Category: Links

Technician Tuesday: Keyboards

I’m not going to get into the debate about QWERTY key layout versus other ways of laying out keys.

It does make a difference to me what types of keys I type on. Broadly, there are membrane and mechanical keys. I like mechanical keys, although I’m not familiar enough with the different types of mechanical keys to know which of those I like. I know I tend to be one of those jerks who like the clacky keys which irritate everyone else, but there’s probably some silent keys I can live with too.

Aside from QWERTY and the types of keys, there’s also variations in how the keyboard is laid out: small keys, big keys, keys in horizontal rows, keyboard split in the middle so your hands don’t change but your shoulders and elbows and wrists do, and keyboards that let you change the position of your hands.

Here are a couple of sites I’ve found, there’s lots others out there. I’m not sponsored by either and I’m not an expert on sites, so maybe there’s better out there. But here’s two I’ve started with:

Mechanical Keyboards

Keebmaker

Yes, mechanical keyboards can get pricey. Sore hands and wrists aren’t cheap.

Technician Tuesday: More on how-to guides

Last week I wrote about what a great time it is to look for how-to guides. This week I ran across some how-to guides that have been around for several years.

A while back I purchased a Uniden scanner. I have been looking through Uniden’s support documentation on their website and while very thorough, it has a lot of information for more advanced users. There’s a difference between manuals for “here’s each option and what settings and attachments you need to use for each option” and manuals for “here’s some examples of what you can do with specific options and why you might want to use that option instead of the other three which look very similar.”

(In a completely different industry with completely different customers, this difference in types of manuals is why sewing and embroidery machine manufacturers are now selling “playbooks” in addition to the user manuals that comes with their machines.)

This morning I searched for beginner instructions on how to set up my scanner and found the sites Mark’s Scanners and Scanner Master. Scanner Master is a business specifically for selling and setting up scanners. And yes, they have how-to guides for a beginner which already look more helpful than what I was finding on Uniden’s site.

Mindset Monday: The digital world is not the real world. The real world is more complicated and more unpredictable.

I read blogs and newsletters about technology. I vaguely noticed most of what I was reading was about software more than hardware. I honestly didn’t think much about it.

Then I started wondering why there is so much more focus on software.

A few things happened.

I talked to a younger friend who had just changed careers. Her earlier career had been very computer- and software-intensive. I encouraged her to find something she was interested in and start reading about it. I told her “I’m glad we have spreadsheet programs instead of the old hand-cranked adding machines my grandmother let me play with as a kid. But the digital world is not the real world. It’s an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction of a specific use case of a finicky and non-intuitive way of manipulating natural forces.(1)” I also told her that anything in the real world she chooses to read about will reference other areas. Sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, chemistry, metallurgy, mineralogy, history are all areas I’ve wandered into by reading about something in the real world which interested me.

Earlier this year I read The Pragmatic Programmer – your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition by Thomas and Hunt. It’s a very good book. I highly recommend it. It is about creating code that one day will have to change. That means making it as easy to change as possible, and as easy to change without breaking everything else. I’m going to explicitly point out this was addressed in the real world long ago. There are very few books about how to build a house so taking out a cupboard in the kitchen doesn’t cause the basement window to no longer open. There are very few books about how sew a shirt so hemming the bottom doesn’t mess up the collar. And there are very few books about designing a car so changing a flat tire doesn’t create a hole in the radiator.

In July I read two articles in The Register about a lack of hardware engineers.

My own opinions:

I know from experience that electrical engineers who design the hardware have to take higher level math classes than the computer scientists who program the software.

That was the case 25 years ago. I’m not sure if it’s still true now, but I expect it is. I’m also not sure about other fields such as computer engineer or software engineer.

I also know from experience that it’s a lot easier to try out new ideas in software than hardware.

A new program can be written, tried out, and erased with the only loss being a little bit of electricity and some time on the part of the programmer. A hardware circuit, no matter how well it works or doesn’t work, still leaves the hardware after the project is done. The hardware has to be either disassembled so it can be used in something else, or completely scrapped. A component soldered to a circuit is not reclaimed with the push of a button the way computer memory is when a file is deleted.

And I know from experience that the real world is far more humbling than the digital world.

