💭 Excessive Tech

2023.11.27

I recently switched to my own self-hosted Nextcloud instance. I thought a lot about it lately, and have decided to shut it down and seek solutions elsewhere.

I had set up Nextcloud Music since my iPod seems to be having issues (probably the HDD, which I'd like to replace someday so I can use it again). This was fine, but I just didn't feel I was getting the same experience I was getting from the iPod, which I wrote about in my piece On Music. I decided to not use NextCloud for music, but that made me consider something else: do I need such a large and off the shelf solution to solve my problems?

The answer, as it turns out, is no. I decided long ago that I would build solutions for myself if pre-built apps are excessive and/or distracting. NextCloud is great, but it's just so much when my needs are minimal. What I need is this:

• A way to transfer files between devices, usually not many
• A place to store and edit notes
• A way to listen to my music library

NextCloud seems a bit of an overkill for such simple needs. I've decided to try the following:

• Files: Using a USB stick to transfer files between devices. I even have a USB-C to USB dongle that I can use to plug it in to my phone
• Notes: Editing local notes on my phone using Markor, then syncing it to my USB drive each week in case my phone fails
• Music: This is the difficult one. I was working on a python based GUI to play music on a Raspberry Pi 3 with a touch screen, but that isn't going so well. The app works great, but the touch screen is giving me troubles. I can't seem to calibrate it properly and it's just not great to work with the interface I created. I may try to update the interface to work better with the screen's limitations, but I may also just abandon the project. I also came up with another solution that I am going to try which is plugging a USB stick with all my music into my phone or my computer, whatever I'm using at the time, and listen to it via offline apps. I just got this idea, so I'll try it out and see how it goes. I feel this may give me a similar feeling to using an iPod by requiring me to physically insert the USB stick and selecting the music I want to listen to. I'm also wondering if my car will allow me to just insert a USB stick, as it has some sort of USB media option in the list on the screen. I'll try that out later today and see how that goes too.

These solutions are simple, and really not all that time consuming, so I feel NextCloud was far more than I ever needed.

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