turn it off and on again

[Alexander Nicholi]

Also, the 2 TB WD Black sure makes SSDs make no sense. Just saying.

I'd rather have all my terminals run $60 SSDs and invest in a NAS that I can tunnel to from anywhere, honestly. That makes more sense than having more storage than I need isolated in one place.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I'd rather have all my terminals run $60 SSDs and invest in a NAS that I can tunnel to from anywhere, honestly. That makes more sense than having more storage than I need isolated in one place.

The only problem is that it's a gaming rig, and video games are huge these days. :)

That, and I'll take acceptable performance as a boot drive, especially with 8.1. Not installing 10 right now, at least until it gets a few more CUs.

Personally, when it comes to storage on desktops, there doesn't seem to be "one true combination" as far as I'm concerned. If the drive is decent enough, it will work. An SSD is faster, but there's also pricing concerns, especially when you're at somewhere where SSDs carry a further premium than what you'd expect in the US. Normally, a good 250 GB SSD should be cheaper than the WD Black 1 TB. It isn't here, and it still isn't when compared to the 2 TB model.

So long as you avoid 5400 RPM HDDs... now that's painful. Even a "performance" 7200 RPM HDD like the WD Blacks should provide around 2.1x the performance in everything, despite how the 33% increase in spindle speed might indicate that it's much less than that. It's also about the actuators, motors, cache, and controller, too. Even among 7200 RPM drives you can still find different characteristics. Even in terms of random access times.

The first doubling is also the most obvious when it comes to performance too. Imagine if the times spent on waiting is cut in half. :)

 

[Leviathan]

Late to the partayyy but I'm starting to use GitHub now. I had an account for a while and got access to some private depositories thanks to college, so I'm hoping to use it a lot this year for team projects. I already prefer it to the Team Foundation server that I used like maybe twice in the past year? I just wish I knew how to use GitHub more, and more importantly sync the online repositories with the latest version of projects in my IDE. At the moment I'm setting myself up a lil' static subdomain hosted on the site (which I didn't know was a thing until about three days ago). Ofc the design is gonna be horrid since I'm a programmer, and not a graphic artist, but hey, if I can use it as a lil' thing to share some code and write about my current projects, it'll be a nice pet project for me.

Also; trackpads are realllyyyy starting to annoy me. I stg the one on this laptop is like hypersensitive. The right'mouse' button gets clicked when I'm merely moving the mouse, and the touchpad gestures always activate at inopportune times. I'm this much away from disabling the pinch zoom gesture...but I kinda like scrolling with two fingers.

 

[Touched]

Late to the partayyy but I'm starting to use GitHub now. I had an account for a while and got access to some private depositories thanks to college, so I'm hoping to use it a lot this year for team projects. I already prefer it to the Team Foundation server that I used like maybe twice in the past year? I just wish I knew how to use GitHub more, and more importantly sync the online repositories with the latest version of projects in my IDE. At the moment I'm setting myself up a lil' static subdomain hosted on the site (which I didn't know was a thing until about three days ago). Ofc the design is gonna be horrid since I'm a programmer, and not a graphic artist, but hey, if I can use it as a lil' thing to share some code and write about my current projects, it'll be a nice pet project for me.

If you need more private repos you should use BitBucket. I use it for all my work that I do for clients. The only thing is that it doesn't come with GitHub's extra features like an issue tracker or wiki. So if you can, you might want to set up a GitLab server if you need that extra functionality. As for learning git, Atlassian (BitBucket) has some great training guides. Reading the official git manual doesn't hurt. You should learn the command line interface instead of the IDE interface, because the CLI is more flexible and transferable (you could switch IDE without relearning, use it on the server via ssh for staging and deployment, etc.).

 

[Leviathan]

Yeah I was using the terminal for a bit to commit some files. Tried doing it with powershell but got told that something was missing, so I went and got another CLI to commuicate with Git. Thanks for the info, I'll certainly look into it. I'm so not a fan of trying to commit suff through my IDE.

 

[Tsutarja]

Also; trackpads are realllyyyy starting to annoy me. I stg the one on this laptop is like hypersensitive. The right'mouse' button gets clicked when I'm merely moving the mouse, and the touchpad gestures always activate at inopportune times. I'm this much away from disabling the pinch zoom gesture...but I kinda like scrolling with two fingers.

How long have you been using said touchpad for? If it hasn't been long, then honestly I'd say it'd just take time to getting used to, and that's all.

If you want the pinch-zoom feature enabled, then I'd probably disable the two-finger scrolling at the same time that way they don't conflict. However, in the end, it's all up to you on what you want to do. :P

 

[Leviathan]

How long have you been using said touchpad for? If it hasn't been long, then honestly I'd say it'd just take time to getting used to, and that's all.