I can try to write while tired, mess it all up, have autocorrect fix numerous mistakes and delete a whole bunch of stuff that makes no sense on rereading, and then forget about my mistakes and think I did great job all along. A physical project such as drawing, crocheting, sewing, folding clothes, ironing shirts, or whatever else, is much more obvious when it’s messed up. It takes a lot longer to fix something in the real world. I might have done something unfixable. Even if I redo what I can undo and fix what mistakes I can fix, I’ll remember all that the next few times I look at what I made.

Technology is both software and hardware.

When I say I like technology, or that this blog is about making technology work for the user instead of making the user work for the technology, that is hardware too. It’s not just software.

Why I came up with the long “abstraction of an abstraction . . .” description

“It’s an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction of a specific use case of a finicky and non-intuitive way of manipulating natural forces.”

(1) “It’s an abstraction . . .”: Most programmers do not program at a level where they are telling the computer which specific memory cells to use and what specific processor logic commands to use. Most programmers write at a more human-readable and human-understandable level. A compiler turns their code into something the computer can understand.

“. . .of an abstraction . . .”: No matter how amazing it looks or sounds or what it does, all human-readable computer programs are converted to a language or code that tells the processor what to do in language the processor understands. For the processor, there’s inputs; there’s outputs; there’s memory; and there’s commands to the processor to read an input, read memory, do something with what it read from the input or memory, write information to an output, or write information to memory. To the processor it’s all high or low electrical states, called 1s and 0s by humans.

“. . .of an abstraction . . .”: Multiple transistors can be connected, along with some other components, to switch signals, have some logic about whether an output is high or low based on multiple inputs, and hold that high or low state for a time. That’s a very basic description of a processor with memory.

“. . . of a specific use case . . .”: Transistors can be configured to operate as an amplifier, or they can be configured to operate as a switch. For digital circuits, they are configured to operate as a switch.

“. . .of a finicky and non-intuitive way of manipulating natural forces.”: Transistors are made from semiconductor materials. For electricity, most materials either conduct electricity and are called conductors, or they do not conduct electricity and are called insulators. Semiconductors conduct electricity under certain circumstances. Semiconductors are made out of very specialized materials which themselves are not easy or intuitive to make.

The digital world is not the real world.

Technician Tuesday: Finding a way to regularly backup my files.

For many years I backed up my files by creating copies on other disks or other drives. I only did this when I remembered.

This is still the method many people use.

Over ten years ago I went to a presentation by a woman who was speaking about data, electronic files, backups, and so on. She said that she had talked to multiple parents and grandparents who had lost many early pictures of their children because the pictures were on a cell phone, and nowhere else. The cell phone died, and so did the pictures.

I broke out of my own bad habits after reading comments about businesses destroyed by computer crashes. That finally made me appreciate the difference between time and money. The money to buy a replacement computer probably can be found. The time to recreate all the lost files probably cannot be found.

I did install a program which regularly backs up my computer files, some time last year.

There are multiple ways of creating file backups. Currently I’m using Macrium Reflect which creates a disk image. I can also use a program which will only back up certain files and directories I choose. Maximum PC magazine had a recent article listing various useful programs for Windows, including a backup program. I will start going through that list and seeing what I like and what I don’t.

(That decade-ago lecturer also said if you really want to save photos for posterity, print them out. Nothing digital will be as reliable. I believe that, yet that is something I haven’t yet done myself. That will be a project for late this year or early next year, to start picking which photos I want printed and looking into how to get them printed.)

Mindset Monday: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I subscribed two years ago to a service which requests my name and address be removed from people finder and data broker sites.

I’ve received unsolicited advertisements for two similar services within the last few months. The new services are from different sources, one is a VPN company and the other is a credit card company.

Clearly, after the initial proof-of-business-model time, other companies decided this is a viable business. And they created their own versions.

I’ve seen many articles and guides discussing whether a person should be on the bleeding edge of technology, a first adopter, or something else. Usually, it comes down to your personality type. The earlier I adopt new technologies, the greater the chance I’ll find something useful. And the greater the risk I’ll find something which isn’t viable. The service I used had been around for a while before I signed up. At the same time, I’m the only person I know who uses that type of service.

It’s a nice service and I’m glad it’s available. That it’s now being copied reassures me that it will be available for a while.

