Haha that’s me but with my phone, as soon as I get to work I plug in my phone to a kvm that has a monitor keyboard and mouse, my phone has a desktop mode that I use on a second monitor while my main monitor is my work laptop.
This way I can switch between my personal phone and work computer, on my phone I mostly just have chats open or I vpn to my home lab to fix issues with my media server or game servers, if things get a little too wild I jump into a VM so I have all my tools. I also use this to edit photos or other projects during my lunch and breaks.
My work requires a lot of waiting for machined to reboot or go through tests so I like this setup that keeps my browsing on the guest network and non work device, and at the end of the day I just unplug one usb c and put my phone in my pocket so I don’t have to worry if I stop at a grocery store on the way home about carrying a bag with me everywhere with a laptop
Hey, that’s really nice! I always wondered what’s the actual real life use case of the external monitor desktop mode on the phone. Your workflow is a perfect example of that.
I have four laptops and two desktops… More or less.
One laptop is an antique, I might break it out to play music while I cook, but it’s kind of useless for anything else at this point. One is a tablet, complete with a digital pen. I only bust it out to sign digital documents. My main personal laptop is an 11th gen framework. The last laptop in my collection is my work laptop. Technically not mine, but I’ll throw it in anyways.
My work laptop 99% of the time is sitting on my desk, connected to a dock which is plugged into a KVM switch.
My main desktop is also plugged into the same KVM.
My laptop rarely moves. I like that about it.
My framework is almost never on any kind of dock, or connected to any external display. I mainly use it on my lap around the house
The other desktop is plugged into my TV to play video games.
I mean, I have other computers, but those are the main ones.
I mean I don’t want to talk negative about your hobbies, but you have a pc hoarding issue.
I have one for myself, but not that bad yet.
Back in the early 1990s, I would go to Goodwill and pick up whatever ancient computers and related machines that people had discarded there. I amassed quite a collection. But at some point, when you’re hauling a useless VT240 terminal home and you realize it’s just going to sit in the garage, you conclude that you’re really not doing a smart thing.
I would say the person above should keep the ones they’re talking about and get rid of the “other computers” unless there’s a good reason to keep them.
Useless? That’s a necessity for using your router console port!
I have to imagine there’s an option that weighs less than a large concrete block.
You have no idea.
I used that when there were some games unsupported on my XP PC, but working on a shittier but light-weight W7 notebook. That was weird. I was worried it’d melt through my table.
how about…
…some wheels
I literally rocked an old laptop for years like this, lol.
And some models work without any battery at all, my dell XPS circa 2008. I am still amazed at that. It still runs too, I just retired it from server duty a few years ago once I got a dedicated server.
I feel bad for a drawing of a laptop with a face
I’ve done this before building a dssktop PC. Probably not a bad way to start if you’re planning to have a desktop anyway, but not have enough money to buy all things needed to buy one.
I mean, you still can use it on the go if you need to.
Guilty of this. I’ve never used a track pad that didn’t feel like complete ass.
I use a Logitech keyboard + trackpad and it works great.
But yeah, laptop ones I’ve tried always sucked.
I’ve never used a PC one that I liked, but Macs have superb ones. They are so good I now get trackpads for every desktop I work on too (home + work).
Yep exactly, a Magic Trackpad is my main input device. It’s great for design work where you often interact with canvases and might need to scroll in every direction. It’s also more comfortable to use for long time periods.
I also love the handy expose swipe features, offering more functionality that does not require still yet another button. The aesthetics are good but most important it’s just so functionally beautiful. Those are probably tied to mainly be usable on a Mac OSX though.
It’s great but I’ve had greater sensitivity in my finger tips after trying to get used to it. Then typing hurt so I had to switch to a trackball and just regular vertical mouse. I miss the gestures for virtual desktops.
Seconding this. My company issued me a MacBook and I was really surprised by how well the touchpad worked, and how smoothly gestures work with it. For as much hate as Apple gets, a lot really Just Werks™. Windows and KDE (Wayland) (I haven’t tested other DEs) are certainly improving, but they’re still nowhere near as smooth as what MacOS has had for a pretty long time now.
