BTTR's long weekend suggestions: Board games and slushies

I love the Easter long weekend. Two free days off; a longer break which means a chance to relax without having to dive deep into annual leave balances.

I'm not going away this year – instead I'll be spending some time playing the Witcher: Path of Destiny board game I crowdfunded an age ago, and drinking slushies from the Ninja Slushi as I try and get my review finalised.

Whatever you end up doing, I hope you have a nice, relaxing time, resetting before the weather turns properly cold.

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Espresso Display’s 15-inch Pro is available now for $1,099

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With the launch of portfolio tracking, Gather is becoming one of Australia’s most comprehensive money apps

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This week's top deals from the BTTR Store

Having relaunched BTTR's price comparison, I'm enjoying the automated look at discounted products. Here are some great bargains:

• Oral B Vitality Precision Clean Toothbrush: Was $50, now $32.49
• HP Smart Tank 5105 AIO Printer: Was $369, now $299
• Motorola g55 5G 128GB Twilight Purple: Was $299. now $260.38
• Lenovo IP Flex 15.6″ Celeron N4500 8GB 128GB eMMC Chromebook: Was $699, now $559.20
• Russell Hobbs Addison Digital Kettle: Was $89.95, now $55.99
• NUTRIBULLET Stainless Steel Flip Portable Blender Black: Was $149.95, now $119.96

Ask me anything!

Your chance to be featured! I've opened up a new "Ask Me Anything" section. Get your tech questions or opinions in by next Wednesday for a chance to be included in next week's newsletter. Existing members, I'm especially eager to hear from you! Don't miss out, ask your question today!

BTTR's early adventures in the Fediverse

Thanks to updates from the team at Ghost, a couple of weeks ago I joined the beta that allows people to follow and engage with publications on the open social web.

That's right. BTTR is now part of the Fediverse. Follow us at @index@www.bttr.reviews.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the Fediverse is an idea of building a decentralised network of platforms that can interact with each other by using a standard protocol called ActivityPub.

The whole idea is to try and take control away from corporations like Meta and Twitter and give it back to users.

If, say, a platform on the Fediverse were to be purchased by a billionaire with the aim of undermining democracy to make himself richer, you could easily take all your content and move it to another platform, without losing your followers or friends connections.

It's a noble idea, and one that faces good growth opportunities in the coming years. But in the past couple of weeks since joining the beta, I've discovered that the Fediverse still has a long way to go.

The hardest challenge, I think, is in discovery. With so many connected platforms, not to mention different servers with platforms like Mastodon, finding the right people and sites to connect with is a real challenge.

It's also a completely separate standard to the AT Protocol used by Bluesky, despite the fact both ActivityPub and AT Proto aspire to achieve similar things.

So far, Ghost's own platform for discovery is one of its weakest areas, seemingly limited to other Ghost publications that are part of the beta. But given it is still in beta, I expect it to improve over the coming months.