Darkoshi

Finally, I have switched over to using the new laptop as my primary one. I am not finished setting up all my programs and settings, but the most important parts are done.

I figured out how to customize the menu colors in my Firefox and Waterfox browsers via my userChrome.css file. I hadn't planned to do that, but for some reason the browsers' menu spacing was less compact on the new laptop than the old one. While researching how to fix that, I also found out how to change the colors:

/* Make menus more compact, and change their color */
menupopup > menuitem, menupopup > menu {
	padding-top: 2px !important;
	padding-bottom: 2px !important;
	color: #00ffb2 !important;
	background: #4d056e !important;
}
menupopup > menuitem:hover, menupopup > menu:hover {
	background: #000000 !important;
}

I had a week of vacation to do it.
Besides the new laptop, I:
- baked brownies and chocolate chip cookie bars
- made cucumber salad
- cooked grits
- sewed a cloth cover on my headphone's headband after cutting off the original one which was sticky with age
- tried out the solid bike tires; returned them.
- watched some TV, including 3 more episodes of "I Don't Want to Be Friends With You".
- miscellaneous other minor things

I am not feeling rested at all. But at least I'm using the new laptop.

I turn it on after 3 weeks of not having used it.
I get a prompt to update one piece of software. I click the link to see what changed.
The browser gives me a prompt to update it.
The laptop also is showing a prompt for an update from the manufacturer.
I let the browser update.

I open a text file in Notepad++ and start typing. Then I change my mind and close the file. I don't get prompted to save the changes like usual. I check the file's last modified date in File Explorer. It still shows 04/30/2023. I reopen the file. What I typed today is still there. I close the file. The file's date still displays as 04/30 in both File Explorer and from a command prompt.

The laptop starts making an annoying high-pitched sound; the fan is on high. It gets quiet again after 8 minutes. Now there is a Windows update ready to install.

I don't have the external keyboard plugged into the laptop. The laptop has a single key for both Page Up and Home, and today I can't figure out how to press Control+Home to move the cursor to the start of the file. I try several key combinations without success and feel like shrieking (ok, I shrieked. Later, I determined that Control + Function Key + PageUp/Home button works. I thought I tried that before but I guess not).

I restart the laptop to see if that will clear up this weird text file issue. The file still shows a date 04/30. I open the file; it still has the prior change. I make another change and again close the file without saving it. Again, my change is retained even though the file's modified date is unchanged. What the hecking heck?
When I open the file it still shows the asterisk in the title bar as if it hasn't been saved yet.

Ah, so it is a Notepad++ "feature":
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24447786/notepad-doesnt-save-document-on-exit

I turn the feature off.

I connect the external keyboard to the laptop. The USB dongle is hard to push in. Why? It's turned the right way around. It was hard to push in the other times too. I hope I'm not ruining the port.

I try to remember why I turned on the laptop to begin with. Oh right, to copy some clips from the cam's SD card.

Now I can't find the paper where I'd written down the time range of the clips I wanted to copy. It's 4:46am! I need to get to bed!!!!

My whole day has been like this, sort of. The only thing that feels like a success is that I washed a load of clothes and hung them up to dry.

A car hit my mailbox post again, pushing it so that it's now loose in the ground. I need to dump in some dirt and tamp it down. At least the post and mailbox don't seem damaged. But it's the clips of that incident which I am trying to copy so that I can see better what happened. There were cop cars on the street with flashing lights. A different car drove up, then apparently on seeing the cop car at the corner - maybe the cop car was blocking the street, decided to turn around. It did a 3-point turn right into my mailbox. And then it looked like a cop ran by on foot, but I'm not sure.

I think my new laptop is probably very nice, from the little bit I've used it so far. It certainly is light and large and lovely.

But there's a problem in that Windows 11 is between it and me, and Windows 11 keeps doing things that destroy my serenity. I continue to think that once I get over the initial difficult hurdles, I'll get the laptop set up in a way that pleases me. But in the meantime...

This wasn't only a fluke late last night; it still happened today after having restarted the computer.

Original post from last night, ie. early morning:
Tonight I'm hearing a low buzzy sound from my speakers when I scroll the wheel on my mouse. It only happens when something on the screen is scrolling, not when the mouse is over something that can't scroll. Weird! Only the computer knows the cursor's position, not the mouse or speakers. So the computer must be generating a signal that the speaker is picking up. The loudness of the buzz differs based on which application I scroll. Weird!

Further observations today:
The buzz happens even without the mouse, when I scroll a page with the keyboard arrows.
The buzz also happens if I play a video with the sound off, without scrolling anything.
It only happens when the external speakers are plugged into the laptop. I should have noted before that the sound is coming from the external speakers, not the built-in ones.
Unplugging the power cord from the laptop makes no difference.

