The other comment is great, as a plan B this app is what I use for automating just about anything on android.

https://llamalab.com/automate/

It takes a little while to get used to the block programming, but it’s fun and can do lots of stuff. The free version should work fine on an alternate android-based OS, but I haven’t checked myself.

Edit: used to use. I haven’t actually been on stock android for a while, and I haven’t used the app in a while either.

Thanks, very detailed answer. I’ll check out the lenspec option, that seems like a nice addition, especially when adding older windows programs from questionable sources, which is something that won’t happen often, but may be necessary.

Yeah, I’m fine without one two, I just:

1: want my wife to feel secure with her system, which I am setting up for her.

2. believe that desktop Linux is becoming steadily more attractive as a target

Thanks! I wasn’t aware that it was such a fire-and - forget software.

My wife was, yes. She tried to keep Microsoft software out of her PC as much as possible, and was used to using such software from her past experience.

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Awesome guide! I’ve saved it locally, and I’ll pay more attention to these menus moving forward.

For me the most important aspects of terminal commands is that (1) you are forced to learn how your OS really works and (2) the terminal will always be able to do things that your GUI isn’t programmed to do.

For example, I use brew commands to install brew packages on bazzite because there is no GUI frontend available. I also use it to start ollama LLMs on my machine even though there is a GUI frontend available, because I don’t need a frontend for two commands.

What you use depends on your requirements. Excel can be just the right thing if it gets the job done, it has some great features, and with some outside help you can do basic versioning and whatever else you may need.

Databases are best for when you need:

Documented Approval processes

Documented versioning

Interfaces with other IT tools

Managing LOTS of various types of data

Metadata

Especially the last two are where a database shines. If you have lots of different types of data/files, then there is no good way to keep them organized in a static file structure. By adding tags to them (like date created, file type, priority, status, customer, project name, etc.) you can later search and filter based on what you are looking for. Need all files related to a certain project with the status “active”? Easy, just tell the database that it should filter based on those tags and boom, done.

SQL is a great place to start if you want to learn about programming. If you are just looking to stay organized, then programs like obsidian are awesome. You can very easily make a database out of obsidian with the free tutorials for plugins like dataview and templater.

I’m an electrical engineer that has become a proprietary cloud-tool admin. I occasionally use an LLM (chatGPT web) to write VBA code to do various API calls and transform excel/Jason/XML/CSV data from one format to another for various import/export tasks that would otherwise eat up my time.

I just use the chat, and copy/paste the code.

I spend an hour to meticulously describe the process I need the code to do, and then another hour or two testing, debugging and polishing, and get a result that would take me days to produce by myself. I then document the code (I try to use lots of sub-modules that can be reused) so that I can use the LLM less in the future.

I don’t feel great about the environment impact, which is why I try to limit the usage, and do debugging and improvements by myself. I’m also trying to push management to invest in a lean LLM that runs on the companies servers. I’m also looking into getting a better PC privately, which I could also run a local LLM on and use for work.