Things That Work: Zowie FK1

Inspired by Things that work! by Cliff Brake.

As someone who spends a very large amount of time in front of a computer, over the years I have built up a list of a number of preferences. Today’s post is about the Zowie FK1+, which is my default mouse choice.

I first learned of the FK1+ (and other similar models from Zowie) in 2015 when I took my current position at work. I was looking for a mouse that was comfortable, worked with all operating systems, and gave me the option of different DPI settings in the mouse itself, instead of having to use software. Somehow, during the research, I ran across the FK1+, and I haven’t looked back. It is now in use both at work and at home.

Windows 10 Updates

Every once in a while I fire up an older Windows 10 PC, mostly to play games. Unfortunately, because it doesn’t get used much, it normally needs to run updates. And I officially hate running updates on Windows machines.

At this point in my life, most of my work is done on Linux. I understand the operating system relatively well, and I generally understand what an update will do to my computer.

Moving a Git Submodule

A coworker asked me a question this evening about how to move a Git submodule to a sub-directory, and as it’s something I’ve had to look up multiple times in the past, I decided it would be good to post it here for easy lookup in the future.

How to move a Git submodule to a sub-directory

1. Delete the submodule reference from .gitmodules (normally 3 lines)
2. Check .git/config for references to the submodule and remove them, if they exist
3. Run git rm --cached <submodule name> to remove the submodule reference from the repository
4. Remove the old submodule folder
5. Recreate your submodule reference with git submodule add <git repo url> <local path>

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 20/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.

Initial Thoughts on a Personal Wiki

Approximately two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post where I mentioned that I was interested in setting up a personal wiki, or something similar, as a way to keep an online commonplace book. I’ve been taking notes on the idea ever since, and today, I finally decided to give it a try.

Requirements

I had a few different requirements.

1. Easy to maintain & use
2. Markdown support
3. Accessible and editable on all devices
4. Web-based, so that I’m not handling syncing between devices
5. FOSS

Enter Wiki.js

After a decent amount of research, where I looked at pretty much every FOSS solution for a personal wiki, I settled on Wiki.js. There were a couple of features that lured me in.

Micro-Update: KDE Konsole and tmux

I ran into an interesting issue this morning after running system updates on my main desktop computer (running Arch Linux with the KDE Plasma desktop). For some reason, although I don’t think any behavior was intentionally changed by the developers (and I’m not blaming anyone), Konsole (a KDE terminal app) started intercepting the CTRL+B key combo that is used by tmux. It turns out that this is a standard “Add Bookmark” shortcut in the Plasma desktop environment.

Micro-Update: Recommended Firefox Extensions

I realized this morning that I frequently give recommendations to friends and family on apps and tools to use, books and blogs to read, podcasts to listen to, etc. And so, instead of constantly pulling up my notes and then sending a list individually to each person, I decided to begin creating pages here on my website briefly listing my recommendations, and why I recommend them.

The first (and only) page so far is my recommendations for Firefox Extensions. However, I expect to add more in short order, at which time I’ll add a blog post announcing them as well. My goal is to keep these pages updated and current, as I personally hate it when I come across recommendations that I think sound useful, and then find out that they are years out of date.

Asocial? A Life Without Social Media

In November of 2018, I logged out of Facebook and Instagram for the last time, deleted my Snapchat account, and removed the Twitter app from my phone. A few months later, I also shuttered my Twitter account. After debating it for many years, and attempting (and failing) multiple times, I was finally done with social media.

It’s been almost a year since that time, and so I decided to do a quick retrospective to answer the following question, something I wish I would have had to read before making my choice: what’s it like to be 30, in the tech sector, and not on any traditional social media platforms? In short, it’s both amazing, and also sometimes slightly annoying.