Signal vs iMessage (Yes I still call it iMessage)

Sun, 03 May 2026 16:37:25 -0400

You can say a lot about Signal and its mission to provide secure and private chat to the world. They have earned all the goodwill given to them through hard work and maintaining their values. The problem is, “The Tyranny of the Default”. I use an iPhone, and most of my friends do as well. Hence, they tend to use Messages for their communications.

I have tried over time to get friends to hop on Signal with limited success. Those who do join tend to not use it for long because I might be the only person they have in their chat list. So I really don’t blame them when they just start texting me through Messages again. The same has happened to me. I only have two people left on my Signal list, and it makes me wonder if I should just give in and move them back to Messages.

What's going on with my Work Laptop?

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 08:23:38 -0400

So I have read about (and experienced) the slowness that Windows 11 can have while doing basic UI operations such as opening file explorer or the right click menu. On my little Ryzen 5 mini pc it’s pretty noticeable but on my work laptop it’s horrendous. Based on specs alone my work laptop with its 32Gb of RAM and the Intel Core-i7 12700H should fly through the UI but something else is happening. When plugged in its ok, while on battery its a mess, with janky slow window resizing and lag all through out.

Now my work laptop has all of the standard IT management and security software on it that one would expect from a large business (they even disable the fingerprint reader!). I couldn’t name all of the little program icons in the system tray related to security or the dozens upon dozens of group policies deployed to it. Not to mention it has Bitlocker enabled of course. Its my conjecture that this is the difference between the two computers.

I wonder if anyone in my IT organization has ran a performance profile on a standard software load out to see how much they are sapping from the computer? I suppose it doesn’t factor into their decisions and that’s probably the correct path. But considering a work provided computer is one of the primary ways the general public experiences Windows it has to behoove Microsoft to try and reduce this effect. They have made some big promises about fixing Windows performance this year. I hope they can also improve in the IT management software ecosystem along with it.

Tech on Todd Sizemore

Signal vs iMessage (Yes I still call it iMessage)

What's going on with my Work Laptop?