I looked for something to reference if anyone reading this wanted to know more about adopter types. The best I found is “Diffusion of Innovations Theory” from November 2021 on Investopedia. It has the longest list of creator credits I’ve yet seen: author, reviewer, and fact checker are Clay Halton, Robert C. Kelly, and Yarilet Perez respectively. The theory of diffusion of innovations was created in the 1960s.

Technician Tuesday: Aiming for incremental improvement

“Form follows function” is a catchy phrase and a seductive idea. It implies a lot of things which most of us would like to believe of ourselves. We’d like to believe we understand the function of what we are creating so well we can visualize exactly the form it needs to be. That in turn implies we won’t have to go back and redo any of our work. It also implies we can expect approval from whomever evaluates what we created, whether that’s a supervisor or a customer.

Unfortunately, all of those flattering possibilities are probably not going to happen. It’s likely that whatever is created — by me, by you, by us, by whomever — will not be at its best form on the first iteration. Whatever gets created, it will probably have to be revisited and revised multiple times before it’s usable.

The book The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski covers this in detail if you are interested. I’ve read “form follows function” as an ideal at which to aim, for most of my life. The Evolution of Useful Things finally cured me of following that dead end. Continuous improvement is the goal.

(I linked to the Computer Gear catalog because that is where I purchased the book. I am not in any way compensated by them for that link.)

Technician Tuesday: Finding simpler tools. Word processors and photo editing as examples. (2022 Aug 23)

On Monday, I wrote about viewing my time and effort as limited resources. When a piece of technology, hardware or software, starts taking too long to use, I look for alternatives.

The time to learn and use a simple alternative for one task is often shorter than making a more complicated program do that task.

(AutoCAD was infamous for this in the 1990s and 2000s, it could do almost anything if you took the time to figure out how. I’ve never set up ERP systems, or even simpler inventory systems, but I’ve talked many people who spent far more time managing their ERP / inventory / POS systems than they ever spent managing paper records. And Microsoft Excel has its own eSports World Excel Championships, which was broadcast on ESPN2.)

First example: word processors and spreadsheets.

I didn’t use Microsoft Office for several months, a few years back. I logged in to Microsoft Windows with a different email than I’d used to purchase a Microsoft Office subscription. Microsoft was very concerned. I was constantly asked by Microsoft Office if I wanted to change my account. (No, I did not.) I got “Microsoft account problem” warnings from Microsoft Windows. Then I got stuck in the maelstrom of Windows wants Windows Hello, Windows Hello wants facial recognition or a fingerprint sensor, and said the heck with this.

There are a ton of things Microsoft Office can do. I wanted a simpler word processor. So, I downloaded LibreOffice. It installs fast. I don’t get any Microsoft account errors. The program does occasionally crash, so I save often. That’s the only drawback I’ve found. Now, I only buy a Microsoft Office subscription when I need to use a Microsoft Office document or spreadsheet with features only Microsoft Office supports.

Second example: photo resizing and watermarking.

I use a digital camera which creates large files. I’m not going to ask my friends to download huge photo files when they want to look at my pictures. I could use a photo editing program like Photoshop or GIMP to edit each photo, decreasing the file size and adding a watermark with my name and the year. I could learn how to create macros in a photo editing program.

I downloaded AVS4You instead. There are lots of other alternatives, I use AVS4You, use whatever you want. The photo resizing program (technically the image converter) from AVS4You is free to download. I load the photos, set file name modifications, file size modifications, watermark, and which directory for the new files.

No, I don’t get any compensation from any program or company I mention using. You can use whatever you want, I’m using examples of what works for me.

Technician Tuesday: Learning about SSL and TLS (2022 August 16)

There’s theory and there’s practice. Many things are easier to know if theory and more difficult to put into practice.

Using HTTPS, SSL and TLS (HyperText Transport Protocol Secure, Secure Sockets Layer, and Transport Layer Security if you like your acronyms spelled out) seems fine in theory. Getting this website to use HTTPS by default is proving more difficult in practice than I expected in theory.

Humility is good for the soul. This is building character. This is really annoying me.

While I figure it out, here’s some external website links I found useful:

When I look up information on how something works or why I should use it, I try to look up information from people who’ve designed it, who sell it, and who use it.

Someone non-technical explaining something to non-technical audience who “just wants it to work” will often have information and perspectives which a more technical writer won’t think to mention.