A Geek Goes Flying

For my “ balcony iMac ‡ ,” I’ve been using a Das Keyboard Model 3 Pro with Cherry MX Blue switches. It’s ... okay. The keys are very light and I find I really prefer a stiffer feel. Right now my daily driver is a Keychron K8 with Kailh Box Jade switches ; I also have a Keychron K2 with Kailh Box Navy switches . For this “build” (mod? swap?) I wanted a full sized keyboard, and to try a slightly quieter, lighter, but stiffer than the Cherry Blue, switch. (Apartment living. Didn’t necessarily want to be blasting my neighbors with “thick clicks” at 2 am.) I started with a Glorious GMMK full-sized I got “used - like new” (can also order it directly from the source ), and hot swapped the Gateron Brown switches it came with (blech) for Kailh Box Pale Blue switches . My understanding of the various switches is (spec sheets linked; take with the usual grain of salt): Box White : Thinner click bar, lighter spring. Box Pale Blue : Thinner click bar, heavier spring. Box Jade : Thick click bar (g

Yes, you can do some of this through the OS X / macOS built-in Control Panel (Keyboard -> Modifier Keys... and swap the Command and Option keys), but that doesn’t address the Windows keyboard “menu” key or things like media keys. For that we need to remap the keys using Karabiner (13.x for Catalina or Big Sur; 12.x for Sierra through Catalina; 11.x for El Capitan, 10.x for Mavericks through El Capitan; if you’re still using a “cat” operating system, you might be SOL). I’m preparing for a “build” of a full-size Glorious Modular Mechanical Keyboard (GMMK) I’m going to swap to Kailh Box Pale Blue switches (though I was tempted by the speed with which I could get Kailh Box Jade switches; I like them well enough in another keyboard I’m using them in ). (I don’t really consider swapping one hot switch for another “building” a keyboard; I wish I had the time and wallet to dive as deep into this stuff as the folks who’ve built some of the amazing creations I’ve lusted after on r/Mechani

Yeah, Macs can natively generate PDFs, but occasionally that functionality isn’t enough (case in point, printing Judicial Council forms after filling them out in Acrobat, to get rid of the buttons etc). Used to be you could install CUPS-PDF and call it a day. But Apple has locked down the operating system more and more with each new version, and I haven’t been able to get CUPS-PDF to work for years. I have found a couple of new packages that do work, however. High Sierra and Big Sur Most of my machines are still on High Sierra. It’s fast, still supported, and supports my ancient hardware (like the “Balcony Mac” I’m typing this on, a Mid-2010 iMac Core i3, upgraded with 12GB RAM and an SSD drive). I’m testing Big Sur, too. The same fork of PDFwriter (see below) works on both. I used the  RWTS-PDFwriter.pkg  installer (version 1.0.1), downloaded from  https://github.com/rodyager/RWTS-PDFwriter , and everything was setup to work immediately. Printouts are located under /private/var/spoo

New gig. Working from home. My old “workstation” wasn’t cutting it. Have a Dell U2311H that was sitting on its OEM stand, a Unicomp SpaceSaver M keyboard. My desk is a little (36.5" wide, 17" deep workspace) unfinished wood desk I sanded and stained (looks awesome, cost next to nothing). I didn’t have a lot of real estate left between the monitor base and that huge keyboard. So. Time to do something about it. Monitor I kit-bashed two pieces together (literally with a bit of duck tape - I happened to have some black Duck brand tape, 1 7/8" wide, that I wrapped around the upper (inner) tube of the floor stand; the desk mount tube for the monitor arm was just a touch thicker), because the desk (which has a 1 1/2" drawer hanging down, that makes it way too thick for any of the “clamps on the edge of the desk” mounts I could find, and I didn’t want to drill a hole through the desk - which, with the drawer, probably would’d have worked in any case). Mount-It! Portable Flo

 A follow up from my earlier post on dog food . A lot of folks seem to read Dog Food Advisor to get a summary and score for foods they’re contemplating buying for their pups. That may not be the best idea: An interesting analysis from redditor stopbuffering. Why You Should Never Trust Dog Food Advisor  Melissa A Smith (July 27, 2020) Issues with the Dog Food Advisor Website (part I)  Jane Lerner, (August 6th 2014) Just some food for thought (no pun intended). My Labrador switched to Royal Canin Labrador Adult in September, and continues to wolf it down and thrive on the food ( here finishing breakfast from the slow feeder bowl ( QT Dog Brake-Fast Non-Skid Stainless Steel Dog & Cat Bowl, 5-cup  - recommended!) we had waiting for us in St. Louis, for a recent holiday trip). He’s reached an adult weight of 72 lbs and stabilized there, and is incredibly active and athletic, with a great coat. So far, so very, very good. My street stray rescue mutt continues to thrive on Purina Pro P