Random Tech

If it isn’t directly software or hardware related I’ll maybe put it here.

  • Computer Update.

    Got the XPS back from Dell on January 7. It works!

    … except when I plug in the power adapter, then the touch pad stops working.

    Logged a ticket on January 8.

    January 10 I get a reply asking if I want to ship it to the Advanced Resolution Center. “It should only take 3-5 days.”

    I let them know I just got this thing back from the Advanced Resolution Center and asked what other options there are.

    In between all this, the touch pad starts randomly working while plugged in; maybe two out of every five attempts.

    January 12 I get a reply asking if I want to have someone come to the house and replace the motherboard.

    I take a deep breath and reply telling them the motherboard has been replaced twice now and that another motherboard seems like overkill. I tell them I’ll deal with it for now and open a new issue if it becomes completely unusable.

    This is unfortunate because when it’s working, this XPS is a great machine. I just can’t get past the issues I’ve had in the past five months.

    As with everything from Dell, it’s all turning into ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

     

  • Moving Over

    I’m typing this post on a second, maybe third hand ThinkPad, testing out IA Writer 1 on Windows to see if the experience mirrors that of macOS and so far so good. Reaper and Mixbus are doing their things as the licenses work for both platforms. Hell, pretty much all of the apps I use these days have Windows versions and they all run pretty damn good.

    The dark horse is MainStage which I use quite a bit and is an absolute steal if you’re on the Mac platform. It’s thirty bucks and comes with untold gigs of samples and is, quite simply, one of the most powerful, easiest to use  music performance apps out there. Moving to Windows is going to be super hard without MainStage.

    … Wait, what?

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