Current theory: The display must be generating electrical noise when it updates large portions of the screen at once.

Further observation and solution:
The laptop's volume was set to very low, and the external speakers' volume was turned higher than usual.
I don't remember when or why I did that. After switching them back to normal with the laptop volume set mid-to-high and the speaker volume lower, the buzz isn't noticeable.
Thank goodness; it had gotten quite annoying!

I'd been swapping my wired keyboard and wireless mouse (one of the older ones with a wired transceiver, not the nano USB adapters they have now) between my personal laptop and my work laptop at the start and end of each work day.

One of the laptop's USB ports started getting loose, such that the mouse connection would drop & reconnect every once in a while. I used a toothpick to pull up on the prongs inside the port. That is a possible fix for a loose port problem, but it didn't make much difference in my case.

That made me realize that plugging & unplugging items into the USB ports multiple times a day isn't a good idea.

Not only was I swapping the keyboard & mouse; I was also swapping the position of the laptops on my desk. Therefore using a separate wired keyboard & mouse for each laptop wasn't ideal either. It's hard to move laptops around with peripherals plugged into them. It's also not practical to keep peripherals plugged in when carrying the laptops back and forth between Qiao's place and mine.

Using the laptops' built-in keyboard and trackpad isn't good either. I can't type nearly as fast on them, and it's quite frustrating.

I thought a good solution would be to get a separate wireless keyboard/mouse combo using a single nano USB adapter for each laptop. It is a good solution. (Except for the minor problem that I might need a bigger laptop bag now for my personal laptop, as having a nano USB adapter plugged into the side makes it not fit into the bag. Which is hard to believe as it's less than a centimeter difference, but yeah. Or I could simply unplug the nano adapter for that; that's not something I need to do every day.)

Today after eating lunch I noticed some grease spots on the wireless keyboard I'd been using. This keyboard doesn't have an on/off switch; it goes to sleep automatically when not in use. So I carried the keyboard all the way into the bathroom to wipe it off, thinking that was surely far enough away that any keys I pressed while cleaning it wouldn't be recognized on the laptop.

Much to my surprise, when I carried the keyboard back to the laptop, I saw that the keypresses had still registered on the laptop! The bathroom is about 35 feet away, with 2 walls in between. I had no idea the wireless signals being used were strong enough to travel that far!

Later I tested the other wireless keyboard and mouse, which are made by a different company. They also work from far away. I tested the mouse outside the house from the porch, with the front door and storm door closed, about 20 feet from my laptop. The mouse's scroll wheel still was able to scroll the browser page open on my laptop.

That got me to wondering whether using a wireless keyboard can be a security risk. Suppose someone planted a device outside your home to record the signals from your keyboard, thereby capturing all your key presses, including any user IDs and passwords you type. Maybe a malicious app on your phone could even listen for wireless keyboard signals, and secretly record your keystrokes.

From what I've read now, wireless keyboards & mice may use encryption to prevent that kind of thing. But how can you know if yours are using encryption or not? I don't recall reading that in the specs of the ones I have. I will have to look up more on that.

The first thing I found when searching on it was not about the keyboard signals being captured, but rather hackers transmitting their own signals to control your mouse, "mousejacking".

I wonder if having my hands on these wireless-transmitting devices all day (as well as being within a few feet of the laptop's wi-fi signals) is deleterious to my health. The cell phones and iPad are also usually not far away. The wifi router is a bit further away, but still not that far. And there are several other devices in the house that send out wireless signals. I know they say it's nothing to be concerned about. But maybe it all adds up. I wonder.

And then there's the physical problems one can get simply from typing a lot and using a mouse. My right wrist has been achy today.

Do you ever get the feeling that your computer is doing something and trying to hide it from you, even though you are rather sure it isn't infected with malware?

There are times (both on this laptop and my old one, and my work one) where I hear the fan start spinning loudly, even though I haven't been doing anything that should take much processing power.

Then I open Task Manager, and click to see what process is using the most CPU (showing all processes). But then either
...the fan continues spinning loudly for a little while, even though according to Task Mgr the CPU is 95% or more idle
or
...the fan abruptly goes quiet as if it stopped doing whatever it was doing, so that I wouldn't see it listed in Task Mgr.

I bought this adjustable shelf to try out as a standing desk setup. It's wide enough for both the keyboard and mouse, and deep enough that I can rest my forearms on it.



At home, my laptop is on an adjustable mount that can be lifted and lowered, so that is how I raise and lower the display. At work, I have 2 monitors, one on the desk for use while sitting, and one on a higher shelf for use while standing (to switch between them, it only requires an alt-ctl-fn key press).