The crazy thing is that I’ve hackintoshed a ThinkPad T430 and T480, both with full gesture support (but no force touch, though to be fair I don’t use that anyway). In both cases, using their touchpads on MacOS was much better than on Windows or KDE. Though some touchpads aren’t that great to begin with (like, the one on the T430 is pretty small), it’s crazy how much of a difference good software can make to how they feel to use.
I’ve used a few trackpads on PC laptops that were almost as good as on a MacBook, but yeah, most of them kind of suck.
It’s not just the software either. I really like the feel of the Apple trackpad. It’s glass instead of plastic like a lot of others. And the haptic feedback feels exactly like what a click would feel like
“Apple” the company gets hate, b/c they deserve it, but Mac OSX is fantastic - they really put a ton of effort into it, though iOS is a piece of crap - e.g. now they are trying to extort the users to pay money to send files b/t their desktop computer vs. phone, which is just not okay imho. Mac OSX was from an older era, when Steve Jobs was running the company, and people would have legit left Macs (or not switched to it) if it had not been “solid” like it was. Since then, the new era is not to provide “products” but rather “services”.
Oddly enough, with the advent of Windows 7 (so many years ago now), it is fucking Microsoft that has been innovating their software - they are such a terrible company (as too is Apple, and Google, etc.), but they at least were pushing forward, more than Mac OSX, as the Apple corporation switched to put nearly all of their development efforts into iOS, and Music, and TV, and so on.
Apple ofc also has that hardware+software integration thing going on - monopolies really do have their advantages, as well as detractions too. You mentioned hackintoshing a Thinkpad, so I guess you are aware that often people will take a Mac and put Linux onto it as well, it’s wonderful that people have put in the efforts so that we have such possibilities:-).
The issue you described with the touchpad on the hackintosh sounds more like a particular driver issue, which gets deeper than I have any knowledge of so I’ll stop there:-). I will say tangentially that the Mac OSX has a shit-ton of cool features like font antialiasing, the Preview program is amazing, and I could go on and on but what usually gets lost on people is how Mac tended to have had things first, like everything has Bluetooth now, but Mac OSX had it long before Windoze did. I know nothing about Windows 10 or 11 though, except that they push to offer things as a service rather than product, and they show advertisements throughout:-( - those aspects alone turn me away from wanting to use it, even if the rest was somehow a better experience than Mac OSX (which I expect is NOT:-P).
Wow, a nightmare thought just struck me: if Apple enshittifies Mac OSX… the world will become a noticeably worse place, overall:-(. Fortunately someone will have it backed up and we can hack it (even if having to use older hardware), and there’s always Linux that while significantly behind - especially in drivers & UI/UX concerns - is better than it has ever been.
what usually gets lost on people is how Mac tended to have had things first, like everything has Bluetooth now, but Mac OSX had it long before Windoze did
That’s just not true - in fact, Apple is well-known for repeatedly releasing ‘new’ products/features that already existed elsewhere, but acting like they invented it. That goes all the way back to the original Macintosh.
Or, to use your example, everything I can find says MacOS added Bluetooth support in 2004, while Windows XP was patched to support Bluetooth in 2002.
MacOS is good software, but let’s not pretend Apple hasn’t built their entire empire based on pinching other people’s ideas and marketing them better.
I probably misremembered some stuff but also stated it too broadly - it was a lot more “mainstream” in Macs than in Windows, in part b/c you could purchase a low-end Windows machine, whereas all Macs start off at a baseline minimum that is fairly high.
Also, Apple put BSD Unix into the very core of their Macs years before Microsoft started poking their noses around the subject.
The end result was a machine that “just worked”, right out of the box, which was pretty nice.
People hate on apple coming out with features later than other companies but then they usually blow the competition out of the water in terms of ux. It’s not marketing them better, it’s implementing better.
It’s like valve helping develop proton vs making another nvidia shield or windows handheld.
They’re great, now if apple could concede that right click is an important thing that’s not going away and not relegate it to a corner barely larger than my finger then they’d be perfect.
