The Computer And General Tech Thread - Software, Hardware, Questions, etc.

[Raphael]

If a laptop's Wi-fi card stops working, should you replace it even if you've got a Wi-fi stick to do its job for the time being? Is there some kind of inherent danger in having a non-working, non-recognized piece of hardware inside a laptop?

[Travis B.]

If a laptop's Wi-fi card stops working, should you replace it even if you've got a Wi-fi stick to do its job for the time being? Is there some kind of inherent danger in having a non-working, non-recognized piece of hardware inside a laptop?

There is no danger per se, but there's always the risk that something caused it to fail that could cause more harm, e.g. a leaking electrolytic capacitor.

[Raphael]

If a laptop's Wi-fi card stops working, should you replace it even if you've got a Wi-fi stick to do its job for the time being? Is there some kind of inherent danger in having a non-working, non-recognized piece of hardware inside a laptop?

There is no danger per se, but there's always the risk that something caused it to fail that could cause more harm, e.g. a leaking electrolytic capacitor.

Ah, thank you! I'll try to get in touch with my informal tech support folks.

[Raphael]

Does anyone know of a good notetaking app that comes in both Linux and Android versions, is preferably, but not necessarily, FLOSS, is not connected to either a major tech company or any other kind of organization which would be likely to enshittify it over time, either does not even try or at least does not insist it has to upload your notes to any kind of cloud, can export and import notes and note collections in some kind of file format, and does not involve "AI"?

I know, I know, I'm basically asking for a unicorn pony with a cherry on top. But hey, it can't hurt to try. Until now, I've generally used basic text editors for my notetaking needs, but I think I might be ready to try something a bit more advanced.

[Raphael]

Does anyone know of a good notetaking app that comes in both Linux and Android versions, is preferably, but not necessarily, FLOSS, is not connected to either a major tech company or any other kind of organization which would be likely to enshittify it over time, either does not even try or at least does not insist it has to upload your notes to any kind of cloud, can export and import notes and note collections in some kind of file format, and does not involve "AI"?

I know, I know, I'm basically asking for a unicorn pony with a cherry on top. But hey, it can't hurt to try. Until now, I've generally used basic text editors for my notetaking needs, but I think I might be ready to try something a bit more advanced.

My initial research led me to something called "Joplin". Let's see if it's any good.

[Raphael]

I've noticed that when I use a specific tool to download videos from the Youtube channel of xkcd's What If section, the resulting file names often contain a very specific symbol that I haven't seen anywhere else yet (as far as I can remember). It looks at first sight like a question mark, but apparently it isn't:

？

It means that I often have to rename the files before copying them somewhere, because some file systems apparently can't handle this symbol as part of file names.

Does anyone know what this is?

[Richard W]

Well, what made it to the post is U+FF1F FULLWIDTH QUESTION MARK. That is a form of question mark that gets the same spacing as a Chinese ideogram.

[Lērisama]

I've noticed that when I use a specific tool to download videos from the Youtube channel of xkcd's What If section, the resulting file names often contain a very specific symbol that I haven't seen anywhere else yet (as far as I can remember). It looks at first sight like a question mark, but apparently it isn't:

？

It means that I often have to rename the files before copying them somewhere, because some file systems apparently can't handle this symbol as part of file names.

Does anyone know what this is?

There are online tools to answer this question. This one says it's a ‘fullwidth question mark,’ which I'm about 90% sure is used instead of the ASCII question mark in Chinese-derived scripts¹, where you want to ensure it takes up a full character block (hence ‘fullwidth’), and I'm sure googling the name will tell you everything you might want to know about it.

¹ Including Hangeul here, because it's the format that matters

Edit: what Richard W said.

[Raphael]

Ah, thank you. Sorry about my laziness.

[Raphael]

Pictured on top is my new cellphone. Pictured underneath it is the package in which the phone case for it arrived at my place.

Does anyone else here think that, you know, it is possible to overdo it with the wrapping?

(By the way, the package is not really pink-ish or orange-ish - that's just some kind of artifact of the light.)

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[alice]

Pictured on top is my new cellphone. Pictured underneath it is the package in which the phone case for it arrived at my place.

Does anyone else here think that, you know, it is possible to overdo it with the wrapping?

I've known something about 1.5cm x 1.5cm x 5cm to arrive in the sort of package more usual for a normal paperback book. There's probably an EU directive about it somewhere.

[Lērisama]

Ah, thank you. Sorry about my laziness.

I wasn't criticising you or anything, sorry. I only meant for it to be useful in the future if/when you get curious about another odd Unicode thing.

[Travis B.]

I'm used to small items often showing up in packages which are relatively thin but wide padded envelopes myself.

[Raphael]

Do I have too many desktop apps?

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[alice]

Do I have too many desktop apps?

Hardly; there's plenty of room for them in that field, if you can get the icons to lie down.

[Raphael]

Android question: Out of the free, non-intrusive, privacy respecting Android app launchers, which one generally launches itself the fastest? I assume that's probably the most lightweight one, but I can't know that for sure.

[Raphael]

I just spent about half an hour on increasingly desperate attempts to understand why some devices on my local network weren't recognizing each other, before I noticed that I had turned off wifi on one of them and forgotten to turn it back on. I guess we're all getting older.

[Raphael]

Yesterday, it took me a lot of effort to coax my printer into printing a somewhat important snail mail letter.

Today, I discovered that various attempts to make it do that had not gotten lost; they had just gotten stuck somehow. Because when I turned my computer on today morning, the printer printed four copies of the letter.

My initial research led me to something called "Joplin". Let's see if it's any good.

Aaaaaand after hours of frustration, I've finally managed it to get a Joplin server for my local network running. It involved mixing and matching elements of various sets of instructions I found around the internet. All just so that, when I write a note on my cellphone saying something like "Today was a somewhat annoying but overall nice day", I can synchronize it with my computer, provided that I'm at home and my computer is on.

[Raphael]

Do I get this right that when you're dealing with images that have a lot of detail, like photos, png files are generally larger than jpg files of the same image of the same size, but when you're dealing with images that are less intricately detailed, like diagrams or screenshots of screens showing text files, it's the other way around?

[WeepingElf]

Do I get this right that when you're dealing with images that have a lot of detail, like photos, png files are generally larger than jpg files of the same image of the same size, but when you're dealing with images that are less intricately detailed, like diagrams or screenshots of screens showing text files, it's the other way around?

AFAIK, yes.