I would suggest that physical exercise also has a similar beneficial effect.
Category: Tech
This Changes EVERYTHING! Here’s Why.
Did I say “everything?” Sorry, I meant to say this changes nothing, except for me.
The touchpad on my Windows 11 Lenovo laptop started giving me trouble. Gradually, it got worse, until suddenly it stopped working.
The Dell all-in-one with Windows 10 I bought in Arizona for my father, then shipped back home after he died, has TPM 2 for Windows 11. But Microsoft doesn’t support its AMD processor for the update and the system was running so slowly as to be essentially useless anyway.
Hoping the Lenovo touchpad failure was in the hardware, I replaced it. Device Manager says it’s okay, but like the original pad, there is no response. I’m now wondering if it’s somehow a software problem, resulting from an update. More likely there’s a failed component on the circuit board. Checking Reddit, I saw that I am not alone in having this failure. I will never buy another Lenovo product.
Retiring the Dell all-in-one, the Lenovo took its place in the office. For the porch, there is now a Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows 11, with a Qualcomm ARM 64 Snapdragon X Plus CPU. So far, its compatibility and responsiveness are indistinguishable from the Lenovo with its Intel i7 processor.
The Lenovo laptop has only one standard USB-A connector. I used it to put an old, long idle, Belkin USB-2 powered hub back into service. It’s fully loaded with a mouse, DVD-RW drive, laser printer, and an Ethernet adapter from a previous project. One less Wi-Fi connection competing for the airwaves.
I’ll give some flavor of Linux a try on the Dell all-in-one, to see if it has some life left in it. What I don’t have is space left for it!
Not Even Remotely Interesting
I recently commented that I am clinging tenaciously to broadcast TV with my over-the-air TiVo. Of absolutely no significance to anyone else, I wouldn’t be able to do that without a NOS (new old stock) remote. After nine years, the remote that came with the DVR had some worn out buttons. Ebay to the rescue.
Be Brave
Without getting into the history and controversy associated with Brave, it’s the Web browser I use for YouTube.
uBlock Origin was my ad blocker for a long time, until I was forced to disable it on YouTube. I looked for something else that would make it possible to be logged into YouTube without paying to be ad-free. For now, that something is Brave.
The Care and Feeding of Pop-Up Drainage Emitters
Winter preparations are underway. Water from the gutters on my house goes underground and exits through pop-up drainage emitters. When I checked on them today, two of the three emitters had disappeared into the ground. When I uncovered them, they were completely clogged.
I pulled them off the pipes then cleared everything out. Then I raised the emitters using a couple of pieces left over from when the drainage systems were installed.
The third emitter was also clogged, but it hadn’t gone into hiding. The tube on the right is visible from the street. I’m thinking of making it shorter with a hacksaw.
P.S. to TV ’74
tastewar pointed out this video, about DVD reissues of TV series that squeeze more than two hours of video onto single-layer discs.
The first disc in the 5-disc Kolchak: The Night Stalker DVD set I bought is about 7.5 GB. So, it’s a double-layer disc, and I’m assuming all of them are. The video quality really is quite good, considering the source material.
There is one tiny technical quirk that can show up, especially when credits are overlayed on the screen. You’ll never see it, unless your player supports 24 frames per second on DVDs. If it does, you can almost certainly disable it.