The above is okay in terms of comfort. (Having my skin touch cool metal is unpleasant, so I cover the metal with cloth as in the above photo). But to switch from standing to sitting, I need to re-position the keyboard and mouse from the shelf back to the desk, and move the shelf away. The shelf, while light, is big and awkward to move around. So switching between standing and sitting isn't a very simple matter. (Though, if the keyboard were wireless rather than corded, that would help somewhat.)

I found the below setup to be more convenient.




I use a box (or a stack of books) to raise up my mouse & mousepad. I've found that using the mouse is most comfortable when my forearm is horizontal like that, not angled up or down.
I put a wedge (about 2" high) under the keyboard (or stick something else under the front edge so that it is higher than the back edge). Typing is fairly comfortable to me in that position, even though my palms & wrists don't rest on anything. Without the wedge, I would have to bend my wrists a lot, which quickly becomes very uncomfortable.

To switch from sitting to standing, I just need to move over my box, put the mouse & mousepad on it, and slip the wedge under the keyboard. It's much simpler than the shelf.

At work, someone on the other side of the building put up a Valentine's Day Tree. It's a pretty pink (Christmas) tree, with pink lights and heart decorations.

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A dead Canadian goose has been floating by the edge of the pond since at least Monday. Poor thing. I wonder what happened to it. I considered reporting it at first, but wouldn't even know who to report it to.

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Driving home yesterday, there were 2 wild turkeys* standing in the driveway to a car body shop. Very close to the main road I was driving on, which had a lot of traffic. There was also a car parked off the other side of the road with its lights flashing yellow. Not sure if that was related.

*only got a quick glimpse, enough to be pretty sure they weren't buzzards. One looked vaguely peacockish, but I'm pretty sure we don't have wild peacocks around here.

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My laptop is back from being repaired under warranty, with a new keyboard and touchpad. Seems to be working fine so far, yay. The new keyboard is a dual English/French one, which is different.

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It's very cold outside. But something went wrong with the HVAC at work today, and it got very warm inside. Even with the doors to the atrium propped open. In the morning when other people started to complain, I was like "I'm comfortable actually. It's better than being too cold". But it got so warm that by the time I left in the evening, it was way too warm even for me.

I'm glad of the time change. I enjoy it still being light outside when I leave work.

Qiao dislikes Daylight Savings Time. He feels that 12 noon is supposed to be mid-day. That "high noon" is supposed to be when the sun is highest in the sky. That does make sense.

But I still prefer it being light outside when I leave work.

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Advice to self: Don't start a 20 minute compile 20 minutes before it's time for you to leave work. And especially don't start other processes too, while impatiently waiting for the compile to finish. Because it will surely end up taking at least 40 minutes to finish, even without the other processing.

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Why does it sometimes take 3 hours to copy 2 GB's worth of files from one location on my hard drive to another?

Is it safe to put a computer to sleep while it is in the middle of a large copy operation like that, or while it is in the middle of a long compile? Will it simply pause and continue when it wakes back up? I wouldn't want to risk having to start all over again. And yet if I leave the laptop on while carrying it home in the carrying case, I risk it overheating and crashing. Unless I awkwardly carry the case by one handle so that the vented side of the laptop can still get air.

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I am looking for a new washing machine. The old one keeps acting up, and trying to fix it would likely cost more than it would be worth.

From what I've read, a high-efficiency front-loader still sounds like the best type for me. Do any of you have experience with particular brands/models that have worked well, or which have had problems? I don't know which online reviews can be trusted.

If you hover the cursor over the top edge of a window so that it changes to the up-down pointer, and then double-click, it resizes the window to the maximum height while not changing the width. This can be handy.

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I dislike that when you drag a window to the top edge of the screen, it is automatically maximized ("aero snap" feature). But I like the half-width maximization that you can get by dragging a window to the side edges of the screen; this makes it easy to tile 2 windows side by side, when you need to see both at the same time. Therefore, I won't disable this feature. This page shows how one could disable it.

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Deleting the "Extended" string value under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd in the registry causes an "Open Command Window Prompt Here" to display in the context menu in Explorer when clicking a folder. The Extended part makes the context menu only show up when you shift-right-click (that was working, but I don't want to have to press shift to get it).

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The default height of the Start Menu is less than the screen height; therefore you may need to use the vertical scroll bar to scroll through the All Programs list.
To make the Start Menu taller, you can do this:
- Open the Start Menu Properties window
- Select the "Store and display recently opened programs in the Start Menu" checkbox (don't worry; it can be unselected again at the end)
- Click "Customize" and set "Number of recent programs to display" to a large number such as 30.
- Click OK and again OK.
- The Start Menu will be taller.
- Now you can go back and unselect the "Store and display recently opened programs in the Start Menu" checkbox. That will cause the Customize window to display zero in the "Number of recent programs to display" field, but the Start Menu will remain the taller size.

