Got me a new computer today. Booya. Well, new to me. A Thinkpad x250. So far, me likey a lot. It\’s kind of like my Chromebook, but with a way bigger SSD and access to Windows. I feel like I\’m home. Happy sigh.

Next up is to try to get a decent version of Linux on it. I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows right away, since, well, that\’s what I do. So I made a partition for it then. Now to figure out what to choose. I\’m sure I\’ll choose a *buntu. Well, maybe. Maybe I\’ll try out Debian for reals. I don\’t know. Probably I\’ll stick with a flavor of Ubuntu. Maybe Ubuntu Proper since this is probably a fast enough laptop to handle that.

Anyway, I wanted to try out the keyboard and so far I\’d say it\’s pretty good. Maybe a little stiffer than I\’d prefer, but definitely not bad. I can type decently fast, it works, and I don\’t see any obvious flaws.

Touchpad is great. I fixed the Trackpoint issues that always seem to be present with Windows 10 quickly, so that\’s good.

Edited to add: You must select \”Use as middle click\” in the mouse settings for the settings above to work correctly. Otherwise, apparently the button does nothing.

All in all, so far, I like it a lot!

I\’ve tried a good bit to find a good fit for my Samsung Chromebook 3. I mean, ChromeOS is great and all, but, well, I want a real OS. I really like this little portable, and wanted to make a Linux possible.

I\’d been trying \”half measures,\” like chrx.org, Gallium, etc. They all had downsides. Gallium would have the mouse randomly stop working, for instance. Plus I\’d read somewhere that Gallium\’s life might be shortlived. So I decided to go with Xubuntu proper. Enter angelic choir.

It\’s been great so far. The only issue I\’ve encountered is that the palm detection wasn\’t enabled by default, so it\’d jump around while typing, but enabling that was pretty easy. I think it still needs a little tweaking, but it\’s still way better than default.

I guess I haven\’t tried out Bluetooth. Hang on, I\’ve got my earbuds….

That was fairly easy. Had to change it from \”headset\” to \”audio sync,\” but that seemed to take care of the initial goofiness it presented.

Otherwise, no real issues. Mouse seems responsive, the wifi worked out of the box, no blinking with the screen.

I\’m pleased. Very pleased.

So, I\’ve got a bunch of old computers and I\’m trying to figure out the best way to make them work for me. This has been…interesting.

My opinion of Linux has largely been colored by using it and finding that it doesn\’t work well. Basic, basic stuff like the touchpad working reliably has been an issue. No offense to all the Linux nerds out there.

Windows 10 on my Chromebook R11 has been great so far. In Linux\’s defense, onboard audio works on the R11 in Linux and doesn\’t on Windows. But things like the touch pad work. The install was easy. It\’s just been…not difficult. And audio does work with Bluetooth, which is good enough for me as a student who usually does audio through headphones anyway.

Maybe someday I\’ll become a Linux guy, but for now, Windows again is working.

I need a plan. Things are flying around at a million miles an hour and I don\’t know where I\’m going.

Things in mind:

1. I need to finish the class I\’m in. Only a few weeks left and I need to finish strong. Average in the class is high right now, but that could change with one bombed test.
2. I need to figure out my flashcard situation. LaTex, hand drawn? What.
3. I need to figure out my laptop situation. What I\’m doing now is pretty irritating. I\’m swapping between Chromebooks, a new-to-me Thinkpad, and using the Thinkpad as a desktop when I do use it. It\’s maddening and confusing. I need to settle on something that works. Problems:
   1. The Thinkpad has a really terrible touch pad. I know that sounds trivial, but it seriously interrupts my workflow. It\’s tiny, unresponsive, and just horrible.
   2. The Chromebooks work better generally, but the one I like the best has a tiny SSD (16gb), so installing full Linux on it is bad. And full Linux has its own issues on it. The touchpad (notice a theme?) is glitchy in Linux.
   3. The best workflow has been on the Thinkpad with a second monitor, full mouse and keyboard. But that\’s not very portable. I don\’t want to be tied to my desktop space.
4. I need to figure out what to do educationally. The intro computer program I\’ve taken has gone fine, but it\’s been really easy over all, and yet still somewhat taxing time-wise. I have a lot of commitments (wife, kids, kids programs, etc.). But I\’ve liked taking a class, even if it\’s really been too easy in some respects.

The \”Linux apps on Chromebook\” option ended up working quite well–after I worked through a few issues.

The main issue was the IDE I happened to choose (CodeLite) has some sort of issue where it gets locked to an older version in apt. I then updated the repositories with the wrong address (Ubuntu instead of Debian) and it wouldn\’t find the newer versions of the program as a result. After I got that figured out, CodeLite 13 looks like it\’s going to work very well for the intro to C++ class I\’m taking.

Edited to add: Something went wrong with CodeLite 13. No clue what happened, but compiling and executing programs just stopped working entirely. After trouble-shooting for a while and getting nowhere, I needed to get on with my class, so I tried out Code::Blocks, and so far it\’s been fine. I\’m hoping it continues to work….

OK, this is a work in progress. Or rather a goal.

I\’m taking a C++ class online through ASU. I bought an oldish Thinkpad to do the work on it, but I find it really irritating to use. The h key isn\’t reliable and the touchpad is terrible. Like, I hate it.

On the other hand, I love my Chromebook. It\’s nothing special: A Samsung Chromebook 3 with 4gb of ram, and 16gb of disk space. Its touchpad works well, the battery life is good, and the h key works reliably.

Everything I do for the class can be easily done with the Chromebook–except for writing and testing C++ code. But this seems like a trivial thing for something built on Linux to do. So I\’m going to be trying to figure out how to get it done and documenting it here.

My goal is to have this \”finished\” by Sunday night.

