Your Best Buy of 2021 – Community – SitePoint Forums

2021 has passed for a while now, so we’ve all had time to reflect on it.

My question is, what’s the best thing you’ve bought in 2021?

For me it’s my Garmin Forerunner 245 running watch. It has built-in GPS and can download music from Spotify which can then be played via Bluetooth. This means that I no longer need my phone when I go for a run. My watch is enough.
Also, it has better and more stats than the fitbit I had before.

A very close runner up is the Pixel 4a phone that I bought last year. So far I’ve only had bass and phones and this one being a mid range I can clearly see what I was missing. This one is much more stable, much faster, and has a much better camera and screen than any phone I’ve had before. It doesn’t break the bank either, although it’s not cheap either.

What is/are the best things you bought last year?

5 weeks of paragliding in Tenerife…No material thing can give me more than a day of adventure.

The thing that immediately comes to mind is a very modest purchase, but no less wonderful for that.

It’s a knitting row counter that fits on your finger, like a ring, rather than the knitting needle, and it cost me the princely sum of £1.99.

Explanation for those interested:
You need to keep track of the rows of knitting, either to follow an intricate pattern, or just to make sure both sleeves are the same length, or the front and back of your sweater. For all the years I’ve knitted, I’ve used a traditional row counter, which fits on the end of the knitting needle. Over the past couple of years I’ve knitted more and more on circular needles, where you knit back and forth, rather than back and forth. Because there is no end, there is nowhere to put a line count. I tried to put it on the table next to me, but it gets knocked over and I also forget to turn it. I’ve tried tying it to the cast end of the yarn, which kinda works, but it bounces around irritatingly, and once the knit is more than a few inches long it’s out of sight, out of mind and again I forget to turn it.

The finger count is sufficiently “present” for me to remember it, without bothering me. Perfect!

My best buy was Valheim. A fantastic game with the right mix (for me) of exploration, combat and building. He entertained me for hours.

That looks nice ! I still use an old fashioned MP3 player with wired headphones. I should probably adapt to my time…

20 pairs of socks for €16 ($17.50 / £13.40)

I forgot about this one, because I bought it for my dad instead of me, but he thinks it’s the best thing since sliced ​​bread.

Early in Covid, I spoke to my parents (then aged 87 and 91) about the process of setting up and using Zoom. During the weekly conversations, I realized that Dad was having trouble with the laptop keyboard because his vision was failing (macular degeneration). Eventually it occurred to me that he couldn’t be alone in this and went looking for a solution. I found a high-visibility, black-on-yellow USB keyboard with extra-large keys (and therefore extra-large writing). Not only can he see the keys now, but being taller also makes it easier for him to type with his arthritis.

I’ve been using Linux VPS for several years with various hosting companies and typically pay $5 for a 20GB SSD and 1GB of memory plus backup at $1 a month.

Last year I upgraded to a German Contabo VPS with a traditional 200GB platter type drive and a combo SSD for 6.99 per month paid annually. A hardware upgrade has become available and they now offer a 50GB NVMe drive… which is exceptionally fast and with a single snapshot that gets deleted after a month. This snapshot takes about five seconds to back up the disk and restores nicely in a minute! This super-fast backup changed my working methods and my strategy, drastic changes can now be attempted knowing that the original storage can be quickly restored.

After a year I still have about 25 GB spare, any suggestions?

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