If you want the pinch-zoom feature enabled, then I'd probably disable the two-finger scrolling at the same time that way they don't conflict. However, in the end, it's all up to you on what you want to do. :P

Mmm, it's only been a few months. I guess I've always unknowingly placed two fingers on a touchpad at the same time, inadvertently activating the gestures which come off as jarring to me as a result. I had gestures fully disabled on my previous laptop.

It's the other way around, actually. Ahah. I like the scrolling feature but the pinch zoom has become more annoying than helpful. I could be casually browsing a webpage when bam! The browser zooms in 200% due to my clumsy fingers. xD

 

[Legendary Silke]

Mmm, it's only been a few months. I guess I've always unknowingly placed two fingers on a touchpad at the same time, inadvertently activating the gestures which come off as jarring to me as a result. I had gestures fully disabled on my previous laptop.

It's the other way around, actually. Ahah. I like the scrolling feature but the pinch zoom has become more annoying than helpful. I could be casually browsing a webpage when bam! The browser zooms in 200% due to my clumsy fingers. xD

Sounds like an overly sensitive implementation of pinch zooming! Personally, if activating both two-finger scrolling and pinch zooming causes issues, I'd turn off pinch zooming first. Two-finger scrolling is way too useful to give up today.

 

[Leviathan]

Sounds like an overly sensitive implementation of pinch zooming! Personally, if activating both two-finger scrolling and pinch zooming causes issues, I'd turn off pinch zooming first. Two-finger scrolling is way too useful to give up today.

Aye, I'm gonna poke around in the settings to sort this out. And it truly is! Like woah, soon as I discovered it, I questioned what exactly was I doing for the last few years, haha. As for pinch zooming, I noticed too that when I willingly want to use it, it's not entirely....'accurate' (probs wrong word to use, but w/e). Like, I'd motion to zoom in, slowly, but rather have the zoom level rise or fall by increments of 10%, it'd suddenly jump around by 20% or more, making zooming back to 100% tricky. :(

 

[Starry Windy]

I used to not pretty fond of trackpad as well, since I've been getting used to using mouse for long, and in my old laptop's case, sometimes it's not working after some period of time. However, I'm starting to get along with it nowadays, even though I'll still using mouse more often.

 

[Touched]

I hate track pads. I have a shortcut key to disable the thing entirely, because the palm detection is really crappy and will sometimes click if I touch it with the base of my thumb or something. The only time I use it is when a website decides to force me to use a mouse. I find using a mouse to be slow so I use only the keyboard for most tasks.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Aye, I'm gonna poke around in the settings to sort this out. And it truly is! Like woah, soon as I discovered it, I questioned what exactly was I doing for the last few years, haha. As for pinch zooming, I noticed too that when I willingly want to use it, it's not entirely....'accurate' (probs wrong word to use, but w/e). Like, I'd motion to zoom in, slowly, but rather have the zoom level rise or fall by increments of 10%, it'd suddenly jump around by 20% or more, making zooming back to 100% tricky. :(

Ouch! Sometimes I still find certain trackpads to be dreadful, all things considered. It's like there's a huge gap between the worst and the best. Take pinch-zooming, for example. The worst pads just simulate CTRL + mouse wheel, while the best actually initiate the built-in procedure for pinch-zooming if in something that does support touch input properly. The latter is much more nicer than the former.

Ever since I've gotten my mouse I've realized just how much I hate trackpads. I don't think I'll be using it anytime soon now. I do like the gestures that it has though. If I initiate the scrolling on the right-hand side, I can continue the scroll if I start drawing circles without lifting my finger from the initial scroll. Then, I can go up or down the page by swirling circles in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. It's really cool.

It indeed is, though I personally prefer content-scroll two-finger scrolling. Mostly because it feels just right when you're used to doing it (albeit with a single finger) on touchscreen devices.

I used to not pretty fond of trackpad as well, since I've been getting used to using mouse for long, and in my old laptop's case, sometimes it's not working after some period of time. However, I'm starting to get along with it nowadays, even though I'll still using mouse more often.

Mmm hmm. A mouse is still much more comfortable to use for longer periods of time, so long as its shape is satisfactory. Personally even I can find myself wanting for a mouse when I have to spend extended amounts of time on a laptop, even with a good trackpad implementation.

 

[Tsutarja]

I guess I'm the only one that thinks a touchpad is pretty comfortable, but maybe it's my laptop. :P

 

[Leviathan]

I hate track pads. I have a shortcut key to disable the thing entirely, because the palm detection is really crappy and will sometimes click if I touch it with the base of my thumb or something. The only time I use it is when a website decides to force me to use a mouse. I find using a mouse to be slow so I use only the keyboard for most tasks.

This exact thing happens with me on this laptop. I really am starting to consider buying an external mouse, or at least get better at moving around using just the keyboard.