Potential paths:
1. Linux apps are supported, so I might find one that works for that. CodeLite has been tried so far and doesn\’t compile programs correctly since make apparently isn\’t supported. I might try troubleshooting this.
2. Crouton. I\’m fairly sure this would work, but it\’s kind of a heavy way to do it. I\’d rather something lighter.
3. Play store app. This might be the best option.

That\’s what\’s up.

I\’m trying to figure this out. Education.

I have two bachelor\’s degrees. Liberal Studies and Accounting. I\’m an engineer by profession, having started as a technician and worked my way up. If I want to progress beyond this stage it\’s not required to have a degree, but it\’s unusual.

I might have written about that before.

Anyway, I\’ve been trying to help someone close to me, who has no degree, and in many ways doesn\’t seem apt to get one. This person is trying to figure out a career and I\’m trying to help them. But I\’ve stressed to them that it doesn\’t matter what your credential is. It matters what you produce. So why, then, do I want to pursue further education?

Part of it, I know, is that it\’s expected in my field. I can\’t even take the professional exam for engineers due to my lack of engineering education. It\’s irritating.

That said, I know I\’d flunk said exam. I\’m not ready for it. I\’m way more ready than I was two years ago, but not there.

The \”entrepreneur\” pipe dream rears its ugly head regularly. It\’s hard to say, \”No, I\’m an employee and I\’m OK with that for now.\” It really is. I think I\’ve got a decent amount of ambition, but I really feel like engineering is where I\’m…called. That\’s who I am. That\’s what I want to be. Science, technology, and being a nerd in the best possible sense is the guy I want to be. It\’s who I identify with. I can fake it in some other realms, and recognize that I have abilities that aren\’t strictly in the typical \”nerd\” pantheon (I.e., writing). But still, that\’s where I find myself wanting to be. That\’s where I find myself being successful. And that\’s where I should remain.

But the question, still, is what do I do educationally? I\’m enrolled in an ABET certified online college in EE. I can take classes. Do I want to? My employer will pay for it entirely. I\’ve paid for the part I need to; they\’ll pay for the rest. But when push comes to shove, and the need arises, I\’m going to need to study. But I have seven kids. And a lovely wife. And other responsibilities. Grrrrrr…. Life is complicated.

I think I\’m going to take the classes and see what happens. May as well try!

Up front, I\’m not doing it because of anything specific they\’ve done. I don\’t care for their charity requests, but that\’s definitely not enough to get me to stop going (just good practice saying no politely). The employees aren\’t a problem either. The food is why I keep coming back, though. I just love it. Savory, sweet, fried, and if you regularly use the receipt to do the survey for a free entree, it\’s a good value. What\’s not to love?

Pain. That\’s what. My body apparently really doesn\’t care for Panda. I noticed the last few times I\’ve gone there that my body is literally sore afterward. Old injuries that haven\’t been hurting suddenly hurt. Weird things hurt, too. Like the top of my left foot. ?!? That had bothered me on our vacation trip, where I ate way too much junk food (including Panda Express), ate more meals than normal, ate sugary cereal, etc., and was also standing more than normal. But it\’d calmed down since I came home. Then, today, out of nowhere it was hurting, my sacroilliac joint was hurting (which hasn\’t in forever), my ankles, and even my knees. If my joints are taking it this poorly, this is something I need to listen to.

It\’d probably is due to the tons of sugar. That\’s my guess, anyway. 4.4 oz serving of SweetFire Chicken, my favorite by far, has 20 grams of sugar. And my guess is that 4.4 oz is one entree, and I get the three entree meal, so I\’m probably getting a dumping of 60 grams of sugar at once, which I pretty much never do otherwise.

The weird thing is that other things don\’t seem to do it in the same way. My foot only started hurting on vacation after Panda. It did it again today. But when I had a ton of ice cream and lemonade, and other father\’s day treats, nothing like this occurred.

Anyway, I\’m mainly writing this for me, so I can have something to go back to and look at to remember why I shouldn\’t go get that tasty deliciousness next time. I don\’t hold this against them. It\’s not their fault. It\’s just not compatible with my system. It\’s yummy to the nines, but it hurts later.

I think I just had a breakthrough.

One issue I think I\’ve struggled with in hitting various goals is that if I\’m doing well hitting the goal, well and good. I get on good runs and have long(ish) periods of success. But if I start failing, I get in this downward spiral of failure and can\’t get out of it until something snaps me back into it.

I think part of this is that I like to plan. So I\’ll say, \”Complete 6 lessons of math per week, come hell or high water.\” Well, that\’s fine when life permits that, but if circumstances beyond my control take over, like when everyone in my family got sick earlier this year, I have trouble getting started again. It\’s hard to complete an entire lesson of math in one day when you\’re out of practice, so I often wouldn\’t even start. And that snowballs, and gets harder and harder to start.

What I\’m going to try instead is having a time-bound goal per day. Instead of \”I\’m going to complete,\” it\’s \”I\’m going to spend x amount of time.\” I\’ll have to play with this to see how it goes, but that seems more doable.

I think this hit me today when I just made myself do some math. I didn\’t figure I\’d get through an entire lesson (and indeed, I did not), but I started, and made real progress. After an hour, since I\’m out of mental shape with that, I was exhausted and ready to quit. I felt bad about that at first, but realized that\’s actually not bad. If I\’d kept going I\’ll bet my error rate would rise, my irritation would rise, and I\’d make little progress. Instead, I\’m just going to embrace that that\’s where I\’m at, stop for the day, then pick back up tomorrow when I\’m fresh. And do an hour then. Eventually, I\’d like to get where it\’s more than an hour. But for now anything is better than nothing.

It has occurred to me more than once that in a blog post I said: \”Editors exist for a reason. Use them.\”

hehe