Post taken from my Tumblr blog and revised for WordPress:

Here are some project/life updates as of the past few months:

• I’ve been working on a new Linux Project! I’ve been working on adding Ubuntu to a Samsung Galaxy Surface Pro 8 which originally ran Windows 8 (ewwwww…..). This is my first time fully loading a Linux System onto a device (previously I’ve only dual booted ((with some help))) so this is a new challenge for me! By the end of the project, not only will the Surface be fully functional with Ubuntu, but it will have full functionality of the touch screen!! How cool is that!? Linux-Surface is an open source custom kernel that allows full functionality of multiple Surface’s touch screen interfaces while using different versions of Linux. I’m so excited to finish up this project and have a fully functional touch-screen tablet running Linux

• In some free time I’ve gotten back into working on smartphone OS modding with my old Samsung Galaxy S3. About 2 years ago I loaded HyperDrive Tweaks onto my SCH-I535 and it works great. I loved the customization and the full control over the device through administrative settings. It’s a great ROM (however a bit outdated). Currently, due to growing concerns of lack of privacy and general trust of Big Tech in recent months, I’ve considered “de-Googling” my devices (after Pewdiepies recent video). This would mean full custom ROMs on my phone (or partially depending on a burner) and the big switch over to fully Linux systems. All of these things considered made me want to revisit my old Galaxy. My question – would it be possible to fully rely on a 2012 smartphone running a completely custom OS in order to get rid of Google’s all-seeing eye? Short answer – no. Or most likely not. As much as I love the still the mostly functional Samsung Galaxy S3, there are several things that have me wondering if it would even be worth it to make the big switch. First on the list is the obvious: Is 4GLTE still functional? Yes, however it is becoming increasingly outdated and will soon be phased out. It is also important to note that this would mean I would need to either let my provider know I am switching phones or entirely switch providers (which I do not want to do). Second, using my Galaxy as a dumbphone is something I’d like to do, due to my recent wanting to switch to less accessible media (but that’s for a separate post), so the lack of overall functionality of apps on the phone is not much of an issue for me. However, most apps that I would NEED on my phone (email, GPS, authenticator apps, etc.) are not functional with most Android 4.1 versions. Servers are constantly being updated for these apps to ensure privacy and safety of their users, so older versions of Android that are most likely not well maintained and less secure lead apps to drop their functionality all together. Long story short – I need these apps for work and school, so completely relinquishing my use of them is not on the table. So have I completely given up on the idea of a fully functional Samsung Galaxy phone from 2012? Not exactly. Even though the app functionality is limited, there are several other ROMs (such as Lineage OS) that can run off of older Galaxy phones with versions equivalent to Android 14. This may be usable, however I need to do some more research as to if an Android 14 equivalent will or won’t blow up my phone. If all else fails, I am still happy with using my Samsung as a device to play around and experiment with (or to use as an MP3 player…). I am hoping to still make the big change to using a fully custom OS phone, but I may need to reassess the type of phone I am using. Again, this is for a later post. 🙂

• Finally, for my last bit of news, I have completed two certifications in AI through Coursera! The courses I took were Google AI Essentials and Google AI Prompting Essentials. Both courses took me about 4 hours each to get through and were very helpful in deepening my knowledge in AI prompting. I would highly suggest taking classes and learning about AI on your own time. AI should not be a scary word – it should be used as a tool. I do have my personal reservations about AI however, so feel free to ask me questions about how I use it or how I feel about AI being used in certain instances! I’d love to answer questions about it or create another post talking about it.

Thank you all for listening to my MAJOR yap session about various things, I know it was a lot all at once. I had a blast writing this for all of you though and I hope to continue doing so as I am now working on many more projects/continuing my learning. My fall classes start up again next week so I’m excited to update you all on those as well.