Category: Tech

Lazyweb: Matching compatible mini-PCs with RAM / NVMe on hand?

I’ve recently upgraded a few laptops and have some NVMe drives and spare RAM on hand. Rather than letting them gather dust or try to sell them online, I’d like to match them with inexpensive mini PCs for use in my home lab. Suggestions on the best way to...

Laws of technology and remote work

Some observations on a Friday evening about the realities of home offices and technology. Fa A laptop’s cabling will always be located on the maximally inconvenient side. Especially power cords with bulky connectors. Internet only fails before or during an important teleconference or the most suspenseful part of a...

USB-C is simple, right? Well…

One of the nice things about USB-C is its simplicity, right? No more figuring out which side is up to plug into a device. The connector is super-friendly. But… that’s where the simplicity stops....

A little Calibre trick: Set series order in metadata

Many book series do not make it abundantly clear what order the series is in by book title. If you are reading, say, Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, it’s not clear from book titles what order the series is in. So you finish Ringworld and then you are ready to...

MacBook Pro 2015 update: The winner is Pop!_OS

After a few tries to put Fedora on the MacBook Pro 2015, I auditioned a number of other Linux distros and wound up going with Pop!_OS. I gave Chrome OS Flex a brief spin, but it wasn’t quite my jam. If you like Chrome OS and have an old...

Two observations about Mastodon in early 2023

Tonight, not for the first time, I learned about a “breaking news” item from Mastodon. That’s been happening more often over the past few weeks, whereas this time last year I’d have gotten this kind of thing via Twitter first. This seems significant to me because Mastodon is making...

Happy Public Domain Day! Or is it?

Today isn’t just the start of a new year, it’s Public Domain Day in the United States. Works from 1927 enter the public domain today, making them free to copy, share and remix....

Lazyweb: Best Linux distro for a 2015 MacBook Pro?

Apple has decided that my 2015 MacBook Pro isn’t deserving of the latest macOS, so I’m looking to run Linux on it to get a few more years out of it. My first plan was to put Fedora on it, but Fedora 36 and 37 have failed to “set...