(This is also mentioned here).

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To disable animations...
System Properties - Advanced (tab) - Performance (section) .. Settings (button) ... Visual Effects (tab)
- Select the "Custom" radio button and then unselect any of the following:
"Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing" and
"Animations in the taskbar and Start Menu".
"Fade or slide menus into view"

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The following registry change can be done to prevent (delay) the mini-windows from popping up when the mouse hovers over the taskbar.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
- Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named ExtendedUIHoverTime
- Double-click ExtendedUIHoverTime and click Decimal
- To increase the hover delay to 5 seconds, type 5000. Type 10000 for 10 seconds and so forth…
- The change may not take effect until after rebooting.

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To get the QuickLaunch toolbar to work like it did in XP...

For all the icons on the taskbar, right-click and select "Unpin...." to remove them, and do the following to instead create Quicklaunch icons.

1. Right click on a empty space on the taskbar and click on New Tool.
2. In the Folder line, type or copy:
%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
3. Click on the Select Folder button.
4. You now have a Quick Launch toolbar on the taskbar.
NOTE: Click on the arrow to see your Quick Launch shortcuts.

6. To Remove Quick Launch Toolbar Icon Text or Title -
A) Unlock the taskbar.
B) Right click on the Quick Launch toolbar title name, then uncheck the Show Text and Show Title by clicking on them. (See screenshot below step 5B)
C) Lock the taskbar.

8. To Have Quick Launch Toolbar on Left Side of Taskbar -
A) Unlock the taskbar.
B) Left click on the dotted lines of the pinned taskbar programs of the left side and hold, then drag it to the right past the Quick Launch toolbar and release.
C) The Quick Launch toolbar is now on the left side of the taskbar.
D) Left click on the dotted lines of these and hold and drag them to make any adjustments to how you want them place on the taskbar.
E) Lock the taskbar.

Then save your desktop theme - the page says you need to do that.

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I like that with Window 7, you can use drag and drop to rearrange the open programs/buttons on the taskbar. But you can't separate different instances of the same program - they are all grouped next to each other, even if they were started at different times, after other programs were started. You can only drag and drop the whole group.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Change-how-buttons-appear-on-the-taskbar
"You might notice that multiple buttons representing the same program remain grouped together on the taskbar, whether you've chosen to display the expanded button labels or not. In previous versions of Windows, windows appeared on the taskbar in the order you opened them, but in Windows 7, related windows always appear next to each other. "

It makes sense that some people would like that functionality, but I prefer to have them shown in the order I opened them, not always next to each other, and to be able to drag and drop individual instances of a program.

There's a program "Taskbar Tweaker" at the bottom of this page that lets you do this. In the program, select the "Don't group" option. The settings also include an option for running the program at startup.

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KatMouse is a nice little utility which lets your mouse scroll the window which is under it, even when that window does not have the focus. This is especially useful for Windows Explorer, as you can click in the left pane to open a folder, and then scroll the right pane without first having to click there to give it focus.

WizMouse is another utility similar to KatMouse. It apparently includes functionality for horizontal scrolling (of non-focus windows?), but that part does not work for me. It also does not work for scrolling non-focus windows when the Task Manager has focus; therefore I prefer KatMouse.

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I've been having a problem with "TrustedInstaller.exe" ("Windows Modules Installer") causing continuous hard drive activity, for up to an hour or more (until I terminate the process).
My Windows Updates configuration is set to check for updates but ask me before downloading or installing them. There were no updates in progress at the time of the excess hard drive activity.
I also have Indexing ("Windows Search") and Superfetch disabled.
I haven't been able to figure out what is causing the problem.
For the time being, I've disabled the Windows Modules Installer service, but I need to remember to turn it back on. Otherwise I may not get any more updates.

Update: Today I restarted the Windows Modules Installer service, and TrustedInstaller started back up with a lot of disk activity, mainly in the c:\windows\system32\config\COMPONENTS** files, and also the c:\windows\winsxs\ files.

Based on this page, the COMPONENTS files correspond to the HKLM\COMPONENTS hive of the registry. So for some reason TrustedInstaller appeared to be continuously updating that part of the registry. After about an hour, the hard drive activity stopped, and the TrustedInstaller process was no longer running. TrustedInstaller has not restarted again in the last hour, so hopefully it is finished doing whatever it was doing, and won't start again.