December 2021 Meeting

This month we will discuss our holiday computer gifts and software projects.

We had a nice discussion in December. Here are some of the topics we discussed:

I had two topics and I am still looking for input.

I noticed a change in handling of the scroll wheel on a tackball under recent version of Firefox. Does anyone have experience changing the configurations to get it back to the old way?

I went to upgrade an M.2 internal drive on my laptop and discovered that the vendor has used some sort of loctight on the screw. Any suggestions for removing the screw without destroying the motherboard?

We continued our Raspberry PI discussion where our expert discussed the noticeable speed up when booting from an SSD:

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/125012/ubuntu-booting-from-ssd-usb-with-raspi-4?rq=1

We also discussed some of the retro computing projects using the pi:

https://www.androidcentral.com/best-raspberry-pi-emulators

Ventoy is another tool we discuss often. I use it whenever I need to repair a system or install Linux on a new computer:

https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_news.html

A new member discussed his use of Linux at his company. It was interesting to hear about their large installed base.

We spent some time discussing mouse alternatives when a person has a fine motor tremor. There was lots of experience with alternatives and discussions about different trackballs:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-trackballs/

If you have any adaptive technology that might help please send in your suggestions.