Written on December 8, 2024

I've written before about how I stopped using a smartphone and replaced it with a cheap Nokia model and I have even given away my old smartphone a few months ago.

I have a laptop at home and for what I want to do digitally, it's more than enough. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't seem to agree with me, forcing me to keep a mobile device on hand. For example, by forcing people to install two-factor authentication apps.

Luckily, I had an old tablet lying around. Although the device has been gathering dust except when I decide to check for emails and messages or when I need to use my two-factor authenticator, I recently decided to pick it up again.

The reason, I found a handy little app called ISH. So, what is it?

ISH is an app that allows you to run an Alpine Linux shell environment locally on your tablet. The folders are placed in a separate directory, making them accessible from both the app and your normal Finder.

Of course, you can't use a desktop environment, so you'll be forced to use the command line. But for me, that's all I need when I'm on the go.

So, what do I use it for? With ISH, I can connect to my laptop via SSH, which makes it easy to transfer files. I can also easily write updates for my website via a command line text editor, which I can then upload directly to Neocities or of course via SSH to my laptop.

Typing is of course very tedious on the tablet itself, so I recently bought a very cheap little foldable Bluetooth keyboard that makes typing a bit easier. This combination is really great and I've been keeping it, along with my tablet, in my backpack for use on the go.