correctly, but will only let you set them to 1,2,3,4,8,12,16,24 for any new paths you create. My Maps has a slider so you can't set a specific numeric width. My Maps doesn't let you specify different fill and border colours for polygons and the android app doesn't display polygon borders at all (admittedly haven't checked this in a while).
4. Set style for folder. GE Desktop lets you set the style for all items within a folder. My Maps has something similar but more clunky. GE Web does not, at least not that I've found.
5. GE android app doesn't let you delete path points! Jesus. You can select, move, create points but not delete them. Come on designers.
6. GE desktop lets you export any part of a project, be it a folder or individual item (right click and save as). GE Web only lets you export the entire project. My Maps lets you export individual layers.
7. The desktop user interface is nice and compact and dense. I like a nice dense tree view of stuff. GE web and My Maps are much more spread out with huge line spacing. Yeah, that's nothing new, most web apps are like that now.

Maybe GE Desktop isn't the best thing in the world, but it's worked for donkey's years, I'm used to it, and I'm happy with it. I just hope that the standalone installer will keep working for a long time to come. I've looked at GIS software like QGIS - no doubt it's amazing, but it looks way over the top for what I need.

https://preview.redd.it/7n658fvlr4jh1.png?width=2121&format=png&auto=webp&s=7bbcab3ab47bab423ef23538e51a60f6955c7362

Been going through cheap TPU (that's polyurethane rubber) straps at about one a year. I cannot for the life of me find an actual silicone strap - any searches throw up products which claim to be "silicone" but on closer inspection are just TPU. I've seen reference to the "Hijiawee" silicone strap but it's unavailable here in the UK.

Would greatly appreciate any suggestions!

Apologies if this isn't quite the best place to ask, but I figured I had better start somewhere!

I like mapping tracks & trails and at the moment I'm just using a GPS logger app on my phone (Ulefone Armor 17 Pro, if it matters). This usually works fine in exposed areas (e.g. see the road at the very bottom), but can go off the rails in wooded areas. The yellow line is the actual path and the red is the recorded traces walking up and down several times. There's often 20-30m of variation in the tracks, which sometimes makes it very hard to distinguish adjacent paths, side paths etc. At the top of the image, it's in a deep ravine so reception is even worse. (There are three caves I'm trying to pinpoint and it's just about impossible 🤣)

Is this pretty much to be expected from these conditions? Would an actual handheld GPS like a Garmin unit be better? I've seen some external GPS receivers/antennas that plug in or connect to a phone, are they worth anything?

Appreciate any advice - I know very little about all this stuff!

https://preview.redd.it/ixjk8m4li7ih1.png?width=949&format=png&auto=webp&s=6a70bfb08df503c93713212714977c8f22257abf

Just spent the evening tearing my hair out over how colours and path widths behave when exporting from GE desktop to GE web or My Maps. There are some weird behaviours.

Exporting - white colour

If you make a path in GE Desktop with a pure white colour (#ffffff) and export it, the <color> value is NOT written to the file. Any other colour, no problem!

When imported into GE Web or My Maps, they pick a default colour to use. GE Web uses orange #fbc02d while My Maps uses black #000000.

Exporting - 1px width

If you make a path in GE Desktop with a 1px width and export it, the <width> value is NOT written to the file.

When importing into GE Web, it assigns a default width of 4px, regardless of the colour.

When importing into My Maps, it assigns a width of 1.2px if the colour is white and a width of 1px if the colour is non-white. Go figure.

Path widths

GE Desktop lets you specify an exact pixel width to one decimal place. GE Web will initially display the width of any imported paths correctly, but only offers the ability to set widths of 1,2,3,4,8,12,16,24 pixels for paths that you create. My Maps has a slider so you can't specify a numeric width.

Was curious how GE Web and My Maps import different width lines, so I first created a bunch of different widths in GE Desktop, imported them into GE Web and My Maps, then exported them back again. Note: lines are coloured, NOT white.

GE Web imports and displays widths correctly, apart from 1px because it doesn't get specified in the KML file (see above). When selecting a path, the width shown in the dialog box is the next-lowest width from the range of preset widths available. After exporting again, it correctly preserves all of the widths (again, apart from the 1px, which it set to 4px).

My Maps rounds UP fractional widths to the next whole number.

If you actually want a white 1px path

The best solution is to set the color to slightly off-white (e.g. #eeeeee) and width 0.9px. That'll then either get left alone at 0.9px in GE Web or rounded up to 1px in My Maps.

Just switched to the Snug tariff. We have a 5-terminal smart meter with ALCS which powers two night-storage heaters. Have literally just done it so can't report yet if/when the heaters switch on yet. I'm more confused about the times.

If I look up details of the tariff on the Octopus app, it clearly says the off-peak times are 00:30 to 06:30 (six hours). However, if I go to the "Snug settings" page on the Octopus website, it allows me to specify the "charging time". This was originally set at 5 hours. I just increased it to 6.

Is the charging time setting completely unrelated to the 6 hours that correspond to the off-peak rate? Does it purely relate to when the ALCS turns on and powers the heaters?

Additionally, I was told that the heaters will also come on for an hour at some random time between 4pm-8pm. Is it possible to cancel this and have them only coming on at night? We've never had an afternoon boost before and have never needed it.

