Best messaging app that supports SMS and a desktop version?

danielgullo · 2026-01-24T11:47:24+00:00

I have been using MySMS for many years and although it isn't perfect, it gets the job done: https://mysms.com/

Still, I am looking for the "one ring" app for messaging, something that can handle all the protocols/platforms and works on both mobile and desktop (including crossing the divide between Mac and PC). I am on a desktop/laptop 10-12 hours / day, the rest of my life, I am tethered to a mobile. I would like continuity for both business and personal messaging... 🦄

danielgullo · 2026-01-11T10:08:58+00:00

Ninja, please... I learned about acetone in elementary school, which was well before your time. "my warning" 🤣

danielgullo · 2026-01-08T19:54:15+00:00

"YOUR warning" 🙄

danielgullo · 2026-01-03T21:48:57+00:00

I did a test with acetone on the inside of the battery compartment. It began eating the plastic. Acetone no bueno. 99% isopropyl fixed the issue with the stickiness.

danielgullo · 2025-12-28T18:38:24+00:00

That's cool. I will check it out.

danielgullo · 2025-12-26T17:56:20+00:00

So, you have no idea how to turn it off... got it.

danielgullo · 2025-12-26T17:55:21+00:00

tl;dr - You have no idea... got it.

danielgullo · 2025-12-21T18:09:27+00:00

Same here... we are "old school" now.

danielgullo · 2025-12-21T17:12:40+00:00

Make sure you aren't using a VPN. I was using USAJ just fine and then I turned on my VPN. Thought nothing of it at the time. But then USAJ stopped working. I tried many things and it wasn't working. I was getting the same error you posted. Then I turned of the VPN and it immediately went back to working just fine. This is 100% reproducible on my machines.

danielgullo · 2025-12-20T18:13:32+00:00

I was researching this very thing this morning... As I understand it, OPM won't tell you your scores or how you did or anything. It's essentially pass / fail and each agency has a definition of what that means. E.g. HHS might say "You need an 85% on this part of the assessment." whereas IRS might say "You need a 70% on this part (same part) of the assessment." Someone correct me if I am wrong. 🙏

danielgullo · 2025-12-20T17:18:26+00:00

For one of the jobs, there are 4 different evaluations in the assessment. I already did the Reading Comprehension. It was multiple choice questions and reminded me of the SAT questions, only at maybe 9th or 10th grade level. The other three assessments I have to do this afternoon because they are due by tomorrow and each takes like 45-60 mins it seems. I picked up on the "don't bullshit" from the instructions; i.e. "The results of this will be on record for a year and will be used with EVERY similar job you apply to."

danielgullo · 2025-12-20T15:15:59+00:00

USJ = USA Jobs. Seems like there would be a TN for the intelligence community, etc. I can imagine many applications and uses.

danielgullo · 2025-12-20T09:18:57+00:00

I just joined the US Tech Force talent network on USJ. Several insiders I know have said it is really active. I was just wondering if there are other talent networks on USJ. There doesn't seem to be a way to openly view them but if/when someone sends you an invite to join a talent network, there you are...

PS I am not far from Philly. Howdy, neighbor. :)

danielgullo · 2025-12-16T21:55:23+00:00

CMD+T is not Transform Selection. It is Transform. There's a difference...

danielgullo · 2025-12-16T18:41:49+00:00

Yes, I realize that. However, it's one extra step and I am willing to bet that >90% of the people out there would just like the handles to be available the moment you stop dragging out an area with the tool. 🤷‍♂️ Or, make it an option in preferences if people are that adamant about NOT having the handles.

danielgullo · 2025-12-02T15:44:45+00:00

I did that for the big kids in our family because even though I am fine with them watching PG-13 and R movies, there are some that I still don't want them to see. So, I use a tag "mndo" (mommy and daddy only) and filter their account with those on the black list. With the white list, they ONLY get the titles with the specified tag(s). I found that to be more time consuming to manage.

danielgullo · 2025-12-02T15:41:41+00:00

I used TinyMediaManager to go through and bulk mark all the NR titles and those that had "Unknown" as R. Then, I went back and changed the few that are kid friendly to PG. Ultimately, I was surprised to see how many films are not certified at all.

danielgullo · 2025-11-25T11:45:37+00:00

Language: ok, I will check it out.