I am using a Mac touchpad on a laptop right now and no matter where I do the right-click action (extremes of upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right, center-of-quadrant again for all of those, true center, etc.) it always takes the click. One-finger clicking is equivalent to “left-click” on Windows while two-finger clicking is equivalent to “right-click”, or alternatively hitting control while one-finger clicking will do the trick. I’ve done this for years and years and it’s always worked for me before…
The default is for two finger click, I forgot that’s the default way since I changed it so long ago, but you can change it to a click in the bottom right is right click, like on a windows laptop, in the settings. it’s just the area in the bottom right that qualifies as the corner is very small.
I did a search and there are not many ways to change that, unfortunately:-(. Macs often let you do customization settings, even if you have to copy/paste a command-line to do it, but not this time. There is supposedly an app, but I wouldn’t recommend downloading strange apps from an unknown maker.
I did find out that there is an Accessibility -> Pointer Control option that will let you assign any hotkey you want rather than click, like F11 by default is left-click and F12 is right-click. I am not sure if you can do just the right but not the left. Though remember, already by default you can hold down the control key while left-clicking, and that is interpreted as a right-click action. I had used a Windows laptop in combination with a Mac OSX desktop at some point, so I hated the damn trackpad of the former, but I had already gotten used to the control-click functionality of the latter, and then when these force-trackpads came out it was a more natural move for me who was already into the zone there.
Plus as people are saying it’s noice hardware - the smooth glass feeling and all:-).
The trackpad click-with-two-fingers is not so bad - at least for me, since I rarely use it and I just add one extra finger to the click (I even use the 3-finger expose swipes sometimes, though I never even recall what the 4-finger ones do, and yet the pinch-and-zoom is nice:-)
I am sorry that it isn’t working well for you, but I hope you can find something more to your liking:-). At worst, perhaps you can put Linux onto your existing Mac hardware and therefore configure it more directly?
Thanks for the pointers! Like the meme though I keep it plugged into a mouse, keyboard etc. so don’t really use it but when I do it’s good except that one issue.
At worst, perhaps you can put Linux onto your existing Mac hardware and therefore configure it more directly?
I wish, it’s my work computer though and even though all the software I need and the software I’m developing runs on Linux, I think IT would get mad If I loaded Linux on it. Also why I probably can’t do any of the other changes you suggested
Oh I see. I use my Macs (at home + work) as daily drivers, though I rarely use the right-click action iirc - so much of working on a Mac only requires one left-click. Also I use the Terminal to log into a work Linux, so a lot of keyboard interaction too, and like alt-tab and such.
But it sounds like your UX is entirely different: if you rarely use the Mac itself, and/or then use an external mouse the vast majority of the time, and even then don’t do right-click actions constantly, then I see what you mean: you almost may not even have trackpad experience!?:-D It would then be harder to retain yourself to do differently, and the few times something doesn’t work would stick out in your mind more in that case. If you think you’ll keep needing to use a Mac setup in the future, you might try to force yourself to get used to it - like pick a slow day of the week and don’t allow yourself to use the external mouse and only use the trackpad. Like learning to type in QWERTY rather than hunt and-peck, building habits takes time but does have a pay-off:-). Even if you don’t need to do this, it could make the whole experience more pleasurable i.e. less painful for you! Ofc you know your setup far better than I, it was just a thought, in case it helps:-).
I’m not sure I understand your complaint – if you two-finger tap anywhere on an Apple trackpad made since around 2009, it’s interpreted as a right-click.
Oh yeah, I changed it so long ago I forgot that’s the default. Changed it to bottom right corner in the settings when I first got it since I am used to windows laptops, but the area for the bottom right corner that apple designates is very small.
Not an Apple user, and curious: If you double click a movie file it does not open it but gives you the menu? How do you open it? Triple click? Or one click? If one, how do you just mark it?
Anything you do while touching the trackpad with one finger at a time is the same as though you were using a mouse. Tap once to select, tap and drag to move, double tap to open.
If you tap with two fingers on the pad at the same time, it reacts as if you’ve right-clicked. I usually use my index and middle finger.
Clicking once with 2 fingers on the pad is what they meant
Sorry, the great prophet Jobs (pbuh) has decreed that one button is all you need.
Trackballs have ruined trackpad a for me.
Look at a Charybdis from bastardkb. Got a trackball built into the keyboard.
Do you have specific keys for SimCity disasters?
Yes, meteor is for meteor showers, storm cloud for thunder storms obv, and the flux one is for not needing roads.
