( Saturday NO PO) Are you a last minute shopper for Christmas, or do y ou plan it all out an shop in advance?

[Z is for Zangie]

I obviously am not a last-minute shopper, I like to be done with most of it by December 1st, then I can focus on other Holiday stuff...Most years I start right after Christmas, get some deals and then am on the outlook all year round...As I shop for a lot of collectibles and unique stuff, this works. I thought there was a craft show at the church I grew up in today...turns out I must have copied info about it from a previous year...lol...though I drove by the home I grew up in and they had cut down all the trees that used to line our driveway, looked pretty bare.

Last Minute shopping.jpg (12.28 KiB) Viewed 1736 times

[Slip Shod]

[Mysterious Cat]

Christmas has always been a mixed deal in my family, so I have only bought gifts on and off through the years. When I do buy them I usually get them at least a good week in advance. Over the past years I have been getting gift cards for my nephews, which I feel a little guilty about (not really that creative), but they can use them to get what they want so they tend to work well. I like the Christmas season overall but I dislike that it seems to start in February nowadays. There is now this year round Christmas store abomination in Little Italy in NYC, if someone got me a flamethrower for Christmas I know what I would do with it. Also my understanding is that you can only watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on Apple TV, which if true makes me mad. Friggin' would be monopolists with their Ridley Scott break the mold commercial give me a break. I do like their computers though, not going to lie.

[Tarmaque]

I do like their computers though, not going to lie.

I'm done with Apple. Mac OS has gone so far downhill that I replaced it with Linux. Their hardware is still pretty good, but when this iMac dies I'll be building a custom AMD rig. Or buying a mid-range rig. Not sure yet, but I'm keeping up with the trends. If the technology improves enough I'll build a RISC V rig. They're getting better all the time.

[Mysterious Cat]

Mac OS has gone so far downhill that I replaced it with Linux.

I used Ubuntu Linux for a while and liked it. I also once bought a cheap computer the make of which I can't even remember (it was a little lunchbox thing) with some flavor pre-installed and it was terrible, couldn't get it to basic things. One of these days I might motivate myself to learn some programming, but I have other things on my life plate and don't know if that's realistic. For now I am inclined to pay the cool tax for a computer that works well right out of the box, which has been my experience with Macs.

[Tarmaque]

I used Ubuntu Linux for a while and liked it.

I think Ubuntu has deteriorated quite a bit, unless you use one of the lesser known flavors like Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, or Ubuntu Mate. They embraced Gnome3 as their primary interface and it's kinda terrible. These days I mostly recommend people try Linux Mint if they're newbies and not interested in the command line. (You don't need to be a programming warrior to use Linux these days.) There are better flavors of course, but are not necessarily as user friendly. I use MX Linux myself for its great graphical tools, but most people will never use those.

These days I think it's more important to learn the alternatives to Microsoft's other software than to learn any particular flavor of Linux. Learn LibreOffice, Thunderbird (email), and Gimp or Krita (Photoshop replacements). All of them are available for Windows or Mac. If you're a multimedia creator then learn Kdenlive and Audacity. Again, both are available for Windows and Mac. All of these are free.

Then if you really want to try another flavor of Linux just download a live version of each OS and flash it to a flash drive and boot up any computer to it. Give it a test drive and see if you like it.