Posts
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Pinebook Pro Saga and Review
Back Story
A while back I bought a Pinebook laptop. This was the original 11-inch, white plastic model. It cost $99 plus shipping.
Pinebook (definitely not Pro) The idea was great – a cheap ARM laptop that you could grab and go and not worry too much what happened with it. But in practice, it was not even remotely usable. The specs on processor and network speed and memory were just not there. You couldn’t watch YouTube on it. Just loading any non-trivial web page was painfully slow. The touchpad was meh, but the keyboard was just atrocious. Not so much the feel, but the layout. Way too cramped. Keys for common symbols like
Read more...|and"required a modifier key AND a shift key, turning them into a three-key combo. And the right hand shift key wasn’t even the size of a regular key. I could NEVER hit that one correctly. -
How to Interview
A couple weeks ago I wrote about resumes. The obvious follow up is about interviews. Again, this post reflects my own experiences and opinions, not any official policies or procedures of my company.
I’ve done more technical interviews in the last few years than I could count. But I’m not going to talk about technical interviews here. What I’ve been doing for the past month or so is the initial screening calls, where I just have a conversation with the person, do introductions, ask some general questions about background, skills, likes, dislikes, experience, etc. It’s been a really nice break from the tech interviews. And I’ve learned so much from doing these.
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Introducing “version”
Yesterday I picked up a book on a writing compilers and interpreters. This particular book’s code is written in Java. It’s been a while since I’ve coded in Java and I had no idea what Java dev tools I had on my system. So I created a simple hello world Java class and ran
Read more...javac Main.javaandjava mainand got the result I was hoping for. Yay! Then I figured I’d check what version of Java I had installed. So I did what I thought was obvious: -
How to Resume
Note 1: You can spell it “resume”, “resumé” or “résumé”. I’m going to go accent-less.
Note 2: This article represents my own views and experiences and is no way meant to represent the views, policies or practices of my company.
Intro
My company, Notarize.com, found itself well positioned in an environment where suddenly people want to do transactions on line rather than in person. Our traffic and business has increased massively in the past few months and we’ve attracted the attention of a lot of big companies that want to work with us. We’re building all kinds of new things to accommodate this new surge and we need new engineers.
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2020 Desktop Build!
After upgrading my 2011 desktop recently with a new CPU and RAM, I caught the PC building bug and started wanting to build a whole new machine. My initial plans were to take it slow. But there’s only so much I can do there. If I got a modern motherboard, my existing CPU and RAM isn’t going to work, so those three need to be done at once. But I figured I could start with a case anyway.
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Backups, XFCE, Bit-Box v2?
Backups
Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on upgrading my home desktop computer, and I’ve documented much of the process here. New RAM, new CPU and cooling fan, several missteps along the way, but I got it all working nicely. Which of course meant that something new had to go wrong.
First, let me tell you about my current backup system for this box. For a number of years, every time I switched computers or OSes, I would back up the entire disk (or at least my home/user directory) to an external hard disk. And then I’d copy back all the stuff I needed, but kept the old copy around. Eventually, all of these copies got consolidated into my desktop computer. There’s all kinds of good stuff in there. Old documents, old code, old programs and downloads, photos, plans, projects, on and on.
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RAM, Bit-Box, Attractors, Interpreters
What have I been up to over the last week? A few things.
RAM
I got my next 16GB batch of RAM in for my desktop. Out with the old, in with the new. It works. With the upgraded CPU and double the RAM, this 9 year old computer feels like new.
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16 GB of shiny new (old DDR3) RAM -
Bit-Box?
I’ve been working on a custom keypad build. I think I’ll call mine a Bit-Box. In my post last week I shared the initial proof of concept breadboard build and the second prototype build. This past week I finished the “final” version. I put “final” in quotes because I’m already thinking of how to make a better one. Anyway, here’s how it came out:
The previous iteration used an Arduino Micro clone, a plastic project box and some push-button switches. For this one, I wanted a nicer enclosure and better switches. I got some Cherry MX keyboard switches from Amazon. A dozen for around $10. And ten X-Keys customizable key caps for about the same amount. These are clear key caps with a top cover that snaps on. You can pop the top off and put a slip of paper in there to create a custom key.
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Computer Upgrades
A lot of things going on this week, so I’m probably going to have to make more than one post.
This one will be about some general computer upgrades I’ve been making.
Dell XPS 13 Battery Replacement
So, I bought a Dell XPS 13 back in 2016. It’s a sweet little computer. Really thin, lightweight, almost no bezel. But in 2018 I was really yearning for another Thinkpad and got myself a T-480, which I really love. I haven’t been using the XPS much but felt bad about that since it really is a great machine. So I pulled it out and discovered the battery was totally dead. It would run fine if it was plugged in, but the battery would not charge at all.
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Weekend Update June 26, 2020
I’m going to try to do some kind of weekly update about different things that are going on, things I’m working on etc. Maybe just rambling thoughts.
Lately, there are two major projects I’ve been keeping busy with.
- One is a custom Arduino-based keypad.
- The other is a GTK based live algorithmic drawing tool.
The Keypad
I’ve wanted something like this for a while. I did a bunch of searching but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. But then I found the Elgato Stream Deck and that looks amazing. It’s also not cheap at all.
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