Lol the price of these fad keyboards are comical… 180€ with no switches and no keycaps?
180€ is like a day or two of work. It is a fair price in my opinion.
Except it isn’t 180€ cause it’s missing parts
And it looks 3D printed?
The hardware is open source, but yes, it is 3D printed.
This looks rad
Standard galactic alphabet?
That particular model makes my wrist hurt almost instantly.
Seriously, they ALL fucking suck. I honestly kinda miss the old nub thingie that IBM (now Lenovo) had (has?). It took some getting used to but it was so much better than a touch pad.
They still have them, along with some Dell and HP laptops too I think. Honestly I like both. My laptop has that and I find myself switching between them mindlessly. Touch pad is great because of gestures. But the nub is more comfortable imo.
They still have them
The little red dot is in the ThinkPad wordmark, at that point they are acknowledging its central to their brand.
The old clit mouse was my favorite!
I’m sure they do make trackpads that don’t have a hole in the middle.
I have. The Steam Controller (and Steam Deck) trackpads are very nice, mostly because there are two of them and they are thumb operated. The haptic feedback is really nice as well.
The keyboards are garbage too. Can’t stand typing on laptop keyboards and every one I’ve tried (mostly Dells at work) has been shit for the last 15 years. I bought a $10 bluetooth keyboard for my tablet that’s a better experience and smaller than a laptop for fucks sake.
They got a lot worse after 2010 when “thin” happened. I’ve got an NEC laptop from 1998 that has an excellent keyboard.
I feel so called out
I can only use it as a laptop 1% of the time and it still makes perfect sense because otherwise I would have own a separate device for this 1% of the time.
That makes sense. Though I think it depends on what you’re doing for that 1%. For me personally I prefer a beefy desktop for work+games, and a low-power laptop/tablet for portable jobs.
That way I can upgrade the PC tower every couple years and keep using the same portable device for years and years, since it’s basically just an email/web/SSH terminal. I’ve been using the same desktop PC since 2009, just upgrading it as needed. Over 15 years it feels like fewer devices than having to keep replacing a high end laptop every 3-4 years or so.
When I was building my current computer, I considered getting a Steam Deck and pretty much just doing this. Going in and out of a dock makes a lot of sense, especially with stuff like not having to transfer files between machines.
ergonomics. portable screens need to be at eye level, keyboards need to be nearer, pointing devices are overdue for revolution on portables.
Also the shittier hardware for more money and noise/heat of a laptop. I tried using a high end laptop for a couple of years. Now I’m much happier after selling it and replacing it with a PC. 8th gen Intel laptops are dirt cheap and very capable for most tasks (as a secondary device) for when the portability is absolutely required.
pointing devices are overdue for revolution on portables.
Tilt control laptops when
id like to see eye tracking with dual caneras
I feel like that would be hard to implement alongside tilt controls
Gimbal
When I need to do stupid tasks like timesheets and emails I unplug. The lack of screen space means I don’t get distracted.
When I need to do hard work I dock my system and use my dual 4Ks to maximize visual bandwidth.
I did this too long and now my battery barely holds a charge
This is simply because of how batteries work. We’re focusing on lithium ion batteries, the most common in computing at our current point in time, and these are simplifications and not electrical engineering down to the exactest detail.
They can only hold the max charge when brand new. As they are used (charged and discharged), literal physical wear is happening within the battery (really, series of battery cells, it is not one chunk that fails at once). The capacity for the ions to “stay” on the desired side of the anode-cathode pair diminishes over time.
This is why batteries are advertised as maintaining x amount (usually 80%) after x cycles (usually 500) and why a device having a good Battery Management System (BMS) can be as important as how many mAH units a battery is rated as having.
As to why a plugged in battery suffers the same fate? Physics is cruel. A charge cycle is just defined as using an amount equal to 100% of your battery. Nothing says it has to be all at once.
A plugged-in lithium-ion battery still undergoes wear because it experiences minor discharges and recharges, contributing to charge cycles. Heat from constant charging and chemical aging also degrade the battery over time, leading to shorter battery life when eventually used unplugged.
I do you better. I have my macbook plugged into a 32", and a crappy 19" (which sits on top of my macbook), so I’m using two screens without using my macbook screen
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