A Geek Goes Flying

I temporarily have a foster dog, now named Mason. Mason napping on the balcony while I iPad. He’s awesome, but my senior street stray mutt isn’t having any part of it, and my Labrador loves him so much, my home won’t long survive their hours of excited play. (Imagine zoomies on meth, with a dose of Sunday Night Football.) So I’ve been working on the balcony at night (it’s pleasantly cool, for now...) while Mason chills with me, my Lab looks out at us longingly, and my senior mutt curls up in the bedroom, ignoring all the commotion.  I’ve had this Best Choice Products Folding Zero Gravity Outdoor Recliner ($70) for a couple of years and it’s comfortable, but not perfect. The elastics on the “pillow” are toast, so it wants to sit around where my waist hits. And the side tray is junk, it doesn’t attach securely and I’m super leery of putting anything of value, or containing liquids, on it. In fact, I don’t even have it attached. Instead, I picked up this Mr.Power Mic Stand Cup Holder...

Tried out the ultra-crappy Android tablet I had handy on the MOFT Folding Laptop Stand Lap Desk in the 60° configuration on the POÄNG Lap Desk Workstation (might try it in the 45° configuration ). Worked well enough with light weight “distraction-free writing” tools and my Keychron Q60 Max. An iPad will probably work even better. MOFT stand holding a tablet

Qualcomm QCC5125 Package I got the BLT-2 (which apparently uses a Qualcomm QCC3034 chipset) in the mail today, and hooked it up. The manual I found online says it can work between two phones, but the manual for the device I got says it will remember up to 8 devices. Since I want it to work with both whatever laptop I might be cranking on, or at other times my phone, that’s perfect. So I set up my phone and my work MacBook Pro M1 Pro 14". A quick look at Console.app and it appears it’s still using the SBC codec - WTF? Digging into that. (Seems to be a common complaint, and the how to fix guides are all outdated .)  https://gist.github.com/dvf/3771e58085568559c429d05ccc339219?permalink_comment_id=4078721 Update: My Macs connect to many devices using AAC, including: A Loxjie A40 ( log ) (Qualcomm QCC5125) A FiiO BTR5-2021 ( log ) (Qualcomm CSR8675) EarStudio ES100 ( log ) (Qualcomm CSR8675) I’ve ordered a Blafili B3 (which apparently uses the QCC5125), fingers crossed. Blafili sup...

The quest for the perfect “slack+” work setup continues. The Air 75 atop the laptop keyboard is still pretty good, and I’m looking forward to the new firmware and shine-through keycaps. But I still prefer a beefier keyboard (Keychron K2 or K6 or K8) with great tactile switches (Kailh Box Royal or Boba U4 or ...). Need the laptop elevated for that, and stands like this Nulaxy Laptop Stand (which I otherwise really like, it seems like a solid piece of kit, I’ve been using one for over a year) get in the way of the keyboard. Finally found a solution. Currently using this Foldable Laptop Desk (which is apparently no longer available, but there are many versions of the same thing, like this ), and just got an AxcessAbles DJ Laptop Stand with DJ Table Clamps to bolt onto it: Foldable laptop desk with attached DJ laptop stand, front view Foldable laptop desk with attached DJ laptop stand, underneath / side view  

Assembled laptop table with 11" Air, K6, M535 Never could quite get the Foldable Laptop Desk to balance properly on my sofa, and it kept things in too close to my chest in any case. The LapGear MyDesk is fine for what it is, but a bit awkward, and if a laptop isn’t compatible with the Air 75, doesn’t provide a mechanical keyboard option. Also, not the best for head position / sight line. Now, though, I’ve assembled the GOAT. The original plan was to get any adjustable height ‡ desk ( e.g. ) and bolt a VESA mount ( e.g. ) to it. But that just seemed clumsy, too/top heavy, and overkill (my svelte Apple hardware just doesn’t require the hardware to support > 17 lbs). This solution appealed as it extends over the couch and has a built-in pole for VESA mounting. I started with the Viozon Floor Stand for Laptop , UP-8T, which provides a 1.5" diameter pole that holds the desk surface. I measured the space under my sofa and confirmed the 0.6" thick feet would slide underne...

I’ve been trying to find a good “kick back on the sofa with the dogs and still get work done” solution that doesn’t kill my back, neck, etc. I think I may have found it: Any Mac laptop (or any laptop, really) with a compatible keyboard (basically, anything with the chiclet keyboard made between 2006 and, as I understand it, 2019 - I’ve used it successfully now with 2020-era Intel MacBook Air laptops, too). In this instance I’m using a Mid-2007 MacBook Core 2 Duo. NuPhy Air 75 keyboard . I’m using one with “brown” switches, via Bluetooth. It’s designed specifically to sit on top of the laptop keyboard and not interfere, and is a much nicer typing experience than the built-in keyboard, especially the ancient MacBook keyboard, which wasn’t amazing to begin with and has gotten mushy over time. (This Mac required an aftermarket Bluetooth 4.0 adapter to work with the NuPhy keyboard. It’s kind of a kludge but it worked. The bundled 2.4 GHz NuPhy dongle is another option, or you can connect i...