I was previously using a Sony HWS-BTA2W bluetooth adapter from 2007 to get sound wirelessly from my computer or phone to a set of non-bluetooth speakers. It had a problem that only happened with my linux computer. I was annoyed with this device because as the workload would increase/decrease on my computer, the audio would speed up and slow down. You could hear the pitch rise and fall if you were listening to music. This is probably by design – as part of the base level Bluetooth SBC codec that everything supports. It makes sense that if you’re talking on the phone you’d want to hear everything someone said, even if it had to be sped up or slowed down for continuity.

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Dude… you’re getting a Dell(?)!

The last 4 laptops I’ve owned went like this:

  • 2004 – ThinkPad
  • 2009 – Dell
  • 2014 – ThinkPad
  • 2019 – Dell

Whenever I had the Dells I would tell my wife: “Remind me to get a ThinkPad next time.” I wish I listened to my own advice. They’re well thought out – ThinkPads just get a little more love when it comes to design and build. While they’re not without fault, they are generally better than your average laptop.

The Dell laptops I’ve owned have felt cheap and both have gone in for repairs. The good news is, Dell support is pretty good about fixing things. But I wish I didn’t have to send them in for repairs. Sidenote: my old ThinkPads have made for excellent loaners during repair periods. Dell really should be cheap and cheerful, but the whole experience leaves me feeling a bit “meh.”

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A coworker gave a lunch and learn about mechanical keyboards. I should have known it would be an entrance to a black hole… it all started 25 years ago with my beloved Zeos Keyboard with Alps keygates – which I consequently wrecked after spilling a beer into it 🍺 Then onto my HHKB Lite2 which I still have but need a host of adapters to connect its PS/2 connector.

Now I’m entering the modern mechanical era with a Keychron K6 – a 65% keyboard that closely resembles my HHKB layout. It has Gateron Blue (light and clicky) switches that remind me of my famed Zeos board. Here’s the original layout:

My first issue is I have a bit of OCD when it comes to pairing. I expect insert/del, home/end, and page up/down to be at least near each other, if not next to each other. So I changed the keycaps in the far right row, around the corner to the FN1/2 keys. I used low(ish) profile DSA keys on this edge to mimic the lower arrow keys from the HHKB. Also I got custom colored beige/blue FN1/FN2 keys to quickly remind me that FN1 is for the gold functions and FN2 is for blue.

Now I needed to change what the swapped keys did when I pressed them…

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In my other XPS 13 DE Settings post, I linked to an article about mouse lag that helped my Microsoft 3600 mouse behave better.

Last week I noticed it started acting up again 😔 so I revisited the problem. My previous settings had apparently been wiped out with my upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04. But in my search I found some other settings that might help.

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Single-user vs service

Before you install Duplicati, there’s one question you need to ask:

Does this computer have multiple user logins (that you want to back-up), or is it primarily used by one user?

This is important because you can install Duplicati in one of two ways: to run as a single-user, or to run as a system service that is available to all users. By default Duplicati is installed for a single user, but if there is more than one user on the computer you want to be able to back-up, you’ll want to install it as a service.

If you don’t install it as a service, when Duplicati tries to read files that belong to the other users, it will get a permission denied error and won’t be able to back those files up. You don’t want to find out that your files weren’t backed up when it’s too late.

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