This is probably related to my previous post (thanks for the replies on that btw). Suppose I have a bunch of devices in the garage which is a distance from the house (say 20m for sake of argument), I'm going for 1 gig ethernet for everything, and I have the ISP's router in the house.

I can either have a switch in the house, near the router (which I'd likely have anyway since there will be other devices in the house that need connected) and run separate cable to each device in the garage. Or I can run a single cable to the garage and put a separate switch there, with the devices connected to it.

Is there any difference/advantages/disadvantages between the two setups? Or does it depend more on what sort of bandwidth each will require?

In actual fact, if I ever get around to doing all this, I'd pull a bunch of cables anyway so I don't have to scrabble around under the floor a second time 🤣 Just curious if there's something I'm missing.

https://preview.redd.it/0f5b181shk5h1.png?width=1300&format=png&auto=webp&s=b6a23677fbdbef91b749dc2c4f783d5555c3c247

Pretty new to all this stuff so still trying to get my head around switches, routers, etc. But here's a question for starters.

Take the scenario on the left in the image. I've got a router (let's say it's my ISP's own router) with three devices connected - two PCs and a NAS. Let's say that PC1 is used for "heavy" internet usage (what that would actually be, I'm not sure. Watching 4k movies, backing up lots files to a cloud service, dunno.). While for PC2, it's more important to have fast transfer to and from the NAS, and it doesn't care so much about a fast internet connection.

My question is, will the data flowing between PC1 and the internet bog down the router and then result in a slower connection between PC2 and the NAS? Or is this not how routers actually behave?

Would I instead be better using the arrangement on the right, with PC2 and the NAS connected to a separate switch? That way, PC1 can do whatever it likes.

https://preview.redd.it/4xrmcssdwb5h1.png?width=1704&format=png&auto=webp&s=a4b2e1cefaae5792ca0932f3ca3c41bf2ab5ba6d

Given that IEEPA tariffs have been ruled illegal, does anyone know if RM is pursuing getting a refund from US Customs and subsequently refunding their own customers?

https://preview.redd.it/0qvhi3eensxg1.png?width=823&format=png&auto=webp&s=652e979d4e015e01ab762fc4b24923425f0bc7d9

This is the range photo for the Model 8 from Spoke's site - the "conical" tip is the normal Pentel P200, but I don't recognise the "stepped" tip. Initially I thought it might be the GG300, but it has an extra step.

https://preview.redd.it/0tbe0kxylsxg1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=bdce5ac7870def93721300b224f46b4f329df93d

Edit: also found they sell mechanisms (link https://spokedesign.com/products/pencil-mechanism-step-tip-1). It looks like part of the tip has been turned down since you see the bare brass exposed, so I wonder if it has been a GG300, but machined down?

I've currently got the unenviable task of trying to make sense of and back up stuff from my Mum's laptop. She has set up OneDrive and I'm having a hard time figuring exactly how it behaves (after some very bad experiences with cloud sync software in the past, I now avoid it like the plague. I'll back up my own files, thank you very much.) My apologies in advance for the rambling story - I'm not sure exactly what I should be asking, so please bear with me!

First, I recently learned that the Pictures, Documents, Desktop etc. folders are actually "special folders" which point to a particular path. E.g. Pictures by default points to %UserProfile%\Pictures. This path can be changed (right click folder, Properties, Location, and choose a new one. It'll automatically move everything to the new location if desired).

Now, in OneDrive's settings for "Back up folders on this PC", it shows the various special folders and a slider to turn on if you want OneDrive to back these folders up. If you turn it on, OneDrive will created a new folder inside the OneDrive folder and make the special folder point to it instead, then move the files over. For example, Documents has its slider turned on, and the Documents folder points to %UserProfile%\OneDrive\Documents.

https://preview.redd.it/35r361p1guvg1.png?width=593&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a5cd08bc3326a763b704d1497e63f2b58d8601c

You'll notice that the slider for Pictures is OFF. However, take a look at what folders are present inside the main OneDrive folder:

https://preview.redd.it/hcxy9kkeguvg1.png?width=425&format=png&auto=webp&s=790734ce2dc958701b17ace761a7650f2153bec8

Look - there's the Pictures folder! And that's not just a regular folder that happens to have been called "Pictures", that is the actual Pictures special folder (you can tell from the icon). Sure enough, if I check the path the Pictures folder points to, it's %UserProfile%\OneDrive\Pictures.

But yet the slider is off. I simply can't see how this has happened. All I can think is that the folder has been manually moved to inside the OneDrive folder (Mum's skills at moving files/folders around sometimes leave a little to be desired......).

If I try to turn the slider on, I get a warning that there are files already present with the same name and would append "- Copy" to the name - of course there are, because it would be trying to copy the files to the same folder 🤣 (It so happens that I found a lot of subfolders with exactly this duplication present, suggesting that someone tried doing this in the past....)

Finally, the question. Should I just leave things well alone, since the Pictures folder is happily syncing with OneDrive, even though the slider is off in the settings? Or should I manually move the Pictures folder back to its original path, then turn the slider on in OneDrive and let it move it to the OneDrive folder again? I'm hesitant to do that because it will presumably want to re-sync the entire 232GB of data again! I'm not too concerned about the risk of data loss since I have also backed up everything manually to two separate external drives, but it would take a considerable time to sync (maybe 4-5 days, yes our internet is crap).

Hope that makes sense. Thanks in advance!