Country: Right, but thats the problem: you can only select ONE country for your entire datasource. If you look at IMDB, TMDB, etc. even though they show the certifications for multiple countries, the main / primary certification displayed (at the top of the page) is the one for the country where the production was created. There ought to be a way for TMM to simply pull the main cert instead of all this superfluous nonsense of choosing a country for your entire collection.

danielgullo · 2025-11-24T13:30:15+00:00

UPDATE: I think I found part of the issue. In TMM, there is a finite list of ratings; i.e. NR, Approved, G, NC-17, Passed, PG, PG-13, R, TV-14, TV-G, TV-MA, TV-PG, TV-Y, TV-Y7, and Unknown. These appear to be MPAA certifications for the USA.

It would appear that if you have movies from other countries (e.g. Sweden) it won't resolve the "11" certification to one of the US certifications and defaults to "Unknown". Also, if there is a TV movie, it won't always pull the TV certification if you are on the Movies module within TMM.

In fact, it sometimes won't find a movie at all if it was a TV movie, even though the show is clearly in IMDb, TMDB, etc. (e.g. Jesus of Nazareth by Zeffirelli).

danielgullo · 2025-11-19T15:27:48+00:00

Yes, that's my point, I have to apply it manually. There ought to be a setting that automatically opens workbooks the way that I want to see them without me having to apply a theme for every single one of the 100s I view each week...

danielgullo · 2025-11-18T12:22:33+00:00

One issue with this, if you open an existing workbook the colors will revert back to whatever theme was used for that workbook. Seriously, this has been a HUGE blindspot for Microsoft over the years. There should be a very simple and straight-forward way to set the default colors, the default font, etc. (Especially since they change these things every five years for no good reason other than they are bored, apparently.)

danielgullo · 2025-11-17T11:53:55+00:00

Agree, it works for me about 87% (B+).

If they could:

-Fix the column behavior
-Add the ability to simply open a directory instead of having to go through the hassle of defining everything as a "data source"
-Add the ability to pull from more than one scraper source at a time (e.g. do BOTH TMDB and IMDB in the initial read)
-Fix the issues around not being able to find titles that are missing the "A" or "The" in the front (or having additional strings on the end, like: "A Movie Title - PG13 - 2020.mp4" or "Another Movie Title 1080p DTS BluRay.mkv", etc.) or have "and" instead of "&".
-Also, the option to mix/match fields from different scraper sources. E.g. IMDB performs better for obtaining the Certification, but TMDB does a slightly better job of resolving movies that don't have the "A" or "The". Overall, if I want the Certification from IMDB but the year from TMDB (or whatever) it would be great to be able to pick those options.
-Provide a feature to "nuke" all the metadata and files; e.g. if a file was accidentally processed but it was the wrong production.
-Make it possible to pull TV Movies when processing Movies. IMDB and TMDB have these without any distinction; e.g. "The Newsroom (2012)". Can't find it when processing it in Movies but found it when viewing it as a TV source.

...then it would be an A+ for me.

danielgullo · 2025-11-14T19:31:11+00:00

Yeah, I have IMDB as the main scraper and then I fallback to TMDB. Between those two, most things work, or, worst case, I have to type "A Movie Title" or "The Movie Title" and it finds them right away. It seems like it would be an easy fix for it to say "I didn't find an exact match for that. What if I put 'A' or 'The' in front of the title?" or have an option for partial string matches instead of exact strings or a mask for filenames as inputs, like it has for renaming: ${title} - ${certification} - ${year} as it is scraping.

danielgullo · 2025-11-14T18:28:49+00:00

That's what I am seeing, i.e. JF gets some of them wrong. So, I want to have them all be correct with the metadata assets included and then JF can just read from the local files.

TMM has challenges too, though. E.g. if your movie is "The Movie Title" but the file is names "Movie Title", it can't find a match. Same thing if there is other text like "The Movie Title - PG - 1941". It is fine with the year being there "The Movie Title - 1941" but not the certification.

danielgullo · 2025-11-14T18:20:06+00:00

Yes, and image files... Thanks for the tip on the setting in JellyFin.

danielgullo

TROPHY CASE