Ouch! Sometimes I still find certain trackpads to be dreadful, all things considered. It's like there's a huge gap between the worst and the best. Take pinch-zooming, for example. The worst pads just simulate CTRL + mouse wheel, while the best actually initiate the built-in procedure for pinch-zooming if in something that does support touch input properly. The latter is much more nicer than the former.

If only there was a common middle-man version of that built into every new laptop going forward. </3

I guess I'm the only one that thinks a touchpad is pretty comfortable, but maybe it's my laptop. :P

I'd have to agree with this, as much as the current touchpad annoys me. xD I don't have much of a desk or a proper table to place my laptop on here, so using an external mouse would be tricky, whereas the touchpad is more convenient.

 

[Touched]

I guess I'm the only one that thinks a touchpad is pretty comfortable, but maybe it's my laptop. :P

Objectively, mine isn't that bad. I have a Dell XPS 13, which is pretty nice as far as trackpads are concerned. I just hate pointer devices because they're so slow. Keyboards enable you to get to a level of speed that is simple unattainable with a mouse/trackpad/touchscreen (all three of which are in the XPS 13).

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

Yeah I was using the terminal for a bit to commit some files. Tried doing it with powershell but got told that something was missing, so I went and got another CLI to commuicate with Git. Thanks for the info, I'll certainly look into it. I'm so not a fan of trying to commit suff through my IDE.

You should download Console2 and use it to skin the Git terminal and also PowerShell. It's a bit tricky, the solution I found to work on 7 was on Stack Overflow and involved fiddling with some command-line arguments and shortcuts with Console2, but... it's worth it. Both CMD and PowerShell are uuuuugly.


I've found a clean Windows 7 install to take up a massive 14GiB of space. On its 20GiB drive that is certainly not enough for my 11GiB install of VS 2015 C++.

This is honestly just pathetic. After cleaning up unused files my entire Linux install, an install containing 932 packages including CUDA, WINE, LibreOffice, MariaDB, Mono, and GCC... takes up 16GiB altogether. I should remove CUDA lol, I have integrated graphics on this laptop <_<

 

[Legendary Silke]

You should download Console2 and use it to skin the Git terminal and also PowerShell. It's a bit tricky, the solution I found to work on 7 was on Stack Overflow and involved fiddling with some command-line arguments and shortcuts with Console2, but... it's worth it. Both CMD and PowerShell are uuuuugly.


I've found a clean Windows 7 install to take up a massive 14GiB of space. On its 20GiB drive that is certainly not enough for my 11GiB install of VS 2015 C++.

This is honestly just pathetic. After cleaning up unused files my entire Linux install, an install containing 932 packages including CUDA, WINE, LibreOffice, MariaDB, Mono, and GCC... takes up 16GiB altogether. I should remove CUDA lol, I have integrated graphics on this laptop <_<

It indeed is, but one should also compare what you'd actually be getting :)

Either way, 20 GB? Ouch! That sounds awfully small for a system drive these days. (It's kind of fun to work with that, though.)

 

[Leviathan]

You should download Console2 and use it to skin the Git terminal and also PowerShell. It's a bit tricky, the solution I found to work on 7 was on Stack Overflow and involved fiddling with some command-line arguments and shortcuts with Console2, but... it's worth it. Both CMD and PowerShell are uuuuugly.

I think I've heard someone mention that to me before. I'll definitely check it out! Working with the CMD isn't so bad for me, but PowerShell? What even is the point of it!

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

I think I've heard someone mention that to me before. I'll definitely check it out! Working with the CMD isn't so bad for me, but PowerShell? What even is the point of it!

It's generally a more powerful console for Windows. Advantages it has over CMD are that it can access any drive letter pretty much (and probably network locations), behaves more like Bash in that it doesn't let you run execs in the current directory without .\... it really should be the default for anyone considering console work.



Earlier last night I got my project, Sapphire, to compile for x64 in Visual Studio 2015 as well as GCC 5.2! It's really rewarding seeing the same exact code work on two vastly different OSes, not to mention a good bit interesting seeing compiler quirks with what they complain about and what they don't. I also learned that unlike ARM7, x86 bit shifts do not wrap. xD

Either way, 20 GB? Ouch! That sounds awfully small for a system drive these days. (It's kind of fun to work with that, though.)

I'm rather limited when it comes to space on my SSD, and don't want to use the last 30 GiB or so of my 160GB external drive because I need that space and it's over USB 2. My laptop does not have USB 3, but my mother says she may be able to drop $50 + change to get me a 1TB 2.5" HDD and a case for it anyway. (I want to run multiple Windows VMs.)

 

[Tsutarja]

I plugged in my Dell Venue 8 Pro to charge early this morning and it had no battery. 8 hours later, and it only went to 87%, and this was while it was shut down too. Jeez.

Also, for some reason, when I opened it, this tiny keyboard appeared on the screen while it was charging, and it was shut down, too.

Spoiler: