December 15, 2023 — Holiday Miracles?
Greetings fellow humans!
The year is crashing to a close, and I am pondering what a Christmas miracle would look like.
Tinkerbelle’s Christmas miracle would be the opportunity to bark furiously at every dog in the neighbourhood until she was exhausted and hoarse. For hours. She’d love that and she’d sleep for a full day afterwards, so it might be a miracle for the rest of us too.
Cruzer’s Christmas miracle is simpler. He just wants to never be alone again. Ever.
I won’t speak for Anne. I have no clue what her miracle would look like. We’ve been married for over 37 years now and all I know is that if I tried to guess her desired Christmas miracle I would definitely get it wrong. That’s something married life teaches you.
As for myself, I really don’t know. My needs are pretty simple, and I want for nothing. Can I request world peace? That would be good, though it seems unlikely given the state of things. Maybe I will just have to settle for whirled peas. Oh well.
In the last week I’ve pulled together the annual holiday letter. If you’re on our list you’ll get a copy soon, probably via email. This was partly prompted by two different Christmas cards arriving last week, as if to point out my lazy ways. (I’m kidding! I love hearing from people! Even if they make me look bad in the process.) (Kidding! Again. Really!)
I did make the leap to a wireless keyboard and mouse on the new computer. I’ve mentioned the huge mess of cords in the past. Well, there are two fewer wires on the desk now, and that is progress of a sort. The keyboard is a Logitech MX Mechanical Mini with brown (tactile) switches.
Aside: The colour isn’t what it sounds like. Many mechanical keyboard switches use colour to denote switch type. I think the actual guts of the switches are brown, but the keys themselves are a simple grey. Red switches are noisy, like an old school IBM mainframe computer keyboard. Browns have a similar feel but make less noise. Blues are linear, with no bump to get over to make the contact, but still noisy. Those are the choices with this keyboard, but there are other colours depending on the switch manufacturer and the keyboard you are interested in. There’s a whole world of custom keyboards out there for those with money to burn.
Anyway, it feels nice to type on, wasn’t that expensive, doesn’t take up a ton of desk space, and even has backlighting. It connected to the computer via Bluetooth easily and so far it just works.
The mouse is also Bluetooth connected. I’d tried a couple of other — much older — wireless mice before, but they didn’t work well with this computer. Not sure why. Perhaps the desk surface I have doesn’t show enough variation for older optical sensors to work well. The new one works perfectly. It’s a Logitech M650 L. It’s bright red so I can always find it, and they claim it will run for two years on a single AA battery. It’s also very quiet when you use it… the buttons make very little noise. And it was cheap. The next step up (from Logitech, at least) was something like five times the price, and I don’t need all of the insanity that goes with a mouse designed for a gamer. This one just works.
So the desk is slightly cleaner and the computer continues to improve. Well, the hardware improves. Windows 11 itself? Dunno about that. It’s amusing to read the press speculation about Windows 12, and even about Windows 10 coming to it’s end of life in 2024. Apparently you’ll be able to buy extended support from Microsoft for Windows 10, but it will only include security updates and they haven’t yet said what it will cost. Given there are a zillion computers out there that cannot upgrade to Windows 11, they really need to support Windows 10 for a good while longer.
The bad computer news is that I learned our old scanner is not supported on Windows 11. It looks like a few people have found ways to force the old Windows 10 driver to work with Windows 11, but it’s not simple or pretty. And given we actually need a flatbed scanner of some sort to deal with music stuff for Anne, it seems we’re going to have to get something new. No clue when or what yet, but we’re starting to think about it.
The other news from last week was some last minute tech support for my mother. Her ISP sent her a new cable internet modem saying it would improve her internet connection. That’s great, but the installation process wasn’t exactly clear. They had her change her email password, which broke her email connection on both her computer and her phone. But did they mention that little side effect? Nope. And there are other wrinkles that I don’t fully understand yet. I may actually have to visit mom to get everything ironed out. But first we spent some time on the phone and got her email working again despite me being 2000 miles away. It was exciting.
Mom points out that tech companies change things in all kinds of ways without thinking about the impacts of those changes, and she’s right. In particular, for those whose technical background is limited, random change can be a serious drawback.
Even worse, mom has a friend who is blind. That person has a computer full of specialized software specifically to help her use it. You can guess how great it is when Microsoft changes things in some significant way. Or — even worse — when her cell phone changes. That’s a nightmare.
I’m no luddite — within reason I like technology and even change — but I can readily see that some kinds of change cause serious problems for a portion of the population. Which group is impacted differs depending on a number of factors, but it definitely seems like manufacturers should spend more time thinking about the potential negative impacts for their customers when they change things.
Ask not for whom the Tinkerbelle barks. She barks for the pedestrian with the dog out on the street, not for me. I have to go shut her up.
I plan on writing over the holidays. No rest for those who should be committed!
Cheers!